There is no Sun

My family has been going through the Chronicles of Narnia, and have just finished The Silver Chair.  It's interesting timing because right about the same time we finished it, I came across a podcast that drew a connection from this book that I had overlooked.  In this passage, the Queen of Underland lulls the protagonists simultaneously into a sense of comfort and confusion and then proceeds to spin a false narrative until they themselves believe it.  The podcast draws a connection between this passage and so-called "Progressive Christianity," but I think it should serve as a warning to all Christians about the temptation to abandon truth.

Here is an excerpt from that chapter:

Now the Witch said nothing at all, but moved gently across the room, always keeping her face and eyes very steadily towards the Prince. When she had come to a little ark set in the wall not far from the fireplace, she opened it, and took out first a handful of a green powder. This she threw on the fire. It did not blaze much, but a very sweet and drowsy smell came from it. And all through the conversation which followed, that smell grew stronger, and filled the room, and made it harder to think. Secondly, she took out a musical instrument rather like a mandolin. She began to play it with her fingers—a steady, monotonous thrumming that you didn't notice after a few minutes. But the less you noticed it, the more it got into your brain and your blood. This also made it hard to think. After she had thrummed for a time (and the sweet smell was now strong) she began speaking in a sweet, quiet voice.

"Narnia?" she said. "Narnia? I have often heard your Lordship utter that name in your ravings. Dear Prince, you are very sick. There is no land called Narnia."

"Yes there is, though, Ma'am," said Puddleglum. "You see, I happen to have lived there all my life."

"Indeed," said the Witch. "Tell me, I pray you, where that country is?"

"Up there," said Puddleglum, stoutly, pointing overhead. "I—I don't know exactly where."

"How?" said the Queen, with a kind, soft, musical laugh. "Is there a country up among the stones and mortar of the roof?"

"No," said Puddleglum, struggling a little to get his breath. "It's in Overworld."

"And what, or where, pray is this ... how do you call it ... Overworld?"

"Oh, don't be so silly," said Scrubb, who was fighting hard against the enchantment of the sweet smell and the thrumming. "As if you didn't know! It's up above, up where you can see the sky and the sun and the stars. Why, you've been there yourself. We met you there."

"I cry you mercy, little brother," laughed the Witch (you couldn't have heard a lovelier laugh). "I have no memory of that meeting. But we often meet our friends in strange places when we dream. And unless all dreamed alike, you must not ask them to remember it."

"Madam," said the Prince sternly, "I have already told your Grace that I am the King's son of Narnia."

"And shalt be, dear friend," said the Witch in a soothing voice, as if she was humouring a child, "shalt be king of many imagined lands in thy fancies."

"We've been there, too," snapped Jill. She was very angry because she could feel enchantment getting hold of her every moment. But of course the very fact that she could still feel it, showed that it had not yet fully worked.

"And thou art Queen of Narnia too, I doubt not, pretty one," said the Witch in the same coaxing, half-mocking tone.

"I'm nothing of the sort," said Jill, stamping her foot. "We come from another world."

"Why, this is a prettier game than the other," said the Witch. "Tell us, little maid, where is this other world? What ships and chariots go between it and ours?"

Of course a lot of things darted into Jill's head at once: Experiment House, Adela Pennyfather, her own home, radio-sets, cinemas, cars, aeroplanes, ration-books, queues. But they seemed dim and far away. (Thrum—thrum—thrum—went the strings of the Witch's instrument.) Jill couldn't remember the names of the things in our world. And this time it didn't come into her head that she was being enchanted, for now the magic was in its full strength; and of course, the more enchanted you get, the more certain you feel that you are not enchanted at all. She found herself saying (and at the moment it was a relief to say):

"No. I suppose that other world must be all a dream."

"Yes. It is all a dream," said the Witch, always thrumming.

"Yes, all a dream," said Jill.

"There never was such a world," said the Witch.

"No," said Jill and Scrubb, "never was such a world."

"There never was any world but mine," said the Witch.

"There never was any world but yours," said they.

Puddleglum was still fighting hard. "I don't know rightly what you all mean by a world," he said, talking like a man who hasn't enough air. "But you can play that fiddle till your fingers drop off, and still you won't make me forget Narnia; and the whole Overworld too. We'll never see it again, I shouldn't wonder. You may have blotted it out and turned it dark like this, for all I know. Nothing more likely. But I know I was there once. I've seen the sky full of stars. I've seen the sun coming up out of the sea of a morning and sinking behind the mountains at night. And I've seen him up in the midday sky when I couldn't look at him for brightness."

Puddleglum's words had a very rousing effect. The other three all breathed again and looked at one another like people newly awaked.

"Why, there it is!" cried the Prince. "Of course! The blessing of Aslan upon this honest marsh-wiggle. We have all been dreaming, these last few minutes. How could we have forgotten it? Of course we've all seen the sun."

"By Jove, so we have!" said Scrubb. "Good for you, Puddleglum! You're the only one of us with any sense, I do believe."

Then came the Witch's voice, cooing softly like the voice of a wood-pigeon from the high elms in an old garden at three o'clock in the middle of a sleepy, summer afternoon; and it said:

"What is this sun that you all speak of? Do you mean anything by the word?"

"Yes, we jolly well do," said Scrubb.

