There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true. —Soren Kierkegaard. "…truth is true even if nobody believes it, and falsehood is false even if everybody believes it. That is why truth does not yield to opinion, fashion, numbers, office, or sincerity–it is simply true and that is the end of it" – Os Guinness, Time for Truth, pg.39. “He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his end, may safely trust to God’s providence to lead him aright.” – Blaise Pascal. "There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily" – George Washington letter to Edmund Randolph — 1795. We live in a “post-truth” world. According to the dictionary, “post-truth” means, “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” Simply put, we now live in a culture that seems to value experience and emotion more than truth. Truth will never go away no matter how hard one might wish. Going beyond the MSM idealogical opinion/bias and their low information tabloid reality show news with a distractional superficial focus on entertainment, sensationalism, emotionalism and activist reporting – this blogs goal is to, in some small way, put a plug in the broken dam of truth and save as many as possible from the consequences—temporal and eternal. "The further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those who speak it." – George Orwell “There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” ― Soren Kierkegaard
For the conviction and conversion of atheists, deists, and infidels, and of all who are out of the way of truth, and of profane scoffers and those who disgrace Christianity by their vicious and immoral lives.
O teach transgressors your ways, and let sinners return to you. Psalm 51:13(ESV)
Let those who are straying like sheep return to Jesus Christ, the Shepherd and Overseer of his people’s souls. 1 Peter 2:25(ESV)
Show those fools their folly and misery who have said in their hearts, “There is no God,” and who are corrupt and do abominable deeds. Psalm 14:1(ESV)
Lord, maintain the honor of the Scriptures, the teaching and the testimony, and convince those who speak not according to that word, that it is because they have no dawn. Isaiah 8:20(ESV) You have exalted above all things your name and your word; Psalm 138:2(ESV) magnify the law, magnify the gospel, and make both glorious. Isaiah 42:21(ESV)
Let those who will not be won by the word, be won by the conduct of Christians, 1 Peter 3:1(ESV) which I beg may be such in everything that those who do not believe may be convicted by all and called to account by all, may be brought to worship God and to declare that God is really among them. 1 Corinthians 14:24-25(ESV)
Luke 2:10-12 In this week’s studies, we see that the divine Messiah, the Lord and Savior of the world, has come.
Theme
Jesus, the Anointed One
Now Jesus Christ was announced by the angels to the shepherds as the One who solves that sin problem. He solved it by His own death. He came to die for our sin. Our sin means that we, in our basic nature, are at odds with the God of the universe. And because we’re in opposition to the God of the universe, we’re at odds with all of the laws that govern the universe, all the moral laws that should provide for our well-being if we were obeying that God. And our sin has erected a great barrier between ourselves and God. And it was Jesus, the Son of God, who came to suffer and die in our place in order that that sin barrier might be removed, and that He might open up the possibility of new life and new opportunities for all who trust Him.
That’s wonderful good news. And it’s no wonder that with an announcement like that, the angels said to the shepherds, “I bring you good news of great joy that shall be to all the people,” because indeed it was good news.
Now secondly, this message of the angels was a joyful announcement because it had to do with the Messiah, that is, with the One who had been promised. That’s in the story, too, though somewhat disguised for us in our translations. It’s there in the word, “Christ.” We speak of Jesus Christ, and because we speak of Him that way, we tend to think that “Christ” is something like a last name. You have John Smith, Mary Jones, and Jesus Christ. That’s the way we think. Actually that word, “Christ,” is an English form of the Greek word, “Christos,” which is a translation of the Hebrew word for “Messiah.” Both terms refer to “one who is anointed by God for a special task.” It really means “the Anointed One.” So it’s not a last name, it’s a title. And it has to do with that One who had been promised in all of the Old Testament Scriptures and whose life is recounted in each of the gospels. It is this Messiah who had at last come to earth.
I think of some of those promises. They go way back in the Bible, back to the early chapters of Genesis. You recall that when our first parents, Adam and Eve, sinned, God appeared to pronounce judgment. In the midst of His words of judgment upon the serpent God said, “There is one coming who will crush your head, though you shall bruise his heel.” That was a prophecy of enmity between the people of God and the followers of Satan all down through world history, and the promise of One who should come and, eventually in God’s own time, destroy the works of Satan. Adam and Eve believed that, and so they became the first people on earth to look forward to that One who is the Savior.
The promise was repeated to Abraham. Abraham was led out of a pagan city, Ur of the Chaldees. And as God led him out, He promised that He was going to give him a new land and was going to make him a blessing. God said, “Through you, all the nations of the earth will be blessed.” One might have thought at that point that what God was referring to was somehow a blessing that Abraham himself could bring. But as God pointed out later in the unfolding of the story, the blessing to come from Abraham was not to come from Abraham himself, but from One who should be born in Abraham’s line, the Messiah.
Paul picks up on this later in the book of Galatians in the third chapter and says it was the seed (singular) of Abraham, not the nation as a whole, but that one anointed Messiah who should bring about the redemption that we all need.
Study Questions
What is the meaning of our English word “Christ”? Where does it come from? What does it refer to?
Where do we see this promise concerning Jesus’ coming in the Old Testament?
Application
For Further Study: As you study the Old Testament to see what it says about the coming of Jesus Christ, use a Bible with good reference notes to see what New Testament passages are related to those Old Testament texts. What do you learn from this?
For Further Study: Download and listen for free to James Boice’s message, “The Most Joyful of the Carols.” (Discount will be applied at checkout.)
J. Warner Wallace discusses the unique investigative approach he took to examining the evidence in the universe. Can scientists account for the evidence in the universe with purely “natural” explanations? If not, what is the best explanation for this evidence? For more information about Meg Meeker and Family Talk, please visit their website.
One of the most common objections skeptics raise to the deity of Christ is the idea that Jesus never actually claimed to be God. Sure the church ended up worshiping Him as such, but this was a later development that was projected onto Jesus but wasn’t something He intended to claim for Himself . . . or so the argument goes.
If you are expecting to find a Bible verse in which Jesus stands on the Mount of Olives and proclaims in English, and every other known language, “I am God!” You won’t find it. He actually did one better . . . but we’ll save that for the end.
Biblically, there are several ways to know that Jesus is God. He accepted worship, possessed all the eternal attributes of God, did things only God can do, and was given titles of deity. (Those are all great subjects for future blog posts.)
But Jesus did also CLAIM to be God, and here are three times He did just that:
#1 Mark 14:61-62
After His arrest, Jesus was brought before the Sanhedrin, the Jewish court. The high priest asked him point blank: “Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?” Jesus replied, “I am…and all of you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power and coming with the clouds of heaven.”
Reading with modern eyes, it looks as if Jesus is simply claiming to be a “son of man”—not God Himself. But when set within its cultural and biblical context, Jesus was making a reference to a prophecy in the book of Daniel. This not only identified Him as the “Son of Man” predicted in chapter 7, but the eternal Sovereign Lord of all, who will return to judge the very court in which He now stood trial. When seen in the light of Psalm 110, Jesus was claiming to sit on the very throne of Israel’s God.
Still fuzzy? It wasn’t to the biblically literate Jews who heard him make these claims. In fact, Jesus’ claim to be God was considered blasphemy, and according to Leviticus 24:16, blasphemy was punishable by death. The high priest acknowledged his understanding of this by tearing his robes and calling for Jesus’ execution (Mark 14:63-65).
#2 John 10:30
One day, Jesus was walking around the temple complex and was surrounded by some Jews who wanted to know if He was the Messiah. After identifying God the Father as “greater than all,” He said, “The Father and I are one.”
Through modern eyes, this could look like Jesus was simply saying that He and God had some kind of special connection—that they were really “in sync.” But when seen through the eyes of ancient Jews, Jesus was actually claiming to be of the same essence and nature as God Himself.
We only need to look at the reaction of the Jews to know that they understood what Jesus was saying. They immediately picked up stones to stone Him for “blasphemy,” saying, “because you, a mere man, claim to be God!”
#3 John 8:58
While having a heated argument with some Judeans about their relationship to Abraham, they asked Jesus in verse 53, “Who do you think you are?” To this Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” I AM. This is Jesus’ most explicit claim to deity.
Modern eyes might read this and think, I am . . . what? Rewind over a thousand years to Exodus 3, where we find Moses standing face to face with a bush engulfed in flames. From within the bush, God calls Moses and unmistakably identifies Himself: “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” When Moses asks for God’s actual name, God answers, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘ I AM has sent me to you.’”
When Jesus identified Himself as “I am,” He was not only claiming to be God, but the very God of the Old Testament: The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Of course, the Jews understood exactly what He was claiming, and once again, picked up stones to execute Him for blasphemy.
Jesus was an intentional and articulate communicator and there was no ambiguous language in His claims to deity. The people to whom he was speaking were not confused—they got the message.
Three times He claimed to be God, and three times they wanted Him dead for it.
Early Evidence for the Resurrection by Dr. Gary Habermas (DVD), (Mp3) and (Mp4)
How Can Jesus be the Only Way? Mp4, Mp3, and DVD by Frank Turek
Person of Interest: Why Jesus Still Matters in a World that Rejects the Bible by J. Warner Wallace (Paperback), (Investigator’s Guide).
Alisa Childers is an American singer and songwriter, best known for being in the all-female Christian music group ZOEgirl. She has had a string of top ten radio singles, four studio releases, and received the Dove Award during her time with ZOEgirl. In later years, Alisa found her life-long faith deeply challenged when she started attending what would later identify as a Progressive Christian church. This challenge pushed Alisa toward Christian Apologetics. Today you can read, listen and watch Alisa’s work online as well as purchase her recently published book on Progressive Christianity titled Another Gospel.
Here are ten peaceful Christmas Eve prayers. You can personalize them in whatever ways the Holy Spirit leads you to connect with God and experience peace this Christmas.
Peace is a vital part of the sacred night of Christmas Eve. On the first Christmas, when angels appeared in Bethlehem to announce Jesus Christ’s birth, they praised God for the peace that Jesus would bring to humanity. Luke 2:13-14 reports: “Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.’” A profound message of peace accompanies Jesus’ birth, so peace is an important part of Christmas. When you pray peaceful Christmas Eve prayers and meditate on Bible verses about peace, God can bring peace to you, and through you, in many different ways this Christmas.
Christmas Eve offers a unique opportunity to seek peace that you can experience, even in our troubled fallen world, through a relationship with Jesus. In John 16:33, Jesus promises: “…in me you may have peace. In this world, you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” This Christmas Eve, you can experience peace in any circumstances when you reach out to communicate with God. Enjoy spending time in prayer and meditation to draw closer to God and experiencethe peace that only God can give you. Plan some peaceful times of silence and solitude to spend with God on Christmas Eve. Take a break from the busyness of Christmas Eve festivities to connect with God in moments of tranquility that allow you to connect with the deeper meaning of Christmas. Open your heart and mind to receiving God’s peace and inviting God to send his peace through you into the world.
Here are ten peaceful Christmas Eve prayers. You can personalize them in whatever ways the Holy Spirit leads you to connect with God and experience peace this Christmas.
Dear God, on this holy night, I acknowledge my need to renew my peace with you. Romans 5:1 reassures me: “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. ” As I celebrate the birth of Jesus, may this peace deepen my connection with you, going beyond religious rituals to a genuine and heartfelt relationship with you. Let my prayers tonight be a dialogue that helps me move closer to you and experience your peace in fresh ways. I confess my sins – known and unknown – to you, and ask you to forgive me, help me learn from my mistakes, and empower me to move forward with confidence in your love. I love you, Lord, and I receive your love for me. Thank you; amen.
2. A prayer to embrace God’s unconditional love for peace.
My loving Heavenly Father, on this night that celebrates your love for humanity, let me bask in the warmth of your unconditional love for me. I’m grateful for the words of Romans 8:37-39: “…we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Your promises to love me no matter what give me great peace. Your love embraces me so strongly that I don’t need to worry about ever losing your love. As I enjoy the peace of living with your unconditional love, inspire me to show other people grace and mercy like you have shown to me.
3. A prayer for peace in the middle of holiday stress.
3. A prayer for peace in the middle of holiday stress.
SLIDE 2 OF 5
Eternal God, in the middle of this stressful holiday season, please help me notice your presence with me, so I can focus on you and find real peace. Inspire me with wonder this Christmas Eve. May I enjoy transcendent moments of awe as I see glimpses of your work in my life. I worship you on this sacred night, God. My soul is full of gratitude for the ultimate gift of Jesus you gave our world. As I celebrate tonight, help me focus on you and not get distracted by time pressures, financial pressures, family conflicts, or any other type of holiday stress. Thank you for reaching through all the holiday stress with your powerful peace, God. Amen.
4. A prayer for inner peace that transcends all circumstances.
My Heavenly Father, this Christmas Eve, may I experience the peace that Philippians 4:6-7 describes I can find when I pray about everything that concerns me: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” I lift each of the concerns in my heart and mind to you right now. Thank you for working for what’s best in each of these situations. I trust you to help me with all I’m facing, and to bring me joy even in difficult circumstances. I release all the anxiety that burdens my heart and mind, and ask you to replace it with the peaceful assurance that comes from knowing you are in control. Thank you, God. Amen.
Related: The Your Daily Prayer Podcast is currently sharing some of our favorite Christmas and Advent Prayers. To listen to our Prayer to Prepare Him Room, just click the play button below.
5. A prayer for peace and reconciliation for relationships.
5. A prayer for peace and reconciliation for relationships.
SLIDE 3 OF 5
Almighty God, as I gather with my family and friends on this Christmas Eve, I recognize the potential for both joy and tension. Colossians 3:13 reminds me to: “Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” Help me pursue forgiveness this Christmas. Please give me the strength to forgive others who have hurt me, and to ask the people I have hurt to forgive me. When others are willing, help us repair strained or broken relationships and reconcile with peace. In all of my relationships, guide my words and actions, enabling me to be kind. May I enjoy as much peace as possible in my relationships. Amen.
6. A prayer to find peace in turbulent times.
Jesus, Prince of Peace, I ask you for peace in these turbulent times of uncertainty and challenges. I never know what new tragedy I’ll learn about in the news. There is so much brokenness in our fallen world. But I find hope in your promise in John 14:27: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” May this peace anchor me as I face life’s storms, giving me a peaceful and steady refuge with you, no matter what happens. Thank you that your peace is unshakable in any situation in my life and in our world. I love you, God. Amen.
Photo Credit: Deagreez
7. A prayer for global peace.
7. A prayer for global peace.
SLIDE 4 OF 5
God of all nations, on this Christmas Eve, I pray for peace in our troubled world. Please keep reaching out to leaders around the world, giving them your wisdom to resolve conflicts. Help people on all sides of the wars that are going on right now, sending them the healing they need. In Isaiah 2:4, I read of a future time during the last days when you “… will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.” I earnestly pray for a world where nations seek unity over conflict. May the spirit of Christmas foster cooperation and understanding among diverse people in our world. Please give your people around the world the wisdom to pursue diplomacy with a sense of our common humanity in your global family. Amen.
8. A prayer to become a peacemaker.
Merciful God, in this world that’s longing for peace, please empower me to be a peacemaker. You say in Matthew 5:9: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” Help me work for peace however I can. Guide me to peaceful resolutions for conflicts in my life. Show me how I can pursue initiatives that promote peace in my community and in the world. Make me an ambassador of your transformative love in this broken world, helping others see that you are the true source of peace. As I work for peace in each situation, empower me with compassion, understanding, and a commitment to making positive change happen. Thank you, God. Amen.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
These are exciting days in which to be studying Genesis. They are especially exciting for theologians and other students of the Bible, for much has recently been written on Genesis and there is new openness to looking at the book in the light of scientific data and theories as well as at science in the light of the Bible. They are also exciting from the viewpoint of recent developments in science, particularly those bearing on the origins of the universe. Science has undergone what can almost be described as a revolution. For generations the prevailing view of the universe had been what is known as the steady state theory. That is, the universe has always been and will always be. It is ungenerated and indestructible. Such a view was materialistic and atheistic. It contained no place for God. In recent years this view has given way to the theory that the universe actually had an instant of creation. It came into being 15 to 20 billion years ago in a gigantic fireball explosion that sent suns and planets tumbling outward from this center into the form we observe them now. Moreover, they are still moving outward. In contrast to the steady state idea, this is called the big bang theory in reference to the instant of creation. The change in scientific thinking goes back to 1913, when an astronomer at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, Vesto Melvin Slipher, discovered through his study of the shifting light spectrum of very distant stars that the galaxies in which these stars were found appeared to be receding from the earth at tremendous speeds—up to 2 million miles per hour. Six years later, in 1919, another American astronomer, Edwin Hubble, used Slipher’s findings to formulate a law for an expanding universe, which pointed to a moment of creation. Meanwhile, Albert Einstein’s theories of relativity were shaking Newtonian physics. And two Bell Telephone laboratory scientists, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, were using new and sophisticated electronic equipment to pick up background radiation from all parts of the universe, which they now identified as the leftover “noise” of that first great explosion. To be sure, there are still many problems. Current scientific theory puts the origin of the universe at a point approaching 20 billion years ago, which some Christians find unacceptable. Again the big bang theory, even if true, tells us nothing about the thing or One who caused it. Nor does it throw light on why the universe has such astonishing complexity and order or how life originated or many other things. Yet this is still exciting if for no other reason than that “the Big Bang theory sounds very much like the story that the Old Testament has been telling all along,” as Time magazine wrote. Robert Jastrow, Director of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Goddard Institute, puts it even more strongly. He is known for two very popular books, Red Giants and White Dwarfs and Until the Sun Dies. Now, in God and the Astronomers, he writes of the dismay of scientists who are brought by their own method back to a point beyond which they cannot go. “There is a kind of religion in science; it is the religion of a person who believes there is order and harmony in the Universe. Every event can be explained in a rational way as the product of some previous event.… This religious faith of the scientist is violated by the discovery that the world had a beginning under conditions in which the known laws of physics are not valid, and as a product of forces or circumstances we cannot discover.… At this moment it seems as though science will never be able to raise the curtain on the mystery of creation. For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.” None of this should make the theologians smug, however. They should remember that they have not been without difficulties in their attempts to understand Genesis and that the ancient Hebrews were not without wisdom when they forbade anyone under thirty to expound the first chapter to others.
