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Christians like to focus on God's love, forgiveness, and goodness, but we don’t as readily stress his holiness. Perhaps the reason for this is that we long to be loved, forgiven, and blessed by a good God. In all these ways we understand that God comes close to us and is near to us in mercy.
Focusing on God's holiness brings into sharp focus our own sinfulness.
In God’s holiness, however, we see how very different and distinct he is from us; we sense a gigantic gap in who he is and who we are as we live our daily lives dogged by sin and impurity. Focusing on God's holiness brings into sharp focus our own sinfulness, brokenness, and lack. It can be downright discouraging to contemplate our impurity of thought and action, our frequent sin, and then to think about how perfectly pure God is. Because God is holy, completely pure and without any sin and darkness, he must judge sin and evil.
Think of Adam and Eve being banished from the presence of God after sinning in the garden of Eden. For unbelievers God’s holiness is a terrifying thing, for every person knows his or her evil thoughts and deeds, and how there is no way for us to be holy based on our own merits before a holy God in all his perfections. Unbelievers are left to the righteous judgment of a holy God for their sin.
God desires for us to rejoice in his attribute of holiness.
Christians are called to enjoy God, and so must rejoice in all of his characteristics. And God desires for us to rejoice in his holiness, not to be discouraged by it. Take for instance Exodus 15:11 in the Song of Moses, which exclaims,
“Who is like you, O LORD, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?"
How are we to exclaim like Moses and the people of Israel did when we are conscious of our great sinfulness?
Only in Christ can we rejoice in God’s holiness. We see the sin and corruption and darkness of our own hearts and the world around us, and because God is holy we know that all the evil in this world will be wiped away one day. And yet, as those covered in Christ’s blood and righteousness, we will not be judged with the world.
One day we will be holy like our holy heavenly Father.
We do not fear a holy God because we do not stand before him on our own merits but instead in the perfect righteousness of Christ. Our sin and corruption has already been judged in Christ’s death, and our salvation is unto holiness, so that we might be like our holy heavenly Father.
God’s work in our lives is to make us more holy like himself. Hebrews 12:10 states,
For they [our fathers] disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he [God] disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness.
God is preparing his beloved children in this life to dwell forever in his presence in the new heavens and new earth. We stand before him because of Christ’s righteousness, and God is shaping us by the Holy Spirit to become in our thoughts and actions more holy like himself.
This article is adapted from BCL’s January 2022 monthly newsletter “Holiness.”
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Editor’s Note: R. Scott Clark is professor of Church History and Historical Theology at Westminster Seminary California. This article is adapted from Dr. Clark’s original post atheidelblog.net, which you can readhere.
The resurrection is central to the Christian faith, as the apostle Paul tells us,
For if the dead are not raised, neither has Christ been raised: and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is meaningless; you are still in your sins. Then they also that have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If we have only hoped in Christ in this life, we are of all men most pitiable. (1 Cor 15:16–19)
The Christian claim is that Jesus of Nazareth was crucified (Matt 27:35; Mark 15:24; Luke 23:33), that on the cross he died (Matt 27:50; Mark 15:37; Luke 23:46), his body was removed from the cross by Roman soldiers and given to Joseph of Arimathea (Matt 27:58–69; Mark 15:43–45; Luke 23:52), that Joseph placed his body in a tomb (Matt 27:60; Mark 15:46; Luke 23:53). This all occurred on a Friday (Luke 23:54). The tomb was covered with a large stone, in the shape of a disc, which was pushed down a groove with a slight ramp, and there it was marked by imprinting some clay with the royal seal and guarded with heavily-armed Roman soldiers (Matt 27:62–66; Mark 15:46; Luke 23:53), who were most likely members of the Praetorian Guard (Matt 27:27; Mark 15:16). One of the five cohorts of the Praetorians was stationed in Jerusalem. As such they were either Roman or born in a well-established Roman colony and trained to high standards. On Sunday morning, Mary Magdalene and others found his tomb empty (Matt 28:1–7; Mark 16:1–7; Luke 24:1–5).