"Can you tell me what it's like?" asked the Witch (thrum, thrum, thrum, went the strings).

"Please it your Grace," said the Prince, very coldly and politely. "You see that lamp. It is round and yellow and gives light to the whole room; and hangeth moreover from the roof. Now that thing which we call the sun is like the lamp, only far greater and brighter. It giveth light to the whole Overworld and hangeth in the sky."

"Hangeth from what, my lord?" asked the Witch; and then, while they were all still thinking how to answer her, she added, with another of her soft, silver laughs: "You see? When you try to think out clearly what this sun must be, you cannot tell me. You can only tell me it is like the lamp. Your sun is a dream; and there is nothing in that dream that was not copied from the lamp. The lamp is the real thing; the sun is but a tale, a children's story."

"Yes, I see now," said Jill in a heavy, hopeless tone. "It must be so." And while she said this, it seemed to her to be very good sense.

Slowly and gravely the Witch repeated, "There is no sun." And they all said nothing. She repeated, in a softer and deeper voice. "There is no sun." After a pause, and after a struggle in their minds, all four of them said together. "You are right. There is no sun." It was such a relief to give in and say it.

"There never was a sun," said the Witch.

"No. There never was a sun," said the Prince, and the Marsh-wiggle, and the children.  

--C.S. Lewis, The Silver Chair

I believe it's no mere coincidence that Lewis has this same queen transform into her alternate form as a serpent.  I think he was making a very clear connection between the queen in this passage and the serpent who intersects our lives as well.  In fact, you can see some of the same tactics in the account from Genesis 3 where the serpent deceives Eve:

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.

He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. 

--Genesis 3:1-6

The Queen of Underland and the serpent of Genesis both start the same way. With questions. Some about the nature of reality, but ultimately the questions are there to make them question the nature or commands of God.  Dangling comfort and pleasure before us, and in the case of Genesis, adding the ultimate temptation of autonomy -- self-rule.
Autonomy is not a new temptation, it was the first.  It manifests differently in different generations,but today it seems to have taken the form of Tolerance.  I don't mean Tolerance in it's original sense. As the Oxford English Dictionary would define it:

The ability or willingness to tolerate the existence of opinions or behaviour that one dislikes or disagrees with.

No, that's not what the culture today tends to define as tolerance. In today's culture one cannot claim to know truth or claim the exclusivity of Christ as a means for salvation without being labelled intolerant or bigoted. This warped version of "tolerance" only tolerates those who say "You do you," and even celebrate all ideas and moralities as EQUALLY valid.
This isn't tolerance, it's moral relativism, and it tends to be intolerant of anyone who disagrees. Furthermore, it does not hold water. The same individuals that, in word and action, deny any absolute morality will often tell us in the same breath that it's wrong to impose our morality on others.  Even Christians, myself included, fall into the trap of saying "We ought not legislate morality." If that's the case, then why to we legislate against theft, murder, pedophilia and rape?  Aren't those moral judgments?
I know the most common secular answer to this is that morality is simply a social contract.  Many will say that it evolved over time to what it is now.  The real question is, if that's the case, then how can we say that our concepts of morality are any better than those previous?  If you believe that a society with racial equality is better than a segregated one, if you believe that woman's suffrage is progress, and if you believe that a society without slavery and forced prostitution is actually, objectively better than one where that is legal, then you believe that morality has an external locus.  It comes from an authority that is greater than our personal preferences.
A view of morality that sees it as merely a social contract would have to, by definition, label all freedom fighters or civil rights leaders as immoral.

Unfortunately, in our culture of false tolerance, it's often hard to stay grounded in the truth. With so many false narratives, even about Christianity itself, we often find it difficult to hold to our values. We live in a society that tells us we're quaint or foolish to believe in such a thing as objective moral truth grounded in God.  A society that condescends whenever the topic comes up, just like the Queen of Underland condescends in her false narrative.  And much like the protagonists in The Silver Chair, it may feel as a relief to let go of objective morality, follow the cultural narrative and repeat in unison:  "There is no truth."

It turns out that the wisdom of our age is no different of the ages previous.  Noah was scoffed at as a fool for believing God would flood the land, the Pharaoh scoffed at Moses, and the prophets were scoffed at by the people of Israel who trusted their own wisdom above that of God. I think Paul explains it best in his letter to the Romans.

For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.  For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.  For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools,  and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.  

-- Romans 1:19-25

This is the same path by which "Progressive Christianity" starts to veer from the truth of God.  First they condescend the scripture.  The first attack is often on the authenticity or inspiration of scripture.  "Did God really say...?" is the driving theme of books by the likes of Rob Bell and Jen Hatmaker.
The next step is to call into question the goodness of God by appealing to our human emotion. I like the response Tim Keller gives to this:

If your god never disagrees with you, you might just be worshiping an idealized version of yourself.