Roots
The significance of Genesis is not in its proof or disproof of scientific theories, however, any more than the significance of science is in its proof or disproof of the Bible. It is important for its teaching about the origin of all things, which is what the word “Genesis” means. Genesis takes us back to the beginnings, and this is very important because our sense of worth as human beings depends in part on our origins. In a smaller but very dramatic way, we have recently witnessed something like this in American pop culture. In early 1977 a serialized presentation of Alex Haley’s Roots, a book in which this distinguished black author traced the historical origins of his family back through their days of slavery in the old South to his African progenitors, was first aired on American television. This series was a success of such proportions that it astonished planners and producers alike. By the end of its seven-night run, Roots commanded 66 percent of the television audience—about 130 million people—and had become the most watched television program ever. It has been rebroadcast, both here and abroad, and has caused hundreds of colleges to provide Roots courses. In the aftermath of that historical week in January, thousands of Americans scrambled into libraries to search out their own family origins. The National Archives in Washington found itself flooded with requests for ancestral information. What caused this astonishing phenomenon? Some have suggested that it was Haley’s frank and wise handling of the racial issue. But Haley did not think this was the explanation, nor do many others. The reason for the popularity of Roots is that it discovered a sense of present dignity and meaning for one black family by tracing its link to the past and thus also providing a direction for the future. In this it gave a sense of meaning to us all. In an earlier age this would not have been so important, because many people at least still had a sense of history. They knew where they had come from and hence had an optimistic outlook on what the future would hold. But that has evaporated in current culture so that, as a number of writers have correctly pointed out, this has become the “now” generation in which any firm anchor to the past has been lost. We have been told that the past is meaningless. Everything is focused on the present. We are told by the advertisers that “we only go around once.” We should forget about the past and not worry about the future. It sounds like good philosophy. But the loneliness and anxiety of a philosophy like that is almost intolerable. Consequently, when Roots came along many identified with Haley’s search for the past and for dignity. R. C. Sproul, founder of Ligonier Valley Study Center, has analyzed this in terms of secularism, which means “living within the bounds of this age” (from the Latin saeculum, meaning age). It is to live with our outlook confined to this period alone—without the past, without a future, above all without God, who is in both past and future and controls them. He writes of the secular man,
Man in the twentieth century has been busily engaged in a quest for dignity. It is a very earnest quest. The civil rights movement developed the cry, “We are human beings; we are creatures of dignity; we want to be treated as beings of dignity.” So also have others. But the existentialist tells us that our roots are in nothingness, that our future is in nothingness, and he asks, “Think, man, if your origins are in nothing and your destiny is in nothing, how can you possibly have any dignity now?” … If our past history tells us that we have emerged from the slime, that we are only grown-up germs, what difference can it possibly make whether we are black germs or white germs, whether we are free germs or enslaved germs? Who cares? We can sing of the dignity of man, but unless that dignity is rooted substantially in that which has intrinsic value, all our songs of human rights and dignity are so much whistling in the dark. They are naïve, simplistic and credulous. And the existentialist understands that. He says, “You’re playing games when you call yourselves creatures of dignity. If all you have is the present, there is no dignity, only nothingness.”
This is what Alex Haley saw and what those many thousands of Americans saw who took their clue from Haley and began to search through libraries for their history. It is what makes Genesis important. Genesis is important because it gives us our origins—not merely the origins of one particular family but the origins of matter, life, values, evil, grace, the family, nations, and other things—in a way that unites us all. Without the teachings of this book, life itself is meaningless. There are even parts of the Bible that are meaningless. Without this book, the Bible would be like the last acts of a play without the first act, or a meeting of a corporation’s trustees with no agenda. Henry M. Morris has written, “The books of the Old Testament, narrating God’s dealings with the people of Israel, would be provincial and bigoted, were they not set in the context of God’s developing purposes for all mankind, as laid down in the early chapters of Genesis. The New Testament, describing the execution and implementation of God’s plan for man’s redemption, is redundant and anachronistic, except in the light of man’s desperate need for salvation, as established in the record of man’s primeval history, recorded only in Genesis.… A believing understanding of the Book of Genesis is therefore prerequisite to an understanding of God and his meaning to man.”
All Things Wise and Wonderful
In our study of Genesis we are going to look at each of these matters in detail, but as we start we can cast our eyes ahead over a few of them. They are a part of those many things both “wise and wonderful” that confront us in the Word of God.
The first great matter of the Bible, the one related most directly to our origins, is God, who has no beginnings at all. He is the first subject mentioned: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” This sentence is among the most profound statements ever written, which we shall see when we come to study it in greater detail. But even here we must see that these words already take us beyond the farthest point that can be viewed by science. Science can take us back to the big bang, to the moment of creation. But if that original, colossal explosion obliterated anything that came before it, as science suggests, then nothing before that point can be known scientifically, including the cause of the explosion. The Bible comes forward at this point to tell us simply, “In the beginning God.…” We may want to bring God down into our little microscope where we can examine him and subject him to the laws of matter, of cause and effect, which we can understand. But fret as we might, God does not conform to our desires. He confronts us as the One who was in existence before anything we can even imagine and who will be there after anything we can imagine. Ultimately it is he alone with whom we have to do.
The opening chapters of Genesis also tell us the origin of man, the matter we have been looking at most closely in this chapter. Without this revelation we may look to ourselves in this present moment and conclude, as did the French philosopher René Descartes, “I think; therefore I am.” But beyond that even the simplest philosophical question confounds us. Our son or daughter asks, “Daddy, where did I come from?” and we answer with an explanation of human reproduction. “Yes, but where did you and Mommy come from?… Where did Grandma come from?” The questions baffle us apart from the divine revelation. John H. Gerstner, professor of church history at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, tells a story concerning Arthur Schopenhauer, the famous nineteenth-century philosophical pessimist. Schopenhauer did not always dress like a product of Bond Street—he often dressed more like a bum—and he was sitting in a park in Berlin one day when his appearance aroused the suspicions of a policeman. The policeman asked who he thought he was. Schopenhauer replied, “I would to God I knew.” As Gerstner points out, the only way he could have learned who he was would have been to find out from God, who has revealed this to us in Genesis.
Genesis gives the origin of the human family that is—moderns especially must take note—not something that has been dreamed up by fallen men and women but something established by God even before the fall for our good. People have added to God’s provision, but not by way of improvement. They have added polygamy, prostitution, promiscuity, divorce, and homosexuality. But these are corruptions of God’s original order and bring frustration, misery, and eventual judgment on those who practice them. People are blessed only as they return to God’s original plan for the home, the ordering of the sexes, and the responsibilities within marriage of both husband and wife.
Genesis tells us of the origins of evil, at least so far as man is concerned. I give this qualification for two reasons. First, because the account of the fall involves temptation by the serpent and we are not told by Genesis where the serpent came from. (There are hints of it elsewhere.) Second, because there are philosophical questions about how evil could even come into a world created by a good and holy God. This much is told us in Genesis: The evil that involves mankind is the product of our own choice, expressed as a rebellion against God, and it has affected us so totally that there is now nothing we can do to restore ourselves or regain that position of privilege and responsibility that we lost by rebellion. It is as if we had jumped into a pit. Before the jump we had the capacity for self-determination. We could use that capacity to remain on the edge of the pit or to jump in. But once we had exercised our freedom of choice in the matter by jumping, our choice was gone in that area and thereafter there was nothing we could do to restore our former state of blessedness. Moreover, because it was our choice and not that of another, we are guilty for what we have done and now quite rightly stand under the inevitable judgment of God.
We can do nothing. But God can—God can do anything—and the wonder of the gospel appears in the promise of One who would come to undo the results of Adam’s transgression. The origins of salvation are therefore also to be found in this book. This is true in two senses. First, there are promises of a Savior to come, as I have indicated. When Adam and Eve sinned and God came to them in the garden, he first rebuked the sin. But then he spoke of hope in the person of One who should crush the head of Satan. Speaking to the serpent he said, “He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel” (Gen. 3:15). As the book goes on, this cryptic statement is elaborated and explained. God spoke to Abraham of a descendant who would be the source of divine blessing to all nations: “Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your offspring [singular] all nations on earth will be blessed” (Gen. 22:17–18; cf. Gal. 3:8). Still later, Jacob spoke of him as a descendant of the tribe of Judah: “The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs and the obedience of the nations is his” (Gen. 49:10). The second way Genesis foreshadows the coming of Christ is by its record of the institution and performance of the sacrifices, which he alone fulfilled.
A sixth and very important origin in Genesis is the doctrine of justification by faith, clearly seen first in the experience of Abraham. We are told: “Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness” (Gen. 15:6). If righteousness was “credited” to Abraham, then Abraham had none of his own. It was the gift of God. Moreover, it was credited to him not on the basis of his works, love, service, or obedience, but on the basis of his faith, that is, on the basis of his taking God’s word in the matter of salvation. In reference to this statement Paul later wrote, “The words ‘it was credited to him’ were written not for him alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification” (Rom. 4:23–25).
Genesis also contains the first teaching in the Bible of the sovereign election of God in salvation. When Adam and Eve sinned, they did not come to God. They hid from him. He took the initiative in seeking them out and in beginning to teach the means of salvation through the death of the Mediator. It was the same with Abraham. Abraham did not seek God. He did not even know who the true God was. But God called Abraham and made him the father of a favored nation through whom the Redeemer should come. God chose Isaac and not Ishmael. He chose Jacob and not Esau. In the New Testament Paul uses these examples to show that salvation does not “depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy.… God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden” (Rom. 9:16, 18).
Finally there are the origins of divine judgment. In the story of God’s encounter with fallen Eve and Adam, we see accountability and a certain degree of judgment, but for the most part judgment is set aside or postponed. This is not so in the judgment of the flood under Noah, through which all but Noah and his immediate family perished. This is brought forward in the New Testament as a reminder of the reality and inescapability of the final judgment (2 Peter 3:3–10).
Back and Forward
When the secularists came along in the middle of the last century and cut the society of their day off from any sense of history, the deed was greeted with cries of joyous appreciation and great glee. To be freed from the past, particularly from the biblical past with its God of moral standards and threats of judgment, seemed to be true liberation. Man was free! And if he was free, he could do as he pleased—which is what he had wanted to do all along—without fear of God or judgment! Unfortunately, secular man did not see at what price this ghost of liberty had been won. Free of the past? Yes! And of the future too! But now man was adrift on a great sea of nothingness, a bubble on the deep, having come from nothing and drifting to a meaningless shore. No wonder that contemporary man is empty, miserable, frustrated. He is on the verge of a monumental breakdown. He gained freedom (so-called) but at the loss of value, meaning, and true dignity. No wonder he is searching for his roots, as Haley’s video phenomenon reminds us. Fortunately, men and women can go back … and forward too. But the past and future are not in Haley. They are in the Bible where we find ourselves as we truly are—made in the image of almighty God, hence, creatures of value; fallen tragically, yet redeemable by God through the power and grace displayed in Jesus Christ.
Fact or Fiction?
Genesis 1:1
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Genesis raises many questions. One is whether it is to be understood as fact or fiction. This is a question we must settle early, for our views about the nature of the book will determine how we interpret it. If the story of the fall of Adam and Eve into sin is fiction, perhaps “theological fiction,” as some would call it, it may be intended to give insight into what is basically wrong with us as individuals. It may show our frailty, sin, even our attitude of rebellion against God. But if it is not historical, if there was no literal fall, then there was no previous state of innocence and no guilt for having fallen from it. In other words, we are not sinful because of our own willful rebellion against God. We are simply sinful. We need a helper, perhaps a Savior. But we do not need to confess our sin and repudiate it. Similarly, if the flood is not history but only a myth created to teach certain eternal truths, the story may teach that God does not like sin. But it loses the fearful truth that God intervenes in history to judge sin and will judge it totally and perfectly at the end of time. Is Genesis fact or fiction? Is it to be understood as a recounting of literal events? Or is it something like inspired poetry in which “spiritual” but not “historical” truths are taught? There are many who opt for fiction. Liberals have done this for years, calling Genesis “myth” or “fable.” Recently even some prominent evangelicals have been willing to take this position.
All Scripture from God
The starting point for answering whether Genesis is fact or fiction—though it does not settle everything—is that Genesis is a part of Holy Scripture and has therefore been given to us by God and speaks with his authority. We think here of 2 Timothy 3:16: “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.” When Paul wrote those words he had Genesis in mind as much as any other portion of Scripture. So if we accept his teaching, as all Christians should and must, this will have bearing on how we view Genesis. The inspiration of Genesis does not settle everything concerning whether it is fact or fiction, for God can inspire fiction (for his own holy purposes) as well as he can inspire historical narration. Poetry is not always factually true, yet God inspired the poetry of the psalms. Our Lord told parables, which are stories told to make a clear spiritual point. Still, the inspiration of Genesis is not without bearing on the matter at hand in that it at least tells us that the book is the revelation of God to men (through the agency of the human writer) and not the gropings of any single man or men after the meaning of God or creation. When liberals talk of myth, fable, or fiction it is the latter conception they have in mind. They are putting Genesis on a level with any other document that may have come down to us from ancient times. But it is not like any other document if it is truly given to us by revelation. E. J. Young, former professor of Old Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary (until his death in 1968), stated the matter succinctly: “The Bible is either a revelation of God, or it is simply the gropings of the Hebrew nation and the presentation of the best that they could find.” If it is a revelation from God, then “God has told us about the creation, and we [should] believe that it is historical, that is, that it actually took place, because God has so spoken.”
The Assumption of Scripture
The second point bearing on our question is the teaching—or, perhaps more accurately, the assumption (since the issue is not handled in a formal way)—of the rest of Scripture that Genesis is historical. Put as a question the issue is: Does the rest of the Bible view the Book of Genesis as fiction, or does it view it as fact? This is the point with which Francis Schaeffer begins his short study of Genesis in Space and Time. His position is that the mentality of the whole Scripture is that “creation is as historically real as the history of the Jews and our own present moment of time. Both the Old and the New Testaments deliberately root themselves back into the early chapters of Genesis, insisting that they are a record of historical events.” As a case in point, Schaeffer cites the 136th psalm, which praises God for his enduring love. The psalm begins with a doxology but then passes on to the reasons why we should praise him. The first of these reasons is his work of creation:
who by his understanding made the heavens,
His love endures forever.
who spread out the earth upon the waters,
His love endures forever.
who made the great lights—
His love endures forever.
the sun to govern the day,
His love endures forever.
the moon and stars to govern the night;
His love endures forever.
verses 5–9
Without any apparent break and certainly without any indication that he is now beginning to write in a historical rather than in a poetical or less than literal vein, the poet then goes on to list a second reason why God should be praised: his work of delivering Israel from Egypt:
to him who struck down the firstborn of Egypt
His love endures forever.
and brought Israel out from among them
His love endures forever.
with a mighty hand and outstretched arm;
His love endures forever.
verses 10–12
The psalm continues to speak of the dividing of the Red Sea, God’s leading of the people through the wilderness, the defeat of the kings who had been occupying the land into which they came (Sihon king of the Amorites and Og king of Bashan—it cites them by name), the gift of the land, and then finally, the blessings of God to Israel in what was then the present time:
to the One who remembered us in our low estate
His love endures forever.
and freed us from our enemies,
His love endures forever.
and who gives food to every creature.
His love endures forever.
verses 23–25
What is involved here? Obviously a view of history and of God’s specific acts in history according to which there is natural continuity between the acts of God in creation and the events of the present day. This means that the Genesis account is to be taken as history. A person may still say, “I believe that Genesis is put forth in the Bible as if it were history, but I do not believe its account.” This would be an honest person holding to convictions. But what we cannot say is, “I believe that the Genesis account is profoundly and spiritually true and that the Bible teaches this; it is poetry.” The one who says that is either dishonest or else is a faulty interpreter of the Bible’s teaching.
The Teaching of Jesus
A special aspect of the attitude of Scripture to Genesis is the teaching of Jesus Christ. This obviously carries special weight. We do not suggest that if Jesus did not specifically teach that the events and personages of Genesis were real events and real personages that the teaching of the rest of the Bible could therefore be abandoned. But it is surely of interest to those who profess to follow Jesus as their Lord to know what he said. His teaching has special weight if only because we revere the Lord highly. Did Jesus consider the accounts of Genesis historical? Indeed he did! He quoted them as fact to prove other points in contention. When the Pharisees came to Jesus to ask a question about divorce—“Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”—Jesus replied by a specific reference to Genesis 1:27 and 2:24. He said, “Haven’t you read … that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate” (Matt. 19:3–6). Jesus’ reply assumes God to be the Creator of the first man and woman, Adam and Eve, as well as being the One who instituted marriage. In fact, it shows Christ’s belief in the compatibility of the two parallel accounts of creation (in Genesis 1 and 2), since his reply contains a mutually supportive reference from each chapter. In Mark 13:19, Jesus spoke of “the beginning, when God created the world.”
