|
|
|
(Knowledge of God and the Purpose of Life continued)
My
seeking did not find God; but when I sought, God found me. My fasting did not improve our relationship; but when I cut all
ties to my past, God had unconstrained access to me, and we both took advantage of the opportunity. If the world had witnessed
properly about God, I would not have needed to fast and reject the world. Jesus’ disciples had easy access to God and were
filled with his Spirit as a free gift, because by his work Jesus forced the world to testify properly about God. Two thousand
years later that testimony had weakened too much to be of much help for me. Now that I know God, I must help to restore the
testimony of Jesus. That is one way of stating the purpose of my life.
Mental activity of the sort needed for solving
problems or making decisions interferes with conscious, personal knowledge of God. When I was young I used to enjoy repetitive,
menial farm and factory jobs because they quickly became routine, and I could focus intently on God or deep thoughts while
performing the work. In contrast, working in scientific laboratories or generating business deals or handling problems of
family life practically excludes cultivating a personal relationship with God while doing the work. When I am involved in
such work, I am as subject to human failings as anyone: frustration, impatience, personality conflicts, irritation, guilt,
fear and so on. Failings such as these usually make personal knowledge of God impossible while they are going on and sometimes
for long periods afterwards as well. To know God as a person one must be at peace with oneself and with the world.
Does
this mean that one who loves God should avoid full participation in the affairs of the world? The apostle Paul certainly
felt that it was better for unmarried Christians to remain unmarried than to get into that unavoidably chaotic relationship.
My view of God’s reason for creating matter leads me to believe that people of God should become involved in all human pursuits
that are not unavoidably immoral. Life is a struggle, but it is a struggle in which God himself participates and from which
he intends to emerge victorious. Through his people he comes to know all the travails of human existence and works to overcome
them.
A primary value of faith is that it allows us to live and work vigorously apart from conscious communion with
God without fearing that he will abandon us. Through faith we can cling to hope and to God even when severe trials of life
make us think that God really has abandoned us. Paul said, “...We walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7). And
in this present time of struggle it is not even appropriate for people to try to “walk by sight” all the time, to attempt
to have conscious, personal knowledge of God continuously. Ultimately all God’s people will have some such knowledge of him,
but it is futile and also not in accord with his will to try to live in such a state before the proper time.
I have
witnessed many true miracles of God over long periods, miracles profound, dramatic and intense, miracles of the most valuable
kind, not external to myself but within. Nevertheless there are still times when organic evolution and the great age of the
world are more real to me than God. How can this be? Evolution is an abstraction, as is the age of the world, while God
when he is with me can be as vivid and personal as my own self. When he is with me in that way, as he is when I write about
him, he is far more real than any abstraction could be.
But it is a property of the human mind to flit here and there
and try new ideas, so the mind does not stay rooted in the perception of God even when it holds such perception vividly.
As the mind flits about, doubts can come in and drive God away. When that happens, all one has left of God is the memories,
and it is easy to begin questioning the memories also.
In support of organic evolution, on the other hand, one can
cite literally mountains of evidence, cubic miles of fossil-bearing sedimentary rocks that support the concept. In the one
case the evidence comes as hard facts that other intelligent, skeptical and discriminating people attest and support; and
the evidence is independent of my state of mind. In the other case the evidence is my memory of past perceptions, and only
that, because, when assailed by doubts, I do not put a lot of confidence in the personal testimonies of other people. What
if they were all gullible?
It is at such times that faith is a priceless treasure. Faith allows us to hold to God
even when he is distant and to trust that he will bring us through such times of doubt unscathed. God has always done it
for his people, and he will do it again. Meanwhile, by flitting here and there our minds discover new ideas for God to address,
new realms for him to conquer, so that one day he will rule everything, even our thoughts.