The Empty Tomb
According to the biblical narratives, the empty tomb was seen by the Praetorians who had been assigned by Jewish authorities to guard it (Matt 28:4). They reported to Jewish authorities about the events associated with Jesus’s resurrection (Matt 28:11–15), who paid them hush money and promised to protect them from any reprisals from their superiors in the regional government. Of course, the lie fabricated by the authorities was implausible from the beginning. Even had the guards fallen asleep at the peril of their own lives—even modern soldiers face penalties for falling asleep when they are supposed to be standing watch—they would have been signing their death warrant by admitting it. Matthew, a former tax-collector who had connections in the local government, reports that the Jewish authorities accepted the soldiers’ account as true. I might once have been skeptical about the cover-up story, but as the years have gone on and as I have seen public authorities look straight at us and tell bald-faced lies, my skepticism has given way.
The empty tomb was also seen by Mary Magdalene, by Mary the mother of James, and by Salome (Matt 28:1–6; Mark 16:1–5; Luke 24:1–4). After the women notified the disciples, Peter and John (“the beloved disciple”) also visited the scene and saw the empty tomb with their own eyes (John 20:2–8). Indeed, were the story true about Jesus’ body having been stolen, we would have expected the scene to be helter-skelter. Instead, John says that they found the linen shroud in the tomb, along with the neatly folded face cloth in the arcosolium (the compartment in which Joseph laid Jesus’ body). The idea that a band of disciples sneaked in, silently pushed the heavy stone disc up the ramp, removed Jesus’ body, removed the linen shroud, and removed the face cloth—leaving it neatly folded in the compartment—without waking the soldiers begs belief.
The Risen Christ
The story told by the theological liberals—those who would deny the substance of the Christian faith by rewriting it and retaining its vocabulary—is that the disciples experienced the risen Christ subjectively. The biblical narratives will not permit this revisionist account. They demand to be treated as claims concerning objective historical fact. They would have us believe that Jesus was raised bodily from the grave and the disciples and 500 others (1 Cor 15:5–6) saw the risen Christ with their eyes. Luke, who claims to be a credible reporter of facts (Luke 1:1–4), wrote a sizable section of a chapter describing Jesus’ post-resurrection appearance to two disciples (Luke 24:13–49) on the road to Emmaus. Jesus gave them empirical evidence of the reality of his bodily resurrection. They saw him with their eyes (Luke 24:36–43; John 20:19–20) and both Mary Magdalene (John 20:17) and Thomas (John 20:24–29) touched him. He even ate with them (Luke 24:30, 41–42). Not only was he seen bodily by the 500, but also by the apostle James and, later on the road to Damascus, by the apostle Paul (Acts 9:1–9), an episode that was witnessed by several others.
Assessing The Evidence
As we know, in the age of the internet anyone can claim anything. We must be responsible, critical readers and thinkers. Whenever we are asked to believe something that we did not ourselves directly experience with our senses, we must ask whether the witnesses and reporters are credible. Read the gospels. Do the writers seem like sane, credible authors? Are they given to hyperbole or do they damage their credibility such that a reasonable person would rightly doubt their reliability when it comes to the resurrection narratives?
When I compare the canonical gospels with other ancient texts from the period, they stand up well. This exercise has focused on the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke). The gospels vary some in detail, and the differences are easily accounted for by their audiences. Luke was writing to a certain Theophilus, Matthew was writing for a Jewish audience, and Mark was probably writing for a Gentile Christian audience in Rome. Each of those groups of readers would have had slightly different questions and backgrounds. The narratives are complementary and cohere. They report unfavorably on themselves and upon their colleagues. In other words, were the stories fabricated, there would be no reason to include potentially embarrassing stories. For example, in the holy Qur’an the prophet is consistently portrayed heroically and as greater than other prior prophets. The realism of the gospels, by contrast, is striking.
Do the narratives contain clues that might signal that they are false? The Gnostic communities of the second century, a little less than a century after the death of Jesus, began to produce alternative Gospels and alternative Acts of the apostles, and so on. These are clearly competing, parallel accounts, in which figures other than the apostles and sometimes other than Jesus are the protagonists. But we find clues, which are more like dead giveaways, when reading these narratives critically. The Gnostic Gospel of Thomas has Jesus present in the second century, about a century after his death and resurrection. There are elements of the Martyrdom of Polycarp (c. AD 150s), which are probably later additions that differ starkly in tone and in character from the older narrative. These were added by well-meaning but unskilled redactors to give the narrative a little more excitement and emotional power.
The biblical gospel authors are talking about the same world that you and I inhabit. They are evidently in their right minds—they give no evidence to the contrary. Further, they published claims that would have easily been refuted by contemporaries had they been false. For example, the resurrection associated with the death of Jesus:
And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many. When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe and said, “Truly this was the Son of God!” (Matt 27:51–54).