The Ancient Cosmologies
None of this will have much weight with those who consider the Genesis accounts to be mere versions of those clearly mythical accounts of creation that circulated in the ancient east both before and after the time Genesis was written. There are the Babylonian Epic of Creation and the cosmologies of Egypt and Phoenicia. These have similarities to the accounts in Genesis. If Genesis is merely one of them, must we not think that Jesus was mistaken in his view of creation or at least (some have suggested this) merely adapted his teaching to the viewpoints of his day, though he himself knew better, being God? The opinion of the recognized dean of archaeologists, William F. Albright, is helpful at this point. Albright was not an evangelical—though he became increasingly conservative as his studies progressed—yet he spoke openly about the lack of similarity between Genesis and the other ancient accounts. His own view was that Israel was a “rarely endowed people” who selected “the most vital elements in their religious literatures,” combined them into “a new and richer synthesis,” purified them by “the monotheism of Moses, and spiritualized [them] by the inspired insight of the Prophets.” In other words, it was an almost purely human process. Yet in spite of this basic humanistic orientation, Albright argued that it is difficult to see how this early “mythological structure can be connected in any direct way whatsoever with the biblical story.” Albright argued that the Babylonian Epic does have certain superficial resemblances to the Genesis account. It has seven tables, while the Jewish account represents creation as having taken place over a period of seven days. At some points the language is similar. But beyond that, hardly anything is the same. The Hebrew account is monotheistic. Its language is terse. The Babylonian account is polytheistic, verbose, and crassly mythological. At the beginning there are two monsters, represented as dragons: Apsu, the freshwater subterranean ocean, and his consort Tiamat, the saltwater ocean that surrounds the earth. From these two spring a generation of deities, the last of which become so powerful that Apsu and Tiamat plot to destroy them. The result is a titanic struggle in which Tiamat is slain. Her body is split in two. The upper half is formed into the heavens. The lower half is formed into the earth. Men and women are made from the blood of Qingu, Tiamat’s chief minister. The text says, “Punishment they imposed on him, his blood-vessels they cut open, with his blood they created mankind.” Albright maintains, and I agree with him, that nearly anyone can see the vast gulf separating this obviously mythological account from the serious, historical account in Genesis. Don’t scholars still argue that the Genesis account is myth? Yes, some do. But I am reminded of a remark made by C. S. Lewis. He said that when some learned scholar tells him that portions of the biblical narrative are myth, he does not want to know what his credentials are in the area of his biblical scholarship but rather how many myths he has read. Myths were Lewis’s business, and it was his testimony that the biblical accounts were not among them. Some will still argue that we are missing the point. For whether the language of Genesis 1 is mythical or not, these will still think it inadequate for giving a truly factual (by which they mean “scientific”) account of creation. Let us think this through. The account of creation might have been written in one of three ways: 1) in scientific language, 2) in straightforward historical prose, or 3) in poetry. Poetry is out, for the reason that it does not go far enough. It does not tell us what we most want to know. This leaves scientific language and historical prose. What would it take for the account of creation to be written in scientific language? My opinion is not worth much at this point, but I quote from Frederick A. Filby who has been a professor of chemistry in England for many years. He has registered his convictions in Creation Revealed.
The sciences which probe most deeply into the ultimate facts of matter and life are probably astro- and nuclear physics and biochemistry. But these sciences are written, not so much in languages as in symbols. It takes many pages of symbols to discuss the nature of a single atom of hydrogen. It has been estimated that to give a complete account of the position of the groups and bonds in a single virus of “molecular weight 300 million” would take a 200-page book. If the scientific description of a single hydrogen atom, or of a virus too small to be seen without a microscope, takes a book, what hope is there of ever giving a scientific account of the creation of man and the universe? Yet Genesis 1 in its original form uses only 76 different root words. If Genesis 1 were written in absolute scientific language to give an account of creation, there is no man alive, nor ever has there been, who could understand it. If it were written in any kind of scientific language, only the favored few could comprehend it. It would have to be rewritten every generation to conform to the new views and terms of science. It could not be written in our mid-twentieth century scientific language, for no earlier generation could have grasped its meaning, and to our children it would be out-of-date. The scientific description of the “how” of the universe is beyond the understanding of any human brain, but Genesis 1 was written for all readers, not for none.… What then would be the best method for the Creator to use for (1) making a beginning to his book and (2) establishing that the God of the Bible is also the God of creation—in language simple enough for all men in all time? The answer is … Genesis 1 … the most amazing composition in all the world’s literature, using only 76 different word-forms fundamental to all mankind, arranged in a wonderful poetical pattern yet free from any highly colored figures of speech. It provides the perfect opening to God’s book and establishes all that men really need to know of the facts of creation. No man could have invented it: it is as great a marvel as a plant or a bird. It is God’s handiwork, sufficient for Hebrew children or Greek thinkers or Latin Christians; for medieval knights or modern scientists or little children; for cottage dwellers or cattle ranchers or deep sea fishermen; for Laplanders or Ethiopians, East or West, rich or poor, old or young, simple or learned … sufficient for all! Only God could write such a chapter … and he did.
I find that statement of conviction by a well-trained scientist compelling. Moreover, it is to the point, for the most fundamental of all issues is whether or not God has spoken in Scripture as the Bible claims he has. In the last chapter, I spoke of origins and beginnings, many of which are dealt with in Genesis. But Genesis serves another purpose, and that is to force us back to origins in the matter of our own thought values. It forces us to this: Has God spoken? Has he spoken here? Answer that in the negative, and all is chaos. Answer yes, and all that follows will become increasingly clear.
In the Beginning God
Genesis 1:1
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
When we say that Genesis is to be understood historically—as fact rather than fiction—we do not mean that we can understand it fully just because we are historical creatures. Genesis is history, but some of it is beyond us. This is nowhere more apparent than in its first four words. I say “four words.” But in the Hebrew the words corresponding to our phrase “In the beginning God” are just two: Berasheth … Elohim. Yet, as the late distinguished physicist Arthur Compton once said, these words are “the most tremendous ever penned.” Another scholar, John Gerstner, of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, has written that even if all other evidences for the doctrine were lacking, “the first four words of the Book of Genesis are sufficient proof of the Bible’s inspiration.”2 Why? It is because of the statement’s profundity. The ancient Jewish people were not scientists. They were not even profound theologians or philosophers. So the fact that a relatively primitive people have bequeathed us a book embodying the most profound wisdom—the case with these opening words, as well as other passages—should convince us at the beginning that the book has been given to us by God. In his study of this verse, Gerstner reflects on a statement made one day in his high school physics class. The professor said, “The greatest question which has ever been asked is why there is something rather than nothing.” At the time the young student was impressed. But he gradually came to see that this is not a profound question at all. In fact, it is not even a true question. Because if nothing really is nothing, then nothing defies conception and the choice vanishes. What is “nothing”? If you think you can answer that question, you are the person least qualified to answer it. As soon as you say, “Nothing is …,” nothing ceases to be nothing and becomes something. “Nothing is what the sleeping rocks dream of,” said Jonathan Edwards. Therefore, as Gerstner observes, “Anyone who thinks he knows what nothing is must have those rocks in his head.” What was “in the beginning”? If the alternative is between God and nothing, there is really no choice. For nothing is nothing, and we are left with the statement “In the beginning God.”
An Objection
We must deal with an objection. Some modern translations of Genesis begin differently from the New International Version and the King James Version, and the casual reader as well as the technical scholar might therefore ask whether everything we have said so far is wrongheaded. In some modern translations the opening words of Genesis are treated as a dependent or temporal clause rather than an independent clause, which changes the statement from an affirmation that God was in the beginning before all things to a statement that at some indefinite point in the past both God and matter existed and that God then began to form matter into the universe we know today. We see this translation in a footnote to the Revised Standard Version, which reads, “When God began to create.…” We see it in the New English Bible: “In the beginning of creation, when God made heaven and earth.…” Even the Living Bible says, “When God began creating the heavens and the earth, the earth was at first a shapeless, chaotic mass.…” The implications of these translations are clear. Whether or not they are accurate—we will come to that question in a moment—they clearly deny (or at least overlook) an absolute creation. They make matter preexistent and therefore do not give us an absolute beginning at all. What shall we say about this interpretation? It is a possible translation, otherwise we would not have it in even some of our Bibles. The word bereʾshith can be taken as a construct. But the fact that this is a possible translation does not mean that it is correct. In fact, when we begin to look into the matter deeply there are several reasons why the older translation should be preferred. First, there is the normal simplicity of the Hebrew sentence. If the opening clause of Genesis 1 is dependent, then the sentence actually concludes in verse 3 where God speaks and light comes into existence. This means that the sentence is quite long, possessing not one but two subordinate parts (the second being a multiple subordinate clause), and the real flow of the sentence would be: “When God began to create the heavens and the earth—the earth being at that time formless and empty, darkness being over the surface of the deep, and the spirit of God hovering over the waters—God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.” This is unlike a true Hebrew sentence, especially an introductory sentence. It is often the case in German that a series of dependent clauses will begin a sentence and the verb will come twenty or thirty words later at the end, a feature of the language that Mark Twain once described as “falling down stairs.” But this is not the case with Hebrew. Certainly there are dependent clauses. But these are not complex, and one is hard-pressed to believe that, in this case especially, a complicated initial sentence is intended to begin the simple and classically straightforward account of creation that occurs in this chapter. Julius Wellhausen was no conservative—he was, in fact, one of the key figures in the development of the documentary theory of the Pentateuch—but he called the translation we are objecting to “desperate.” Second, as has often been shown, the word “create” (the second word of the sentence in Hebrew) is used of God alone and characteristically refers to his bringing into being something that is entirely new. Of course, God also forms things from existing material, but when that happens another word (usually “make” or “made”) is used. “Create” refers to the production of new things from nothing. It is an inappropriate word if the creation referred to in these verses is merely the formation of the earth from preexistent matter. Third, Genesis is a book of beginnings. But in telling us of these beginnings it has clearly failed at the most crucial point if, in fact, the best it can say is that at the very start matter just happened to be around. Why is it that so many modern scholars and even some translators prefer to subordinate the first clause? E. J. Young suggests that the real reason is that the Babylonian Epic of Creation, which I referred to in the last chapter, begins this way and that these scholars have a prejudicial desire to have the Genesis account conform to it. The Babylonian account begins: “When on high the heavens were not named, and below the earth had not a name.…” It goes on in that vein for seven lines, introduces another temporal clause, and then gets to the main clause. By subordinating the opening clauses of Genesis 1, the scholars succeed in making Genesis somewhat parallel to the Babylonian account. But, as I have argued, Genesis does not begin that way. It begins by speaking of that absolute beginning of all things, which is God, and then provides us with the most profound insight into the question of origins. It overwhelms us with the profoundly simple statement: “In the beginning God.”
A Set of Denials
The phrase also instructs us concerning the nature of God who alone is the origin of all things. It suggests some negative statements and some positive statements. The clearest negative statement is the denial of atheism. If God was in the beginning, then there was and is a God. How can it be otherwise? To say less would be to say God is dependent on creation, being subject to the same laws, and therefore could not be at the beginning of creation as Genesis says he was. A second denial is materialism. When the text says that God was in the beginning, before creation, it sets him apart from creation and therefore apart from the matter of which all else is made. Ours is not an entirely materialistic universe. Moreover, since God created matter, matter did not always exist, which is what a true philosophy of materialism teaches. Finally, the opening statements of Genesis deny pantheism. Pantheism is the philosophy that God is in matter or is matter. It underlies most pagan or animalistic religions. But if God created matter, then he is separate from it and is superior to it. Any religion that worships matter is idolatrous. These and many other false philosophies err because they begin with man or matter and work up to God, if indeed they go so far. But Genesis stands against them all when it begins with God and sets him forth as the originator of all things.
The Bible’s God
It is not only through the suggestion of these negatives about God that Genesis 1:1 instructs us. It also suggests some very important positive characteristics. First, when Genesis begins with the words “In the beginning God,” it is telling us that God is self-existent. This is not true of anything else. Everything else depends on some other thing or person and ultimately on God. Without these prior causes, the thing would not exist. We recognize this truth when we speak of the laws of “cause and effect.” Every effect must have an adequate cause. But God is the ultimate cause and is himself uncaused. God has no origins; this means: first, that as he is in himself he is unknowable, and second, that he is answerable to no one. Why should God’s self-existence mean he is unknowable? It is because everything we see, smell, hear, taste, or touch has origins and consequently we can hardly think of anything except in these categories. We argue that anything we observe must have a cause adequate to explain it, and we look for such causes. But if God is the cause beyond everything, then he cannot be explained or known as other objects can. Like Robert Jastrow, whom we quoted in chapter 1, A. W. Tozer has pointed out that this is one reason why philosophy and science have not always been friendly toward the idea of God. These disciplines are dedicated to the task of accounting for things and are impatient with anything that refuses to give an account of itself. The scientist will admit that there is much he or she does not know. But it is quite another thing to admit that there is something that we can never know and which, in fact, we do not even have a technique for discovering. To avoid this the scientist may attempt to bring God down to his level, defining him as “natural law,” “evolution,” or some such principle. But God eludes him. Perhaps, too, this is why even Bible-believing people seem to spend so little time thinking about God’s person and character. Tozer writes, “Few of us have let our hearts gaze in wonder at the I AM, the self-existent Self, back of which no creature can think. Such thoughts are too painful for us. We prefer to think where it will do more good—about how to build a better mousetrap, for instance, or how to make two blades of grass grow where one grew before. And for this we are now paying a too heavy price in the secularization of our religion and the decay of our inner lives.” God’s self-existence also means that he is not answerable to us, and we do not like that. We want God to give an account of himself, to defend his actions. But while he sometimes explains things to us, he does not have to and often does not. God does not have to explain himself to anyone. Second, that God existed “in the beginning” means that he is self-sufficient. Self-existence means that God has no origins. Self-sufficiency means that God has no needs and therefore depends on no one. This is not true of us. We depend on countless other things—oxygen, for example. If our supply of oxygen is cut off, even for a few moments, we die. We are also dependent on light and heat and gravity and the laws of nature. If even one of these laws should cease to operate, we would all die immediately. But this is not true of God. These things could go—in fact, everything could go—yet God would still exist. Here we run counter to a widespread and popular idea of God that says God cooperates with man and man with God, each thereby supplying something lacking in the other. It is imagined, for example, that God lacked glory and created us to supply it. Or again, that God needed love and therefore created us to love him. Some talk about creation as if God were lonely and created us to keep him company. But God does not need us. God does not need worshipers. Arthur W. Pink, who writes on this theme in The Attributes of God, says, “God was under no constraint, no obligation, no necessity to create. That he chose to do so was purely a sovereign act on his part, caused by nothing outside himself, determined by nothing but his own mere good pleasure; for he ‘worketh all things after the counsel of his own good will’ (Eph. 1:11). That he did create was simply for his manifestative glory.… God is no gainer even from our worship. He was in no need of that external glory of his grace which arises from his redeemed, for he is glorious enough in himself without that. What was it [that] moved him to predestinate his elect to the praise of the glory of his grace? It was, Ephesians 1:5 tells us, ‘according to the good pleasure of his will.’ … The force of this is [that] it is impossible to bring the Almighty under obligations to the creature; God gains nothing from us.” Some will conclude that the value of men and women is thereby lessened, but this is not the case. It is merely located where alone it is possible to sustain our value. According to our way of thinking, we have value because of what we imagine we can do for God. This is prideful, foolish, and vain. According to the biblical perspective, we have value because God grants it to us. Our worth is according to the grace of God in creation and to his election of us to salvation. God does not need helpers. This truth is probably harder for us to accept than almost any other, for we imagine God as a friendly, but almost pathetic grandfather figure, bustling about to see whom he can find to help him in managing the world and saving the world’s race. This is a travesty. To be sure, God has entrusted a work of management to us. He said to the original pair in Eden, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground” (Gen. 1:28). He has given those who believe on him a commission to “go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you” (Matt. 28:19–20). But none of these aspects of God’s ordering of his creation has a necessary grounding in himself. He has chosen to do things in this way, but he did not have to. Indeed, he could have done them in any one of a million other ways. That he did choose to do things thus is solely dependent on his own free will and does not give us any inherent value to him. God does not need defenders. We have opportunities to speak for God before those who would dishonor his name and malign his character. We ought to do so. But even if we do not, we must not think that God is deprived by it. God does not need to be defended, for he is as he is and will remain so regardless of the sinful and arrogant attacks of evil men. A God who needs to be defended is a God who can defend us only when someone is defending him. He is of no use at all. The God of the Bible is the self-existent One who is the true defender of his people. All this is of great importance, for when we notice that God is the only truly self-sufficient One, we may begin to understand why the Bible has so much to say about the need for faith in God alone and why unbelief in God is such sin. Tozer writes: “Among all created beings, not one dare trust in itself. God alone trusts in himself; all other beings must trust in him. Unbelief is actually perverted faith, for it puts its trust not in the living God but in dying men.” If we refuse to trust God, what we are actually saying is that either we or some other person or thing is more trustworthy. This is a slander against the character of God, and it is folly, for nothing else is all-sufficient. On the other hand, if we begin by trusting God (by believing on him), then we have a solid foundation for all of life. Because God is sufficient, we may begin by resting in that sufficiency and so work effectively for him. God does not need us. But the joy of coming to know him is in learning that he nevertheless stoops to work in and through his children. Third, the truth that God was “in the beginning” means that he is eternal. It means that God is, has always been, and will always be, and that he is ever the same in his eternal being. We discover this attribute of God everywhere in the Bible. Abraham knew God as “the Eternal God” (Gen. 21:33). Moses wrote, “Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations. Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God” (Ps. 90:1–2). The Book of Revelation describes him as “the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End” (Rev. 21:6; cf. 1:8; 22:13). The same book tells us that the four living creatures that surround the throne of God call out day and night, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come” (Rev. 4:8). That God is eternal has two major consequences for us. First, he can be trusted to remain as he has revealed himself to be. God is unchangeable in his attributes. So we need not fear, for example, that although he has shown his love towards us once in Christ he may nevertheless somehow change his mind and cease to love us in the future. God is always love. Similarly, we must not think that although he has shown himself to be holy he may nevertheless somehow cease to be holy and therefore change his attitude toward our transgressions. Sin will always be sin, because it is “any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God” (Westminster Shorter Catechism, A. 14), who is unchangeable. We may extend this by saying that God will always be holy, wise, gracious, just, and everything else that he reveals himself to be. Nothing that we do will ever change him. Again, God is unchangeable in his eternal counsel or will. He does what he has determined beforehand to do, and his will never varies. This is a source of great comfort to God’s people. If God were like us, he could not be relied on. He would change, and as a result of that his will and promises would change. We could not depend on him. But God is not like us. He does not change. Consequently, his purposes remain fixed from generation to generation. The second major consequence for us of God being eternal is that he is inescapable. If he were a mere man and if we did not like either him or what he was doing, we might ignore him, knowing that he might change his mind, move away from us, or die. But God does not change his mind. He does not move away. He will not die. Consequently, we cannot escape him. If we ignore him now, we must reckon with him in the life to come. If we reject him now, we must eventually face the One we have rejected and come to know his own eternal rejection of us.