We can and do know God
now, and that knowledge is eternal life. Many Christians look forward eagerly to the rest from the struggle, when they will
have their reward and know God continuously. Paul went on to say, “...We would prefer to be away from the body and at home
with the Lord,” meaning that he looked forward to death as a route to perfect communion with God. Elsewhere he says, “I desire
to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far” (Philippians 1:23). Once again, when stressing the importance of the
teaching of bodily resurrection, he says, “If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the more to be
pitied” (1 Corinthians 15:9).
I can understand such sentiments, but I do not fully share them. God is committed
to his creation and specifically to the welfare of his people. I believe that he is able to bring heaven into existence,
and that all his people will share in it; but there is no proof. What if God were not able to do it, and we had to be content
with this life only? Then all Christian martyrs, all who have suffered greatly for their faith, would have suffered to some
degree in vain. So I understand Paul’s point of view. Paul after all lived a life of hardship and great pain. Truly, for
him it was far better to depart. In contrast, I have lived a life of luxury and great pleasure. I can say that if God should
fail to bring heaven into existence, my pleasure in knowing him thus far already will have been a reward far exceeding my
expectations, and I would have no regrets.
Could I speak so blithely if I were at this moment suffering severe pain?
Probably not. Pain can humble and diminish us. Present pain can overwhelm treasures of past joy. Under severe affliction
that leads to the death of the body I would do well indeed just to echo the sentiments of Paul. But let the wife of God continue
to express gratitude even if God should fail. And I express gratitude for God’s solicitous care.
Therefore I have
no desire to depart, but desire only that God be always as close to me as he can, and I trust that he will be. I loved him
passionately at the start. Afterwards I matured, and our love matured, but our love has always been there, although until
now in secret. Looking forward to a better future is fine for those who suffer in the present. But, for me, to know God
is life’s greatest reward, and to know him in the absence of pain is heaven already.
•
Yet even those closest
to God become separated from him by the struggles and turmoil of daily life. How can we restore our relationship with him?
Among the most helpful rules to follow is to avoid unjustly offending people, because the spiritual tension and turmoil from
giving such offense can last a long time.
Whoever gives offense needs to get forgiveness; and although God forgives,
it is better for the offender if the offended ones forgive as well. Be at peace with yourself and the world before you approach
God. Yet, if you are not far from him, a glimpse will help bring the peace that can lead to closer communion. The closer
one gets, the easier it is to get closer still, as there is positive feedback in getting close: God draws us to himself.
Those who know and love God understand thus that the reason for living moral lives is to keep access to God open.
Humanists like to argue that human morality came into existence because it has survival value either biological or social.
For example, incest increases the likelihood of defective offspring from recessive genes, so people have come to regard incest
as wrong.
Certain moral rules indeed may have evolved originally for their survival value, but Christian morality
goes far beyond either physical survival or any need for societal approval. Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7)
clearly pointed out that morality is a matter of minds and hearts, not just actions. Evil thoughts and desires separate us
from God as effectively as evil deeds.
Yet the effects of deeds can last much longer than the effects of thoughts.
My explanation for this is based on extrasensory perception: People that we offend harbor ill will towards us, and we can
sense it. God can forgive us even if the people do not, but turmoil stops much faster if we can get the people themselves
to forgive us.
Emotional turmoil can result even if people are unjustly offended by what we do, so it is good to
be sensitive to others’ needs and try to comply with them even if we feel their requirements of us are unreasonable, as long
as we do not compromise important values. If they hit you on one cheek, Jesus said, let them hit you on the other as well;
the physical trauma will not disrupt your knowledge of God, but spiritual trauma will. In hard cases we have to depend on
God alone to suppress the inner turmoil.
For Christians, then, morality is of no value in itself. If leading moral
lives does not serve the purpose of keeping access to God open, then the morality is doing more harm than good. Then the
morality is only helping people convince themselves they are good enough as they are. But “good enough” is irrelevant when
the goal is to know God. Many people without God might be better off if they were flagrant sinners, as then they might recognize
their need. Jesus had much greater success with prostitutes, who acknowledged their sins, than with Pharisees, who felt no
need of forgiveness.
