The Good News

A couple of years ago (and not even that many years) I had this idea that we had a certain measure of righteousness (goodness in less theological terms), which Christ added to in order to make us perfect. Imagine that in order to be perfect you had to have a score of 100 for every virtue. Let’s pretend that under the heading of Patience I have a score of 65. When I accept Christ as my Saviour, he fills my Patience bar with the extra 35 I need to be perfect, i.e. to be saved. And he does that to all the virtues, so that I can become perfect and acceptable for heaven.

This, I now believe, is heresy.

It pretends that salvation (justification) and perfection (sanctification), is part me and part Christ. I am now convinced that it is all Christ. Scripture says: “Because of God, you are in Christ Jesus, who is made for us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.” [1 Corinthians 1:30] We have no merit that is worthy of contributions before a perfect God. We are all sinful. Even our best actions (all our righteousness / goodness) are “as filthy rags” [Romans, 3:10; Isaiah 64:6].

We contribute nothing to our salvation. We have nothing to boast about. “Therefore, as it is written, he that wants to boast should boast in the Lord.” [1 Corinthians 1:30, 31] For our salvation is all God’s doing from beginning to end. It is He that supplies the righteousness, it is He that paid the price, and it is He that will complete it in our lives. If ever we are to become perfect it is because He that started this good work in us will finish it also.

There’s one thing that we do – we accept the invitation and trust in God. And even this “faith”, is a gift from God.

This is, simplistically, the great difference between true Christianity and all other religions. In other religions the person has to bring something to his or her Deity, or do something for the Deity, or become a better person before the Deity can accept him or her. In Christianity, it is the Deity that supplies the sacrifice, it is the Deity that does the work, and it is the Deity that makes the believer a better person. It the Deity that reconciles the person with Itself.

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.” [2 Corinthians 5:17-19]

This message of reconciliation is called, the gospel – the Good News – that if we trust in Him, we will have eternal life [John 3:16]. Full stop.

God-spots

It seems that the search for the “God-Spot” is in the media again. Some weeks ago I stumbled across an article on the “God-Spot” and a few days ago someone send me a link to another article on the same topic.

The idea of a “God-Spot”, or cluster in the brain that is responsible for religious experiences is not new. I have read something about it already a couple of years ago. At that time a single spot in the brain was identified as the culprit behind encounters with the divine. This recent study disproves the previous, instead claiming that there are not a single God-Spot, but rather a bunch of God-Spots spread over various parts of the brain and interacting with each other during a religious experience.

It would seem that science can now explain the religious experiences of the devoted. (Much like a connoisseur can guess the ingredients in a dish of exquisite food.) And scientists are also quick to add that religious experiences are therefore nothing more than “misfirings” in the brains neurological pathways – similar to epilepsy.

They are also working towards artificially duplicating religious experiences chemically. The supposition, by some, is that if we can create religious feelings artificially then the Real McCoy must be fake too. What a strange supposition? I offer four examples to highlight the illogic in this way of thinking. (1) It’s like saying our ability to make artificial light disproves the validity of sunlight. (2) We have known for a long time now that all our emotions are seated in the brain, and caused by neuro-chemisty, but does that make love unreal. Just because I can explain love in chemical terms, does not mean that real Love, in a platonian sense, does not exist. (3) Explaining life as a biochemical phenomenon does not diminishes the wonder of Life. (4) Our understanding of mathematical laws and our harnessing of numbers did not make the logical validity of “1 + 1 = 2” any less true.

From an atheist-scientific model religious experiences must be seen as “misfirings”. Clearly one cannot interpret them to be real spiritual encounters, because the basic premise is that that there is no divine. Hence divine experiences cannot be caused by anything supernatural.

This shows again the problem with science trying to explain anything metaphysical. If the basic premise starts with the assumption that God does not exist, all researched conclusions have to leave a metaphysical impetus out of the equation.

The real problem is that one science is trying to give answers in another science. It’s like a mathematician trying to explain the richness of Shakespearean poetry. The mathematician plainly does not have the correct set of tools to do so. Mathematical laws cannot explain the aesthetics of good metaphor. Neither can a literary scholar truly extrapolate metaphoric value from a scientific equation. The two sciences should be appreciated within their own fields. There’s room for overlapping, of course. But one should tread softly where there be dragons.