The God Who is There
In this lies the profundity of the first verse in the Bible. Indeed, we can go farther and say that in some sense this verse may even be the most important verse in the Bible, for at the outset it brings us face-to-face with the God with whom we have to do. This God is not an imaginary god. He is not a god of our own inventions. He is the God who is—the One who is “infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth” (Westminster Shorter Catechism, A. 4). Sometimes we wish we could change him. We are like the man who was climbing up a steep mountain on his way to the summit when he began to slip. Unable to stop himself, he slid back down the treacherous incline toward a cliff that plunged a thousand feet to the canyon floor. He was sure he would be killed. But just as he was about to go over the edge he threw his hands out and managed to catch a small branch. There he hung. He had saved himself. But he could not get back onto the incline, and he knew it was just a matter of time until his grip loosened and he fell. He was not a very religious man. But this was obviously the time to become one, if ever. So he looked up to heaven and called out, “Is there anyone up there who can help me?” He did not expect an answer. So he was greatly surprised when a deep voice came back, saying, “Yes, I am here, and I can help you. But first you are going to have to let go of that branch.” A long pause! Then the man looked up and called out again, “Is there anybody else up there who can help me?” There is no one else. There is only God, the One who was in the beginning and who ever shall be. But he is able to help. More than that, he is willing to help and even urges his help on us. How wonderful it is that we meet him at the beginning. Genesis 1 gives us a chance to come to terms with him and receive the help he offers, knowing that we will certainly meet him at the end.
God the Creator
Genesis 1:1
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
In chapter 3 I referred to a question that has been thought to be profound but actually is not: Why is there something rather than nothing? This is not profound for the reason that it is not even a true question. The question seems to offer us a choice between something and nothing. But what is nothing? As soon as we answer that, saying, “Nothing is …,” nothing ceases to be nothing and becomes something. If nothing really is nothing, nothing defies description. In fact, it defies mental conception of any kind. So the question really boils down to: Why is there something? In this form the question is not meaningless. On the contrary, it is one of the truly big philosophical questions. It can be stated in different forms—Where did the universe come from? Who made the atom? How did everything get to be as it is?—but in essence these are the same basic questions. Something is there—an immense, intricate, and orderly something. It was there before we were, for we cannot even imagine our existence without it. But how did it get there? And how did it get to be as we detect it? Genesis 1:1 is the answer to these questions. It tells us that “in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
The Christian Answer
There are other answers to the question of the origins of the universe, however, and it is these plus the Christian answer that we now want to consider. How many answers are there? Like all truly big questions, the possibilities are not numerous. In this case, there are just four. First, there is the view that the universe had no origin. That is, there was no origin because in some form the universe always existed. Matter existed. This has been the dominant view of both ancient and modern science until relatively recent times, and it is still held by some. Second, there is the view that everything has a beginning and that this beginning was the work of a good personal being. This is the Christian view. Third, everything came into existence through the work of a personal being who is evil. Fourth, there is now and there always has been a dualism. This last view takes several forms depending on whether one is thinking of a personal or impersonal, moral or immoral dualism, but the views are related. This was the outlook of the ancient cosmologies referred to earlier, of which the Babylonian Epic is an example. It is still the characteristic view of the eastern religions and mysticism. What are we to say concerning these four possibilities? The easiest to dismiss is number three, which gives a personal but evil origin to the universe. It says, in effect, that Satan is the creator. This is easiest to dismiss because it does not give an adequate explanation of the origin of the good. Evil can be conceived as a corruption of the good—Satan can rebel against the Christian God—but it is not really possible to think of good as having emerged out of evil. In the former case, evil can be a misuse of otherwise good traits or abilities. But in the second case, there is no place for the good to come from. We may state the problem in a slightly different way. For a power to be evil it (or he) must possess the attributes of intelligence and will. But since these attributes are in themselves good, he must be getting them from a good power. And this means that the good power must have existed previously and that the evil power is therefore not the origin of all things. The fourth possibility, a dualism, is unsatisfactory too, although this is not as quickly apparent as in number three. The reason is that, although belief in a dualism has often been quite popular and has endured for long periods of history, it does not stand up under close analysis. For having stated the dualism, we immediately want to pass behind it to some type of unity that includes the dualism. Or else we choose one part of the dualism and make it prominent over the other, in which case we are really easing into one of the other possibilities. C. S. Lewis has written about this problem, pointing to what he calls the “catch” in the system. According to dualism, two powers (spirits or gods), one good and one evil, are supposed to be quite independent and eternal. Neither is responsible for the other, and each has an equal right to call itself God. Each presumably thinks that it is good and the other bad. But Lewis asks, What do we mean when we say, as we do in stating this dualism, that the one power is good and the other bad? Do we mean merely that we prefer the one to the other? If that is all we mean, then we must give up any real talk about good or evil, and if we do that, then the moral dimension of the universe vanishes entirely and we are left with nothing more than matter operating in certain ways. We cannot mean that and still hold to the dualism. We have fallen back to possibility number one. But if, on the contrary, we mean that one power really is good and the other really is bad, then we are actually introducing some third thing into the universe, “some law or standard or rule of good which one of the powers conforms to and the other fails to conform to.” And this standard, rather than the other, will turn out to be the true God. Lewis concludes, “Since the two powers are judged by this standard, then this standard, or the Being who made this standard, is farther back and higher up than either of them, and he will be the real God. In fact, what we meant by calling them good and bad turns out to be that one of them is in a right relation to the real, ultimate God and the other in a wrong relation to him.” So neither an evil origin for the universe, from which good arose, nor a dualism adequately accounts for reality as we know it. The real alternative is between the view that holds to an eternity of matter and the view that sees everything as having come into existence through the personal will of an eternal and moral God. Let us look at Christianity’s chief competitor, materialism. The origins of this view are lost in the past, but the view is clearly very ancient. It is found in the scientism of the Greek philosopher Epicurus, who taught that everything is composed of small building blocks of matter, conceived of as hard, indestructible particles. Epicurus called them atoms, which is where our word “atom” comes from. He probably derived his ideas from Democritus of Abdera who in turn was indebted to the little-known philosopher Leucippus. Leucippus may have gotten his ideas from a Phoenician philosopher named Moschus, who lived prior to 1000 B.C. Today this view is the dominant philosophy of western civilization, although not in the form Epicurus gave to it. For one thing, we know that the atom can be divided. We have done it. Again, we have been taught by Einstein that energy and mass are interchangeable, which is mind-boggling. Knowledge of this should in itself shake the presuppositions of materialism, but for the most part it has not seriously shaken them, and the western world continues to be philosophically materialistic. Today’s materialism usually does not deny that there is personality in the universe, but it conceives this as having arisen out of impersonal substance. It does not deny the complexity of the universe—even including such things as the intricacy of the atom—but it supposes that complexity came from that which was less complex and that in turn from something still less complex until eventually we arrive back at that which is ultimately simple, that is, to mere matter. Matter, it is supposed, always existed—because there is no further explanation. This view lies beneath most thought concerning evolution. But this description of the origin of the universe has already introduced problems that the theory itself apparently has no means of solving. First, we have spoken of a form to matter and then of more complex forms. But where does form come from? Form means organization and perhaps purpose, too. But how can organization and purpose come from mere matter? Some would insist that organization and purpose were in the matter inherently, like genes in an egg or spermatozoa. But in addition to making nonsense of the theory—this is no longer mere matter—the basic question still remains unanswered, for the problem is how the organization and purpose even got there. At some level, either early or late, we have to account for the form; and, if this is the case, we soon find ourselves looking for the Former, Organizer, or Purposer. Moreover, we have introduced the idea of the personal, and if we begin with an impersonal universe, there is no explanation for the emergence of personality. Francis Schaeffer writes: “The assumption of an impersonal beginning can never adequately explain the personal beings we see around us, and when men try to explain man on the basis of an original impersonal, man soon disappears.” Genesis begins with the opposite answer. It maintains that the universe exists with form and personality because it has been brought into existence by an orderly and personal God. God was there before the universe came into existence, and he was and is personal. He created all we know, including ourselves. Consequently, the universe naturally bears the mark of his personality.
God’s Creation
But we may be missing something at this point. We are arguing for the Christian view of origins, which is not at all unimportant. But in the very act of arguing we are likely to miss (or postpone) a true wonder at God’s creation, which is what a proper contemplation of these themes should cause. Biblical writers never fall into this pit. Consequently, when they look at creation they inevitably end up praising God, and when they praise God, one of the things they praise him for is creation.
You are worthy, our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things,
and by your will they were created
and have their being.
Revelation 4:11
Can we not do that too? Our text tells us that God created “the heavens and the earth.” As we contemplate these great canvases of God’s work, are we not led to praise him? How vast the heavens are! When we look up into the sky on a clear night we see perhaps 10,000 points of light. A few of these are the planets of our solar system that shine by reflected light. Thousands belong to the special grouping of stars known as the Milky Way, to which our sun belongs. Other thousands are entire galaxies, which shine as one point because they are so distant. We say 10,000 points because that is what we can see with unaided eyes. But these 10,000 are only the tiniest fraction of the existing stars. A typical galaxy contains billions of individual stars—our galaxy alone contains 200 billion stars. Its form is of a giant spiral rotating majestically in space, its glowing arms trailing behind it like the distended points of a pinwheel. Our sun is in one arm of the spiral. It makes a complete rotation in 250 million years. These figures are staggering. But this is only our galaxy. There are thousands of others visible to the naked eye and billions more within range of the 200-inch telescope on California’s Palomar Mountain. As revealed to us by time exposure photography, these distant galaxies of stars display a seemingly unending array of beauty. Some are spirals like ours. Others are nearly spherical clusters. Others are flattened out like pancakes. Still others are irregular. All the stars in the heavens are clustered together in these intricate and beautiful groupings. Again, the galaxies are scattered about in an irregular pattern. Between them there are vast amounts of space. The distance from one edge of an average galaxy to the other edge is approximately 600 thousand trillion miles. The average distance from one galaxy to another is 20 million trillion miles. If these numbers were to be written out in zeros, they would fill up several lines of type. So to avoid such large numbers astronomers generally use a unit of distance called the light-year, that is, the distance light travels in one year at the speed of 186,000 miles per second. A light-year is approximately 6 trillion miles. Translated into these terms, the size of an average galaxy is 100 thousand light-years, and the distance between them is 3 million light-years approximately. The Andromeda Galaxy is the galaxy closest to our own Milky Way. It is separated from us by 2 million light-years. This means that the light coming to us now from Andromeda has taken 2 million years to get here. Put in other terms, it means that when we look at Andromeda what we see is the galaxy as it existed, not a moment ago, but 2 million years in the past. Moreover, the galaxies are not fixed in space but rather are moving away from each other at tremendous speeds. Vesto Melvin Slipher, the first to discover this fact, found that the galaxies he could observe were moving away from the earth at several million miles per hour. His scientific followers, Milton Humason and Edwin Hubble, showed that the most distant galaxies were retreating from us at the rate of 100 million miles per hour. Moreover, everything is retreating from everything. Nothing is coming toward us, nor is anything coming toward any other galaxy. This means that the universe is expanding. By working backward from the present position of the galaxies and their known speed, astronomers have placed the origins of the universe approximately 15 to 20 billion years in the past. We turn to the stars themselves and find equal evidence of variety, design, beauty, and mystery. Not all stars are alike, though they seem to follow a similar pattern as they are born, burn, grow old, and eventually die. At any given moment millions of stars are being born in space. They are born as clouds of interstellar gas contract under the force of gravity acting between the atoms that compose them. As they contract the temperature rises. Finally, at the critical temperature of 20 million degrees Fahrenheit, the hydrogen within the ball of condensed gas ignites in reactions similar to those that occur in the explosion of a hydrogen bomb. The release of this energy halts any further condensing of the gas, and the star continues to burn in that fashion for many billions of years. Our sun is at this stage. Eventually the hydrogen in the star begins to be used up. It starts to swell and redden. Such stars are called red giants. As the last of its fuel is burned off, the star begins its final collapse under the force of gravity. If it is relatively small, it condenses to a tightly compressed sphere called a white dwarf. In one of these dead stars a few cubic centimeters of matter weigh a ton. If the star is large, a different fate envelops it. Instead of compressing quietly, it blows itself up, thereby scattering its elements—now containing carbon, oxygen, iron, gold, and others—throughout the universe where they are eventually picked up by other suns or planets.
The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they display knowledge.
There is no speech or language
where their voice is not heard.
Their voice goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.
Psalm 19:1–4
And what of the earth? We need not consider the earth and its marvels fully at this point. We have looked at the heavens carefully since this is the last point in Genesis at which the heavens are mentioned for themselves. From this point the chapter passes on to consider God’s acts of creation on earth. (The sun, moon, and stars are mentioned only in regard to their giving light to the earth.) In a sense everything that occurs from this point on is about the earth. But we can note in passing that the marvels of the macrocosm (the world of large things) are repeated in the microcosm (the world of small things). Here we are confronted with electrons, protons, neutrons, neutrinos, and a seemingly endless variety of particles barely understood. The distances between these particles, proportionate to their size, are comparable to some of the distances involved in the solar system. If we were to take the simplest of atoms, the hydrogen atom, and blow it up billions upon billions of times to where the proton at its center would now be the size of a ten-inch soccer ball, the electron that circles this nucleus would now be the size of a golf ball and would be circling the proton at a distance of five miles. There would be nothing else within the circle!
To God Be the Glory
On the basis of the first verse of Genesis we can define God as the One who creates. We cannot create. We often use the word of human endeavors, and human beings are creative in the sense we give to that word. But if we are to be precise, we will say that at the best we only form or fashion things in imaginative ways, and even then, it is the case that we get our imagination as well as all other physical, mental, and spiritual gifts from God. Strictly speaking, we are craftsmen. We use preexisting material. But God does create, and he does so on what is to us a vast and incomprehensible scale. We do not know how God has done it. But he has willed creation, and as a result all we know, see, and are have come into being. If God were not the Creator, he would be only a part of the world process, coming and going, waxing and waning. He could not help us. E. J. Young has written, “If he is only a little bigger than we are, if he is only a big brother and nothing more, if he is only a part of the whole, then we are all in it together, God, you and I, and then there are no standards. There is no absolute. It is every man for himself, and all modern philosophies and ideas that are being spread in our days—new morality, new theology, and so on—are all perfectly admissible if God is only a part of the world process. If it is so, it does not matter whether he is dead or alive.… Let us live for the moment, let us live for our enjoyment; there is no absolute; there us no standard of morality, for all changes. What may be right today may be wrong tomorrow; so let us get through life as best we can.” But this is not the God of Genesis. “The Bible does not so speak. It tells us that God has created all things. That is why there is meaning in life, and why there are absolute standards that do not change. God tells us what is right and what is wrong, and that is why there is meaning in life. That is why you and I who believe in this God can very well say that our chief reason for existence is to glorify him and enjoy him forever.”
Boice, J. M. (1998). Genesis: an expositional commentary (pp. 13–40). Baker Books.
I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. (2 Corinthians 6:16)
Here is a mutual interest. Each belongs to each. God is the portion of His people, and the chosen people are the portion of their God. The saints find in God their chief possession, and He reckons them to be His peculiar treasure. What a mine of comfort lies in this fact for each believer!
This happy condition of mutual interest leads to mutual consideration. God will always think of His own people, and they will always think of Him. This day my God will perform all things for me; what can I do for Him? My thoughts ought to run toward Him, for He thinketh upon me. Let me make sure that it is so and not be content with merely admitting that so it ought to be.
This, again, leads to mutual fellowship. God dwells in us, and we dwell in Him; He walks with us, and we walk with God….
Oh, for grace to treat the Lord as my God: to trust Him and to serve Him, as His Godhead deserves! Oh, that I could love, worship, adore, and obey Jehovah in spirit and in truth! This is my heart’s desire. When I shall attain to it, I shall have found my heaven. Lord, help me! Be my God in helping me to know Thee as my God, for Jesus’ sake.
We are coming toward the end of our look at the life of Jesus through scripture. The first section of His life was seen through verses focused on prophecy, arrival, and early life.
The next section of verses looked at Him as the Son, second person of the Trinity. In that section, we proceeded into looking at Jesus as the Son’s preeminence, His works, and His ministry. Under ministry & works, I chose verses showing His attributes and aspects of being servant, teacher, shepherd, intercessor, and compassionate healer; and His attributes of omniscience, having all authority and power, and sinlessness.