For those who love God, then, a moral life is of great value in keeping close enough to him
so that, when we fall away, we can easily get back to him.
•
Time alone in nature, in the wilderness, away
from the works of humans can help as well, for those who have access to it. I suppose the benefits of nature are subjective
in that an environment that helps some may be less helpful to others. I have several favorite places. Southwest Idaho is
one. Israel, especially some of the eastern portions, is another. And there are places as in the Glass Mountains of Texas
and in southern California that are among the best.
These places have many characteristics in common: They are dry.
No feature is particularly prominent. Trees if present are small, and mountains low. God is not to be seen so much in the
magnificent and spectacular as in the still, small voices of nature. In all these places isolation from the profane world
is easy to achieve. In Israel it is perhaps less easy, but the palpable sacred history of the place more than compensates.
Simply driving along a forty-mile stretch of highway through one largely unpopulated area of southern California invariably
refreshes me. That place is holy to me, and God always seizes me powerfully there, regardless of how intellectually and spiritually
jumbled up I may be before I get there. I always pull off and walk a bit at least once every trip to behold God’s face in
full splendor and to feel the warmth of his embrace. God is not in the trees or the hills or the birds or the sky, but he
is in the sum of it all, and he far exceeds the sum, but the sum leads you straight to him.
What is the evidence
that God has made the world and everything in it? This is the evidence: The sum of it witnesses of him and leads you to
him.
One time after seeing him with special clarity there I started looking around at the details. God was not in
the details. Everywhere was evidence of struggle and competition: Mistletoe was killing branches of pine trees, big plants
were crowding out small ones, insects were preying on plants and one another, birds and lizards were eating insects, bacteria
and viruses were killing or damaging other living things. How was it possible for me just a few minutes earlier to have seen
God so clearly in that place of perpetual struggling? The vision is in the eye and the spirit of the beholder. God causes
the sum of it all to reveal himself to those who love him, but the details reveal only struggle.
The evidence that
God has made the world is that, when he engulfs us, he teaches us that he is in control.
Earlier we noted that the
witness to God even of the Bible is similar, in that the overall impression is more important than the details. One can rarely
behold God in a few Bible words or sentences or even paragraphs, but reading larger selections brings him close.
Is
something similar true also of human societies and their struggles? If one could only have the proper perspective, would
the overall picture of humans in their struggles and competitions witness as effectively to God as these wilderness sites
or as some Bible selections? I seek God in the remote places because more often than not other people distract from rather
than contribute to a clear vision of God. Jesus himself, after all, liked to go alone to pray in remote places. Nevertheless,
if we could see properly, I believe we should see God in human society and in the cities as well.
Perhaps the European
towns and cities dominated by magnificent churches and cathedrals point the way. The churches witness eloquently of the devotion,
commitment and love of those who put them there centuries ago and thus transform the whole environment. In a way they overshadow
and forgive man’s violence to man that has also been so much a part of Europe’s history.
The powerful lesson that
has stayed with me is that the processes may be violent and chaotic, but God shapes the outcomes so as to express himself
in matter. He turns even the mischief of evil spirits so that it glorifies him. This is why children born of sinful unions
are nevertheless gifts of God and need to be respected as such. Who among us in fact was not born of a sinful union?
The
purpose of life for individual humans then seems clear: If God’s goal is to express himself in matter, we should do what
we can to promote that goal. God will succeed; whether individuals consciously help him, consciously oppose him or simply
ignore him, he will compel us all to advance his cause. It is better to be a willing participant in his love than to be a
tool he will use and then throw away.
There is much knowledge of God but less recognition or acceptance of him.
Those committed Christians who profess never to have known God personally will one day become aware that they did know him
personally all along but did not recognize him. They often attend church worship services. I have attended many also, of
many different Christian denominations, and God is there. It is their vision that is clouded.
