The Secret of Agency

Ezra 9:24-30. Ezra wisely deposited different parts of the temple treasure into the hands of a dozen priests.  Rather than loading a wagon and using twelve mules to pull the load, he trusted others to help him.  As agents, appointed to complete the adornment of the temple, these twelve men relieved Ezra of direct (and constant) responsibility for the treasure.  

God works through agency.

Abraham = agent of fatherhood

Moses = agent of legal administration

Jesus = agent of salvation

There are times when God is both owner and agent.  There are some things that cannot be accomplished through agents within the created order. Obviously, God must create without help from creation.  He uses His own raw material to work out the specifics-the stuff of creation.

The calvinian perspective is that God has no agents.  They believe that He has plenty of play actors (Greek word = hypocrite) who pretend to do things that are effective for God.  However, their ideas point to the notion that God does everything - absolutely everything - and nothing happens that He doesn’t do directly. (Unfortunately, this philosophy is precisely the same as evolutionary doctrine.)

If the calvinians are correct, God has made other human beings that appear to be just like them into worthless trash that could never be good in any way.  It doesn’t take much common sense to understand that what they really believe is that they are special and anyone that disagrees with them or doesn’t conform to them is worthless trash.  Since they have made themselves special they believe that God will rubber stamp their perspective.

God works through agency.

New creation cannot be accomplished from within the created order.  New creation was not accomplished at the time of old creation (or before).  In other words, no one was preselected to receive new creation (new means NEW- stop lying to yourself with restoration theology!) before the old creation was accomplished.  Sin, a key component of new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17-21), was not available until it happened in the garden.

Jesus Christ - agent of salvation - is God and man; creator and participant in the created order.  He, as firstborn from among the dead, provides the glorious treasure that is intrinsic to His entire being for all  mankind.  It is available to any clay pot on earth (2 Corinthians 4:6-7).  His only begotten and firstborn status can be poured like oil into clay pots - all they need to do is ask for it and accept it.  Jesus took the time to make himself available as agent of salvation at the cross. 

Come to the cross.

The Way is a way of walking...follow!

Solomon, the great king of Israel, finished the defining work of his lifetime by building the Temple for the Lord God and building Jerusalem into the greatest city of the world of his time.  The wealth of the nation can be well defined by noting that silver (1 Kings 10:21) was so common that it was worth the same as copper pennies would be to us.  The construction projects that Solomon undertook rivaled anything that was done in Egypt.  His power and influence, gained for him by the greatness of his extraordinary father, David, established peace in the land of Israel and throughout what we would call the Middle East.

The Lord God made a contract with Solomon in 2 Chronicles 7:17-22.  If Solomon would perform his side of the contract, the Lord God would make his throne continuous until the Messiah.  If Solomon turned away from the deal God made with him (which, of course, he did -- the king worshipped idols...1 Kings 11:4-7), then the temple of the Lord would be destroyed, the people taken into captivity, and the throne of David abandoned.

Notice that the consequences of the contract included the destruction of the Temple.  Surely this is a rather strange thing to promise.  After all, why would the Temple be hooked in with the throne of David and the works of Solomon?  Why was the fate of the Temple contigent on the faithfulness of Solomon?

The real answer comes from inverting the question.  What is it that Solomon was supposed to do in order to maintain the Temple in its authoritative condition?  Solomon was supposed to continue to wage war against evil.  By all accounts, the land had not been purged of idols or idolatry since Joshua and the Host of Israel crossed the Jordan.  Instead of destroying the idols and idolaters, Solomon eventually allowed idolatry to trickle into his life and the trickle became a flood (how does the incidental become monumental?? it grows!).  Meanwhile, he established what could be understood as a calvinian way of living..."I am ok because God chose me.  I don't have to bother with spiritual warfare as long as I am protected by the Temple and my father's faithfulness..."

The calvinian idea runs in the same riverbed as Solomon's.  God pre-selected them, they believe, and actualized their faith to make them sinless and perfect no matter what they do.  They are under no obligation to join with the balance of Christians who are challenging darkness as a choice.  They have wandered off the way of the cross and become entangled in the brambles of a ridiculous heresy that is based on the commandments of men (Titus 1:14); Augustine, Luther, Calvin, etc.  Salvation is something God does...or doesn't do...and they have no part in making that happen.  "We calvinians just need to sit here in smug narcissism and wait for God to make righteousness miraculously bloom at our feet.  Can't wait to smell the flowers of Eden."

The Way of the cross has no side paths that lead to a more "adult" understanding of God's plan that exempts the follower of Jesus (Jesus is God!) from doing the work He assigned.  All side paths lead to either brambles or cliffs.  Any side path makes the vision of the cross obscure.  The Holy Spirit only guarantees to keep the cross in view from the Way.  The Way of the cross leads home...a home that is new for those who are a part of the new creation.  No one is restored to Eden.  The door of Jesus (John 10:1-9) does not lead back to there, we must choose to move "further up and further in," so to speak.

