Upwards Church

We’re continuing our series Explore God!  Each campus will explore the topic, “Is Jesus Really God?   I hope you can join us!  Below is an article from www.ExploreGod.com  to get us thinking on the topic.

According to recent studies, the majority of the world’s population believes in God or a universal deity.¹ Of course, people describe God in very different ways: personal deity, transcendent divine, higher power, or universal spirit. Nonetheless, we believe something or someone is above humanity and the universe as we know it. So when a particular person professes to be God, it’s a big deal. And Jesus—the Jewish teacher who lived in the first century CE—did just that.

There are more than enough reasons to believe that Jesus was not and is not truly God. For starters, it’s hard to imagine any human being actually embodying God. What would that look like? How does God become a person? Does this God-person go back and forth between spirit and human? Can this God-person get sick and die as a human? That wouldn’t be very God-like.

Besides, doesn’t Christianity believe in only one true God? Then how could Jesus be God? Does this have something to do with the Trinity? And why would God become a person in the first place?

These are all mind-blowing questions. But let’s suppose for a minute that God can become a human. He is God, after all.² If he can create the universe, he can certainly enter into it. If he did become a human, how would he act? What would he do? What would he say? And are the things Jesus did and said the kinds of things we would expect from God?

Is Jesus God? Billions of people believe so. And his life has certainly altered the course of human history. Let’s explore the possibility.

Jesus’ Character

The first thing to take into account is character. What was Jesus like? Two characteristics leap from the pages of the recorded accounts of his life: self-discipline and compassion.

Jesus demonstrated tremendous self-discipline in order to accomplish his task, taking pains not to be distracted by this world. He shunned crowds to spend time alone in prayer, refused to be crowned king by enthusiastic but misguided followers, and stood silent before his scheming accusers. His compassion was exemplified in his gracious attitude toward outcasts; his association with Samaritans, Gentiles, and Romans—all of whom Jews despised; his embrace of the poor and ritually unclean; and his forgiveness of those who executed him.³

But while these are admirable qualities, they don’t prove anything yet.

Jesus’ Miracles

The Bible records Jesus performing many amazing miracles, which are described as “signs through which he revealed his glory.”⁴ Jesus healed people physically and psychologically, turned water into wine, calmed raging storms, multiplied food, walked on water, and even resuscitated people after they had died.⁵ But his greatest miracle was his own resurrection.⁶

Jesus’ followers claimed they literally saw Jesus back from the dead. It’s always possible that they were hallucinating or that it was all a hoax. But then we’re still left wondering why Jesus’ tomb was empty. What happened to Jesus’ body, and why was it never found?

If Jesus’ death and resurrection was a plot contrived by his disciples, why do the four resurrection accounts in the Bible have apparent inconsistencies? Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John would have made sure to get their stories straight. And why do they reveal women as the first witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection? In the ancient world, women were not considered credible witnesses. No one making up this story would have missed that detail.

Of course, no one can prove that the resurrection or any of Jesus’ miracles truly happened, but the evidence is compelling and worth considering.

Jesus’ Claims

Most provocative, though, is the fact that Jesus actually claimed to be God. For instance, Jesus used the following titles to describe himself: Son of God, Messiah, Lord, and Son of Man—all designations with divine implications in Jewish culture.⁷

He also made explicit statements about his divinity. In fact, Jesus could hardly have been more direct: “I and the Father are one,” he said.⁸ “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.”⁹

Consider a few other radical actions. Jesus accepted worship, prayer, and faith from his followers. Jesus forgave sins committed against God—an ability traditionally reserved only for God. While Old Testament prophets grounded their authority in God—“Thus says the Lord”—Jesus often grounded his authority in himself: “Truly I tell you.” And Jesus claimed that a person’s response to Jesus himself determined one’s eternal destiny.¹⁰

No wonder Jesus caused such an uproar—big enough that you and I are still talking about him almost two thousand years later.

A Great Moral Teacher

Many people suggest Jesus was simply a great moral teacher, and indeed Jesus’ character, teachings, and good deeds support this. But no great moral teacher (e.g., Buddha, Muhammad, or Gandhi) has ever professed to be God.