Matthew did not claim that people had visions in which the dead appeared, but rather that there was an earthquake at the time of Jesus’ death and that tombs were opened, and that people emerged resurrected and alive. Further, Matthew says that those who were raised went into the city and were seen. Either these things happened, or they did not. Does Matthew seem as though he is delusional? He has never struck me thus and I began reading him when I was a skeptical pagan. He seemed to me then as now—a sober man with an amazing story to tell.
Can we believe ancient texts? That is a large question to which the shorter answer is: Why not? Obviously, antiquity does not create truth, but unless we are willing to dismiss all historical narratives written before Modernity, we must trust these texts. To dismiss them all en masse would be the height of folly and arrogance. Thus, we have to sort through them. Some writers have proven to be more reliable and others less so. Compare Luke to any ancient historian (e.g., Herodotus, Thucydides et al.). Luke holds his own.
What about the supernatural? The Modern impulse to dismiss the resurrection narratives specifically and the gospels generally rests upon the assumption that we live in a closed universe and that reasonable, enlightened persons no longer believe in the supernatural. This is essentially a religious and not a historical objection. The historian is interested in what happened. It is not the historian’s business to say a priori what can or cannot happen. We know what usually happens, but we do not know what can happen. The guards at Jesus’ tomb did not expect an earthquake or an angel, and it terrified them. If on September 10, 2001, someone had told enlightened, critical Moderns that a group of men, armed with no more than box cutters, would succeed in an improbable plot to hijack jets and fly them into buildings, thus killing thousands and bringing the United States of America to a complete stand still and plunging much of the world into a two-decades-long war, they would have said that such a claim was bizarre at best. Yet, that is exactly what happened. As best we know, a single, deranged gunman shot President Kennedy in Dallas in 1963. Even more improbably, another gunman walked up to the assassin, who was surrounded by police and authorities, and shot him. These things seem so improbable that conspiracy theories flourish as alternative explanations.
Do we see resurrections today? No. Does this mean that earthquakes, angels, and resurrections are impossible? No, it does not. I cannot prove with empirical certainty that the bodily resurrection of Jesus happened. I need not. We have multiple, credible, eye-witness accounts of the sort that we trust regularly.
I am reliably informed that I was born (rather early as it turned out) in 1961 in a small town in Kansas. I was born so early that both my mother and I were imperiled. There just happened to be a physician visiting the town where I was born and my mother’s physician, who was not able to help her, sent for the visiting physician who saved both of us. I spent at least eight weeks in an isolate with round-the-clock nursing care until I was released from the hospital. I have no memory of it, of course, and there is only one living witness. The only other piece of evidence is a piece of paper purporting to be from the hospital. By some standards, it is a story that should not be believed because of the paucity of evidence. Empirical evidence is important and useful, but it is not the final standard of truth, or we shall quickly fall into skepticism, which is a cul-de-sac to be avoided. There is abundant oral tradition to justify my confidence about where and when I was born. The people who told me the story had nothing to gain by fabricating the story. The improbable elements in the narrative might only detract from the credibility of the story but it really happened that way.
Final Thoughts
History is messy. Most of world history happened before film and video. Even those are hardly infallible. They can be “deep-faked.” Many a riot has been started over the circulation of a misleading piece of video. We need to be more critical of that which we have come to accept as reliable (e.g., video) and more trusting of older, even ancient narratives.
It is not as if the choice is between Christianity and no religion. We all trust something. In that sense there are no absolutely irreligious people in the world. In the post-Christian world, religion has flourished, but it has not been Christianty alone. Islam flourishes. Neo-paganism flourishes. Even a hack fiction writer like L. Ron Hubbard (1911–86) was able to bamboozle people into creating a religion around his second-rate novels. Scientology—now there is a leap of faith. Mormonism is a leap of faith. Neo-paganism is a leap of faith. Superstition is a leap of faith.
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Recently I have been asked to write an article on raising strong females. The thought of it made me laugh. I’ve been trying to figure out how to raise females with a gentle and quiet spirit. I have three daughters (ages 10, 6, and 4) and they tend to be more like me: quick to speak; slower to listen, very opinionated, and usually at the center of the action. I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Over the years I have had much time to consider the attributes of a godly woman. I have been blessed by the influence of many in different seasons of my life. It began with my own mother—a warm, loving, generous, and humble woman with an unwavering faith. Even in the midst of severe trials and heartbreak, she showed me what it looks like to lean into your faith and cling to your Savior. She taught me how humility perseveres to the end.