Now it’s the last section. We’ll look at His resurrection, ascension, and prophesied return. When we finish the last verse, we will be looking through the lens of scripture at the hope and optimism of His return and that all will be made new.
On to today’s picture verse.
Further Reading
Devotional: The Ascension of Christ As Elijah was taken up in the chariot, so now Jesus is conveyed into the presence of the Father. But while Elijah was simply a member of the cloud of glory arrayed around God’s moving chariot-throne, Jesus is the one who sits on that chariot-throne. Jesus’ ascension into the cloud was a visible sign that He had assumed His throne, and was now going to rule as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
1) It signaled the end of His earthly ministry. God the Father had lovingly sent His Son into the world at Bethlehem, and now the Son was returning to the Father. The period of human limitation was at an end.
2) It signified success in His earthly work. All that He had come to do, He had accomplished
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thirty Days of Jesus Series-
Introduction/Background
Prophecies:
Day 1: The Virgin shall conceive Day 2: A shoot from Jesse Day 3: God sent His Son in the fullness of time Day 4: Marry her, she will bear a Son
Birth & Early Life-
Day 5: The Babe has arrived! Day 6: The Glory of Jesus Day 7: Magi seek the Child Day 8: The Magi Offer gifts & worship Day 9: The Child Grew Day 10- the Boy Jesus at the Temple Day 11: He was Obedient Day 12: The Son! Day 13: God is pleased with His Son
The Second Person of the Trinity-
Day 14: Propitiation Day 15: The Gift of Eternal Life Day 16: Kingdom of Darkness to Light Day 17: Jesus’ Preeminence Day 18: The Highest King Day 19: He emptied Himself
Jesus’ Ministries
Day 20: Jesus as The Teacher Day 21: The Good Shepherd Day 22: The Intercessor Day 23: The Compassionate Healer
Attributes Day 24: Jesus’ Omniscience Day 25: Jesus’ Authority Day 26: Jesus’ Sinlessness
The End of all Things
Day 27: He rises Day 28: Resurrection of First Importance
Over the years, I’ve pointed out that the first mention of the gospel occurs in Genesis 3:15, right after sin enters creation. As God is judging the serpent, he gives the serpent a prophecy—and what hope it must have given to Adam and Eve—that the Seed (offspring) of the woman was coming to crush (bruise) the serpent’s head.
I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.
The promise of the Messiah isn’t just found at the beginning of Genesis—it continues throughout the book
But the promise of the Messiah isn’t just found at the beginning of Genesis—it continues throughout the book. Actually, it continues throughout the entire Old Testament, as the overarching theme is “Humanity is sinful, but a Savior is coming.”
But returning to Genesis, fast-forward past the flood and Babel and consider God’s promise to Abraham, as God selects him to be the one from whose family line the Messiah will come:
And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. (Genesis 12:2)
This promise is then continued to Abraham’s promised son, Isaac:
Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his offspring after him. (Genesis 17:19)
And to Isaac’s younger son, Jacob:
I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring. Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south, and in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed. Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you. (Genesis 28:13–15)
And Jacob’s son Judah:
The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet. (Genesis 49:10)
Now, you’ll notice as you read Genesis that none of these men were perfect. They all sinned grievously, and within the accounts of these four generations, we see instances where one or another of them lied, took concubines or extra wives, solicited a “prostitute,” deceived others, sold a brother into slavery, and more. God certainly doesn’t whitewash the sins of his people!
It’s all a reminder that we can’t save ourselves!
Clearly, none of them could be the “Seed of the woman” who would crush the serpent’s head. They were all flawed and sinful, failing to live up to God’s standard. It’s all a reminder that we can’t save ourselves! It’s God who, in his mercy, makes and keeps the promise of a Savior. Eventually that promise was fulfilled (as we will celebrate tomorrow) in Jesus Christ the God-man through his life, death, and resurrection.
As you celebrate Christmas tomorrow, take time to reflect on the sinfulness, not just of mankind as a whole but of yourself, and to thank God that he did what you and I cannot—he sent the perfect Savior to “save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21).
Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying, Ken
This item was written with the assistance of AiG’s research team.
But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. Luke 2:19
Ponder. It isn’t a word we use very often, is it? It means to spend some time in reflection, considering, thinking deeply about things. Christmas is a time for pondering, and no one knew that better than Mary.
Luke 2:19 finds Mary, Joseph, and Jesus alone in the stable, at the culmination of a whirlwind of mind-boggling events.
Think about all Mary had been through in the last few months…
After 400 years of silence from God, between the close of the Old Testament and, now, the opening of the New, an angel showed up – a staggering event in and of itself – and brought her a nearly incomprehensible message. Mary was going to be the mother of God’s promised Messiah. And that’s not all. She would be the only woman ever to conceive by the Holy Spirit.
At some point Mary had to break the news to her parents that she was pregnant. Were they godly people of faith, as quick to believe as Mary had been? Or, did Mary fear they might be skeptical and shocked?
Next to hear the news was her betrothed, Joseph. Incredulous, his first thought was to obtain a quiet divorce. But God sent another angel and reassured him personally.
How did Mary’s friends, loved ones, and community react to her pregnancy? Did she have to endure long months of whispers, stares, and gossip? Was she in danger of stoning or other punishment as prescribed by Levitical law?
A visit to Elizabeth’s house yielded even more amazement as Mary’s cousin related her own incredible pregnancy story.
Next on the agenda was a long, uncomfortable trip to Bethlehem and the pain and danger that came with first century childbirth.
Before she was anywhere near ready for visitors, the shepherds arrived and regaled the little family with their fantastic story of a sky full of angels proclaiming the birth of the Savior to them.
And to top it all off, lying in her arms was a brand new, precious baby- her first. All of us who are moms remember the weightiness, and sometimes, panic, of holding our first baby. “What do I do first? How will I take care of this child? What if I mess it all up?” And Mary’s first child was God incarnate. King of the universe. Savior of the world. Think she felt a tad inadequate?
Mary’s had quite a year, to put it mildly. And now the shepherds have left and she has a moment to catch her breath and reflect on all these events that led up to God fulfilling His promises to her, to Israel, and to the whole world. The promise of the Messiah- Jesus.
And just as Mary pondered the fulfillment of God’s promises in Christ, Christmas time is an oh-so-appropriate time for us to ponder the promises He has made to us in Christ.
Just as Mary pondered the fulfillment of God’s promises in Christ, Christmas time is an oh-so-appropriate time for us to ponder the promises He has made to us in Christ.Tweet
Sometimes, it can be difficult to know exactly what God has promised us. If you peruse the books at your local Christian retailer or flip on your TV or radio to many of the “Christian” stations, you’ll hear all sorts of things that God has supposedly promised us, things like: a bigger house, a better job, healing from every disease, that you’ll be able to hear God’s voice speaking to you, miracles, restored relationships, a better life…
But does God really promise us all these things?
How do we find out what God has really promised us? We go straight to the source- God’s Word. It is the only truly trustworthy source for knowing what God has promised us.
But there are a lot of promises in the Bible. Some of them are for us today and some of them aren’t. For example, did God promise you that you would conceive by the Holy Spirit and give birth to the Messiah? No. That promise was only for Mary. Did God promise the United States Army that if they would go march around an enemy city and blow some horns that the city walls would fall down and they would conquer that city? No. That was for only for Joshua and Israel, and only that one time.
We learn which promises are for us by being good students of God’s word. By picking up our Bibles (and I would urge you, the best way to learn God’s word is to study God’s word, not somebody else’s book). We pick up our Bibles and study them in context, in a systematic way, rightly dividing the Word of truth, paying attention to who God is talking to in each passage.
So, as it’s Christmas time and we reflect back on the Christmas story – maybe even pondering some of the same things that Mary did – what are some of the things God has promised us in Christ?
God has promised us forgiveness from our sin in Christ
When the angel came to visit Joseph and told him to go ahead and take Mary as his wife, the angel said:
Romans 5:8 says:
but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
And 1 John 1:9 says:
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
The Bible says that all of us are dirty, rotten, wretched sinners. None is righteous, no not one. And since all of our good deeds – never mind the bad ones – are like filthy rags, there’s no way we could ever hope to make up for our sin by being a good person or doing good things.
And God, in His beautiful mercy and grace, doesn’t even require us to try. He reached down into our filth and sent His own Son to take the death penalty you and I deserve for our sin. He absorbed God’s wrath toward us, so that we can stand before God clean if we’ll just repent and trust what Christ did for us on the cross. God promises to remove our sins as far as the east is from the west, to drop them in the depths of the sea, and to remember them no more. God promises us forgiveness in Christ.
God promises to remove our sins as far as the east is from the west, to drop them in the depths of the sea, and to remember them no more. God promises us forgiveness in Christ.Tweet
God promises us trials and persecution
Doesn’t sound very Christmasy, does it? But perhaps we’ve forgotten the part of the Christmas story in which Mary and Joseph had to take Jesus and flee to Egypt because Herod wanted to kill Him.
And just as Jesus faced persecution and hardship, we can expect to face it too. Second Timothy 3:12 tells us:
Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,
And John 16:33 says:
In this world you will have tribulation.
Just as Herod hated Christ, the world will hate us because of Christ. Just as Christ suffered because He was born into a broken and sinful world, so, we will suffer various trials and tribulations. In this world, you will have tribulation. But is that the end of that verse? No – praise God! – it is not.
The remainder of John 16:33 says “Buttakeheart; I have overcome the world.” The trials and tribulations and persecutions we face are all just light and momentary afflictions, because Christ has overcome the world- and our hope is not in this world.
One day, we will shuffle off this mortal coil and see Christ Jesus face to face. And when we look upon the beautiful face of Christ, if we even remember the troubles of this world, we won’t complain or whine or ask, “Why did You allow me to go through those things?” or “Why didn’t you give me my best life now?”
We’ll say:
It was worth it.
And in the meantime, God promises to walk through that suffering with us. “I will never leave you nor forsake you,” He says, “Lo, I am with you always, even to the ends of the age.” God promises us trials and persecution, but He promises to walk through them with us.
God promises us joy
When the angel appeared to the shepherds to announce the birth of Christ, he said:
“All the people.” That’s us, too! When we think about the good news of the gospel, it should bring us great joy.
Galatians 5:22 tells us that joy is part of the fruit that comes from the Holy Spirit indwelling us:
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy…
First Peter 1:8 says:
Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory.
And why is that joy “inexpressible and filled with glory”? Why is it joy that will never fade away? Because our joy is found in Christ: who He is and what He has done for us. Joy isn’t found in temporary circumstances- when you’re healthy, when you have a lot of money in the bank, when your kids are all successful, when your job is going well. Those things can all be taken away in the blink of an eye.
But if your heart, your mind, and your life have been transformed by the good news of the gospel, you can have joy even in the midst of devastation and heartbreak, because Christ isn’t going anywhere. He will always hold you and keep you and comfort you. He hears you when you pray and does what’s best for you. He takes care of you. He allows you to draw close to Him and discover more and more about Him through the study of His Word. He gives you fellowship with your brothers and sisters in Christ.
That is the kind of joy God promises us in Christ.
God promises to provide for us
I wonder if Mary, while she was pondering all of these amazing things, reflected on the many ways God had provided for her. He provided a husband to take care of her, a cousin to encourage her, protection throughout her pregnancy, and a place to stay in Bethlehem.
God promises to provide for us, too. Philippians 4:19 says:
And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.
And Jesus said in Matthew 6:31-33:
Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
God is a good and loving Father. He knows all of our needs even better than we do. He wants us to work hard and ethically, make wise financial decisions, and be good stewards of the resources He has given us, but He wants us to trust Him and depend on Him – not a paycheck or a job or insurance or a savings account – to take care of us.
God provided manna in the wilderness every day. He owns the cattle on a thousand hills. The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof. And He has promised to provide for us.
God provided manna in the wilderness every day. He owns the cattle on a thousand hills. The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof. And He has promised to provide for us.Tweet
Those are just a few of the wonderful things God has promised us. One of the great things about His promises is that there are so many of them. I could go on and on about God’s promises of peace, contentment, hope, love, Heaven, justice…
But I’d like to close with my favorite promise. It’s the promise that is foundational to all of God’s other promises:
All of God’s promises from Genesis to Revelation are fulfilled in Christ. God keeps His promises, and He keeps them in Christ.
All of God’s promises from Genesis to Revelation are fulfilled in Christ. God keeps His promises, and He keeps them in Christ.Tweet
As Mary pondered all the things God had promised her about Jesus, she didn’t have to wonder if they were true or not. She had seen them come true with her own eyes.
How can we know that God keeps His promises to us in Christ? Because He proved it to us. He backed up His word with action:
Jesus Christ- the second Person of the Trinity, creator and ruler of the universe, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, the prince of Heaven, worshiped by angels, all powerful, all mighty, all knowing, worthy of all glory, honor, and praise – did not consider these things as things to be grasped or held tightly to.
But He emptied Himself and took on the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. Born, not into wealth, power, prestige, or position; not into a mansion or a palace, but born to plain, simple, anonymous people. And in humility, for most of His years, He lived a plain, simple, anonymous life. Resisting every temptation in thought, word, and deed, that He might become the perfect sacrifice for our sin.
And in the fullness of time, He was despised and rejected by men. Subjected to a kangaroo court, he was tried and convicted for crimes he did not commit, and sentenced to death- even death on a cross.
Harsh, sinful men took Jesus out and smashed a crown of thorns down on His head. They mocked and scorned Him. They pulled His beard out. They pummeled Him with their fists. And then they whipped Him nearly to death.
They laid the rough, splintery cross beam across Jesus’ bruised and bloodied shoulders and led Him in humiliation through the streets of His beloved Jerusalem, outside the city gates, to be executed like a common criminal.
Those evil men used the very hands Jesus Himself had knit together in their mothers’ wombs to reach down, pick up hammers, and drive spikes through wrists and feet of their Creator.
And Jesus hung there on that cross for hours in excruciating pain to to endure the holy, just, and righteous wrath of God toward our sin, to take the punishment that we deserve- and He did not.
Later that day, while Mary mourned, and the disciples scattered, and Satan thought he had finally conquered the God he hated, they took Jesus’ bloody, broken body down off the cross, laid him in a cold, dark, lonely cave, and rolled a stone across the opening.
Friday…
Saturday…
But Jesus didn’t stay there, did He?
On that bright, beautiful, first Easter Sunday, Jesus left behind the sting of the grave and the bonds of death, and He walked out of that tomb conquering sin, death, hell, and the grave FOREVER.
FOREVER.
And He did it for you, and He did it for me. And any God who goes to those lengths for you and for me can be trusted to keep His promises. ALL of His promises.
God’s word is true, ladies- all of it. God can be trusted- He proved it in Christ. You can stake your life on His promises. You can stake your eternity on His promises.
Celebrate this Christmas with those believers who have gone before us. Here is a Christmas Sermon from St. Gregory of Nazianzus (AD 380).
A Christmas Sermon 1,700 Years Old
Christ is born, glorify Him. Christ from heaven, go out to meet Him. Christ on earth, be exalted. Sing to the Lord, all the whole earth; and that I may join both in one word, let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad, for Him who is of heaven and then of earth. Christ in the flesh, rejoice with trembling and with joy; with trembling because of your sins, with joy because of your hope.
Again, the darkness is past; again, Light is made; again, Egypt is punished with darkness; again, Israel is enlightened by a pillar. The people who sat in the darkness of ignorance, let them see the great Light full of knowledge. Old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. The letter gives way, the Spirit comes to the front. The shadows flee away, the truth comes in on them. Melchizedek is concluded. He who was without Mother becomes without Father (without mother of His former state, without father of His second).
The laws of nature are upset; the world above must be filled. Christ commands it, let us not set ourselves against Him. O, clap your hands together, all you people, because unto us a Child is born, and a Son given unto us, whose government is upon His shoulder (for with the cross, it is raised up), and His name is called The Angel of the Great Counsel of the Father.
Let John cry, prepare the way of the Lord; I, too, will cry the power of this Day. He who is not carnal is Incarnate; the Son of God becomes the Son of Man, Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and today, and forever. Let the Jews be offended, let the Greeks deride; let heretics talk until their tongues ache. Then shall they believe, when they see Him ascending into heaven; and if not then, yet when they see Him coming out of heaven and sitting as Judge.
This is our present Festival; it is this which we are celebrating today, the Coming of God to Man, that we might go forth, or rather (for this is the more proper expression) that we might go back to God—that putting off of the old man, we might put on the new; and that as we died in Adam, so we might live in Christ, being born with Christ and crucified with Him and buried with Him and rising with Him. For I must undergo the beautiful conversion, and as the painful succeeded the more blissful, so must the more blissful come out of the painful.
For where sin abounded, grace did much more abound; and if a taste condemned us, how much more does the passion of Christ justify us? Therefore, let us keep the Feast, not after the manner of a heathen festival, but after a godly sort; not after the way of the world, but in a fashion above the world; not as our own, but as belonging to Him who is ours, or rather as our master’s; not as of weakness, but as of healing; not as of creation, but of re-creation.
Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
It is a remarkable characteristic of the Word of God that it is filled far more with blessings than with curses. There are curses, to be sure. There are warnings of judgment. But when all is put together, the blessings are far more numerous and more wonderful than any of these more somber elements. The Bible begins with a blessing, for we are told that after each day of creation God commented upon the work, saying, “It is good.” The Bible ends with a blessing, “The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people. Amen” (Rev. 22:21). In between are such verses as: “God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it’ ” (Gen 1:28); “I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing” (Gen. 12:2); “After Jacob returned from Paddan Aram, God appeared to him again and blessed him” (Gen 35:9); “The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD turn his face toward you and give you peace” (Num 6:24–26); “Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked” (Ps. 1:1); “Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD” (Ps. 33:12); “Blessed are they whose ways are blameless” (Ps. 119:1); “Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him” (Rom. 4:7–8; cf. Ps. 32:1–2); “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord” (Rev. 14:13). In my concordance I find 375 Old Testament passages that deal with God’s blessing. I find 108 separate passages in the New Testament. It is not surprising in view of this wonderful characteristic of our God and of his revelation to find that the Lord Jesus Christ, the incarnate God, also had many words of blessing during the days of his ministry. We think of the beatitudes of Matthew 5, an obvious example (vv. 3–11). There are blessings pronounced upon children (Mark 10:16), upon one or more of the disciples (Matt. 13:16; 16:17), upon faithful servants of God (Matt. 24:46), upon those who hear the Word of God and keep it (Luke 11:28). There is the benediction at the close of John’s Gospel, which is our text: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29). This blessing, the fifth of Christ’s “last” words in John’s Gospel, is great for several reasons, among them that it is the last of Christ’s blessings spoken while on earth. Appropriately, it is one that concerns not just a single person or a limited group of people but rather all who should believe on him as Savior.
What Does Christ Mean?
What does Jesus mean when he says, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed”? Does he mean that a subjective faith is better than an objective faith, that a faith that has no relation to evidence is better than a faith that has? Does he mean that only a faith like that is blessed? It is hard to think that this is his meaning, because he has just provided tangible evidence of his resurrection for Thomas by appearing to him and inviting him to put his finger into the holes of his hands and thrust his hand into Christ’s side. Again, it is clear that John did not interpret Christ’s words in this way, because immediately after this John says that he has written certain things in his Gospel in order that those who read might believe. So we may grant that Jesus is not advocating a faith entirely without evidence. But that still does not answer the question. What does Jesus mean? I believe he is speaking, not of a subjective faith, but of a satisfied faith. He is speaking of faith that is satisfied with what God provides and is therefore not yearning for visions, miracles, esoteric experiences, or various forms of success as evidence of God’s favor. More than that, he is saying that a faith without these things is not inferior to but is actually superior to a faith based upon them. Take these things one at a time and see why this is so. Take visions, first of all. If you are a normal Christian, I am sure there have been times when you have been discouraged, perhaps overcome with doubt, and you have said, “Oh, if God would only reveal himself to me in some special way so that my sight, touch, or hearing could assist my faith.” We remember that there were people in the Bible who had such evidence. Abraham saw visions; he spoke with the three angelic visitors; he heard the voice of God from heaven on Mount Moriah. Moses met God on the mountain; on one occasion Moses was hidden in a cleft of the rock and witnessed the fire, wind, and earthquake as Jehovah passed by. Isaiah had a vision of God high and lifted up. The disciples saw Christ in the days of his flesh. Paul was caught up to the third heaven. John himself had the magnificent visions recorded for us in the Book of Revelation. “Why can’t we have something similar?” we argue. “Surely we could believe much better and be far more effective in our Christian walk and witness if we did.” But that is not true, even though we like to tell ourselves that it is. For one thing, we usually want such experiences for the wrong reason—vanity. We would have a far higher opinion of ourselves if we should be granted an experience which most do not have. For another thing, visions do not necessarily lead to greater faith. In the opening pages of Miracles by C. S. Lewis, the well-known Oxford professor and author tells of a friend of his who once saw a ghost. Before the vision, she disbelieved in an immortal soul. After it, she still disbelieved. Obviously, faith gives meaning to experience rather than the other way around. Second, there are miracles or other special acts of God’s providence. Do you pray for miracles? Do you think you could believe God better if you saw some? The opposite is the case. If you are looking for miracles (which God sometimes does provide, but seldom), you will gradually become insensitive to the thousands of normal evidences of God’s mercy which you receive constantly. Third, there are people who think they would be stronger in faith and be better able to live the Christian life were they to have some special esoteric experience. We read a passage like 1 Corinthians 12:9–10, where Paul speaks of God granting to some “gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues,” and we think that if we could only do or experience something like that, we would be stronger and happier as Christians. But that is not true either. God sometimes grants such experiences for the good of his church; the very fact that Paul lists these gifts in 1 Corinthians 12 is evidence that he does. But surely anyone who reads these chapters carefully will note that Paul does not encourage us to seek these experiences. If anything, he seems to warn against them, and he certainly does not pronounce any special blessing upon their exercise. Why? Because the blessings of the gospel are for those who live by faith and not by sight, who live by their faith in the character and benevolence of God and not in the evidence of visions, miracles, or other such experiences. There is one other item which must not be left out, if only because it is so common in our day. It is the supposed evidence of success, measured by the number of people converted, church growth, income for Christian institutions and other such things. Does this mean that we are not to work to see as many people converted as possible? Does it mean that we are not to be concerned with church growth? Does it mean that we should not be concerned with the level of income necessary to run Christian schools, missions, churches, and other institutions? Not at all. But it does mean that we are not to tie our faith in God to such circumstances. We are to pray and believe and go on working even when we do not see this kind of numerical blessing. What is faith? Faith is believing God on the basis of his Word and then acting upon it. This is true faith. It is this that God blesses. God promises a blessing upon those who have faith. We cannot repeat that enough. God blesses faith, and not the living out of some unusual experience. How could it be otherwise if (1) God is to be fair in his dealings with his people and (2) the blessings of which he speaks are to be for all? Suppose it to be the other way. Suppose God’s blessing were linked to the unusual. In that case, either his blessing would be for a small and select company only, or else the things we consider unusual would have to become commonplace, in which case they would cease to have the character of “special evidences.” They would be like those other countless evidences of God’s providence which we enjoy daily but do not regard so highly, simply because they are common. No, the blessings of God are for all; and they are based, not upon the unusual in Christian experience, but upon faith which by its very nature and definition is common to all who call upon the name of Christ as God and Savior. This is why the Gospel of John ends on this note. It ends here because John wants to encourage everyone to believe on Jesus and enjoy God’s blessings.
What Blessings?
What are those blessings? There are many ways to answer that question, because faith is discussed again and again throughout the Bible. But we may answer it at this point just from John’s Gospel, remembering that John’s Gospel is the Gospel of faith preeminently. In John the Greek word for faith (pistis) always occurs in its verbal form (pisteuō) and is therefore translated “believe.” But in that form it occurs more often in John than in any other biblical book, even Romans (which has much to say about faith) or books that are longer. We find the word 101 times in John’s Gospel, compared with a combined use of “faith” and “believe” 64 times in Romans and only 22 times in Mark. So John is obviously concerned with faith and considers it of prime importance. What does he say of the blessings that flow from it? The following ten items are prominent.
1. It is by faith that we become children of God and thus enter into the privileges of being in God’s spiritual family. John indicates this at several points but especially in the first chapter, where he says, “Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (1:12). Certainly this is a great blessing and the source of many others that follow.
2. It is through faith that we have eternal life. This is the teaching of the best-known verse in the Gospel, John 3:16. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Death is an “enemy” (1 Cor. 15:26). But death shall be conquered by faith, which unites us to Christ who conquered it.
3. By faith we are delivered from judgment. John quotes Jesus as saying, “I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life” (5:24).
4. John 6:35 teaches that faith ushers us into the blessings of spiritual satisfaction now: “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.” To come to Christ is to believe on Christ; that is what the parallelism suggests. So belief in Christ is set forth as the key to having all spiritual longings fulfilled.
5. Jesus also calls faith the means for entering into the final resurrection: “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die” (11:25–26). The blessings of the resurrection are for those who believe on Jesus.
6. Faith in Jesus is also said to be the way in which we become blessings to others, as the Holy Spirit who communicates all God’s blessings works through us. This is taught in John 7:38–39: “ ‘Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.’ By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive.” The image is of a broad river flowing through a desert land, giving life and joy to all who come upon it.
7. Through faith we see the glory of God. “Then Jesus said, ‘Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?’ ” (11:40). Without faith we will be like the heathen, who are surrounded by the glory of God in nature, yet either do not see it or else attribute it to that which is not God by a worship of idols. It is only as we look to God that our eyes are increasingly opened to see what he is doing.
8. Faith is the secret of a holy life. Jesus said, “I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness” (12:46). In biblical language, darkness is the darkness of sin (cf. 1 John 1:5–10). So walking in the light means walking in holiness by means of the spiritual and moral life which God gives.
9. The blessing of a fruitful and effective life comes by faith. Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father” (14:12). This does not necessarily refer to what we would call miracles, though taken together the disciples may well have performed more miracles than Jesus did. It refers rather to the many works of witnessing, preaching, and Christlike service performed by Christian people. They are performed by those who take God at his word and go out boldly to do his bidding.
10. Finally, it is through faith that we receive the benefits of Jesus’ prayers on our behalf. He said, “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message” (17:20). If, as we are told in James, “the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective” (5:16), how much more shall the prayers of the Lord Jesus Christ avail for us! If we lacked all other promises of blessing through faith, this alone should be enough.
Only Believe
What I have written here applies most directly to those who are Christians, to those who have believed on Jesus and to whom these blessings are therefore given. But it applies to non-Christians too in that you are challenged to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior. Do not say, as many do, “I think I could believe in Jesus if he would just appear to me in some special way. I could believe if I had some miraculous vision.” That is not true, though you may think so. Pharaoh did not believe though he witnessed the greatest collection of signs and wonders ever granted to one man at one period of history. Those things are of no use to you. The problem is not miracles or the lack of them. The problem is sin. You are a sinner, and Jesus is the answer to your sin. He died for you, bearing your punishment. Now you must come to him in simple faith. You cannot see him. But you can find him if you seek him with your whole heart.
Boice, J. M. (2005). The Gospel of John: an expositional commentary (pp. 1611–1616). Baker Books.
Jesus said to him, Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are they who, though not seeing, are yet believing. There was nothing wrong with the words of the confession which Thomas uttered. There was something wrong with the manner in which he reached this level of faith. He should have believed even apart from sight. For the benefit of those who would come to believe in him in the years that were to follow, Jesus now says, “Blessed are they who, though not seeing, are yet believing.” Faith which results from seeing is good; but faith which results from hearing is more excellent. This is the clear lesson of Scripture throughout; see, for example, Matt. 8:5–10; John 4:48; Rom. 10:14; and 1 Peter 1:8.
Hendriksen, W., & Kistemaker, S. J. (1953–2001). Exposition of the Gospel According to John (Vol. 2, p. 466). Baker Book House.
However, the most hallowed observance for our family — that with the most deeply rooted traditions — is Christmas. It is not a commercial feeding frenzy for us, but a quiet and reverent time of rest and celebration of the birth of Christ, punctuated by extended family festivities.
Christmas Through the Generations
The Book of Luke contains the most familiar account on the Birth of Jesus:
“In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to their own town to register. So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them. And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.’ Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.’ When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, ‘Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.’ So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them.” (Luke 2:1-18).
Historically, the actual year of Christ’s birth is thought to be between 6 BC and 4 BC, at the end of Herod’s reign. The first mention of Christmas as a formal Nativity feast occurred in a Roman almanac dated AD 336.
The prophet Isaiah wrote of the coming Messiah 700 years before the birth of Jesus: “For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” (Isaiah 9:6)
The Christmas star that guided the Wise Men to Bethlehem may have been any of a number of recorded astronomical events coinciding with the likeliest dates of that first Christmas. Halley’s Comet appeared in 12 BC, and ancient Chinese texts note “exploding” stars, or novas, observed in both 4 and 5 BC. Exceptionally bright planetary conjunctions occurred in 2, 6, and 7 BC; among these, the most promising candidate for the Holy Star was the triple conjunction of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn in 6 BC.
Early Christians selected December 25th for the Nativity feast to replace the pagan festival natalis solis invicti, the birth of the sun god Mithras, at winter solstice. They proclaim that Jesus Christ was the real Light of the World, the true “Sun of Righteousness,” as well as the Messiah foretold in Jewish faith. As Jesus declared, he had not come to destroy the law and the prophets of Judaism, but to fulfill them, and so he also fulfilled the deepest human longings expressed in other traditional celebrations. And we Christians believe these aspects of our human nature are not merely enduring, but eternal — because we humans are all created in the image of Eternal God.
Our American Christmas heritage derives from the mingled Christmas traditions of immigrants from many lands, with differing religious beliefs and customs of worship and celebration. Our name for this holiday, itself a word derived from “Holy Day,” arises from the old English Cristes Maesse, or Christ’s Mass. Christmas is sometimes abbreviated as Xmas, which is derived from combining the Greek letter “chi,” denoting “Christ,” with “Mass.”
Christmas was first observed in early America among the Anglicans, Roman Catholics, Lutherans, and Moravians who settled predominantly in the Middle Atlantic colonies and the South.
Influenced by Puritanism and Calvinism, the New England Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Baptists, and Methodists looked askance at a celebration they deemed based on “heathenistic traditions.” New England colonial authorities outlawed Christmas from 1649 until 1658. The General Court of Massachusetts in 1659 set a fine of five shillings per offense, punishing the observance “of any such day as Christmas or the like, either by forebearing of labour, feasting, or any such way.” Contemporaneously, the Assembly of Connecticut forbade the reading of the Book of Common Prayer, the keeping of Christmas and saints days, the making of mince pies, the playing of cards, or performing on any musical instruments.
Peter Kalm wrote on Christmas Day 1749 about Philadelphia’s holiday: “Nowhere was Christmas Day celebrated with more solemnity than in the Roman Church. Three sermons were preached there, and that which contributed most to the splendor of the ceremony was the beautiful music heard to-day. … Pews and altar were decorated with branches of mountain laurel, whose leaves are green in winter time and resemble the (cherry laurel).”
Philip Fithian, of colonial Virginia, recorded in his diary entry for December 18, 1773: “When it grew to dark to dance … we conversed til half after six; Nothing is now to be heard of in conversation, but the Balls, the Fox-hunts, the fine entertainments, and the good fellowship, which are to be exhibited at the approaching Christmas.”
Fithian’s Christmas Eve 1775 diary entry from Staunton, Virginia, described other common pastimes of the holiday celebration: “The Evening I spent at Mr. Guys — I sung for an Hour, at the good Peoples Desire, Mr. Watts admirable Hymns — I myself was entertaind; I felt myself improvd; so much Love to Jesus is set forth — So much divine Exercise.” But his 1775 Christmas Day entry noted the vastly different observances of the Scots and Scots-Irish Presbyterians: “Christmas Morning — Not A Gun is heard — Not a Shout — No company or Cabal assembled — To Day is like other Days every Way calm & temperate — People go about their daily Business with the same Readiness, & apply themselves to it with the same Industry.”
The first state to declare Christmas a legal holiday was Massachusetts in 1856.
By the first battles of the War Between the States, most of our shared Christmas traditions were set, and the January 3, 1863, issue of Harper’s Weekly featured a drawing of encamped soldiers receiving Christmas gifts from home.
General Robert E. Lee wrote one wartime Christmas: “My heart is filled with gratitude to Almighty God for his unspeakable mercies with which He has blessed us in this day. For those He granted us from the beginning of life, and particularly for those He has vouchsafed us during the past year [of war]. What should have become of us without His crowning help and protection? Oh, if our people would only recognize it and cease from self-boasting and adulation, how strong would be my belief in the final success and happiness to our country! But what a cruel thing is war; to separate and destroy families and friends, and mar the purest joys and happiness God has granted us in this world; to fill our hearts with hatred instead of love for our neighbors, to devastate the fair face of this beautiful world! I pray that on this day [Christmas] when only peace and good-will are preached to mankind, better thoughts may fill the hearts of our enemies and turn them to peace.”
Christmas became a federal holiday in 1870, and today, nearly all Americans celebrate Christmas in some way, a uniformity that belies the variance with which, as in colonial days, Americans approach this holiday.
From St. Nicholas to Santa Claus
As holiday is derived from “Holy Day,” and Christmas from “Cristes Maesse,” the name “Santa Claus,” and the roots of our modern tradition of gift-giving, is derived from St. Nicholas, “Sinterklaas.” Around 300 AD, he was the distinguished Bishop of Myra in present-day Turkey. Not only was he the patron saint of children, but of the oppressed and those at sea. He was a noted defender of the faith, an attendee at the First Council of Nicaea in 325, who advocated for Trinitarianism and opposed the heretical views of Arius. He was among the bishops who signed the Nicene Creed. After his death, the St. Nicholas Church was built over the site of the Myra church where Nicholas originally served as bishop.
My colleague William Federer offered this brief history of the very real St. Nicholas, who is at the root of the modern Santa Claus.
Greek Orthodox tradition tells of Saint Nicholas being born to a wealthy, elderly couple in Asia Minor (what is today Turkey) in the year 280 AD. When his parents died, he used the wealth he inherited to generously give to the poor.
Upon hearing of a merchant who went bankrupt and that creditors were about to take his daughters, Saint Nicholas threw money in the window at night to provide a dowry for the daughters to get married, thus saving them from a life of prostitution. When the father discovered who gave the money, Nicholas made him promise not to tell, as he wanted the glory to go to God alone.
This inspired the custom of secret gift-giving on the anniversary of Saint Nicholas’ death, December 6, 343 AD.
Saint Nicholas became Bishop of Myra and was imprisoned during Emperor Diocletian’s persecution of Christians. He was freed by the Roman Emperor Constantine I. Saint Nicholas attended the Council of Nicea [in AD 325] where the Nicene Creed was written.
Just like the Apostle Paul [who was also in Myra in AD 60] as described in Acts, chapter 19, Saint Nicholas preached against the fertility goddess ‘Diana’ and her immoral temple prostitutes at Ephesus — the Las Vegas of the ancient Mediterranean world. The people responded by tearing down the local temple to Diana.