Author C. S. Lewis summarizes our challenge:

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about him: “I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God.” That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us.¹¹

So what do you think? Lunatic, demon, or God?

www.RidgeFellowship.com

We’re continuing our new series Explore God!  Each campus will explore the topic, “Why Does God Allow Evil and Suffering?   I hope you can join us!  Below is an article from www.ExploreGod.com to get us thinking on the topic.

I was sixteen and deeply wounded from my first broken heart—barely able to hold back my tears around friends and family. When school ended each day, I retreated to my room, turned off the light, curled up on my bed, and cried until I was called to the dinner table. The ordinary pleasures of teenaged life failed to console me. I couldn’t imagine feeling lighthearted or joyful ever again.

After a week of gloomy despair, I heard a knock at my door. I mumbled, “Come in,” without raising my head. And my dad came in.

He didn’t speak—not at first. He just sat in the dark at the foot of my bed, quietly joining me in my hurt. Every now and then he patted my shoulder or hip, as I lay buried up to my ears in an old quilt. Finally he said, “You don’t believe it now, but you’re going to be okay. And your old Dad loves you no matter what.” He sat awhile longer, gently patted me again, said, “Dinner’s almost ready,” and left.

I still hurt, but I felt a tiny glimmer of hope. Someone got it. Someone cared.

Good dads care when their sons or daughters hurt. But does God care when we are in pain?  And if so, how does he show it?

God Faces Evil and Pain Head-On

Some religions seek to explain away the ills of the world. Bad things are attributed to karma, or blamed solely on man’s own misguided actions, or chalked up to God’s inattention.

Not so with Christianity. It does not sugarcoat the evil in the world: “When the world tells us, as it does, that everyone has a right to a life that is easy, comfortable, and relatively pain-free, a life that enables us to discover, display, and deploy all the strengths that are latent within us, the world twists the truth right out of shape.”¹

Jesus’ worldview was very different. He pulled no punches: “In this world you will have trouble.”² Yet he didn’t leave it there. He encouraged his followers: “But take heart! I have overcome the world.”³

God Offers Well-Timed Comfort

God doesn’t deny that we live in a world deeply marred and broken. Instead he draws closer and enters into it with us. “There is a crack in everything,” wrote Canadian poet and musician Leonard Cohen. “That’s how the light gets in.”⁴

Our hurts can become the very places where we meet God and experience the intimacy of his comforting presence. “When you pass through the waters,” he says, “I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers they will not sweep over you.”⁵

God doesn’t promise deliverance from or avoidance of all pain. He does not always intervene to keep us far from hurt or harm. But in the times when we do hurt, he comforts us in the midst of our troubles.

Sometimes he bolsters us through the kindness of others. Sometimes he brings a sense of peace that we could never conjure or sustain on our own. Sometimes, through a glimpse of beauty or a well-timed word of encouragement, he reassures us that we’re going to be okay, that we are loved.

God’s Creation Testifies to His Care

You may not believe that God is the creator of this world. But every creation reflects its creator—so if he is creator, this creation reflects his character. And the created world demonstrates incredible care and attention to detail.

Plants contain seeds and naturally reproduce themselves. Seasons change, guaranteeing that the harsh conditions of winter and summer don’t last too long. Spring and autumn give us room to recover and readjust. Flesh wounds naturally heal—cuts scab over, and the body’s cells replenish themselves without our help or attention. Children grow and develop within their mothers’ wombs, unseen to the naked eye until the miracle of birth.

In these ways (and thousands more!) God loves and attends to his creation. And if we are the highest order of that creation, doesn’t it stand to reason that he attends to us, as well? Consider what Jesus said: “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?”⁶

God Has Skin in the Game

The greatest reason we have to believe in God’s love and care for us is the incarnation. God, seeing all that was broken in the world—all the sin, all the sadness—personally intervened. But he didn’t just send a message; he sent his son.