It seemed as though many women had been granted qualities that I had not been given.
Our church family was another avenue in which I was able to observe and be blessed by godly women. I have been able to watch women who are so different from myself be used for God’s glory to bless those around them. They minister to one another and their families in hundreds of seemingly insignificant ways that easily go unnoticed.
I watched these women make a meal for a family in their time of need, offer an encouraging word to those going through a trial, and pour themselves into the children of the congregation. As a result, the body of Christ was strengthened. I would watch in fascination at their seemingly effortless patience, kindness, and long-suffering. It seemed as though many had been granted qualities that I had not been given.
I looked at many of the qualities I had that were actually quite helpful while I was in the corporate sales world and wished I could exchange them for gifts more fit for God’s kingdom. I wondered when I would become godlier, and in doing so, the seeds of doubt and unworthiness were planted by the enemy. When allowed to take root, these thoughts can not only make us insecure, but keep us from pursuing ways to serve.
We can let the enemy plant seeds of doubt and unworthiness in us.
Here is some of what Scripture says regarding godly women:
Her children rise up and call her blessed;
her husband also, and he praises her: “Many women have done excellently,
but you surpass them all.
Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain,
but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.
Give her of the fruit of her hands,
and let her works praise her in the gates. (Prov. 31:28-31; see also vv. 10-27)
Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled. (Titus 2:3-5)
When I read those words, I often feel a weight on my shoulders. Or a word of condemnation over my head because much of who I am is so far from that description. We all know there has been no human being before or after Jesus who is perfect, but as I considered the women in my circle whom I admired, they seemed a lot closer to the picture of a Proverbs 31 wife than I did. They were, by nature, meeker. Being slower to speak came naturally to them. Many of them hadn’t started a career before they began their families. They didn’t seem to struggle with the longing to work outside the home.
While I often felt like I was waking up to a perpetual Groundhog Day as a stay-at-home mom, these women seemed blissfully content with their duties within the home. Most didn’t seem to have a Type-A personality that desired projects to organize or people to delegate tasks to. They didn’t spend years subconsciously looking for the gold star to earn. They didn’t secretly miss the recognition from peers for their talents or hard work. At the same time I felt all of these feelings, I also felt completely happy with my role as a wife and mother. I knew how fortunate I was to be able to stay at home with my children. It left me feeling like I was sometimes two people trapped in one body—but still never enough.
So, where do I land then on the spectrum of godliness? In God’s tender-loving grace and mercy, he has shown me that it just isn’t that cut-and-dry. As I would secretly beat myself up over enjoying taking charge and being too outspoken, feeling like I didn’t have that “gentle and quiet spirit” in a zillion other ways, God was at work—just as he always is. He sees fit to use us and our unique attributes for the advancement of his kingdom as he sanctifies us along the way, which is amazing grace indeed.
I made myself busy doing things I enjoyed, and the church was strengthened by them.
Over the years I have been able to discover and hone skills within the church that I could use to serve the body. I began hosting events in my home. I coordinated the women’s events for the church. I facilitated things like retreats, Vacation Bible School, and annual feasts. I happily went about with my clipboard and to-do list while noting what needed to be done. The ability to be used in these ways called upon the very qualities I had been telling myself to suppress. I made myself busy doing things I enjoyed and that came easily to me—and the church was strengthened by them.
I remember a conversation with my pastor in which I felt like I was kind of “cheating” because the ways in which I served were so fun and easy. He looked at me with an amused expression and said there were no extra points to be earned by finding ways to serve in which it felt like hard work. Quite the opposite. God has blessed us all with different gifts, and that is why the body of Christ can work so well together—all for God’s glory and the advancement of his kingdom.
For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness. (Rom. 12:4-8)
My dear sisters, stop trying to fit into your imaginary mold of the “godly woman.” Pursue holiness, find ways to serve our good God by using gifts he has already given you, and give yourself grace along the way. We all are, and will always be, a work in progress until we reach our final home.
This article was originally published on August 17, 2020.
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Human beings have a natural love for light. It is no wonder, for light and all it represents was the very first thing that God introduced into his creation.
The first two verses of the Bible proclaim,
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. (Gen. 1:1-2)
Creation was a structureless, lifeless, lightless, and watery chaos. And the Spirit of God hovered like a mother bird over the chaos. He loved the chaos, cared for the chaos, and was about to develop the chaos over a period of six days. Remember that we shouldn’t, strictly speaking, talk of “six days of creation,” for creation was achieved in a moment. Rather, Genesis 1 describes six days of God enlightening, ordering, filling, and enlivening his creation. This is day one:
And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening and there was morning—the first day (Gen. 1:3-5).