Saint Nicholas was known for courageously rescuing a soldier who was about to be executed by a corrupt governor, and for having many miraculous answers to his prayers.
After his death, Emperor Justinian built a cathedral and named it after him. Vladimir the Great of Russia converted to Eastern Orthodox Christianity and adopted Saint Nicholas as the patron saint of Russia.
In the 11th century, Muslim Seljuk Turks invaded Asia Minor, killing Christians, turning churches into mosques and digging up the bones of Christian saints and giving them to dogs. For protection, in the year 1087, the bones of Saint Nicholas were shipped to the town of Bari in southern Italy, thus introducing Saint Nicholas and gift-giving traditions to Western Europe.
Eventually, Dutch immigrants brought the Saint Nicholas traditions to New Amsterdam, which became New York, and they pronounced Saint Nicholas “Sinter Claes” or “Santa Claus.”
Unfortunately, there is a perennial societal tension now associated with Christmas. If not for its dire implications for the future of Liberty, the seasonal contortions over “non-offensive greetings” would be humorous. The Left insists the word “Christmas” violates the phony “Wall of Separation” doctrine if a government employee deigns to utter it within earshot, and that it is too ethnocentric for corporate use.
Some years ago, The Patriot Post coined the greeting “Happy Christmahanakwamadan.” We did so in response to the fashionable PC crowd’s ludicrous demands for “inclusive faith-neutral” greetings. We also published our legal department disclaimer outlining the terms of acceptance for the greeting as a counterpoint to retailers vying for your business who have instituted policies discouraging or outright prohibiting any mention of “Christmas.”
We do not challenge private-sector employers’ right to dictate corporate policies on such matters. However, the ongoing campaign to censor Christmas from public forums is another matter. Ironically, it’s often these same censors who take shortcuts, such as wishing folks “Happy Holidays” or “Merry Xmas.”
Despite some folks’ preoccupation with the secularization of Christmas, our Founders, the framers of our Declaration of Independence and Constitution, had no such concerns about public expressions of faith, as none was warranted. Conversely, they were bold about promoting Christianity and speaking about their own faith.
Historian Peter Lillback authored Sacred Fire, an exhaustive scholarly treatise on George Washington, whom I hold to be our most esteemed and most indispensable president. In that treatise, Lillback notes that it is only in recent years, with the searchable digital publication of our Founders’ writings, that we get an accurate picture of their faith, and their expression of same.
Lillback writes, “Washington referred to himself frequently using the words ‘ardent,’ ‘fervent,’ ‘pious,’ and ‘devout.’ There are over one hundred different prayers composed and written by Washington in his own hand. He described himself as one of the deepest men of faith of his day when he confessed to a clergyman, ‘No Man has a more perfect Reliance on the alwise, and powerful dispensations of the Supreme Being than I have nor thinks his aid more necessary.’ Although he never once used the word ‘Deist’ in his voluminous writings, he often mentioned religion, Christianity, and the Gospel. He spoke of Christ as ‘the divine Author of our blessed religion.’ He wrote of ‘the blessed religion revealed in the Word of God.’ He encouraged seekers to learn ‘the religion of Jesus Christ.’ He even said to his soldiers, ‘To the distinguished Character of Patriot, it should be our highest Glory to add the more distinguished Character of Christian.’”
Here follows a small sample of how other notable Founders expressed their faith.
John Adams: “The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity. I will avow that I then believed, and now believe, that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God. … The Christian religion is, above all the religions that ever prevailed or existed in ancient or modern times, the religion of wisdom, virtue, equity and humanity.”
Samuel Adams: “I [rely] upon the merits of Jesus Christ for a pardon of all my sins. … I conceive we cannot better express ourselves than by humbly supplicating the Supreme Ruler of the world … bringing in the holy and happy period when the kingdoms of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ may be everywhere established, and the people willingly bow to the scepter of Him who is the Prince of Peace. … We may with one heart and voice humbly implore His gracious and free pardon through Jesus Christ, supplicating His Divine aid … [and] above all to cause the religion of Jesus Christ, in its true spirit, to spread far and wide till the whole earth shall be filled with His glory.”
John Hancock: “That the spiritual kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ may be continually increasing until the whole earth shall be filled with His glory.”
Patrick Henry: “Being a Christian … is a character which I prize far above all this world has or can boast. … The Bible is a book worth more than all the other books that were ever printed. … This is all the inheritance I can give to my dear family. The religion of Christ can give them one, which will make them rich indeed.”
John Jay: “Condescend, merciful Father! to grant as far as proper these imperfect petitions, to accept these inadequate thanksgivings, and to pardon whatever of sin hath mingled in them for the sake of Jesus Christ, our blessed Lord and Savior; unto Whom, with Thee, and the blessed Spirit, ever one God, be rendered all honor and glory, now and forever. … The Bible is the best of all books, for it is the word of God and teaches us the way to be happy in this world and in the next. Continue therefore to read it and to regulate your life by its precepts. … Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation, to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.”
Thomas Jefferson: “I am a Christian in the only sense in which He wished anyone to be: sincerely attached to His doctrines in preference to all others. … I am a real Christian — that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus Christ.”
James Madison: “I have sometimes thought there could not be a stronger testimony in favor of religion or against temporal enjoyments, even the most rational and manly, than for men who occupy the most honorable and gainful departments and [who] are rising in reputation and wealth, publicly to declare their unsatisfactoriness by becoming fervent advocates in the cause of Christ.”
And all of us should give serious consideration to these sagacious words from Benjamin Franklin: “How many observe Christ’s birth-day! How few, his precepts! O! ‘tis easier to keep Holidays than Commandments.”
“Endowed by Our Creator”
Clearly, our Founding Fathers understood that “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” could not be sustained in the absence of Light; that these rights are irrevocably endowed by our Creator, the unalienable and inherent Rights of All Men that are the gift of God.
According to George Washington, “Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that National morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle. … The Hand of providence has been so conspicuous in all this, that he must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith, and more than wicked, that has not gratitude enough to acknowledge his obligations.”
(Recall that General Washington chose Christmas night in 1776 to cross the Delaware River and launch his daring surprise attack on Britain’s Hessian mercenaries. His victory at the Battle of Trenton breathed much-needed life into the arduous and perilous task of securing our Liberty.)
John Adams wrote: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. … Statesmen may plan and speculate for Liberty, but it is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles upon which Freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free Constitution, is pure Virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People, in a greater Measure than they have it now, They may change their Rulers, and the forms of Government, but they will not obtain a lasting Liberty.”
Benjamin Rush proclaimed, “The only foundation for a useful education in a republic is to be laid in religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments.”
Likewise, Gouverneur Morris wrote, “Religion is the only solid basis of good morals and Morals are the only possible Support of free governments. Therefore education should teach the precepts of religion and the duties of man towards God.”
Samuel Adams added, “Religion and good morals are the only solid foundation of public liberty and happiness. … Religion in a Family is at once its brightest Ornament and its best Security.”
Perhaps John Jay said it best: “The Bible is the best of all books, for it is the word of God and teaches us the way to be happy in this world and in the next. Continue therefore to read it and to regulate your life by its precepts.”
My point in listing these brief pearls of wisdom from our Founders is to make the case plain that the Left’s proscription on the expression of faith, censorship that is antithetical to our Constitution and the Liberty it enshrines, will not cease until such expressions have been expelled from all public venues and forums. Then, and only then, can the rule of men fully supersede the Rule of Law.
The Light of the World
When our children were young, Ann and I would help them comprehend how great God has always been and always will be, the Alpha and Omega, by using metaphors with tangible examples that they could grasp.
We wanted them to understand that it is only the rare occasion, given the immensity of His universal scope, which affords us a perfectly clear view of God’s plan for each of us. But we also assured them of the Truth we had learned: that through faith, we always know that He will use our circumstances, however corrupted by our own free will, to guide us to where He wants us to be.
As our kids were growing older, each demonstrated a substantial interest and aptitude for science. Thus, I was captivated when one of my sons directed me to this elucidation of God’s infinite domain from Dr. William Blair, an astrophysicist and research professor at Johns Hopkins University.
Blair wrote: “Today we know that galaxies are as common as blades of grass in a meadow. The Hubble Space Telescope recently completed a particularly deep (faint) census of a tiny ‘pencil beam’ extending far out into the Universe. This survey, called the ‘Hubble Deep Field,’ was targeted on a region of the sky that was nearly devoid of known objects, so as to be (hopefully) representative of conditions in the distant Universe. The resulting images are truly amazing. Strewn across this tiny piece of the sky are perhaps 1500 or more galaxies of all shapes, sizes, and colors! Because this survey pertains to such a small piece of the sky, the implications are staggering: if the region of sky demarked by the bowl of the Big Dipper were surveyed to the same depth, it would contain about 32 million galaxies! And the estimate for the entire visible Universe is that there are upwards of 40 BILLION galaxies, each containing tens to hundreds of billions of stars!”
To put the vastness of creation into perspective, Blair uses a sheet of paper: “Imagine that the distance from the earth to the sun (93 million miles, or about 8 light minutes) is compressed to the thickness of a typical sheet of paper. On this scale, the nearest star (4.3 light years) is at a distance of 71 feet. The diameter of the Milky Way (100,000 light years) would require a 310 mile high stack of paper, while the distance to the Andromeda galaxy (at 2 million light years one of the most distant objects visible to the naked eye) would require a stack of paper more than 6,000 miles high! On this scale, the ‘edge’ of the Universe, defined as the most distant known quasars some 10 billion light years hence, is not reached until the stack of paper is 31 million miles high — a third of the way to the sun on the real scale of things!”
Pondering this vastness is a humbling experience indeed.
Knowing quite a few professional physicists who are men and women of faith, I wrote Dr. Blair and asked him, “Are you a person of faith in God as our creator?” and, “If so, what does your analogy reveal about the creator of our universe?”
As to the first question, he answered, “Yes, I am.”
As to the second, he replied, “In short, ‘God created the heavens and the earth.’ Understanding more about the ‘heavens’ and the scale of the Universe only magnifies my personal impression of what it is that God has created. Having a personal connection to that same God is a defining aspect of my faith.”
According to Blair, who at the time was in charge of NASA’s deep space project, “Some people can look at the spirals of our galaxy and not see the hand of God, but I beg to differ.”
And that brings to recollection a message of hope broadcast by the astronauts of Apollo 8 on Christmas Eve of 1968. They were the first to leave Earth’s orbit for our Moon — and the first to see an “Earthrise.”
From the emptiness of space 240,000 miles from home, Apollo 8’s crew, Commander Frank Borman, Command Module Pilot James Lovell, and Lunar Module Pilot William Anders, broadcast a report watched around the world.
Unexpectedly, they began reading the Creation account from Genesis:
William Anders: “We are now approaching lunar sunrise, and for all the people back on Earth, the crew of Apollo 8 has a message that we would like to send to you. ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, “Let there be light.” And there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good. And God divided the light from the darkness.’“
James Lovell: “And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. And God said, ‘Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.’ And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament; and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.”
Frank Borman: “And God said, ‘Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear.’ And it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called the Seas. And God saw that it was good.”
Commander Borman finished the broadcast, saying, “And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you — all of you on the good Earth.”
It can be challenging to keep the vast hand of our Creator in proper perspective. Sometimes, our idolatry of self or materialism obscures the hand of God, while other times, it is the trials of life that obscure His hand. Too often, we simply don’t look for God’s hand in our life and all around us.
During the winter season, our East Tennessee mountaintop is often shrouded in clouds which can persist for a week or more. And this can, in turn, obscure our ability to see what’s just in front of us. The absence of sun and blue sky, or crisp and clear nights under bright stars, can take its toll on the spirit. However, my spirit is lifted high when I recall with certainty that above the fog and clouds, all the heavenly bodies shine bright. Eventually, the weather will break, and light will avail itself again.
More than once, I have reminded my children that bleak winter weather that obscures the sunlight is an apt metaphor for the trials in our lives, which can obscure the Son’s light.
Life itself can, at times, seem shrouded in fog and darkness. That can be especially true if, like me, you bear a lifelong burden “to Support and Defend” our heritage of Liberty and extend that inheritance to the next generation. Occasionally, I forget that this burden I bear is also borne by tens of millions of my fellow Patriots across our nation. But our Creator, who irrevocably endowed us with Liberty, is always there, even if temporarily obscured by the fog of conflict.
As in times past, this is a difficult season for today’s American Patriots. We face daunting challenges from enemies foreign and domestic. But I hold close these words from George Washington written early in the first American Revolution: “We should never despair, our Situation before has been unpromising and has changed for the better, so I trust, it will again. If new difficulties arise, we must only put forth new Exertions and proportion our Efforts to the exigency of the times.”
So, on the darkest of days, how do we find our way to Him?
The answer is obvious to all who have opened their eyes — just follow the Light.
Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12) Thus, if we want to see our Creator, we have only to turn toward the Light, and, as implicit in our motto: Veritas vos Liberabit — “The Truth will set you Free” (John 8:32).
It is the dawn of the Light and Truth that we celebrate at Christmas, the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. It is no coincidence that as the story of His birth is recounted, it is a star that guided wise men to his side.
In the Gospel of John (1:5), it is written, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.”
Now, a physicist will tell you that darkness doesn’t exist except for the absence of light — which is to say, We need only to seek the Light.
As for my family and me, and hundreds of millions of our brothers and sisters around the world, Jesus Christ is the Light, our personal and irrevocable connection to our Creator. He is that for anyone and everyone who turns toward His Light.
The Gospels, which attest to the life of Jesus, reveal what we most need to know about God as our Creator, and His purpose for us.
In a sermon delivered almost a century ago, Rev. James Allan Francis provided a timeless insight into the profound impact of the life of Jesus Christ, from his birth through the generations: “Here is a man who was born in an obscure village as the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another obscure village. He worked in a carpenter shop until he was 30 and then for three years was an itinerant preacher. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never owned a home. He never had a family. He never went to college. He never put his foot inside a big city. He never traveled two hundred miles from the place where he was born. He never did one of the things that usually accompany greatness. He had no credentials but himself. He had nothing to do with this world except the naked power of his divine manhood. While still a young man, the tide of popular opinion turned against him. His friends ran away. One of them denied him. Another betrayed him. He was turned over to his enemies. He went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed upon the cross between two thieves. His executioners gambled for the only piece of property he had on earth while he was dying, and that was his coat. When he was dead, he was taken down and laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend.”
Rev. Francis concluded, “Nineteen wide centuries have come and gone, and today he is the center of the human race and the leader of the column of progress. I am far within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, and all the navies that were ever built, and all the parliaments that ever sat, and all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man upon the earth as powerfully as has this one solitary life.”
We live in a world today that is no different from yesterday and tomorrow, in the sense that we have and will always have a deep desire to understand our Creator. Unfortunately, we tend to complicate the fulfillment of that desire by satiating it with false gods. I am no stranger to false gods, which, ironically, helps me to clearly distinguish between those idols and my authentic Creator and Savior.
President George Washington wrote, “May the Father of all mercies scatter light, and not darkness, upon our paths.” May He indeed!
Almost 200 years later, President Ronald Reagan noted: “On Christmas, we celebrate the birth of Christ with prayer, feasting, and great merriment. But most of all, we experience it in our hearts. For more than just a day, Christmas is a state of mind. It is found throughout the year whenever faith overcomes doubt, hope conquers despair, and love triumphs over hate. It is present when men of any creed bring love and understanding to the hearts of their fellow man.” Indeed it is!
Patriots, in closing, I humbly ask your prayers for our Patriot team, that our mission would seed and encourage the Spirit of Liberty in the hearts and minds of our countrymen. Please also join us in praying for God’s blessing upon our nation, and for the protection of, and provision for, our military Patriots and their families, especially on this “Soldier’s Night Before Christmas.”
It is the words of “Silent Night” which mean most to our family in this season:
Silent night, holy night, All is calm, all is bright, Round yon virgin mother and child. Holy infant so tender and mild, Sleep in heavenly peace, Sleep in heavenly peace.
Silent night, holy night, Shepherds quake at the sight, Glories stream from heaven afar, Heavenly hosts sing alleluia; Christ the Savior is born, Christ the Savior is born.
Silent night, holy night, Son of God, love’s pure light, Radiant beams from thy holy face, With the dawn of redeeming grace, Jesus, Lord at thy birth, Jesus, Lord at thy birth.
In keeping with those simple words expressing the Spirit of this holy season, it is my fervent prayer that on this Christmas Day, and every day of the coming year, we seek the Light of our Creator for wisdom, guidance, and peace. Remember that attitude is a reflection of gratitude and that a grateful heart leads to a joyful spirit.
Peter Marshall, the most famous of United States Senate Chaplains, declared, “May we not ‘spend’ Christmas or ‘observe’ Christmas, but rather ‘keep’ it.” Let it be with us.
Happy Holy Days and Merry Christ’s Mass! May God’s light shine brightly upon you, your family, and our great nation in the coming year!
On behalf of our staff and National Advisory Committee, we are humbled to stand with you among the ranks of our Patriot countrymen. We wish peace and God’s blessing upon you and your family.
Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis! Pro Deo et Libertate
To our Patriot readers of faiths other than Christianity: We hope that this serves to deepen your understanding of our faith, and the faith of so many of our Founders. Permission to forward or reprint is granted.
Each year, as the holidays approach, countless Americans find themselves facing a very different kind of season, one marked not by joy, but by grief. This time of year brings up memories of someone they’ve lost, a relationship that has changed, or a chapter of life that will never look the same again. And while the world tells us to celebrate, the brain tells a different story.