However, science is proving now that a religious experience is a complex event, involving many parts of the brain – not just a single spot. A religious experience, like many other complex experiences cannot be shot off (excuse the pun) as misfirings, just as little as sentience can be diminished to “misfirings” or singled-out spots.

Tailor-made Spam

Just now I received an email from John Johnson. I’m friends with a John Johnson. Yahoo! has 316,000,000 search results for John Johnson and Wikipedia refers to at least twenty John Johnsons.

The email I received was not from my friend but from a “Nigerian” pretending to be John Johnson number 316,000,001 and hoping that I would help him with getting millions of dollars out of some deceased guy’s account, pretending to be a next of kin or something to that effect. You know those kinds of emails.

But that is not what’s bothering me. What’s freaking me out is how did “they” know to tailor the email by using the name of an acquaintance, ensuring that I would eagerly open the email? Who’s been reading my correspondences?

Who wrote the Bible?

Most scholars view the Bible as just a normal (historic) book. Most Christians believe that it is perfect, with no human flaw to it. In other words the one group belief in “Biblical errancy” (the Bible is full of errors) and the other group believe in “Biblical inerrancy” (the Bible is without any errors). Both are wrong.

The dictating God

About 30 years ago a few hundred (approximately 300) conservative evangelical scholars came together and announced The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy. Basically they affirmed that the Bible is devoid of any errors. For instance the statement declares: “We deny that Biblical infallibility and inerrancy are limited to spiritual, religious, or redemptive themes, exclusive of assertions in the fields of history and science. . .” In other words, the Bible is not only infallible or without error as far as spiritual matters is concerned, but also regarding historic and scientific facts. This is known as “absolute inerrancy”.

For many Christian scholars the claim of “absolute inerrancy” is necessary, because they believe that if the Bible is not accurate and true regarding non-spiritual things, then it cannot be trusted with spiritual truths. The reasoning runs something like this: The Bible is God’s Word. God cannot error. Therefore the Bible is without error.

All things considered, The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy is beautifully drafted and has much truth to it.

But a simple scanning of the variety in writing styles, grammatical differences, etc. quickly shows that the Bible writers kept their own distinct personalities when penning the passages and books they authored.

Furthermore, there are a number of discrepancies in the Bible. Consider Hobab who is said to be Moses’ brother-in-law in Numbers 10:29, but his father-in-law in Judges 4:11. Was David the 7^th (I Chronicles 2:15) or 8^th (I Samuel 16:10, 11) son of Jesse?

Infallible but not inerrant

A less stringent claim is known as “limited errancy”, which basically says that the Bible is inspired and without error as far as the themes of salvation, faith and ethics are concerned, but may include errors in the realms of science and history. The Bible is therefore infallible in the sense that it does not mislead in matters of faith and practice, but it is not inerrant, as far as secular subjects are concerned.

If this is the case what does the Bible mean when it says that “All Scripture is inspired by God” (2 Tim 3:16)? Clearly God inspired all of it. The problem is probably with the common understanding (or misunderstanding) of what inspiration means.

Inspiration or possession?

Inspiration does not mean the same as demonic possession, leaving the possessed helpless under the control of God, controlling their hands in the writing process, as one find in cases of Spiritism, where spirits write “through” the mediums they possess.

God’s rule is one of freedom of choice – He does not coerce.

Instead divine inspiration means that God inspired the Bible writers mostly with thoughts. These writers expressed such thoughts in their own words. “The Bible points to God as its author; yet it was written by human hands; and in the varied style of its different books it presents the characteristics of the several authors. The truths revealed are all ‘given by inspiration of God’ (2 Tim 3:16); yet they are all expressed in the words of men. The infinite One by His Holy Spirit has shed light into the minds and hearts of His servants,” explains one commentator.

Like the mystery of Jesus who was both God and human combined, so the Bible is God’s Word expressed in man’s tongue. The Bible is God’s Word, conveyed through the shortcomings of the human agent.