1. God spoke light into existence.
And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light (Gen. 1:3). Witness first the power of God: he speaks, things happen. In other words, what God wills happens. As Basil of Caesarea explained in his sermons on Genesis 1: “The divine will and the first impetus of divine intelligence are the Word of God.”
What happens, happens because God wills it to happen. There is no higher will than God’s, there is no will strong enough to compete with God, and there is no realm where God is not present and where his will does not rule. This is the doctrine of God's sovereignty, and it is inherent in the word “God.” God by definition is the eternal being whose will reigns supreme and unchallenged. Thus, we call God “Lord” or “The Lord Almighty” or “King of kings and Lord of lords.”
In the Greek Pantheon, each god competes with the others. Even Zeus—king of Olympus—is outwitted and manipulated and frustrated by the mischievous wills of both gods and men. Elohim is not at all like this. He rules, full stop.
Note especially the power of God’s words. For Paul, this underpins the gospel mission. The gospel is God’s Word, so it is inherently powerful. Mighty Rome might find it pathetically weak, and the philosophers might find it grotesquely foolish—but even the “foolishness” of God is wiser and mightier than the power and wisdom of humanity (1 Cor. 1:18-25). And when God speaks directly to the human heart and spirit, his word is invincible (2 Cor. 4:6).
2. Light is a marvelous thing.
For starters, light is very quick, moving just shy of 300,000 kilometers per second. If you drove your car to the sun at 110km/h (the speed limit) it would take you 157 years to arrive. But if you could ride a beam of light to the sun, it would take you only eight minutes and twenty seconds. I am always delighted by the thought that when I look up at the stars, not only do I see a glorious picture of the number of Abraham’s descendants, I see also the distant past, the light of far distant stars and galaxies that may have taken thousands of years to reach me.
Our amazing scientists still do not wholly grasp the paradoxical nature of light. Physicists talk about “wave-particle duality,” or a “duality paradox”; for on the one hand light behaves like waves and has frequency and amplitude, but it also behaves like particles that can be amassed and focused into a laser beam that can cut through steel. The Jedi knight’s brilliant light sabre might be mythical, but the sheer awesome potential of light is not. These two distinct properties of light have not yet been harmonized. Albert Einstein said,
It seems as though we must use sometimes the one theory and sometimes the other, while at times we may use either. We are faced with a new kind of difficulty. We have two contradictory pictures of reality; separately neither of them fully explains the phenomena of light, but together they do. (The Evolution of Physics, p. 278)
Light is built into the very fabric of our universe. For as Einstein (again) taught us, mass is but latent energy, and energy is unleashed mass; and the amount of energy contained in mass is represented by the elegant equation E = mc2, E standing for energy, m for mass, and c the speed of light.
3. Light is also truth and wisdom.
Moses, however, is not just talking about physical light. In the Bible, light is also truth and wisdom. God delights to shine truth into the darkness of ignorance, and wisdom into the murk of foolishness. Christianity is not a philosophy, a useful way of looking at the world that will get us through. It is not a system of rituals, following a set of sacred acts to manipulate God’s favor. Nor is it essentially a system of morality: doing this and not doing that in order to win the prize of heaven. The beating heart of Genesis and the Bible and Jesus and Christianity is truth. The truth about who God is. The truth about what God has done and what he is doing. The truth about humanity. The truth about the new heaven and earth that lies ahead. The luminous truth of the Bible delivers us from ignorance, superstition, obscurity, wishful thinking, and lies.
Many demur, “But how can finite humans discover the truth about God? How is this possible?” Indeed, left to ourselves, it is impossible, for our innate blind foolishness leads us down every false path. But if it is impossible for us to grope and fumble and discover the truth about God, God is entirely capable of coming to us, to shine his truth upon us. This is what makes Christianity unique. Whereas human religions grope for God, in the Bible God confronts humanity with the bright light of truth.
A word here about the common term absolute truth. First, truth is one of those words which needs no adjective. There is truth and there is error; and there are no shades of grey in between. Anything less than truth is not truth. Many say that “there is no such thing as absolute truth,” yet that statement is itself a self-contradictory claim of absolute truth.