Busyness is not necessarily bad. Of course, it can lead to spending yourself and your family at the expense of peace, loyalty, and stability. But it can also lead to fullness and satisfaction. We hear from many sources that the pace of the Christmas season is intended to help us slow our minds down and consider the wonder and mystery of the incarnation, but our bodies and calendars don’t always align with our thought life. Great dissonance arises when the seen world clashes with the unseen, causing us to feel frantic.
We also heap expectations on ourselves, our spouses, our children, the other parents in the class, the church, and the shoppers in stores. We want everyone else to be at home when we’re out, parking lots empty, shelves hyper-organized. And gone are the days of stumbling upon advertisements, inspirations, and motivations—reminders to buy and be merry and plan days of kids’ crafts and baking pop out at us from every phone app and email, leaving us to wonder if we’re doing enough or too much to celebrate this season.
Let’s take a deep breath, step back, and consider Psalm 34, Taste and See That the LORD is Good.
“My soul makes its boast in the LORD; let the humble hear and be glad. Oh, magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt his name together! Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him! Oh, fear the LORD, you his saints, for those who fear him have no lack! The young lions suffer want and hunger, but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing.” (vv. 2–3, 8–10 ESV)
Go back and read that again—maybe slower this time.
There is something so confident in the command to ‘taste and see.’ We aren’t asked to consider, think through, or compare. The Psalmist King David launches from the known reality of God’s goodness, which is ours for experiencing and dwelling in, to also magnify and exalt God’s name alongside other worshippers. From this portion of Psalm 34, we can apply three principles to our hearts this Christmas season:
What is my heart like?
Are my senses oriented towards God?
How do I seek the Kingdom of God?
First, the heart. If I am making my boast in the LORD, then I am not the main character of my story. This is what it means to be humble. Oftentimes, our busyness gives way to hurry, the antithesis of calm and the prequel to pride.
Applying this to our initial question of busyness, we must ask ourselves: Why am I choosing to be busy? We can talk about it like we’re victims of an inexplicable phenomenon that is sweeping modern America. But truly, we are the ones who agree to enroll our kids in this choir or that sport (and all the parties that surely ensue); to purchase tickets to that Christmas light show or holiday concert; to host a gingerbread house-making party or a book gift exchange.
Do you think you are maybe trying to avoid a painful holiday season? This time of year isn’t naturally jolly for everyone, and busyness can be a cover-up for dealing with homesickness, bitterness, insecurities, and a whole host of other heartaches. Or are you trying to curate an enviable social media post? Those feeds and reels are tools that can bring about a lot of good. However, they can just as easily serve as something to wield for an identity boost.
Or are you trying to be fun and build loyalty into your kids by imitating God? He is, after all, the best gift-giver of all. A full December calendar should come from an overflow of a peaceful home where attitudes are in order, repentance is quick, and kids are saturated in love. Be honest with yourself and your spouse about what is going on in your heart when you RSVP to an event or party. Repent where necessary, and turn towards faith in imitating the Lord.
Secondly, my senses. Holidays are intensely material. The scents of cinnamon, gingerbread, and peppermint remind us of holiday sweets. Red and green signal the ultimate December color combination. The sights of Evergreen trees, twinkly lights, bells, angels, elves, and all our oddball family traditions point us towards Christmas. And the greatest seen and felt experience man has ever known: Jesus came in flesh and wore cotton clothes and leather sandals; He ate fish and bread and drank wine; He roughed His hands on wood; He ran through streets and stood in the temple. God has gifted us with our senses to experience a myriad of material goods, all with the intention of pointing us to the spiritual, the eternal—His goodness!
So when King David commands us to taste and see that the LORD is good, he isn’t just saying something nice. He wants us to orient our entire lives around God’s goodness, including something as routine as tasting and seeing. Christmas, in all its material glory, is the perfect time to practice aiming all our material plans towards God’s goodness. Yes, we should absolutely be busy with our children in taking in all the sights, sounds, tastes, smells, and feels of Christmas—the possibilities are innumerable! And directing every single taste and sight towards God’s goodness gives us great calm.
Finally, seeking the kingdom. We all attest to the commercialization of holidays, so we must work to not let culture guide our decision-making on how to best use this time. Fearing God and obeying His Word must shape every facet of us, including our calendars. Peace comes from the Spirit, and it’s only when we are seeking the Kingdom of God that we can experience it. No matter how tidy and pre-planned our days are, man cannot manufacture peace. Think of how busy Jesus was, yet He’s the Prince of Peace. He absolutely made time for solitude as well as time with just His disciples. He didn’t let the surrounding needy culture create a hasty spirit, for He was only about the Kingdom of God.
The bottom line of every aspect of the Christian life, including holiday celebrations, is the gospel. Jesus’ birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension profoundly shape the life of the Christian in every way. So, if we are frantically hurrying our children and spouses from one party to the next, from crafting night to the last cookie exchange of the season, then we have simply lost sight of Jesus and His kingdom. A lack of calm means we have inserted our own agendas at the helm, forfeiting service to God and our families. We fill our calendars in an attempt to fully engage our children in the wonder of what Christ did for us and the freedom we now have to enjoy traditions and merriment.
Your personality type plays a huge part in how calm you can be during the holiday season. Processing and talking through these three principles now will help direct your heart. And even if you appear calm, no one knows how peaceful or tumultuous your spirit is. If it’s the first week of December and you are already pining for January 1, then chances are you’ve lost the calm. Once you have thought through these principles with your own family dynamics in view, consider these thoughts for your busy holiday season—two are very practical, while the other two go back to the heart of it all.
Plan ahead and work today.
I’m not much of a list maker, or if I do, then I have several going in many places. For me, it’s just about getting things out of my head and onto paper: grocery lists, gift ideas, who needs to be where and when. Decide what works best for you, but if you’re a busy parent, then planning is a kindness to your family. While you prepare your days, keep your hands open to the possibility and inevitability of change and unexpected interruptions!
Work today because tomorrow is one day closer to Christmas! Procrastination is likely most felt on Christmas Eve, so take care of all those small details that matter today. Be realistic with how many details you can attend to—maybe it’s not the year to watercolor all your gift tags or get that paw print solidified in salt dough. Likewise, involve your children as much as possible in every part of Christmas, even if their wrapping job doesn’t yield perfectly curled 6-inch ribbons.
Read steadily.
Whether you’re a morning person or not, having your mind set on Jesus at the start of a day sets you up for peace. This never has to be an hour-long session! Maybe it’s just reading through Psalm 34. Maybe it’s also a dedicated Advent reading plan or devotional. Write scriptures and quotes in visible places. Whatever you choose, be consistent! We all need reminders and help with focusing on God’s goodness.
Where is the potential conflict? The blessing?
Ahead of time, consider the conflicts and blessings. Anticipating the struggles of a busy season will direct your own heart and shape your children’s. Thinking through the ages and seasons of your children, where is there potential catastrophe with busyness versus their needs and abilities? Teaching kids patience and self-control when we have lined up six late nights in a row, where no one was in bed before 10:00 pm, is more likely to provoke our kids to anger than to foster faithful discipleship (Ephesians 6). On the other hand, how wonderful for our children to reflect on a full schedule of friends, family, decor, lights, and merriment! The kind of season where everyone sits a little closer because they feel seen, loved, and satisfied. Lining up the potential blessings also gives us a lot of holiday energy.
Even as you are seeking to bless and give in abundance to your children, be open-handed with your own repentance.
The moment you notice you are getting out of sorts because something isn’t going according to plan, recognize the closed-handedness, thank the Lord for the conviction, repent, and literally open your hands. A physical movement like this helps orient your whole being towards a change in that very moment. Pray that God would help you give what people need and not necessarily what you want to give. Thank God for the conviction instead of then wallowing in sin and guilt over whatever emotional mess just happened.
Ultimately, being calm isn’t about the calendar, to-do list, or expectations of yourself or others. All these practical tips point toward the physical aspects of this world that we can enjoy because our good Father gives good gifts. If we end up skipping a holiday party or missing a theater showing of It’s a Wonderful Life, then we can still have peace because Jesus dwells within us. Likewise, a perfect plan achieved at the right time, with hours to spare each day for two cups of hot coffee and a run-through of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, can still yield a frantic holiday if the peace of Christ does not reside within us.
If you are seeking the Lord by tasting and seeing His goodness, then you will be full of peace, fellowship, calm, and satisfaction. This is not only what we want to be marked by as mature Christians, but we also want this for our children! Hurry models for our children that we believe God didn’t give us enough time, money, or means of enjoyment. A calm, gentle spirit teaches our children a deep trust in everything about God.
Think now about December 26th. How do you want your children to remember the Christmas of 2025? Rushed, frantic, exhausting, hurried? Full, satisfied, fun, lovely? If you have five items on the calendar or thirty, the calm starts in the heart of the worshipper—so taste and see that the LORD is good.
Kate Stevens is a worshiper, wife, and mom, and with the help of the Lord, that is her hierarchy of work. Beyond this, she works with the youth and children at her church and edits as a freelancer. She enjoys reading, writing, running, cooking, and practicing thinking pure and lovely things.
After being unsure if they ever wanted children, the Lord eventually blessed Kate and her husband Clint after nearly three years of waiting. They welcomed their first daughter in 2011, another daughter in 2013, and yet another daughter in 2016. Kate considers this her most time-consuming, emotion-full, sanctifying, not always pretty but trusting in the Lord’s plan, and blessed work. Stuck in a house with four females, her husband Clint consistently reminds Kate of her identity and union in Christ.
Will you observe Christmas tomorrow? If so, according to a new Gallup survey, you’re in the majority: 88 percent of Americans will join you.
Will you attend church services today or tomorrow? If so, you’re in the minority: only 47 percent of Americans will join you, down from 64 percent in 2010.
I believe declining church attendance is related to declining well-being in a way that might surprise you, but will—I hope—greatly encourage you as well.
“To run where the brave dare not go”
A recent article by clinical psychology professor Ross White advises, “Your purpose isn’t something to find, it’s something you form.” He reports that online searches for the phrase “find your purpose” have risen by more than 3,000 percent in the past three decades. However, he encourages his clients to take a different path.
In his view, our life purpose works with what and who we already are and evolves over time while serving its own ends. The goal is to form a direction that “brings meaning and vitality to our lives.”
I’m reminded of the testimony of Albert Camus, who called himself an “absurdist” and viewed the universe as meaningless: “In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.”
His words stir something in me. The idea that I can form my own purpose and thus bring “meaning and vitality” to my life is viscerally attractive. I’m reminded of “The Quest,” a song I first heard as a young boy and has been performed or recorded dozens of times since:
To dream the impossible dream To fight the unbeatable foe To bear with unbearable sorrow To run where the brave dare not go
To right the unrightable wrong To love, pure and chaste, from afar To try, when your arms are too weary To reach the unreachable star
This is my quest, to follow that star No matter how hopeless, no matter how far To fight for the right without question or pause To be willing to march into hell for a heavenly cause
And I know if I’ll only be true To this glorious quest That my heart will lie peaceful and calm When I’m laid to my rest
And the world will be better for this That one man, scorned and covered with scars Still strove, with his last ounce of courage To reach the unreachable star!
After all these years, I can still recite these aspirational lyrics in my mind today.
But are they true?
A nativity set missing a figure
Joseph is often called the “silent man of Christmas.” In all the biblical narratives, he speaks not a single recorded word. I remember a nativity set I once found in a store which included figurines for Jesus, Mary, shepherds, Wise Men, and even animals, but none for Joseph. If you set it out, I’m not sure how many people would notice the omission.
And yet, without someone doing what Joseph did, there would have been no Christmas.
He agreed to make his pregnant fiancée his wife, ignoring the societal scorn that would likely come as a consequence. He risked his life by embarking on a journey to Bethlehem for the birth of a baby who was not his. He risked his life again by taking the child and his mother to Egypt to escape the murderous clutches of King Herod.
He risked his future and prosperity once more when, “being warned in a dream,” he “went and lived in a city called Nazareth” (Matthew 2:22, 23), a town so insignificant that it is mentioned not once in the entire Old Testament.
While his words are nowhere recorded, he changed the course of human history—not just by protecting Jesus, but by modeling obedience for him. So it was that when his adopted son came to teach his disciples to pray, he began with the Aramaic word he first used for Joseph: Abba, “Father” (Matthew 6:9). Scholars tell us that Jesus was the first rabbi in Jewish history to address the Lord of heaven in such a personal way.
Now Joseph’s example is God’s invitation to us today.
“More than conquerors through him who loved us”
Isaiah foretold the coming of One who would be “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6). Yesterday, we considered Mary’s commitment to our Prince of Peace. Today, let’s emulate Joseph’s commitment to him as our Everlasting Father.
Here’s my point: we will seek and trust our Father’s purpose rather than our own to the degree that we believe he loves us more than we love ourselves.
You might think that you always want whatever is best for yourself, but I doubt it. If you’re like me, you too often succumb to temptation to make choices you know will cost more than they pay, then punish yourself with guilt for your failures. And you see yourself in the mirror of the opinion of others, valuing yourself only when and as they do. Since popularity is always fleeting, so is your esteem of yourself.
By contrast, the Christ of Christmas knows every failure of your past and future but loves you unconditionally (1 John 4:8). What’s more, he likes you. Our Lord “takes pleasure in his people” (Psalm 149:4), “delights in the welfare of his servant” (Psalm 35:27), and “richly provides us with everything to enjoy” (1 Timothy 6:17).
He is on our side so fully that “we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans 8:37). Paul adds:
Neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (vv. 38–39).
Experiencing this all-conquering love is the key to the well-being our souls long to embrace.
The choice that changes everything
Now we have a choice. We can form our own self-reliant purpose for our own ends, or we can seek and follow the purpose of an Everlasting Father who loves us more than we could ever love ourselves. We can strive to “reach the unreachable star,” or, like Joseph, we can take the hand of the Creator of the stars as he reaches down to us.
Famed missionary Jim Elliot prayed,
“Your will, Lord. Nothing more. Nothing less. Nothing else.”
Will you make his prayer yours today?
Quote for the day:
“He who obeys sincerely endeavors to obey thoroughly.” —Thomas Brooks (1608–80)
Experience the Christmas story from Luke chapter two in 13 different languages, beginning in English but primarily in 12 unique Asian languages. These readings are by HeartCry missionaries, partners, and students connected to HeartCry’s training in Asia. Through Christ and His life, death, and resurrection, God truly is gathering His people from every tribe, language, and nation! HeartCry seeks to advance the Great Commission by supporting missionaries, training missionaries, resourcing missionaries, planting churches, and then declaring God’s great works to God’s people. HeartCry Missionary Society: http://www.heartcrymissionary.com
A Nobel Prize-winning physicist explains why AI can create false confidence — and how to use it without outsourcing your thinking.Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images
A Nobel laureate warns AI can create false confidence by making people feel informed.
Saul Perlmutter says AI should support critical thinking, not replace human intellectual work.
He urges treating AI outputs probabilistically, with skepticism and constant error-checking.
Think AI makes you smarter?
Probably not, according to Saul Perlmutter, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist who was credited for discovering that the universe’s expansion is accelerating.
He said AI’s biggest danger is psychological: it can give people the illusion they understand something when they don’t, weakening judgment just as the technology becomes more embedded in our daily work and learning.
“The tricky thing about AI is that it can give the impression that you’ve actually learned the basics before you really have,”Perlmutter said on a podcast episode with Nicolai Tangen, CEO of Norges Bank Investment Group, on Wednesday.
“There’s a little danger that students may find themselves just relying on it a little bit too soon before they know how to do the intellectual work themselves,” he added.
Rather than rejecting AI outright, Perlmutter said the answer is to treat it as a tool — one that supports thinking instead of doing it for you.
Use AI as a tool — not a substitute
Perlmutter said that AI can be powerful — but only if users already know how to think critically.
“The positive is that when you know all these different tools and approaches to how to think about a problem, AI can often help you find the bit of information that you need,” he said.
At UC Berkeley, where Perlmutter teaches, he and his colleagues developed a critical-thinking course centered on scientific reasoning, including probabilistic thinking, error-checking, skepticism, and structured disagreement, taught through games, exercises, and discussion designed to make those habits automatic in everyday decisions.
“I’m asking the students to think very hard about how would you use AI to make it easier to actually operationalize this concept — to really use it in your day-to-day life,” he said.
The confidence problem
One of Perlmutter’s concerns is that AI often speaks with far more certainty than it deserves and can be “overly confident” in what it says.
The challenge, Perlmutter said, is that AI’s confident tone can short-circuit skepticism, making people more likely to accept its answers at face value rather than question whether they’re correct.
That confidence, he said, mirrors one of the most dangerous human cognitive biases: trusting information that appears authoritative or confirms our existing beliefs.
To counter that instinct, Perlmutter said people should evaluate AI outputs the same way they would any human claim — weighing credibility, uncertainty, and the possibility of error rather than accepting answers at face value.
Learning to catch when you’re being fooled
In science, Perlmutter said, researchers assume they are making mistakes and build systems to catch them. For example, scientists hide their results from themselves, he said, until they’ve exhaustively checked for errors, thereby reducing confirmation bias.
The same mindset applies to AI, he added.
“Many of [these concepts] are just tools for thinking about where are we getting fooled,” he said. “We can be fooling ourselves, the AI could be fooling itself, and then could fool us.”
That’s why AI literacy also involves knowing when not to trust the output, he said — and being comfortable with uncertainty, rather than treating AI outputs as absolute truth.
Still, Perlmutter is clear that this isn’t a problem with a permanent solution.
“AI will be changing,” he said, “and we’ll have to keep asking ourselves: is it helping us, or are we getting fooled more often? Are we letting ourselves get fooled?”
“Fake after fake after fake!” Alan Dershowitz joined “Wake Up America” and discussed the new releases from the Epstein files, and asked people to examine the evidence rather than the accusations.
Truth2Freedom's Blog 