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I base my hope on the Word of God speaking in the best heart and conscience of the race
-the Word heard in the best poems and songs, the best prayers and hopes of humanity.
The ages have been darkest when this hope was lowest. It cannot be successfully controverted that out of the six theological schools of the Early Church four taught the doctrines of Universalism, one annihilation of the wicked, and one their endless punishment.
To-day no preacher in his fiercest sermons approximates to such utterances as those of Jonathan Edwards. If he did he would not be tolerated a year. The Christian pulpit is silent on the doctrine of endless punishment, or else denies it, as Farrar, Beecher, Swing, and Thomas, and a great multitude of greatest minds have done.
I wish to contrast two utterances, and leave the reader to judge which is the noblest. One is this utterance of Mr. Talmage at Chautauqua. He said: -
Nearly all the heterodox people I know of believe all are coming out at the same destiny without regard to faith and character: Nero and Wesley, Guiteau and Garfield. I turn away from such a debauched heaven. Against that cauldron of beastliness I place the two destinies of the Bible forever and forever apart.
This is the surviving remnant of the idea once so vividly preached that the saints in heaven need the sight of hell to complete their joys.
The other utterance I contrast to the above, is Hawthorne's in " Glimpses of English Poverty." He says of the wretched London poor: -
How difficult to believe that anything so precious as a germ of immortal growth can have been plunged into this cesspool of vice! Oh, what a mystery! Slowly, slowly, as after groping at the bottom of a deep, noisome pool, my hope struggles upward to the surface, bearing the half-drowned body of a child and bearing it aloft for its own life, and my own life, and all our lives. Unless these slime-clogged nostrils can be made capable of inhaling celestial air, I know not how the purest and most intellectual of us can reasonably expect ever to taste a breath of it. The whole question of eternity is staked there. If a single one of those helpless little ones be lost, the world is lost.
Which of these two sentiments is most like Christ Jesus? ~P.T. Barnum
Theodicy is a fifty-cent word for the justification of God.
One might ask why it should be necessary for anyone to have to justify God.
Really what is meant is the justification of God’s moral character against the calumnies of unbelievers with respect to the problem of evil.
It is an apologetic exercise. John Frame has rightly called the problem of evil the greatest difficulty for Christian apologetics. No one could explain this difficulty with better clarity than he can.
In a nutshell, the problem is this:
How can there be any evil in the world, if the omnipotent and omnibenevolent God of the Bible
exists?
1. If God is omnipotent, he is able to prevent evil.
2. If God is good, he is willing to prevent evil.
3. But evil exists.
Conclusion:
Either God is not omnipotent, or he is not good.
Frame calls this “the logical problem of evil” because he recognizes that if valid, it proves the theistic worldview logically inconsistent.
However, this really only pertains to adherents of the doctrine of endless torment (and to a lesser degree, advocates of conditional immortality) because they believe in the Manichean concept of the eternal existence of evil.
Universalists believe that in the end all evil will cease to exist. Our answer to the problem is simple.
Yes, evil exists, but only temporarily and to accomplish a greater good.
By a man's reaction to Jesus Christ, that man stands revealed. By his reaction to Jesus Christ his soul is laid bare. If he regards Christ with love, even with wistful yearning, for him there is hope; but if in Christ he sees nothing lovely he has condemned himself. He who was sent in love has become to the man, judgment.
Any alleged conversion which does not leave one totally committed solely to Jesus Christ is incomplete and imperfect.
We may not understand how the spirit works; but the effect of the spirit on the lives of men is there for all to see; and the only unanswerable argument for Christianity is a Christian life.
It may well be that the world is denied miracle after miracle and triumph after triumph because we will not bring to Christ what we have and what we are. If, just as we are, we would lay ourselves on the altar of service of Jesus Christ, there is no saying what Christ could do with us and through us. We may be sorry and embarrassed that we have not more to bring -- and rightly so; but that is not reason for failing or refusing to bring what we have and what we are.
Little is always much in the hands of Christ.
Prayer is not a way of making use of God; prayer is a way of offering ourselves to God in order that He should be able to make use of us. It may be that one of our great faults in prayer is that we talk too much and listen too little..
That crowd of Jews would have followed Christ at that moment because He was giving them what they wanted [bread], and they wished to use Him for their plans and dreams and purposes. That attitude to Christ still lingers in men's minds. We would like Christ's gifts without Christ's Cross; we would like to use Christ instead of allowing Him to use us.
If Christianity has never frightened us, we have not yet learnt what it is.
So long as we judge ourselves by human comparisons, there is plenty of room for self-satisfaction, and self-satisfaction kills faith, for faith is born of the sense of need. But when we compare ourselves with Jesus Christ, and through Him, with God, we are humbled to the dust, and then faith is born, for there is nothing left to do but to trust to the mercy of God.