— Timothy Keller (@timkellernyc) September 12, 2014

These "progressives" like many before them are wise in their own eyes.  Denying God and ultimately choosing self-worship over true worship. In believing themselves to be wise, they fall into the foolishness of moral subjectivism -- an ultimately unsustainable ideology.
How then should we as Christians protect our hearts and our minds against these temptations? I would suggest we start by actually knowing what we believe.  Many really don't.  Barna did some polling that showed a startling number of professing Christians subscribe to non-Christian ideologies rooted in secular philosophies.  Numbers like 61% of Christians polled agreed with ideas rooted in New Spirituality, 27% of Christians polled STRONGLY agreed with the statement "Meaning and purpose come from becoming one with all that is."  That idea could not be any more opposed to the Christian worldview which says our meaning comes from being Set Apart (or Holy, as it is often put in the Bible.)  We are to be transformed by the Holy Spirit, not conformed to the world around us (See Romans 12).
While I would argue that we ought to value the study of our faith and theology beyond a simple daily devotional, actually reading the Bible for ourselves is a fantastic place to start. Begin a daily Bible reading plan.  I like the "Read Scripture" app by The Bible Project.  It helps you track your progress and also contains videos that help place the various books of the Bible in context.  You can get it on iOS or on Android.  Or if you are on the go a lot, Dwell is a fantastic audio Bible app.  If you process data like I do, you might do a mix of both.  Listening on Dwell while simultaneously reading along.  I find I retain a lot more that way.
Those are just a few suggestions, take them or leave them.  The important thing is that we need to be familiar with the truth of scripture if we are ever going to keep afloat in a world drowning in ideological counterfeits.

The Virgin Birth

I recently read a fantastic quote from C. S. Lewis about the virgin birth:

"You will hear people say, ‘The early Christians believed that Christ was the son of a virgin, but we know that this is a scientific impossibility’. Such people seem to have an idea that belief in miracles arose at a period when men were so ignorant of the course of nature that they did not perceive a miracle to be contrary to it. A moment’s thought shows this to be nonsense: and the story of the Virgin Birth is a particularly striking example. When St Joseph discovered that his fiancée was going to have a baby, he not unnaturally decided to repudiate her. Why? Because he knew just as well as any modern gynecologist that in the ordinary course of nature women do not have babies unless they have lain with men. No doubt the modern gynecologist knows several things about birth and begetting which St Joseph did not know. But those things do not concern the main point–that a virgin birth is contrary to the course of nature. And St Joseph obviously knew that. In any sense in which it is true to say now, ‘The thing is scientifically impossible’, he would have said the same: the thing always was, and was always known to be, impossible unless the regular processes of nature were, in this particular case, being over-ruled or supplemented by something from beyond nature. When St Joseph finally accepted the view that his fiancée’s pregnancy was due not to unchastity but to a miracle, he accepted the miracle as something contrary to the known order of nature. All records of miracles teach the same thing." —CS Lewis (from, Miracles)

It’s quite a legitimate point. Look back at the gospel accounts of this.  When Mary was told what was going to transpire, she was not quick to just accept it. She was just as incredulous as anyone ought to be:

“In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, "Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!" But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end." And Mary said to the angel, "How will this be, since I am a virgin?" And the angel answered her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God. And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For nothing will be impossible with God." And Mary said, "Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word." And the angel departed from her.”

‭‭Luke‬ ‭1:26-38‬ ‭ESV‬‬

As Lewis points out, Joseph was also not easily convinced:

“Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, "Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: "Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel" (which means, God with us).”

‭‭Matthew‬ ‭1:18-23‬ ‭ESV‬‬

The fact is that EVERYONE understood what it meant that Mary was pregnant and not yet married. It took some angelic convincing to bring them around to seeing this as an exception to the rule. Miracles are called miracles because even in biblical times they were out of the ordinary.
I tried to look up the number of miracles in the entire Bible and there were apparently 37 performed by Jesus, but the most extensive list of Old Testament miracles I could find contained 91. 27 of those are directly related to Moses. So over a period of about 4000 years (Or more depending on how you read it) we are talking about 130 miracles? Even if they were spread out evenly and not bunched around a couple of figures or events (The Exodus and Jesus Christ), that’s about 1 every 31 years. Not exactly a daily event. If you remove Jesus and Moses from the picture as outliers you are looking at one every 74 years.  (Even then they weren't evenly spread, mostly limited to specific prophets, Judges, etc.)

The point here is, people didn't find a miracle around every corner.  Though not necessarily scientifically advanced, they weren't completely ignorant of the course of nature.  The virgin birth was viewed as a miracle not due to the ignorance of the early church but rather due to their knowledge.

Renaming My Blog -- With All Your Mind

Back in my first post in this blog, I stated that my blog had no specific direction, but now I believe the time has come to re-brand.

While my original intent of this blog was just to write about whatever was on my mind, I've found over the past year or so that the thoughts that I manage to write anything meaningful about are the ones that ultimately point back to Christ.

The new name "With All Your Mind" refers to part of the great commandment:

“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” -- Matthew 22:36-40

We should be loving the Lord with all our minds.  Unfortunately, many in the church have bought into the lie that faith and reason are mutually exclusive and have become anti-intellectual. For thinkers like myself, this completely non-biblical tendency toward anti-intellectualism can be very alienating.

I'm hoping with more focus to my blog, I'll manage to write posts more regularly and I'll have a clearer definition of what my end goal is. I will review books I've read, write about topics that have come up in my leisure reading or the podcasts I listen to, and maybe even review various podcasts or lecture series I come across. On occasion I might just think of a topic out of the blue and post about it.