Come to the cross.

Good news...it's New Creation.

 “Oh give thanks unto the Lord for He is good.

For His mercy endures forever.”  1 Chronicles 16:35 NKJV

Here is my question for the calvinist …

When does the mercy of God begin?

Think about forever.  Not from our perspective.  Think about it from God’s perspective.  If God is always, then doesn’t He have mercy always?  Forever, for humans, has a beginning point and it seems absurd that God, who has no beginning (or end), would need to have mercy before there was some object that requires mercy.  But this is the way practical, created people think.  I don’t need jumper cables when my battery is working properly. 

The problem for the calvinist is that he has bought into the bad philosophy (Greek, no doubt) that teaches him that he is an eternal being and has always existed.  Of course, somewhere in his unconscious, he realizes the ridiculousness of this idea but he has managed to shut the door to that part of the house.  If he could ever get that door open again, he would find that he is created and contingent like the rest of humanity and needs to depend on the provision of God in time.

God’s mercy was fully operational when he created the heavens and the earth.  His mercy was fully operational when He made everything that supported human life.  His mercy was fully operational when He made man in His Image (Jesus is the image of God (Colossians 1:15) so being made in God’s Image means that Adam was in a right relationship with Jesus…same as Paul saying that we are “in Christ” (1 Thessalonians 4:16) if we trust in Him).  God’s mercy was, is and always shall be fully operational because He is God and mercy is a part of His love.

Calvinist doctrine teaches that God had no mercy when He created because He preselected a number of humans that He arbitrarily wanted to destroy.  They were all just as human as Adam from whom they were derived and just as sinful as anyone else (except for the babies that Calvin, Luther and Augustine want to burn in hell – no mercy there…).  Calvinists believe that they existed before their birth and that God had mercy on them before creation.  They don’t have any pre-creation credentials (the Mormons will be glad to provide them with some) but they thrive on making up imaginary stories about reprobates that God hated because He has always wanted to.  Mercy, for the calvinist, only happens now and then…when one of them comes along.

Obviously, all of this calvinian way of thinking is derailed from what the Bible teaches.  There is not the slightest hint of biblical evidence that God hated reprobates before he created and that He fully intended to burn them in hell.  The Bible teaches that every human is subject to the same worthless condition (Revelation 5:2-3) due to evil and sin and death.  The Bible teaches that every human is loved by the God who gave His only begotten Son to provide salvation.  That salvation was worked out on the cross of Calvary – in time.  No one gets salvation credentials (or is blotted out) before the foundation of the world.  You cannot be registered in heaven in the church of the firstborn before the firstborn is risen from the grave (Hebrews 12:23).  The cross is the beginning point of the new creation. 

When God says it is NEW, He means new!

The cross is the beginning point of the new creation.

Come to the cross.

Oil of gladness

A lot of Christian people have bought into the unbiblical idea of constant (discrete) creation as opposed to immediate and enduring creation (analog) that is described in the Bible.  Constant creation establishes a God who is making everything constantly and making everything happen that comes to pass.  The reason that many people think that this is a good description of God’s way of doing things is because it is the way they would do it if they were God.  Obviously, the enduring creation way of doing things leaves room for trouble.  After all, the stuff that God makes might have the capacity to forget Him and do something stupid…or evil…or sinful.  You see, there are only 2 ways of looking at this situation if you believe in God.  Either the constant creation idea is correct and God becomes the author of evil, or, the enduring creation position is truly descriptive of reality and creatures are able to rebel.

A really good example of the idea of discrete creation is the Big Bang theory.  Attempts to make the Genesis description of creation fit in with the Big Bang cosmology are foolish.  It is like trying to make an elevator arrive more quickly by continuing to push the lighted button.  An analog result cannot be derived from a discrete condition. 

In 2 Kings 4:1-7 we find Elisha giving a widow the opportunity to save her children from captivity.  Her dead husband owed money and she has nothing with which to pay except to turn over her two small boys to the creditor.  The picture that results from this story is a wonderful image of salvation.  Certainly the widow saves her boys, but there is also the picture of how salvation works in the world.  The oil does not cease until the last vessel is filled.  There is more available but nowhere to put it…analog condition.  (The discrete idea would be that a certain amount was destined and was made during each nanosecond of the pouring – Calvinism and Open Theism).

Notice that the oil does not stop flowing after the fifth pot is filled and the widow has to return unused vessels to their owners. 

Notice that the prophet does not tell the widow to only fill the pots that have handles and skip the jars. 

Notice that the woman does not fill only copper vessels and leaves the clay pots out on the front porch. 