Jesus became human and was specially commissioned by God to enter into our hurting world: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me,” Jesus said, “because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free.”⁷

In other words, God saw our greatest, eternal dilemma (separation from him), felt love and compassion for us, and demonstrated that love: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”⁸

In the person of Jesus, God got personally involved. Like a good father, he says to those who hurt and look to him for help: “You may not know it now, but you’re going to be okay . . . and your Dad loves you very much.”

What do you think?

www.RidgeFellowship.com

Footnotes

1. J. I. Packer, Weakness Is the Way (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2013), 53.
2. The Holy Bible, New International Version © 2011, John 16:33.
3. Ibid.
4. Leonard Cohen, “Anthem,” Selected Poems 1956–1969 (Viking Press, 1968).
5. The Holy Bible, Isaiah 43:2.
6. Ibid., Matthew 6:26.
7. Ibid., Luke 4:18–19.
8. Ibid., John 3:16.

By Leigh McLeroy

We’re continuing our new series Explore God!  Each campus will explore the topic, “Why Does God Allow Evil and Suffering?   I hope you can join us!  Below is an article from www.ExploreGod.com to get us thinking on the topic.

You don’t have to live for long to know that evil is a part of this world. From nuclear threats to tornados, floods, to the rising incidents of cancer globally, there seems to be a tidal wave of bad circumstances out there just waiting to crash down upon us. It’s like playing a cosmic lottery—only in this game, no one wants a winning ticket.

Many seek God in such times, believing he has the power—and the compassion—to combat these forces of evil. But this raises a pressing question: If God is loving and all-powerful, then why doesn’t he just get rid of evil right now?

Walking in God’s Shoes

Trying to answer that question may be akin to walking in shoes that are simply too big for us. We have no guarantee that God understands things as we do. In fact, if we’re speaking of a creator God—a God massive enough to create the entire universe—why would we expect his thoughts to be on our level?

The Bible, which many believe to be a partial revelation of God’s character and a recording of his relationship with humanity, says outright that God’s ways are not like ours: “‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the Lord. ^‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.’”¹

God’s plans transcend time and space. They are so far above our limited understanding that even if there was more information out there explaining his character and person, we would likely still never fully comprehend his actions, still never understand the grandness of or purpose behind his plans.

God’s Ways

The Bible speaks of this in many passages, perhaps the most well-known of which is found in the book of Job. When Job questions why God has allowed him to experience devastating pain and suffering, God reminds Job of his divine knowledge and power—which far exceeds Job’s own understanding of his temporary suffering: “Who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge? . . . Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?” God asks Job. “Tell me, if you understand.”²

In the New Testament, Jesus speaks to this issue on the eve of his arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane. As soldiers draw near to take him into custody, one of Jesus’ disciples strikes a soldier with a sword. Jesus’ response? He heals the wounded man and says, “Do you think I cannot call on my Father and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?”³ You can almost feel Jesus’ desperate wish that his disciples could understand what was happening, almost hear him saying, “If only you could understand! In the long run, this is for your own good!”

Moments earlier, while contemplating his impending, horridly painful death by crucifixion, Jesus revealed through prayer his utmost devotion to his heavenly father—even when his father’s will included inevitable and extreme suffering for Jesus. Jesus’ fear and natural human desire to avoid pain did not override his faith: “My father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will,”⁴ he prayed.

Yet just knowing that God’s ways are not our own seems to oversimplify why evil is allowed to exist.  Complicating matters further is the fact that there are situations when God does step in and take charge. A miraculous cure from a terminal illness; a last-minute deviation from a daily routine—spawned by an out-of-place “feeling”—that prevents one from being involved in a serious car crash; finally “catching a break” in one’s months-long job search.

If such “intrusion” exists, then why does God at other times appear to sit back and let evil run its course, even when that means pain and suffering for his people?

A Learning Process

Perhaps it’s a learning process that God wants us to go through. The Bible speaks of God “refining” and “shaping” his creation, much as a blacksmith forges rough metal into a sharpened sword or a sculptor forms a beautiful vase from a lump of clay.

Trying times often make us more than we were before—strengthening our characters, humbling our egos, and demonstrating the positives of perseverance. Coming through a tragedy can also be a faith-building experience that leads us to look beyond our narrow, self-centered view to a more caring, universal vision—a perspective that recognizes our overwhelming dependence upon our creator.