The social gospel is not an addendum to the gospel; it is the gospel.
If we read the Gospels, it becomes clear that it was not what Jesus said about God that got him into trouble (but) his treatment of men and women, his way of being friendly with outcasts with whom no respectable Jew would have anything to do. It has always been fairly safe to talk about God; it is when we start to talk about men that the trouble starts. And yet the fact remains that there is no conceivable way of proving that we love God other than by loving men. And there is no conceivable way of proving that we love men than by doing something for those who most need help.
When Jesus takes possession of our life, it is not only that the past is forgotten and forgiven; if that were all, we might well proceed to make the same mess of life all over again; but into life there enters this new power which enables us to be what by ourselves we could never be, and to do what by ourselves we could never do.
Love always involves responsibility, and love always involves sacrifice. And we do not really love Christ unless we are prepared to face His task and to take up His Cross.
It may well be that the unknowable name stands for the ultimate mystery of Jesus Christ. His love we can experience; His salvation we can appropriate; His help we can claim; but their remains in Him the divine mystery of the Incarnation, which is beyond our understanding, and before which we can only worship and adore.
Here is the great truth that, only when we see things in the light of God, do we see things as they are. It is only when we see things in the light of God that we see what things are really important, and what things are not.
If a man fights his way through his doubts to the conviction that Jesus Christ is Lord, he has attained to a certainty that the man who unthinkingly accepts things can never reach.
The tragedy of life and of the world is not that men do not know God; the tragedy is that, knowing Him, they still insist on going their own way.
True and genuine worship is when man, through his spirit attains to friendship and intimacy with God. True and genuine worship is not to come to a certain place; it is not to go through a certain ritual or liturgy; it is not even to bring certain gifts. True worship is when the spirit, the immortal and invisible part of man, speaks to and meets with God, who is immortal and invisible.
While it is right to stress the dangers of the permissive society, the argument from danger is not in itself a good argument, because it seems to imply that, if the danger could be removed, if there was no risk of a child and no peril of infection, then the objection would be removed, too. It tends to imply that the objection is to the attendant dangers and not to the thing itself. But if sexual intercourse before and outside marriage is against the teaching of Jesus, then the thing is not only dangerous, it is wrong in itself.
There is a certain kind of so-called conversion which separates a man from his fellow men.
It may fill him with a self-righteousness which rejoices in its own superiority to those who have had no like experience. It may move a man to a Pharisaic self-isolation. There have in fact been not a few so-called conversions as a result of which a man has left the Church to belong to some smaller and holier body. The plain truth is that such a one should very seriously examine himself, if he finds what he regards as his Christian experience separating him from his fellow-men, or his fellow-Christians.
Faith is not only a commitment to the promises of Christ; faith is also a commitment to the demands of Christ.
To the rich man, Lazarus was part of the landscape. If ever he did notice him, it never struck him that Lazarus had anything to do with him. He was simply unaware of his presence, or, if he was aware of it, he had no sense of responsibility for it... A man may well be condemned, not for doing something, but for doing nothing.
It is fatally easy to think of Christianity as something to be discussed and not as something to be experienced. It is certainly important to have an intellectual grasp of the orb of Christian truth; but it is still more important to have a vital, living experience of the power of Jesus Christ.
If we are to accept the teaching of Jesus at all, then the only test of the reality of a man's religion is his attitude to his fellow men. The only possible proof that a man loves God is the demonstrated fact that he loves his fellow men.
When a man undergoes treatment from a doctor, he does not need to know the way in which the drug works on his body in order to be cured. There is a sense in which Christianity is like that. At the heart of Christianity there is a mystery, but it is not the mystery of intellectual appreciation; it the mystery of redemption.
Division has always been a disease of the church... The Love Feast, which should have been the sign and symbol of perfect unity, has become a thing of divisions and class distinctions. And here there is something which only the newer translations reveal. In the older translations, it is said that to eat and drink at the sacrament without discerning the Lord's body is the way to judgment and not to salvation. But in the best Greek text, the word Lord's is not included. The sin is not to discern the body; that is to say, not to discern that the church is a body, not to be aware of the oneness of the church, not to be aware of the togetherness in which all its members should be joined.
Conversion is not something simply between a man and Jesus Christ, with no other person involved. True, it may start in that way; but it cannot end in that way. Conversion is not individualistic. It is, in fact, just the opposite. It joins man to his fellow men, and certainly does not separate him from them.
For some extraordinary reason, the Church moves in an atmosphere of antiquity. I have no doubt that it makes for dignity; I have also no coubt that there are times when it makes for complete irrelevance; for, if there is one thing that is true of religion it is that it must always be expressible in contemporary terms. Religion fails if it cannot speak to men as they are.
The shortest possible description of a Christian -- a description with which the New Testament would fully agree -- is that a Christian is a person who can say: "For me Jesus Christ is Lord."