In her need and in her desire to save her boys, she is obedient to the prophet’s word and fills all.  The oil is still flowing when she calls for another jar and all have been filled.  Then “the oil stayed” (verse 7).  This incident is not a picture of calvinistic pre-selection.  “Whosoever will” may be filled with oil.  Salvation is abundant beyond the need!  Calvinists lie when they say there is only enough for them (assuming they can produce proof of their certification of eternal pre-selection…something that the Bible does not guarantee) and everyone else was chosen to go to hell.

Here is the problem.  The calvinist wants to have both types of creation operating simultaneously.  Discrete and analog.  When they need to prove a difficulty they have caused themselves in one area, they switch universes and have God bail them out.  Look at the idea of de facto sovereignty.  Calvinists want a God who is constantly making everything and, as a result, making them perfect from before creation and injected into this corrupt creation that is the fault of evil --- evil that came about as a part of the analog creation and for which God is not responsible.  When you boil it down, it is just a new expression of the old heresy of dualism.

Is there any way that humans can describe exactly how God made the oil continue when, scientifically, the amount in the original jar should have been all there was?  If we are incapable of describing how God makes something as simple as extra oil, how are calvinists so confident in describing who gets saved and who goes to hell?  Is their God big enough to keep oil flowing but has to put discrete limits on salvation to humans that He cares enough for that He will die on a cross (Jesus is God!!).  Oil from a jar can flow and flow…blood from His own body has to be measured out drop by drop to the pre-selected, exclusive, special ones that God lets in on the game of hating reprobates?

There is a place where blood has been provided to wash any and all of humanity from our sins.  Jesus Christ died on a bloody Roman cross to provide salvation for people that is only limited by the total number of people that live from Adam to the return of Jesus.  No calvinist knows that number.  They, like all others who obey Jesus, are under orders to bring vessels that can contain oil – the ministry of reconciliation.

Come to the cross.

Champion of sinners.

"Led her to the Soudan's right."  Spenser

Bathsheba is caught up in the web of an intrigue that David’s son, Adonijah, inflicts upon the family of the old king (1 Kings 1:5-27).  David had promised that Solomon would be King of Israel when he died but Adonijah decided to make himself king.  David, even though he is old and cold (1 Kings 1:1), is not dead.  Bathsheba and Nathan, the prophet, stir him into action and he delivers a stunning rebuke to his own son, Adonijah.

When Calvin used this scene to illustrate his idea of justification, he must have been watching some 2-bit 1950’s black & white movie made by an English lawyer.  David, the judge who is napping on the bench with his ridiculous wig askew, is finally awakened by Nathan – the attorney – and Bathsheba.  Hearing their case, the old man gavels and sends a writ of right to Adonijah who reads the verdict and surrenders himself to Solomon.  Calvin’s idea of justification is a courtroom trial where God, knowing that a sinner is a sinner, shrugs off that status because He arbitrarily wants to acquit the sinner of guilt

The real picture of justification that comes from this passage shows that David, man with God’s heart in him, orders a military and spiritual challenge to Adonijah: rebel son without a promise to act upon.

Jesus (who is God!) followed a predetermined plan (no other persons were included in that plan) by which He could, as God and man, hold the rank and title of Lord of Hosts.  First-born from among the dead (Colossians 1:18), Jesus Christ is qualified to lead the dead who will follow Him and be the human component of His Host – His Army.

Jesus Christ is your judge if you surrender yourself to His ability to champion your cause – your lostness and hopelessness and rebellion against Him.  His verdict against the rebellion of Satan must be military and spiritual – not a lot of foolish rhetoric and paper shuffling.  Jesus invites humans to join Him in spiritual warfare; the ministry of reconciliation.  The door opens at the cross.

Come to the cross.

X+Y= Calvin, too.

In 2 Samuel 7:10, the Lord promises to give the Children of Israel a place to dwell that cannot be invaded by the “children of wickedness.”  I thought about this verse all week and kept noticing that my thoughts were drawn away from the conflict and focused on what is the common denominator. 

Children.

Human children.

How do human children get into the world?  Is it a spiritual process?  A rational process?  A function of the soul?  Do people talk about children and they appear?  Are there storks involved…?  Do parents order them from the Sears Roebuck catalog?  (Yes…this was told to small children once upon a time.  No doubt the modern equivalent is that they are purchased on EBay.)  Can preachers preach them into existence or do politicians derive them from villages?

There is a biological process that requires male and female cells to combine and make human children.   These cells are manufactured in the bodies of the two human parents.  When they are combined together, they share all sorts of information packets that begins the whirlwind process (air head young people should not “sow the wind” without expecting to “reap the whirlwind”) of grabbing proteins and other stuff with which to build a baby.  The baby is a human baby.