My hope is that those who read my blog will be encouraged to delve deeper into what they believe and learn to develop a defense for those beliefs.  I also hope that other Christian intellectuals who read my blog will realize they aren't alone and will utilize the comment sections to engage in dialog. (I also welcome opposing dialog, but I ask that all comments be kept civil.) I don't expect a large audience, but if one of my posts helps one person who is questioning their faith, then it's worth the time. 

One of my favorite authors, J. Warner Wallace, says it this way: The Church doesn't need another million-dollar apologist; we need a million one-dollar apologist. In other words, one more great thinker writing books and standing on stages isn't going to make as much impact as if a multitude of us do what little is in our power to defend our faith to our family and friends.

Anyway, I hope to have a couple of new posts up in the near future. Keep an eye out for them.

(On a weird side note, I may have come up with several new topics simply by writing this introductory post.  I kept finding myself on tangents and realizing this wasn't the post for them and that they needed their own individual posts.)

You are NOT Responsible for Your Feelings

I was listening to the Stand To Reason podcast today, and Greg Koukl answered a question of a listener who said she had trouble trusting God to provide for her and had been told by some in her church that it meant she did not have saving faith.  Greg answered this wonderfully, and I linked to the podcast above so you can hear how he answered, but I think I would like to develop on the response to this.

First of all, his general answer was that having problems trusting God does not mean she isn't saved.  He said all believers struggle with trusting God and that, in fact, the very fact that she struggles with this is very good evidence that she has the Holy Spirit to convict her.

I completely agree, but I would like to look at this from a slightly different angle:

You are not not responsible for your feelings; you are responsible for how you respond to them.

This is a very difficult thing to get our heads around sometimes.  Our emotions feel so much like they are part of our conscious soul, but for the most part, our emotions are biochemical signals to our brain... We have very little control over them.

We learn in grade school about our five senses.  We have these different organs that sense the world around us and send signals to our brain that we interpret and use in decision making...  One of these is sight.  Is it a sin if we see something that tempts us?  (Assuming we didn't go looking for it.)  In the story of David and Bathsheba, had David seen her on the rooftop bathing and decided to turn around and not act on that temptation, would he have sinned by seeing her?  I'm fairly confident that all of us would answer "no."  Of course, those of us who know the story (Found in 2 Samuel chapter 11) know that David did sin, but he did so because he dwelt upon and acted upon the temptation.

Much like our 5 senses, our emotions are an input.  And like our senses, they can tempt us to sin.  Unfortunately, unlike our senses, we can't as easily escape our emotions.  We can close our eyes, we can plug our ears, and we can spit out food that offends us, but if we attempt to suppress an emotion, we often end up feeding it.

Anyone who has ever struggled with mental illness can attest to the fact that our emotions don't always reflect our actual desires.  I've dealt with anxiety, depression, and more, but one of the most eye opening events in my life was when I had a bad reaction to an antidepressant and experienced suicidal thoughts.  It only affected me briefly and I can tell you that I had absolutely no true desire to kill myself, but my feelings had gone rogue due to a biochemical reaction. 

It was after that point that I started to understand that these emotions were simply an input.  They didn't define me, they were simply a signal that I had no control over.  My reaction to them was what I was responsible for. It brought me back to the words of Christ in the Gospel of Mark:

"There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.”   -- Mark 7:15

To bring this back to the original question this started with, I'm fairly certain when somebody says they struggle with trusting God, they aren't usually talking about the choice to trust, they are talking about the feeling of trust.  If I ever go under the knife, I have to choose to trust my surgeon, but I will probably still feel scared.  There is a very important distinction there, and I don't know if it gets hit on often in church because it isn't pleasant to think about. 

Unfortunately, we live in a culture where we are constantly bombarded with the notion of "Follow your heart."  (A very unwise bit of advice for any of us.)  This is a culture that focuses more on the feeling of love than the act of love.  We can see the results of this mindset by looking at divorce statistics...

I guess the best conclusion I can bring this to is this:  If you struggle with anxiety, it doesn't mean you don't trust God.  If you struggle with depression, it doesn't mean you can't have joy.

 Job cried out to God in Job chapter 30 and he absolutely laid out his heart.  He felt God had abandoned him and told God as much in his prayer saying, "I cry to you for help and you do not answer me; I stand, and you only look at me. You have turned cruel to me; with the might of your hand you persecute me," (Job 30:20-21) but when the book comes to a close, God upholds Job and even says that Job spoke rightly. This doesn't mean Job was right, as God had not turned cruel, but God considered nothing Job had said to be sinful.

Even Christ was overwhelmed in Gethsemane saying, "My soul is deeply grieved to the point of death," (Mark 14:34) but we know that Christ's feelings were certainly not sinful. 

Your emotions are inputs, and do not define you any more than your 5 senses do.  You can only be responsible for how you choose to respond to your emotions.  And like Job, sometimes the best response is to cry out to God and let Him know the burdens of our heart.

The Veil of the Temple

I usually like to dive into longer passages of scripture and reference other passages as support, but for today's post, I'm going to center on a short phrase in the Gospels, but one with great meaning:
The account of the Crucifixion in Matthew states "And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom."  It says this amidst describing an earthquake, so one might miss the significance of this event.