A conversion is incomplete if it does not leave one integrated into the Church. By this we do not mean any particular part of the Church; what we do mean is that conversion must leave one linked in loving fellowship with one's fellow believers.
A conversion is incomplete if it does not leave one with an intense social consciousness, if it does not fill one with a sense of overwhelming responsibility for the world. It has been said... truly that the Church exists for those outside of itself. The Church must never be in any sense a little huddle of pious people, shutting their doors against the world, lost in prayer and praise, connoisseurs of preaching and liturgy, busy mutually congratulating themselves on the excellence of their Christian experience.
It frequently happens that the value of a thing lies in the fact that someone has possessed it. A very ordinary thing acquires a new value, if it has been possessed by some famous person. In any museum we will find quite ordinary things--clothes, a walking-stick, a pen, pieces of furniture--which are only of value because they were possessed and used by some great person. It is the ownership which gives them worth. It is so with the Christian. The Christian may be a very ordinary person, but he acquires a new value and dignity and greatness because he belongs to God. The greatness of the Christian lies in the fact that he is God's.
The humblest and the most unseen activity in the world can be the true worship of God. Work and worship literally become one. Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him for ever; and man carries out that function when he does what God sent him into the world to do. Work well done rises like a hymn of praise to God. This means that the doctor on his rounds, the scientist in his laboratory, the teacher in his classroom, the musician at his music, the artist at his canvas, the shop assistant at his counter, the typist at her typewriter, the housewife in her kitchen -- all who are doing the work of the world as it should be done are joining in a great act of worship.
Endurance is not just the ability to bear a hard thing, but to turn it into glory.
There are two great days in a person's life -- the day we are born and the day we discover why.
We will often find compensation if we think more of what life has given us and less about what life has taken away.
When a man undergoes treatment from a doctor, he does not need to know the way in which the drug works on his body in order to be cured. There is a sense in which Christianity is like that. At the heart of Christianity there is a mystery, but it is not the mystery of intellectual appreciation; it, the mystery of redemption.
It is usually true that the man who is unintelligible is not unintelligible because he is ‘deep,’ but because he does not himself understand what he is talking about.
All life is based on the fact that anything worth getting is hard to get. There is a price to be paid for anything. Scholarship can only be bought at the price of study, skill of craft or technique can only be bought at the price of practice, and eminence in any sport can only be bought at the price of training and discipline.
For the Christian, heaven is where Jesus is. We do not need to speculate on what heaven will be like. It is enough to know that we will be for ever with Him. When we love anyone with our whole hearts, life begins when we are with that person; it is only in their company that we are really and truly alive. It is so with Christ. In this world our contact with Him is shadowy, for we can only see through a glass darkly. It is spasmodic, for we are poor creatures and cannot live always on the heights. But the best definition of it is to say that heaven is that state where we will always be with Jesus, and where nothing will separate us from Him any more. -Dr. Wm. Barclay
In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31), the parable begins with a description of the rich man and his life of luxury and excess. He is portrayed as a member of the elite, and would have been understood to be selfish. He would not have been expected to provide for Lazarus´ needs.......
"Take a careful look at my servant, my chosen one. I love him dearly and I find all my delight in him. I will breathe my Spirit upon him and he will decree justice to the nations. He will not quarrel or be found yelling in public. He won’t brush aside the bruised and broken. He will be gentle with the weak and feeble, until his victory releases justice." -TPT
Also unto You, O Lord, belongs mercy; for You render to every man according to his work."
Some of the translators make it kindness and goodness; but I presume there is no real difference among them as to the character of the word which here, in the English Bible, is translated mercy.
The religious mind, however, educated upon the theories yet prevailing in the so-called religious world, must here recognize a departure from the presentation to which they have been accustomed: to make the psalm speak according to prevalent theoretic modes, the verse would have to be changed thus:--'To You, O Lord, belongs justice, for You render to every man according to his work.'
"Because of that obedience, God lifted him high and honored him far beyond anyone or anything, ever, so that all created beings in heaven and on earth—even those long ago dead and buried—will bow in worship before this Jesus Christ, and call out in praise that he is the Master of all, to the glorious honor of God the Father." -Phil. 2:9-11 (MSG)
Every creature in a still wider antiphonal circle beyond the circle of angels (from κτιζω — ktizō for which see 1 Timothy 4:4; James 1:18), from all the four great fields of life (in heaven, upon the earth, under the earth as in Revelation 5:3, with on the sea επι της ταλασσης — epi tēs thalassēs added).
No created thing is left out. This universal chorus of praise to Christ from all created life reminds one of the profound mystical passage in Romans 8:20-22 concerning the sympathetic agony of creation (κτισις — ktisis) in hope of freedom from the bondage of corruption.
If the trail of the serpent is on all creation, it will be ultimately thrown off. -A.T. Robertson Word Pictures
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