In the book Extreme Devotion: The Voice of the Martyrs, a Chinese Christian who experienced persecution best sums up this idea: “Where there is no cross, there is no crown. . . . If the spices are not refined to become oil, the fragrance of the perfume cannot flow forth; and if the grapes are not crushed in the vat, they will not become wine.”⁵

Mercy

There’s something else to consider, too. By allowing evil to survive, God delays judgment upon those who have not yet found and accepted the good news of Jesus Christ. Were he to rid the world of evil today, there would be millions of souls lost—for all eternity. Perhaps in God’s eyes, the “lesser evil” is to allow his own people to continue to experience this transitory suffering, while the millions who are lost are given a little more time to be found.

As the apostle Peter says, “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”⁶

What do you think?

www.RidgeFellowship.com

Footnotes

1. The Holy Bible, New International Version © 2011, Isaiah 55:8–9.

2. Ibid., Job 38:4.

3. Ibid., Matthew 26:53–54.

4. Ibid., Matthew 26:39.

5. The Voice of the Martyrs, Extreme Devotion: The Voice of the Martyrs(Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2002), 329.

6. The Holy Bible, 2 Peter 3:9.

 by Ben Sharp

We’re continuing our new series Explore God!  Each campus will explore the topic, “Why Does God Allow Evil and Suffering?   I hope you can join us!  Below is an article from www.ExploreGod.com to get us thinking on the topic.

Has the beauty of creation ever made you wonder if there is a creator? Many brilliant scientists themselves through the ages have concluded that there must be a divine source for the universe.

There is order in the life cycle of every creature, design in the placement of our solar system, even logic in the structure of the molecules and atoms that make our world. You could argue that it all points to a master plan.²

But then along come disaster, disorder, and pain. Suddenly all our theories of providence, logic, and order go right out the window. A tsunami wipes out a village. An act of violence kills an innocent bystander. A child is abused. You lose your job. Your best friend is diagnosed with cancer.

We can’t help but ask that age-old question: Why do bad things happen to good people? Why is there evil in the world? If there is a benevolent God, how can this be a part of his plan? We find ourselves wondering if God is watching, if he cares, or if he even exists at all.

The Real Problem

Unfortunately, there are no easy answers to these questions. But removing God from the equation doesn’t seem to help us understand evil. How can we explain why the 2004 South Asian tsunami that killed 125,000 people happened?

“Plate tectonics,” answered the famous atheist Richard Dawkins.³ That’s true. A movement in tectonic plates was the physical mechanism of the natural disaster, but does that really explain why it happened?Are we left to live in a world where evil is simply random, a brute fact of physical forces? Dawkins thinks so; only science can explain evil and only science can prevent it—or at least warn us so that we can take cover.

In one way, Dawkins is right. Scientists certainly unravel the intricacies of our complex natural world. They make sense of physical phenomena and undeniably advance the cause of humanity. Let’s be honest. No one wants to return to the health care of medieval times.

But science has yet to prevent poverty. Or warfare. And let’s not forget that Hitler’s gas chambers and the atomic bomb were products of science. Technology does not diminish evil; it only gives us more efficient options.⁴

When we boil it down, a purely scientific explanation of evil seems unsatisfactory. Perhaps this is why Albert Einstein said, “The real problem is in the hearts and minds of men. It is not a problem of physics but of ethics. It is easier to denature plutonium than to denature the evil from the spirit of man.”⁵

Another Explanation for Evil

How does religion explain evil if it exists in the “hearts and minds” of humans? Did God put it there—is this his fault? The Bible is an ancient book that chronicles, among other things, various evils that have taken place throughout history. Whether or not you agree with its overall message, the Bible offers an intriguing explanation of how evil originated.