***Context Warning***
At this point I would like to put my fallibility disclaimer up. I generally like to adhere to Greg Koukl's wise words "Never read a bible verse." This meaning that all scripture needs to be read in context of the passage because the verse numbering is a relatively modern development and the writers did NOT intend individual verses to be read in a vacuum.  That said, this post is largely topical in nature so not a lot of context is included surrounding each passage.  I made the decision to include a greater number of shorter passages rather than a lesser number of longer ones in order to show a larger arc within scripture as a whole.  
I would like to think that my readings of these passages are true to their context. I have read them in context myself and am confident in my use of them, but as a fallible human being, I encourage anyone reading this to investigate my conclusions by reading the passages in full context.

To do this passage justice let's look back to the earliest incarnation of the Temple, the Tabernacle which was the portable worship center that the Hebrews built and carried with them in the desert.  The Tabernacle was extremely important to the Jews and it's design and construction was described in great detail in Exodus 36-39.  The significance of this was directly due to the presence of God.

Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled on it, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. Throughout all their journeys, whenever the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle, the people of Israel would set out. But if the cloud was not taken up, then they did not set out till the day that it was taken up. For the cloud of the LORD was on the tabernacle by day, and fire was in it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel throughout all their journeys.
-- Exodus 40:34-38

God himself filled the Tabernacle as a cloud by day and fire by night.  His presence was so powerful that even Moses was not able to enter.  It was so powerful that those who entered without permission died.

Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu took their censers, put fire in them and added incense; and they offered unauthorized fire before the Lord, contrary to his command. So fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord. Moses then said to Aaron, “This is what the Lord spoke of when he said:“‘Among those who approach me    I will be proved holy;in the sight of all the people    I will be honored.’”Aaron remained silent.  -- Leviticus 10:1-3

And because of this, God had to set very specific rules for entering the Holy of Holies in the Tabernacle:

The Lord spoke to Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron, when they drew near before the Lord and died, and the Lord said to Moses, “Tell Aaron your brother not to come at any time into the Holy Place inside the veil, before the mercy seat that is on the ark, so that he may not die. For I will appear in the cloud over the mercy seat. But in this way Aaron shall come into the Holy Place: with a bull from the herd for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering.  -- Leviticus 16:1-3

There was a lot involved in this and it is explained in detail in Leviticus, but the short version is that only the High Priest could enter and only on the Day of Atonement when he offered the sacrifices to atone for Israel's sins.

So up until this point we've seen how powerful the presence of God was and how the Hebrews were instructed to deal with his presence.  Also we've seen the separation between God and man being a real physical barrier. A curtain which protected the people from the Holy presence of God's Spirit.

Now this sentence in Matthew holds more significance:

And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit.
And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split.
-- Matthew 27:50-51

The curtain was torn from top to bottom.  There was no longer a barrier between God and His people.  This statement sums up the Gospel beautifully when understood in context.  "The curtain in the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom," is a physical image with a very deep spiritual significance:

Where once we were separated from God due to our impurities, Christ's sacrifice has enabled us to enter his presence.

Beyond that, we no longer need an earthly Priest to offer atonement for us.

Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.-- Hebrews 4:14-16

I guess the next question becomes, where does God's Spirit, this great and powerful presence, dwell now?

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.  They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.
-- Acts 2:1-4

The Holy Spirit descended among the believers on the day of Pentecost.  It filled them in much the same way we saw his presence descend upon the Tabernacle.  Paul also draws this connection in Corinthians:

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.--1 Corinthians 6:19-20

The Holy of Holies does not need its curtain because we have become the Temples of the Holy Spirit.  The same spirit which consumed the Sons of Aaron because they approached unworthy now inhabits those who follow Christ as their High Priest.  Paul expands upon this in his letter to the Romans:

If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.--Romans 8:11

So the Spirit that lives in us is the same Spirit that consumed the sons of Aaron, AND it is the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead!  This is not something to take lightly.  People often use phrases like "It's not a religion, it's a relationship," or "Jesus is my best friend," which are not necessarily incorrect statements, but we can all too often lose the reverence for God.  We become complacent to sin in our lives and take the grace of God for granted.  That passage in 1 Corinthians, in context, was reminding believers not to take sexuality lightly.  That's something I think our current society tends to do.  Paul had to remind the church in Rome not to take sin lightly as well:

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.-- Romans 6:1-4

Keep in mind, I'm not talking about legalism.  I'm not saying anybody needs to live a perfect sinless life. I'm saying we need to view God with the same level of reverence as the Israelites, at their best, viewed him and not take for granted the freedom we have in Christ to commune with the spirit of God and not be consumed.

A Man of Sorrows

Every Good Friday, I like to post Isaiah 53 on social media.  I like prophecy, and this is one of the clearest Messianic prophecies of the Old Testament.  but I think a big thing I tend to gloss over is right in the first 3 verses.

Who has believed our message?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot,
And like a root out of parched ground;
He has no stately form or majesty
That we should look upon Him,
Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him.
He was despised and forsaken of men,
A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;
And like one from whom men hide their face
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.

If you believe, as I do, that this chapter of Isaiah depicts Christ, then this gives us a picture that we don't always like to think of:  Christ as a man of sorrows...

This isn't the only passage that describes the sorrow of Christ.  The New Testament describes Christ weeping at the tomb of Lazarus even knowing He was going to raise him, Christ secluding Himself after hearing of the death of John the Baptist, and Christ expressing His grief in the Garden of Gethsemane.