I am sure this all seems rather obvious to everyone.  It may even seem rather silly that I contemplate such things at my age.  However, if you will look at the 2^nd sentence in the paragraph above, I think you may see something very remarkable.  Physical, biological cells are manufactured in the human bodies of two separate persons.  Because of God’s creative power that He introduced into the human organism (you cannot make a case for constant/continuing creation without bumping up against the seventh day rest = Genesis 2:2), the mechanism of sperm/egg combination works today as it did on day one of procreation. 

Please stop for a moment and pay attention to what I am NOT saying.  The end result of the procreative process in a world that has been and is ravaged by sin and death can be very different from the likeness of God in Adam/Eve’s creation and the likeness of Adam to which we are all subject (Genesis 5:3…most people who make noises about man being in God’s image refuse to remember that we who have fig juice in our veins cannot go home beyond Seth).  BUT, the end result of the combination of human sperm to human egg (aka, conception) always results in human life.  It cannot turn into a dog (sorry, Calvin, you are wrong) or an indescribable critter that will become a new species.

100 billion instances of this process later, we find that it has 100% repeatability.  There is no evidence that out of 100 billion sperm/egg combinations, 1% of them (one billion), for instance, became something not human.  Even in the 1 in 100,000,000,000^th instance of an egg that is divinely fertilized (Luke 1:35), the resultant person who has the right to call Himself the Son of God, uses the title, “Son of Man.”  Jesus is GOD!  

Point? 

Calvin and Calvinists have a philosophy of “muddy mysticism” (C.S. Lewis) that teaches that corruption (depravity) in the human being is total.  This corruption, they say, reaches into all parts of humanity.  This defilement, depravity or corruption, they say, is intrinsic in all parts of the body and completely ruins the body.

Oops.  Calvin forgot to tell God how to create so that the procreative mechanism in humans would be ruined when Adam and Eve ate figs.  How sad that, once again, his ideas prove to be foolish and unbiblical and his notion of the sovereignty of sin is greater than what he calls “God.”  How sad for him that there are other human functions that cannot be understood as corrupted.  Human reasoning has to be reliable (‘Bulverism’ by C.S. Lewis) for Calvin to make his monumental mistakes in theology and for others to try to show where they need correcting.  Rain falls on the unjust and just thinker alike.  

Meanwhile, Jesus is that one in one hundred billionth instance of the reliability of the procreative mechanism with only a sinful female component – virgin birth.  Jesus fulfilled the destiny that He had been assigned when He made it plain - in time - that new creation begins at the cross (1 Peter 1:20). 

Come to the cross.

Forced March at Midnight

Forced March at Midnight

For Dr. (Major) Shawn Madden, USMC, Retired,

and all those who said ‘Yes’ to the call to serve and command to go for their country.

This one is personal.

1 Samuel is dear to me in a way that only those who know me can understand.

40 years ago today, I was in my last week of Navy boot camp – Chief Traylor was our company commander.  At one point, I did 2000 jumping jacks to redeem the 20 point deficit in our “inspection being perfection” week…

Jabesh Gilead (1 Samuel 31:11-13) was a small place with a tiny biblical history.  However, it was important to King Saul.  It was the place where he had first experienced military victory as a young king (chapter 11) without the help or interference from Samuel that caused him grief in later life (For you Calvinists who can’t read what the Bible really says but have to come up with your own imaginary version, compare Saul as king with Deuteronomy 17 and dare to accuse him of wrongdoing.  Y’all need to find a new sport and stop reprobate hunting – it’s not a spiritual gift.)  The men of Jabesh Gilead, hearing the news that Saul and his sons had been desecrated, rose up and marched all night to rescue the dignity of their king.

This valiant act of love and kindness was not motivated by pre-determined forces of sovereign power that needed another small story to close out the book of 1 Samuel.  These men were motivated by the fact that, while they were yet outcasts in the land of Israel (Judges 21:8-15), their king loved them and threw aside his pastoral life to become their champion.  Saul – anointed by the Lord of Hosts – led the host of their brothers to rescue the small and weak and worthless (aka, practical forgiveness…).  “Greater Love” was demonstrated by Saul – “greater love” was returned by the warriors from Jabesh Gilead 40 years later.  The redemptive power of Jesus worked through His chosen servant, Saul, to restore honor and dignity to men whose faith followed their love.

Faith follows love.  God so loved the world that He saw a cross from the moment of creation – planned the cross to open a way.  The way of the cross leads home for those of us who are human and will respond to that love.  The Holy Spirit knows how to get the motivating Love of Jesus into our hearts.  It is up to us to allow that love to overflow into action.  Putting feet to our faith, we must 1. enlist with Jesus, our Captain, 2. challenge darkness, and, 3. rescue the perishing.  The ministry of reconciliation is our military unit in spiritual warfare (2 Corinthians 5:17-21).  Our headquarters has a door that is a cross.

Come to the cross.