The Bible can only rightly be understood with the clarifying aid of the Holy Spirit and within the paradigm of the character of God as expressed in the life and example of the God-Man, Jesus the Christ.

Just another secular book?

The non-believing scholar would like to use discrepancies in the Bible as proof that the Bible is not a divinely inspired book, but merely a compilation of human writings and myth.

Such a claim has to ignore the continuous confirmation of archaeology, the veracity of fulfilled prophecies and the witness of changed lives.

Confirmation of archaeology

Many things once dismissed as Biblical myth has in the meantime been proved facts, by archaeological findings. Extra-biblical sources confirm events described in the Bible.

The Hittites were thought a myth, until their capital was discovered at Bogazkoy, Turkey. The Assyrian king Sargon, referred to in Isaiah 20:1, was thought a myth, until his palace was discovered in Khorsabad, Iraq, with recordings on the palace walls describing his capture of Ashdod.

Likenesses have been found of many high figure people mentioned in the Bible, such as Jehu, king of Israel (II Kings 9, 10); Hazael, king of Aram (I King 19:15); Darius I, king of Persia (Ezra 4:24); and Roman emperors Augustus (Luke 2:1), Tiberius (Mark 12:1), Claudius (Acts 11:28) and Nero Caesar (Acts 25:11).

Not to mention the palaces (Judges 3:15-30; I Kings 20:43; Ester 1:2; Acts 23:33-35), temples (Judges 9:4), gates (Judges 9:34-38; Esther 2:19) and pools (I Kings 22:29-39; John 5:1-14) referred to in Scripture and then excavated later by archaeologists.

The archaeological findings mentioned here are far from an exhausted list, and new findings are every so often added to the bulk of evidence.

Fulfilled prophecies

More than any other religious compilation, the Bible is filled with numerous fulfilled prophecies that prove the divine foresight which was active in the production of the Scriptures.

It is estimated that there are about 2500 prophecies in the Bible of which most have already been fulfilled. The probability of many of these prophecies being fulfilled by chance is so staggeringly minute that only the most obstinate disbeliever could still cling to doubt as to the divine origin of Scripture.

The prophecies in the book of Daniel predicted the whole development of the Middle-Eastern and Western world, up until the time of the end. Think of chapters two and seven of Daniel where the Bible perfectly predicted that Babylonia was to be overthrown by the combined kingdoms of the Medes and Persians, Medo-Persia was to be conquered by swift Alexander’s Greece (which itself would divide into four), Greece was to be followed by the Roman Empire, and the Roman Empire would eventually crumble into ten smaller kingdoms, some of which we still have today.

Just the prophecies regarding the life of the Messiah are so accurate that you need to be stubbornly blind not to admit that this is divine providence, if not supernatural coincidence. For instance, that Christ would die by crucifixion is itself a wondrous claim. The prophecy was made 500 years before death-by-crucifixion was even invented! Some of the prophecies about Jesus’ life preceded him a 1000 years. Most of the prophecies regarding his life Jesus had no control over. In other words he could not manipulate events to fulfil the prophecies in his favour.

Biblical wisdom and secular science

To many it is surprising that this Book focussing on religious themes is also filled with scientific truths that were centuries ahead of the science of the time. For instance the Bible refers to ocean currents (“paths of the seas”, Ps 8:8), and wind currents: “The wind blows to the south and turns to the north; round and round it goes, ever returning on its course” (Ecclesiastes 1:6).

Though most people of the ancient world (and even the Church at some point) believed that the Earth is flat, the Bible states that it is circle (Isaiah 40:22). Some might argue that the Bible writers did not mean spherical but a flat disc. The Bible also says that the Earth hangs in nothing (i.e. space) (Job 26:7).

Conclusion

The Bible is definitely not a “normal” book. It is a continuous best-seller; the most translated of any book and has changed the lives of millions of people for centuries.

It is not always the dictated words of God, although it was inspired by God. As one commentator puts it: “The Bible is written by inspired men, but it is not God’s mode of thought and expression. God, as a writer, is not represented. Men will often say such an expression is not like God. But God has not put Himself in words, in logic, in rhetoric, on trial in the Bible. The writers of the Bible were God’s penmen, not His pen.” [Emphasis added.]