The example of Lazarus is often cited only because it is the shortest verse in the bible.  I think looking at the account in context will show us more than just reading "Jesus Wept."  Here's the account from the Gospel of John:

Now Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still in the place where Martha met Him. Then the Jews who were with her in the house, and consoling her, when they saw that Mary got up quickly and went out, they followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to weep there. Therefore, when Mary came where Jesus was, she saw Him, and fell at His feet, saying to Him, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.” When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, He was deeply moved in spirit and was troubled, and said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to Him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus wept. So the Jews were saying, “See how He loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not this man, who opened the eyes of the blind man, have kept this man also from dying?”
So Jesus, again being deeply moved within, came to the tomb. Now it was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, “Remove the stone.” Martha, the sister of the deceased, said to Him, “Lord, by this time there will be a stench, for he has been dead four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not say to you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?” So they removed the stone. Then Jesus raised His eyes, and said, “Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. I knew that You always hear Me; but because of the people standing around I said it, so that they may believe that You sent Me.” When He had said these things, He cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come forth.” The man who had died came forth, bound hand and foot with wrappings, and his face was wrapped around with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”  -- John 11:30-44

It's important to note here that Lazarus, Mary, and Martha were not strangers to Jesus.  In John 11:5, it is stated "Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus."  In this context, the weeping makes more sense than it might on the surface.  Jesus clearly understands what is going to happen with Lazarus, so it is doubtful He is mourning the loss of Lazarus, but it's obviously an emotionally charged moment for everyone. He appears to be weeping out of empathy for Mary and Martha.  He has an angry and confused Mary likely shouting at Him in this moment, but He is moved by compassion for her, understanding her pain.  Still this scene comes off fairly stoic in most depictions I've ever seen of it.  I think the stoicism does it a disservice.  Christ was not emotionless.

That second example  I gave is easy to miss as it is only mentioned in passing leading into the feeding of the 5000:

Now when Jesus heard about John, He withdrew from there in a boat to a secluded place by Himself; and when the people heard of this, they followed Him on foot from the cities. When He went ashore, He saw a large crowd, and felt compassion for them and healed their sick.  -- Matthew 14:13-14

I try not to read too much into passages that isn't explicitly stated, but knowing the relationship between Jesus and John the Baptist, this was probably very emotional for Him.  John was born about 6 months before Jesus and was a close relative, so it is possible they were rather close.  Again, this is not explicit in scripture, so I am reading a little bit in.  It is very possible and often discussed that John may not have ever met Jesus in person until the day of His baptism, but again, we really don't know.  It does say in this passage, though, that Jesus withdrew to be by Himself after hearing of John's death, so I think it is safe to read grief into this passage.

The third example was leading up to the Crucifixion.  Jesus explicitly tells His disciples that He is overwhelmed with grief.  Let's look at that account as well:

Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to His disciples, "Sit here while I go over there and pray.” And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be grieved and distressed. Then He said to them, “My soul is deeply grieved, to the point of death; remain here and keep watch with Me.”
And He went a little beyond them, and fell on His face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will.” And He came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, “So, you men could not keep watch with Me for one hour? Keep watching and praying that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
He went away again a second time and prayed, saying, “My Father, if this cannot pass away unless I drink it, Your will be done.” Again He came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. And He left them again, and went away and prayed a third time, saying the same thing once more. Then He came to the disciples and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Behold, the hour is at hand and the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners. Get up, let us be going; behold, the one who betrays Me is at hand!”
While He was still speaking, behold, Judas, one of the twelve, came up accompanied by a large crowd with swords and clubs, who came from the chief priests and elders of the people. Now he who was betraying Him gave them a sign, saying, “Whomever I kiss, He is the one; seize Him.” Immediately Judas went to Jesus and said, “Hail, Rabbi!” and kissed Him. And Jesus said to him, “Friend, do what you have come for.” Then they came and laid hands on Jesus and seized Him.   -- Matthew 26:36-50

Here we have Jesus experiencing tremendous fear knowing what's coming.  He knows the pain He is going to endure.  In the book of Luke, when it gives this account, it describes Jesus as sweating blood because of His anxiety.  (A real phenomenon called Hematidrosis.) In the same passage we also see Jesus experience betrayal a the hands of one of His closest friends.  This leads us into Christ's ultimate sorrow, His crucifixion which we remember this Good Friday:

Then they brought Him to the place Golgotha, which is translated, Place of a Skull. They tried to give Him wine mixed with myrrh; but He did not take it. And they crucified Him, and divided up His garments among themselves, casting lots for them to decide what each man should take. It was the third hour when they crucified Him. The inscription of the charge against Him read, “THE KING OF THE JEWS.”
They crucified two robbers with Him, one on His right and one on His left. [And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “And He was numbered with transgressors.”] Those passing by were [m]hurling abuse at Him, wagging their heads, and saying, “Ha! You who are going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save Yourself, and come down from the cross!” In the same way the chief priests also, along with the scribes, were mocking Him among themselves and saying, “He saved others; He cannot save Himself. Let this Christ, the King of Israel, now come down from the cross, so that we may see and believe!” Those who were crucified with Him were also insulting Him.
When the sixth hour came, darkness fell over the whole land until the ninth hour. At the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” which is translated, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” When some of the bystanders heard it, they began saying, “Behold, He is calling for Elijah.” Someone ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a reed, and gave Him a drink, saying, “Let us see whether Elijah will come to take Him down.” And Jesus uttered a loud cry, and breathed His last. And the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. When the centurion, who was standing right in front of Him, saw the way He breathed His last, he said, “Truly this man was the Son of God!”  -- Mark 15:22-39