These people would prefer a world where it is not possible to know the truth about God and humanity, where we are free to choose to live however we like. The religious decree, made ex cathedra from the throne of presumed self-rule—that“there is no absolute truth”—is not a noble philosophical contribution to human understanding, but the echo of the screaming toddler in the nursery, “But I want to!”
4. God saw that the light was good.
Note also that light was the first thing that God made. The blackness could not long endure before God flooded it with light. God is good, so everything that he makes is good. He is incapable of mistakes, of lying, of fumbling, of misdirecting, of mismanaging, of failing, of botching. This applies to history, and this applies to you.
It is a tremendous thing when a person takes up the Bible and reads it and sees the truth for the first time. Ignorance and obscurity are banished. Wrong thoughts scatter like the bugs under the old paver that you lift up in the garden. I have seen again and again that when a person comes to Jesus, ‘the Light of the World,’ they begin for the first time in their lives to question and think hard—and reason. The light is good.
5. God called the light “day” and the darkness “night.”
Parents name their children because the children are their children who are in their care. Parents will, for better or worse, determine a great deal of their children’s character and future. Indeed, names are considered to be strangely powerful predictors of personality and success. Business Insidersays, for example, that if your name is easy to pronounce, then people will favor you more, that uncommon names are associated with juvenile delinquency, and that if your name sounds noble, like “King” or “McQueen” rather than “Butcher” or “Farmer,” you are more likely to work in a high-ranking position.
In any case, God names the light and the dark “day” and “night.” They are his, and he determines their function and future. For if the day is manifestly good, God also has a good purpose for the night: that it be a time of rest, recuperation, sleep, and peace.
6. Light can exist without the sun.
Notice the extraordinary fact that day and night are at this point utterly independent of the sun and the moon. Some think Moses blundered here. “Didn’t he know that there can be no light when there is no sun!?” As though the author of the Pentateuch, which constituted the nation of Israel and is—even if we were to put aside the divine inspiration of the Scriptures—a work of unparalleled genius that has shaped the laws and cultures of untold societies across the globe for over three and a half millennia, was naively unaware of a supposed blinding logical inconsistency within the first page of his work!
But Moses didn’t miss this. God’s prophet wanted us to get this: that light—and all it stands for—comes not ultimately from any created thing, but from God himself. God is the source of illumination, wisdom, knowledge, and truth. By creating light three days before he created the sun, moon, and stars, he made this crystal clear. The sun is merely God’s tool, God’s torch. We could say that in the same way the moon dimly reflects the light of the sun, the sun dimly reflects the light of God. And that is why in the new heaven and earth there will be no sun, for it will have fulfilled its purpose: “They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light” (Rev. 22:5).
We can all rejoice that God is the God of light and that his Son Jesus is the Light of the World and the glorious fulfillment of Day One of Genesis. “In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it” (John 1:4-5).
Let us come into the light.
This article was originally published at BCL on February 21, 2018.
Jonah and the Whale, picture from The Holy Scriptures, Old and New Testaments books collection published in 1885, Stuttgart-Germany; drawings by Gustave Dore; Nicku / image by Shutterstock.com.
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Have you ever had someone tell you that they would believe in God if they saw a miracle? Yet, it is often the case that seeing isn’t necessarily believing. What can we learn from Jesus’ words about the prophet Jonah when it comes to testimony about God?
Even with all the existing historical photographs and film footage of the Apollo space missions, there are some people today who claim no human has ever walked on the moon. And as digital manipulation and deepfakes are becoming more and more commonplace, it is also becoming increasingly difficult to discern whether what we’re seeing in print and film and online is real.
Why shouldn’t people seek a sign or visual proof of the claims of Christianity?
There were many people who personally witnessed the miracles of Jesus and still didn’t believe he was God come in the flesh. The Pharisees, who were likely well aware of Jesus’ previous miraculous healings, even blasphemously accused Jesus of casting out demons by “Beelzebul, the prince of demons” (Matt. 12:24). In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus points to the heart issue behind the Pharisees’ request for proof that Jesus was indeed the promised Messiah:
Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, saying, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.” But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.” (Matt. 12:38-39)
The Pharisees had selfish motivations to deny Jesus as they wanted to hold on to their power, wealth, and popularity instead of rightfully giving all honor, worship, and devotion to the one true God.
We cannot rely on our senses when it comes to judging what is real or fake.