Genesis, the first book of the Bible, says that when God created humans, he gave us authority over the earth: to cultivate and steward its resources for the benefit of all.⁶He also gave us free will to make our own choices. Like a child whose parent tells her not to play with matches, we can choose to trust God’s wisdom on important matters or reject it and do things our own way. As such, we might choose to “play with fire” and consequently burn ourselves.⁷

However, this brings up another question. Couldn’t God have just made humans incapable of bad choices and saved us all the trouble? Perhaps, but then we would be like robots, taking orders from God, doing only what he commanded, and never thinking, feeling, or choosing for ourselves.

According to Christian thought, that’s not what God wants. God wants us to seek him and be able to experience a genuine relationship with him.⁸ So he created us in his image, giving us all the creative desire, free will, and moral responsibility that he himself has.⁹

The Selfishness of Evil

In spite of this, the first humans chose to trust in themselves, not God. The story of Adam and Eve is well known. Whether or not it happened literally—in a garden with a serpent and an apple—isn’t what matters; what’s important to realize is that it still happens today. Nothing has changed. Given the choice between trusting our own instincts or God’s, we often choose ourselves. We’re still the rebellious children playing with matches. And with every act of selfishness comes the consequence—getting burned.

Whether you’re religious or not, we all have to admit to causing some of our own troubles. Many of our wounds are self-inflicted. So let’s own up to it: some of the “evil” we experience is our fault. We burn ourselves.

But we also burn others. We all have the scars to show from people who have lied to us, broken promises, or even abused us for their own gain. So while evil is not always the direct result of our own actions, it is still a consequence of humanity’s selfishness. And the cumulative effect of all our selfish choices is a world of poverty, war, ecological disaster, and, yes, even bad days at the office. It’s why we live broken lives with broken relationships in the broken systems of a broken world.

Why does God let this go on? According to the Christian understanding of God’s nature, he is never the source of meaningless evil. But sometimes he permits us to encounter the effects of a world rendered imperfect by selfishness. Maybe it is to alert us to our need for him, our need to trust in him rather than ourselves. Or perhaps God knows that experiencing some suffering in our lives often leads to a greater good.

We may never fully understand his ways or how our lives unfold each day. But we are not left without hope. Evil has not won out. In every story of brokenness lays the potential for redemption.

What do you think?

www.RidgeFellowship.com

1. Galileo Galilei, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems(Philadelphia: Running Press, 2005).

   For more on the design of the universe, see Francis Collins, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief (New York: Free Press, 2006) and Alister E. McGrath, A Fine-Tuned Universe: The Quest for God in Science and Theology (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2009). An excellent scientific introduction to this topic can be found online athttp://biologos.org/questions/fine-tuning.

2. Richard Dawkins, “The Theology of the Tsunami,” originally published in Free Inquiry 25:3 (April/May 2005), 12-13; available at:http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=dawkins_25n3.

3. Consider the atomic bombs dropped on Japan. Whether or not it was morally justified or “a necessary evil” to end World War II, the two bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed roughly 120,000 people instantly. Another 120,000 died within four months from lingering effects of radiation. The overwhelming majority of all casualties were civilians. Human civilization has never known a more brutal man-made instrument of death. If an atomic bomb was detonated today, the destructive impact would be exponentially greater.

4. Quoted in L. L. Loring, “Lag in Ethics,” Los Angeles Times, 10 April 1955, Pg. B4, 10. Originally from Albert Einstein’s interview with Michael Amrine: “‘The Real Problem Is in the Hearts of Men’; Professor Einstein says a new type of thinking is needed to meet the challenge of the atomic bomb,” New York Times, Sunday Magazine, 23 June 1946, SM4.

5. “Then God said, ‘Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals,and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’” The Holy Bible, New International Version © 2011, Genesis 1:26.

6. The “story” that best illustrates this choice in the Bible is found in Genesis 2:15–3:7. Adam and Eve are told not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, but, having been given the free choice to trust God or not, they chose not to. Some take this story as literal, others as a figurative representation of humans in general. There are many other stories in the Bible where God allows people the choice to disregard his wisdom and incur the harmful consequences of their decisions.

7. A robust (and dense) philosophical articulation of human free will as the explanation of evil is found in Alvin Plantinga, God, Freedom, and Evil (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974).

8. The Holy Bible, New International Version © 2011, Genesis 1:26.

Written by Norton Herbst