Aside from the crucifixion, we often imagine a stoic Jesus; not a man with human emotions.  We discuss His suffering at the cross, but we miss the very real human struggles He dealt with aside from that. Grief. Loss. Betrayal. Temptation. He was also subjected to gossip and slander. Sometimes we lose sight of the fact that Christ was human in every aspect we are human while still being 100% divine.

Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus,  who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,  but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.  -- Philippians 2:5-8

When I hear prosperity preachers like Joel Osteen, I find their message depressing...  They preach that with enough faith, God will grant you material success and comfort.  I've said it before, but if that were the true gospel, then many of us in the church must be doing something wrong. Yes, I believe that Biblical principals can help some with finances and relationships, but those principals only help us steward the blessings we have already been given.  They don't offer us an easy or carefree life. Seeing that Christ's life was not easy or carefree tells me two things.  First, that the Joel Osteens of this world are wolves, and second, that we serve a God who intimately understands our pain and struggles.

I think it is important to look at these struggles of Christ because although most of us cannot relate to the crucifixion, we can relate to His temptation, betrayal, and grief.  We don't serve a God who is distant, who cannot relate to us or understand our struggles. We serve a God who took the form of a man, Jesus Christ, so that He could pay the ultimate penalty for our sins.  A God who took the form of a man and experienced humanity in the same way as you and me.  The book of Hebrews speaks about this:

For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.  -- Hebrews 4:15

Christ can sympathize with us because He knows what it means to be human.  He knows our anxieties.  He knows our temptations.  He knows pain and shame beyond what we can even relate to. He isn't a distant God judging us from afar.  He is a deeply personal God who transcended time and space in order to make a way for us to commune with Him.

In closing, here's the full text of Isaiah 53:

Who has believed our message?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot,
And like a root out of parched ground;
He has no stately form or majesty
That we should look upon Him,
Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him.
He was despised and forsaken of men,
A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;
And like one from whom men hide their face
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
Surely our griefs He Himself bore,
And our sorrows He carried;
Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten of God, and afflicted.
But He was pierced through for our transgressions,
He was crushed for our iniquities;
The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him,
And by His scourging we are healed.
All of us like sheep have gone astray,
Each of us has turned to his own way;
But the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all
To fall on Him.
He was oppressed and He was afflicted,
Yet He did not open His mouth;
Like a lamb that is led to slaughter,
And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers,
So He did not open His mouth.
By oppression and judgment He was taken away;
And as for His generation, who considered
That He was cut off out of the land of the living
For the transgression of my people, to whom the stroke was due?
His grave was assigned with wicked men,
Yet He was with a rich man in His death,
Because He had done no violence,
Nor was there any deceit in His mouth.
But the Lord was pleased
To crush Him, putting Him to grief;
If He would render Himself as a guilt offering,
He will see His offspring,
He will prolong His days,
And the good pleasure of the Lord will prosper in His hand.
As a result of the anguish of His soul,
He will see it and be satisfied;
By His knowledge the Righteous One,
My Servant, will justify the many,
As He will bear their iniquities.
Therefore, I will allot Him a portion with the great,
And He will divide the booty with the strong;
Because He poured out Himself to death,
And was numbered with the transgressors;
Yet He Himself bore the sin of many,
And interceded for the transgressors.

Morality without a Foundation

I remember lecturing at Ohio State University, one of the largest universities in this country. I was minutes away from beginning my lecture, and my host was driving me past a new building called the Wexner Center for the Performing Arts.
He said, “This is America’s first postmodern building.”
I was startled for a moment and I said, “What is a postmodern building?”
He said, “Well, the architect said that he designed this building with no design in mind. When the architect was asked, ‘Why?’ he said, ‘If life itself is capricious, why should our buildings have any design and any meaning?’ So he has pillars that have no purpose. He has stairways that go nowhere. He has a senseless building built and somebody has paid for it.”
I said, “So his argument was that if life has no purpose and design, why should the building have any design?”
He said, “That is correct.”
I said, “Did he do the same with the foundation?”
All of a sudden there was silence.
You see, you and I can fool with the infrastructure as much as we would like, but we dare not fool with the foundation because it will call our bluff in a hurry.            

--Ravi Zacharias

This is an amusing anecdote and may well have been an actual conversation, but it highlights a very true and VERY serious issue...  If one takes away the foundation of a structure, it will ultimately crumble.  It might not be overnight, but it will happen.
This can be said of morality as well. If we deny the existence of God, it is impossible to justify morality in an atheistic world.  Let's be clear, I'm not saying an atheist can not BE moral, or hold moral values, I'm saying that without God one cannot JUSTIFY morality.