I've been robbed

It’s a nice day. The sky is a rich blue foiled with cheerful puffy clouds. Although sunny, it is not too hot. Everywhere hangs the sweet pheromones of flowers.

Cycling back from the university where I work on an ad hoc basis, half way to my house in an alley, I’m stopped by a man. I expect him to smell of alcohol, but he doesn’t. (My prejudice is rebuked.) There’s a tinge of sweat on his black brow.

I’m not in the mood to chitchat – this is the n^th time today that I’m cycling to and fro between the institute and my home. I’ve been in a bad mood the last couple of days and don’t feel sociable. And, I wasn’t looking forward to cycling back home again, but I did look forward to spending time thinking stuff over. Not life changing subjects, nonetheless, they are my subjects.

And now I’m interrupted. He waves me to a stop from afar. There’s no way I can ignore him. I’m clearly not the Good Samaritan my religion expects of me.

“Hmmm?”

“Hello,” he says. “Ek’s nie snaaks nie.” It’s a peculiar introduction even in Afrikaans. Directly translated: I’m not strange, although a better translation would be: Don’t think me strange.

I’m not thinking him strange. I know the type all too well. I know he is going to beg for money. He will start by first telling me some sad story. Then he willthen make some emotional appeal to help him out. Some would agree that the rich have an obligation to support the poor. Does the same rule apply for the poor to supply for the poorer? Even before he begins I interrupt with “I don’t have any money”. It’s a lie. I do have some money. And so does he. It’s all relative. He assumes I have more money than he has and so I am morally obligated to give him some of mine. He tells me about how he came from somewhere far, and it is already late. He makes it a bit personal by asking me the time. “It’s four o’clock.” He continuous with how far he still has to go. He says he needs money for a taxi.

I’m on a bicycle, I think. I don’t have money myself for transportation. What makes you think that I have money for you?

I remember a nightmare I had years back. I’m in my house. The house is empty of furniture. I’ve probably sold everything for rent or food, or I’ve given it away to beggars. Outside more beggars are banging against the doors and windows. I’m terrified. What else do they want? The clothes of my back? The meat of my bones?

“Net ’n paar sente.” / Just a few cents. It is a straight lie. He doesn’t just want a few cents. A few cents will not be able to pay for a taxi.

“Sorry I don’t have any.” I add to our untruthful discourse. I do have a few cents. There are coins in my pocket. A could have given it to him, just to have him beg for more. He would tell me that it is not enough, even though he did ask for a few cents. It will never be enough. The more you give the greater their need.

“Sorry I can’t,” I repeat and I ride away. I feel guilty.

As I’m already a few yards away I hear him shout from the back: “Yeah, fuck off! Go!”

There’s no retaliation. It’s not in my nature to retaliate. But even if I wanted to it would be to my disadvantage. The law do not allow violence against provocation. I can’t even verbally retaliate. He is a black man and I am a white man in South Africa. A verbal retaliation would be seen as a racist attack – especially because I’m white and his black. It doesn’t matter that we both are probably both living under the breadline. That I don have a fixed job is of no relevance. It’s not about in-come. The court will see my skin colour and assume that I’m racist.

It’s an unfair harassment. I try to think what would have made it better. If I gave him money? I wouldn’t have been happy about that either. I don’t have money to share.

[What would Jesus do?]

It’s robbery, I suddenly realise. Had I given him money, money that I did not wish to give, it would have been the same as robbery. He coerced me into giving up something that I didn’t want to give up. Since he did not succeed in his emotional manipulation, he abuses me verbally.

And I am left with no options but leave it be. As I said, I’m not the type of person to retaliate, but at least I want that option. There’s no freedom without the option to do otherwise. As one radio commentator said, “South Africa is a democracy, but not a liberal democracy.”

The sky is not saturated with a beautiful blue anymore. The once puffy clouds have turned into cancerous ulcers. The sweet summer fragrances smell of deceit.

No less money, yet I have been robbed.