An important advantage
of knowing God vividly at some point is the lasting ability to recognize him at other times when his presence is not vivid.
The same goes for a knowledge of evil spirits. Having once known them intimately, I would recognize any of them instantly
if they approached me as spirits, but now they come indirectly or not at all. All people one day will become aware that they
knew God, some to their dismay.
•
The following commemorates a special time in a special place:
Many
are content with the common and the ordinary
Others push for extremes
These latter want to explore the outer limits
Of what is humanly possible
To face boldly the chasm of the unknown
And come away with deep knowledge of themselves
Of these
Some orbit Earth in space modules
Some climb mountains that challenge their existence
Some gaze
at billion-year-old light from quasars and galaxies
Some dope their bodies with psychedelics
Some worship demons in
sex orgies
All these flirt with outer limits of human experience
But I will tell you a thing beyond them all
Go alone to a secret desert place
There bare your soul to God
Let him engulf you there
In that you will
know the beginning and the end
And you will discover who you are
|
|
Marriage of the Lamb
The Jewish and Christian
traditions have always been firmly rooted in history. The world had a beginning and is headed towards some fulfillment.
While human activities between beginning and fulfillment are important, according to Christian tradition humans have minor
roles in bringing about the fulfillment. The single exception is Jesus, the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed, who more or
less single-handedly is to bring fulfillment when he returns. The most the rest of us can do is proclaim Jesus’ gospel to
the rest of the world and show in our lives the love of God.
The Bible itself does not relegate people necessarily
to minor roles. Judging from the Bible no one would say that Abraham, Moses, David and Elijah were of minor importance.
Jesus himself ascribed greatness to John the Baptist and went on to say that the greatness of his own disciples would exceed
John’s. Later he stated, “[People] who believe in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater than these” (John 14:12).
What Jesus meant by greatness, of course, had little to do with what most people mean. Among Christians the apostle Paul
stands out as one who did more than anyone else to multiply the number of Jesus’ followers among the nations.
But
what happens when Christians find themselves in an environment where practically everyone they meet professes faith in Christ?
Europeans found themselves in that situation in medieval times. Faith ruled, but it had little to do. The emphasis on the
world to come was so strong that evils of this world were of little concern, and Christians often were not above physically
abusing one another in the worst ways. Practically speaking, history had reached a dead end. Everything of real importance
had already been accomplished. There was nothing left for people to do but wait for the second coming of Christ and the new
world he would bring.
Seeds of a new age sprouted from the church itself. Abbot Joachim of Flora in the twelfth
century introduced ideas that ultimately helped to transform the world. His ideas directly stimulated the earliest European
scientists and influenced, among others, Christopher Columbus and Dante Alighieri. Joachim taught that people had important
things to do after all: Christians filled with the Spirit of God would, by their efforts, bring on a new age, the age of
the Spirit. The new age was to be a distinct improvement over the age of the Son, which had been going on through the work
of Jesus but was soon to end. In the age of the Spirit people would have more to do than simply expand the influence of Jesus.
However Joachim may have intended his prophecies, they gave some medieval Europeans a sense of historical progress.
This was progress not imposed from the outside, through God’s intervention, but people themselves had significant roles to
play. The Spiritual Franciscans, monastics who promoted a strict interpretation of St. Francis’ principles, decided that
Joachim’s prophecies found fulfillment in St. Francis and their monastic order, and through these Spirituals Joachim’s influence
grew. Roger Bacon, often acknowledged to be the first modern scientist, was a Spiritual Franciscan who believed that the
age of the Spirit was to be brought about at least partly through human endeavors in natural sciences.
Joachim himself
escaped persecution for his teachings, but the Spiritual Franciscans, influential as they were, were persecuted and even put
to death as heretics in succeeding centuries. Nevertheless in their work and teaching one can discern the beginnings of beliefs
widely held today, namely, that human history is a story of progress in which humans have a major role. Possibly a majority
of people enjoying the benefits of Western civilization these days regard themselves as superior to people of any previous
civilization, and not without justification; so the concept of human progress is now deeply ingrained. But the sense of superiority
depends much less on acknowledgment of God’s Spirit than on achievements in science and technology and on the idea of progressive
organic evolution.