In his book God in the Dock, British scholar C. S. Lewis observes,
Any event which is claimed as a miracle is, in the last resort, an experience received from the senses; and the senses are not infallible. We can always say we have been the victims of an illusion; if we disbelieve in the supernatural this is what we always shall say. (p. 8)
Even with seemingly insurmountable evidence right before our very eyes, we can still claim, and rightly so at times, that we are being “deepfaked” in some way. Like the Pharisees, people may acknowledge the event occurred while denying the source of its existence.
Christ’s resurrection from the dead is the greatest and only sign anyone needs.
Don’t be falsely led to believe that “seeing is believing.” The entire Christian faith rests on the historical resurrection of Christ Jesus from the dead, which no one has been able to refute. The vast amount of evidence supporting the claims of the Bible needs to be taken seriously because the future of our eternal souls is at stake. There any many outstanding apologetics books available on the historical reliability of the Bible and the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus specifically, including Craig L. Blomberg’s Can We Still Believe the Bible?: An Evangelical Engagement with Contemporary Questions and Douglas Groothuis’s Christian Apologetics: A Comprehensive Case for Biblical Faith.
God has given us everything we need to know about him and salvation in Christ alone in general revelation (creation) and special revelation (Scripture). Take time to read the Bible and understand God’s unfolding story from Genesis to Revelation and his plan of salvation in Christ. Don’t just believe what others say; instead, study the evidence for yourself. Jesus says,
“And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:32)
If you haven’t done so already, bow the knee and receive Jesus Christ as your Savior today, for lasting joy and peace with God is found in him alone. And be sure to share the good news of the gospel as God gives you the opportunity.
[1] For more in-depth study on this topic, please read chapter one of Michael Horton’s The Christian Faith: A Systematic Theology for Pilgrims on the Way (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011): “Dissonant Dramas: Paradigms for Knowing God and the World,” pp. 35-79.
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Do you know unmarried couples who attend church, have consensual sex, and may even live together? According to a study by the Barna Group,
The majority of American adults believe cohabitation is generally a good idea. Two thirds of adults (65%) either strongly or somewhat agree that it’s a good idea to live with one’s significant other before getting married, compared to one-third (35%) who either strongly or somewhat disagree. (Barna Group, “Majority of Americans Now Believe in Cohabitation,” June 24, 2016)
Of the 65 percent of American adults surveyed who were okay with cohabitation, a good number of them identified themselves as Christians. In fact, 41 percent of practicing Christians surveyed (defined by Barna as “those who attend a religious service at least once a month, who say their faith is very important in their lives and self-identify as a Christian”) approved of living together before marriage. While this figure is far below the 88 percent approval by people who do not profess any kind of faith, the fact that over 40 percent of self-professing Christians tolerate cohabitation attests to the far-reaching effects of secular culture upon believers. (For more statistics on this topic, please click here to see the Pew Research Center’s 2019 study “Marriage and Cohabitation in the U.S.”)
Christian couples justify cohabitation for a variety of reasons.
The reasons people marry today are not necessarily the same as what has motivated couples to exchange vows throughout history. According to Roxanne Stone, editor in chief at Barna Group,
The institution of marriage has undergone significant shifts in the last century…What was once seen as primarily an economic and procreational partnership, has become an exercise in finding your soulmate....[Young people] want to make sure they get it right and to avoid the heartbreak they witnessed in the lives of their parents or their friends’ parents. Living together has become a de facto way of testing the relationship before making a final commitment.
Many Christian couples justify cohabitation with the rationalization that they are going to get married eventually. The demands of school, career, concerns regarding compatibility, and the desire to save enough money to buy a home (or even pay for a wedding!) are all reasons Christians give for delaying marriage and having sex in the meantime. Should church leaders look the other way when they know unmarried couples in their congregation are living together? What does the Bible have to say about sex before marriage?
Scripture uses the Greek word porneía in regard to the temptation to engage in sexual activity outside of marriage.
OpenBible.com lists one hundred Bible passages on the topic of fornication (sexual immorality), and every one of these passages condemns the practice. The Greek word for fornication is πορνεία (porneía), and it occurs twenty-five times in the New Testament. The word porneía is a broad term referring to sexual immorality of any type.
Scripture uses the word porneía in regard to the temptation to engage in sexual activity outside of marriage:
But because of the temptation to sexual immorality (porneías), each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. (1 Cor. 7:2)
Notice that Paul does not say, “each man should have his own committed partner, and each woman her own committed partner.” The sexual immorality to which Paul is referring here happens when sex occurs outside of the marital union.