Again, I'm NOT saying an atheist cannot have morality, but that without an objective standard of morality, any moral code in a society will eventually give way.  Nietzsche describes this in his Parable of the Madman.  In this parable he describes a madman who is ranting about the death of God at one point saying "God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him." Later in the same parable he says this about the death of God:

"I have come too early," he said then; "my time is not yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering; it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time; the light of the stars requires time; deeds, though done, still require time to be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than most distant stars---and yet they have done it themselves."

In other words, the implications of godlessness won't necessarily be immediately apparent. It will take time for the eventual implications to become apparent, but it will happen.  I will contend we are starting to see the cracks in our society's moral structure today as we've removed God from our sense of morality...

The most common atheistic response I have heard for the justification of morality is that it is a survival mechanism that we evolved. You can say this, but it doesn't make it in any way objective.  What if the person in question does not intend to survive?  Are they now justified in taking the lives of others?  Does life only have value because we want to survive and reproduce?  If that's the case, one could easily begin to make the case for eugenics.  By eliminating the weak or those who cannot reproduce, we can free up resources for the strong and produce stronger offspring.  It sounds like a leap, but it is the ultimate end we arrive at if our only value is that of survival.  And what of cannibalism? Are cannibal tribes now justified in what they do because they evolved a different moral code than ours?  Would it be wrong to destroy societies that have a different moral code in order to preserve the one we've evolved?  If morality is just a survival mechanism, then the ends ultimately justify the means.

Beyond that, if human thought is just a series of chemical reactions in the brain, then we have no reason we can call these reactions moral or immoral.  If the universe is a closed system acted on by only by natural laws, then our choices are merely illusions and are actually made by the chemicals and laws themselves.  However complex or free our choices may seem, they are completely deterministic and ruled by physics and chemistry.  We cannot make value judgments on chemistry. Chemistry isn't right or wrong, it just is...

Whether or not we go this far when teaching it, this kind of morality is implicit when we present our children a world without a God. If our only reasoning for moral behavior is "because I said so" or "Santa won't bring you presents," then our children will eventually outgrow the morality we impose on them.  They are smart enough to make the inference that the absence of God means all morality is arbitrary.  By the time they reach high school (and usually much earlier than this), devoid of any real objective values, they build their own societies, cliques, with their own subjective values.  Those who don't fit into those cliques are treated as having no inherent value and are relentlessly bullied.  Those that are bullied have no objective values instilled in them either and now are forced to decide if they should trust the system that has failed this far in protecting them and we see these students take matters into their own hands.  I ultimately blame godlessness in society for the violence we see in schools today.  The students making hit lists, the school shootings and even, in many cases, the suicides.

And, if there is no God, who are we to say these actions are wrong?  If students form cliques and bully, it is merely the tribal morality that they have evolved in a moral vacuum once they realized there wasn't a man in a big red suit who was rewarding them for good behavior and that their teachers and administrators are fallible.  And the students that responded by violence or suicide?  It was merely the response to stimuli.  Maybe we could have fixed this response with medication that altered their chemistry, but it was all just chemistry, right?  Can you put a moral value judgment on chemistry?

I don't want to get too political about this. I'm not going to take a hard stance on the gun control question.  In the end, I do support the 2nd Amendment.  Are there common sense restrictions we could place on the purchase of firearms?  Maybe.  Will it stop the violence?  Probably not.  There are online guides for making homemade explosives from household cleaners.  If a student is so bent on violence, couldn't they just build a bomb?  I'm not saying we should sit back and do nothing...  I'm saying the problem is deeper than any legislation could reach.  This violence is the eventual result of a godless society.  Without God, who's to even say human life has any value at all?

I don't have a political prescription for this, but I've said for years that politics can't save us. That is the job of Christ. I know the part I need to play as a father.  I need to instill objective morality into my children and make sure they understand that the Creator of the universe is also the author of morality.  I need to make sure they see me valuing my faith, since my words will be empty if not backed by action.  This means doing the right thing even when I don't think they are looking.  This means not classifying certain immoral behaviors as "adult" since that lets children know that they can redefine morality as an adult.  This means requiring church attendance...  I may get some push-back on this but I hear many people say they don't want to force their beliefs on their children, and I wonder:  If your kids see that you don't require they attend church, but do require they attend school, what message does this send them about our priorities?  Do we value success and academic development over moral and spiritual development?  Do we encourage Bible study the way we encourage homework?

Ultimately, I mourn when I see the decay of our culture's morality, especially when it takes the form of mass murder.  I've seen comments and memes that it's because God isn't allowed in schools, but I'm not even sure it's the schools' place to instill morality...  Parents need to instill morality into their children and there MUST be an objective standard for it... Without God, our moral code is like a building with no foundation.  It may have the structure we desire, but it will ultimately crumble under pressure.  Jesus presents a parable about this.  It's found in Matthew 7:24-27:

“Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock.  And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock.  Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.  The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell—and great was its fall.”

I can't tell everyone they need to be Christians or even theists.  I would love it if everyone shared my belief in the loving and gracious God who sent his perfect Son to take away the sins of the world, but I cannot be responsible for anything beyond that which God has given me.  My responsibility is to share and defend my faith and to raise my family with the moral code that was put in place by the Author of Life.  Just as Joshua said in his final recorded speech to the people of Israel:

“Now, therefore, fear the Lord and serve Him in sincerity and truth; and put away the gods which your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. If it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served which were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”  

Joshua 24:15-16