Nevertheless, despite the revolutionary implications of science, many Christians still profess
with the writer of Ecclesiastes that “there is nothing new under the sun.”
Morally there is nothing new. Many people
have hoped and believed that human progress would mean also morally superior people. Yet events time and again have revealed
clearly how thin the veneer is that separates humans from beasts. At bottom people today are animals with education and money.
We have enough sophistication to hide our baser urges most of the time, but we pray that we not be put to the test. The
vessels, in other words, would appear to be unworthy of God, and heaven as the fulfillment of the Judeo-Christian tradition
would appear impossible. Science, after all, is a teflon coating for the veneer of civilization and is of value for this
life only. Or is it?
•
Is heaven really impossible? What is impossible for people, says Jesus, is not necessarily
impossible for God. If heaven is impossible, then God will have failed. Those who know and love him do not believe that
he will fail. He will bring human history to the fulfillment he intended from the beginning. Nevertheless, to do so will
clearly require a major effort. But what kind of effort will it be, and to what kind of fulfillment?
Biblical prophecies
of fulfillment in the Old Testament portray quite a different fulfillment from that foretold by Christians in the New Testament.
To Old Testament prophets, fulfillment meant a time when the nation of Israel would be established in peace forever as the
nation of God for all the world to admire and emulate.
Ezekiel, for example, quotes God as saying, “I will take the
Israelites out of all the nations where they have gone.... I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel....
My servant David will be king over them, and they will all have one shepherd.... They and their children and their children’s
children will live there forever, and David my servant will be their prince forever.... My dwelling place will be with them;
I will be their God, and they will be my people. Then the nations will know that I, YHWH, make Israel holy, when my sanctuary
is among them forever” (Ezekiel 37:21-28).
Joel says, “Then you will know that I, YHWH, your God, dwell in Zion,
my holy hill. Jerusalem will be holy; never again will foreigners invade her. In that day the mountains will drip new wine,
and the hills flow with milk; all the ravines of Judah will run with water” (Joel 3:17-18).
Isaiah (chapter 60) adds,
“Foreigners will rebuild your walls, and their kings will serve you.... The nation or kingdom that will not serve you will
perish; it will be utterly ruined.... Your sun will never set again, and your moon will wane no more; YHWH will be your everlasting
light, and your days of sorrow will end. Then will all your people be righteous, and they will possess the land forever.”
These are beautiful prophecies of God’s fulfillment of human history, but they describe a fulfillment that we today
would consider rather parochial. The Christian view of heaven is more universal; it includes people of all nations and gives
no nation special status. Christians reconcile the Old Testament heaven with the New Testament heaven by claiming that followers
of Jesus of whatever nationality constitute the true Israel. Thereby Christians appropriate all the ancient prophecies of
fulfillment as well as the more recent ones.
Prophets of both testaments state that the fulfillment will be preceded
by distress of unprecedented magnitude. Daniel (12:1) said, “There will be a time of great distress such as has not happened
from the beginning of nations until then.” Jesus (Matthew 24:21) phrased it, “Then there will be great distress of a sort
that has never occurred from the beginning of the world until now, nor will occur again.” Exactly when is all this to happen?
Jesus acknowledged that he himself did not know, except that “this generation certainly will not pass away until all these
things happen” (Matthew 24:34).
These statements of Daniel and Jesus are both apocalyptic. “Apocalypse” is a transliteration
of a Greek word that means unveiling or revealing. The Revelation of John in the New Testament, for example, is called Apocalypse
of John in the original Greek. Apocalyptic literature claims inside information on the future and often portrays future events
with vivid symbolic imagery. For example, in both Daniel and Revelation, evil powers often are beasts, sometimes with many
heads and horns, each having some special significance.
