Paul's Passing Thoughts

“Um, excuse me, but if you are a child of God, it is not even just for God to forget your good works (Heb. 6:10), why would He be just in slaying you? And, isn’t God’s last enemy death? (1Cor. 15:26).”

Observing life does teach us about the Bible to a degree. One criticism we often hear about God is that He is cruel. After all, in the Old Testament, we find that He instructed Israel to completely wipe out certain people groups; men, women, children, livestock, and pets.

John Immel made a brilliant observation at this year’s TANC conference. In Europe, where our American spiritual roots came from, religious wars dominated their history. In America we can’t have religious wars, so people fight over the color of the carpet, and you have the ongoing drama such as the latest Acts 29 episode with Mark Driscoll and the J.D. Hall controversy.

Then you have the war correspondents; the discernment blogs. They “cry for justice” on behalf of the victims, but no justice will come. Why? When the sum of life is zero, you don’t deserve justice, you only deserve death. Consider the quotation sent to me by a reader from one of the premier evangelical leaders of our day:

My late friend James Boice and I frequently flew to various conference and events.  I am a white-knuckle flyer whereas he loved the bumps and the feeling of exhilaration that comes from flying through the air.  While I looked anxiously out the window, he said, “What is the matter. R.C.?  Don’t you believe in the sovereignty of God?”   I replied, “Jim, that is my problem.  I do believe in the sovereignty of God, and I know that he would be perfectly just to crash me into the ocean right now.  That is why I am so nervous.”

Um, excuse me, but if you are a child of God, it is not even just for God to forget your good works (Heb. 6:10), why would He be just in slaying you? And, isn’t God’s last enemy death? (1Cor. 15:26).

God commanded the Israelites to wipe out certain people groups because they had a philosophy of zero sum life. You can’t negotiate with such people. If they are your neighbors, they will be constantly seeking to dominate you because you are enslaved to the earthy senses that value life. You are bad for the collective. Plato got it from the Hindus, Augustine got it from Plato, and Luther/Calvin got it from Augustine. And the Neo-Calvinists got it from Calvin. Their zero sum life theology is TULIP, and the doctrine is predicated on man’s total depravity which is a total sum zero of life.