Such literature can have great value for Christians, but
it is readily and often abused. Its primary value is to convey a sense that God rules even in the worst of times, when forces
of evil seem to have taken control. Jesus’ remarks about coming times of great distress and the larger-than-life imagery
of the Revelation must have been comforting to Christians of the early centuries as they were being jailed and put to death
for their faith.
Apocalyptic writings were important for me also in the years following my initial vision of God,
because at that time God seemed so much a foreigner in this world that, as one dedicated to serving him, I firmly believed
I would suffer death by persecution within a few years.
To be brief, Jesus’ words about the coming great distress
have only one purpose, to prepare his followers for hard times and to help them remain faithful unto death during persecutions
and calamities. Since the day he spoke those words his followers have indeed suffered persecutions, wars, natural disasters
and calamities of all kinds. Can it be that the unprecedented distress that is to precede the coming of Christ has already
occurred? Certainly those who have suffered a terrible and widespread calamity might believe that nothing worse could befall
people.
New Testament predictions of history’s fulfillment appear inconsistent. On the one hand are predictions
of abrupt change, total destruction and immediate creation of a “new heaven and a new earth.” On the other are indications
of a more gradual process that is to lead to something more akin to the Old Testament concept of fulfillment. The Revelation
contains elements of both sets of predictions. I’m going to side with the view of gentler change, for reasons which by now
should be at least partly obvious: These days we know much more clearly than people of Jesus’ time that God down through
time has dealt gently with the world, his touch has been soft because he respects what he has made and ultimately intends
to pour himself into and largely to identify himself with his creation.
New Testament portrayals of abrupt and total
destruction followed by totally new creation are understandable. Those who believe that God made the entire universe in a
few days, as the Jews of Jesus’ day did, conceptually would have no problem with God’s undoing the process in a few hours
and maybe taking another few days to make it over again better. This scenario is no doubt what Peter had in mind when he
wrote, “...The heavens will disappear with a roar, the heavenly bodies will be destroyed by burning, and the earth with its
works will be found [burned(?)]” (2 Peter 3:10). And, “According to his promise we look for new heavens and a new earth in
which righteousness dwells” (2 Peter 3:13).
Righteousness does not dwell, at least not comfortably, in the present
world, so it is clear that the world as we know it must be replaced with something better if God is to find fulfillment, and
we with him.
There is something about a surgical removal of the existing universe and replacement with a new universe
that has great appeal for Christians. For one thing, it allows us to overlook and ignore all evidences of damage and decay
in this world and express gratitude to God in advance for the new, perfect world to come. No matter how bad things might
get here, none of that is really very important if it’s all got to be redone. But what if God has different ideas, and, as
I believe, is going to find his fulfillment in the existing world? Then we need an option gentler than surgical removal.
Much of the New Testament support for a gentler option comes from chapter 15 of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians:
“Just as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in his own turn: Christ the firstfruits; then, in
his presence, those who belong to him. Then comes the end, when he hands over the sovereignty to God the Father after nullifying
every jurisdiction and every power and authority. For he must rule until he has put all enemies under his feet. Death will
be the last enemy nullified.... When [God] has subjected all things to [Christ], then the Son himself also will be made subject
to the one who subjected all things to him, so that God may be all in all.”
Taken at face value, the key concept
is that Christ is to rule presumably for an extended period in order to eliminate unrighteous elements of the world and install
the righteous. Upon completing this task his services as ruler will no longer be needed, and everyone will live happily ever
after under God the Father.
This picture requires neither a cataclysmic end of the world nor a need to make everything
over from scratch. Therefore it has the overwhelming virtue of being consistent with the way God has operated throughout
time. It also harmonizes more readily with Old Testament portrayals of fulfillment than does the more common Christian belief
of final cataclysm. We could call this picture “pie on Earth” instead of “pie in the sky,” but instead....
With John
I’m going to call this picture the Marriage of the Lamb. The image comes from Revelation and refers to the marriage of the
Christ, the Lamb of God, to his Church.
A marriage, if it is anything, is a period of adjustment, especially if the
couple, as in Jesus’ day, would not have been living and sleeping together before making their commitment to one another.
A common Christian idea of heaven is that there is no period of adjustment. One minute a person is a human animal with sinful
thoughts and base urges, the next he is a completely purified creature able like the angels to communicate flawlessly and
continuously with God. Paul later on in chapter 15 of his first letter to the Corinthians contributes to this concept by
stating, “We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in an instant, in a glance of an eye, at the last trumpet. For
the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.”
Completely changed in
an instant, he says. The reason I am uncomfortable with this concept is that it is hard to believe that such abrupt changes
imposed on the psyche would not do violence of a sort that is inconsistent with God’s usual methods. Rising from the dead,
of course, has not been common in nature, and one might reasonably expect the new body to be different from the former one.
But to change the soul should require a more extended process, if the idea of marriage is to mean anything.
It should
be clear by now that I do not have a problem with dramatic miracles or question whether God, in principle, can accomplish
them. In order to know God, in fact, a person must believe that he can work miracles. I base this statement on personal
experience. From time to time I have flirted with anti-miracle teachings like those of Jesus Seminar scholars, and in every
such instance God has fled from me as though I had some horrible, contagious disease. Knowing God is itself a miracle—the
miracle of miracles, in fact; no science can hope to explain how we who are things made of matter can perceive and love a
spirit.
To believe that God can work dramatic miracles, however, is quite different from hoping or expecting him
to do so. Dramatic miracles, involving obvious supernatural manipulations of the natural world, are evidences of instability.
Elijah may have been able to fry the king’s soldiers with fire from the sky and slaughter the pimps of the false gods, but
by doing so he testified with brutal clarity to the vast distance between where people were and where they needed to be.
Jesus himself called his own generation “evil, because it seeks a sign,” where by “sign” he meant a dramatic miracle that
people felt might once and for all establish Jesus’ authority and convince his critics of the reality and power of God.
Jesus’
miracles themselves stirred up more bad than good, at least temporarily, among the people who witnessed them. To many onlookers
his miracle working made him little more than an entertainer. To those who felt threatened by him, his miracles aroused hostility.
To those who admired him the miracles put up barriers. The miracles caused even his disciples to focus on externals and
thus fail to perceive the spiritual reality he was trying to show them. That is why Jesus told them that, if he did not leave,
the Spirit would not come into them, and their knowledge of him would remain distorted. Jesus’ miracles demonstrated God’s
love. That was essential. But the miracles were equally necessary to demonstrate that Jesus had the power and authority
of God. The value of the miracles for those who love him was much greater after he left than while he was there performing
them.
Change imposed from the outside by means of miracles that people can see with eyes may sometimes be necessary,
but change from within is far more beneficial. And oftentimes change imposed from the outside puts up psychological barriers
to change from within. That is why the Marriage of the Lamb will be accompanied by signs and wonders that are no more dramatic
than absolutely necessary. God’s love is most evident and most powerful in the secret places of the heart. If he performs
dramatic external signs and wonders, he only shows that something is still seriously lacking in his world.
But things
really are seriously lacking in the world. So will God have to call down fire from the sky to show he’s in charge? Decades
ago I used to hope so. But how successful, really, were the ten plagues in Moses’ time? Did they convert the Egyptian pharaoh
and his people to the ways of God? Did they even bring the Israelites themselves into a personal relationship with God?
Have such methods ever had more than a transitory beneficial effect on those who experienced them? The answers are all negative.
The miracles of the apostles following Jesus’ resurrection were important and useful, but they were accompanied by
gifts of personal knowledge of God through his Spirit that were even more dramatic than the physical aspects of the miracles.
(Chapter continued on next page)
|
|
|
|