Earlier in his letter to the Corinthians, Paul uses the same root word in his list of immoralities that should never characterize God’s people:
Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral (pornoi), nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Cor. 6:9–11)
The compelling benefits for Christians to choose to marry instead of cohabitate aren’t the most compelling reason for abstaining from sex before marriage.
I could go into detail about how human marriage is an analogy of the believer’s union with Christ, why children are better off in a family with a mother and father who are married to each other, and why marriage creates an atmosphere of trust and stability that cohabitation, by definition, can never provide. Stone concludes that the solution lies with this kind of logic:
Religious leaders will need to promote the countercultural trend by celebrating the reasons to wait—rather than trying to find evidence for why it’s wrong (because such tangible, measurable evidence may not exist). What are the spiritual reasons for waiting? How does waiting promote better discipleship? Better marriages? A better family life? These are the questions that young people, in particular, will need answered in order to resist the cultural tide toward cohabitation.
Even though there certainly are compelling benefits for Christians to choose to marry instead of cohabitate, the most compelling reason of all is actually the one Stone dismisses due to a possible lack of evidence: obedience.
If you believe Christ died on a cross for your sins and you are trusting in Christ alone for your salvation, Christ commands you to pick up your cross and follow him (Matt. 16:24). Sex outside of marriage is a sin, no matter how a person tries to interpret Scripture otherwise, and every Christian is called to obey God in this aspect of life. Jesus said,
“Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” (John 14:21)
The apostle John reinforces the necessity for Christians to obey God’s commands:
For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. (1 John 5:3)
Christians should never be okay with sinning or condone it.
We have all sinned. We have all done things we wish we could undo. We have all fallen short. Because of our sin and guilt, God sent his Son into the world so that we would receive grace, forgiveness, and reconciliation with God by faith alone in Christ alone (Rom. 5:10; Eph. 2:8–9). Being a Christian doesn't mean we will never sin in this life. It does mean that we should never be okay with sinning or condone it.
All believers face a lifelong battle against sin, and sometimes—or even often—we will fail in a particular struggle (Rom. 7:14–25). God's grace is waiting to embrace us in these moments (Rom. 3:20–24; 1 John 1:9).
Here’s the thing: you do not have to be defined by what you have done up to this point in time. If you are cohabitating with someone, you have a duty before God to stop having sex and move out right now. Just because we cannot keep God’s commands perfectly in this life doesn’t mean we shouldn’t seek God’s help in fighting sin and try with all our might to do what is right in his sight.
It’s never too late to start obeying your Savior and make good choices that honor God.
Here are some positive steps you can take right now to obey God when it comes to the Bible’s command to abstain from fornication:
If you are cohabitating with someone, move out immediately and find a suitable roommate with whom you are not sexually involved.
Inform your boyfriend/girlfriend/fiancé regarding your commitment to abstain from sex before marriage.
Establish accountability with your pastor and/or elder of your church regarding being sexually pure.
If you attend a church with no formal membership, where you can come and go as you please without any accountability regarding your moral choices, begin attending a church where you will have that accountability. If you have been skipping church because you feel guilty/convicted about your sin, schedule a meeting with your pastor or elders today and give them the opportunity to support you in your determination to obey God in the area of sexual purity.
Distance yourself from church-going friends who persist in cohabitating, and build relationships with Christians who will encourage you and hold you accountable in abstaining from sex before marriage.
God gives us boundaries for our own good and his glory.
Are you worried that your relationship might not survive a commitment to abstinence? Well, it’s better to know now what kind of person you are involved with. If your partner cannot sacrifice the physical pleasures of sex so that you can be obedient to God, then this person may not be willing to make the sacrifices that are sure to come later in married life when one of you is physically or mentally ill, there is marital discord, or you are just tired of being married to each other for whatever reason. Marry someone who encourages you in godly obedience, not someone who leads you astray.
It’s never too late to start obeying your Savior and make good choices that honor God. Don’t believe the lie that if you have sinned in the area of sexual purity with your significant other, you have already messed up and it’s too late.
God is not a cosmic party pooper. He gives us boundaries for a very good reason: it is through obeying God’s commands that we show love for our Lord, our neighbors, and even ourselves. Ask God today for his forgiveness in any area you have sinned, turn away from activities that dishonor him, and commit to walking uprightly in the light of his love and mercy.
This article has been updated since its original publishing date.
Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning Beautiful Christian Life LLC may get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through its links, at no cost to you.
What is unique about a Christian man? What separates him from other men? In a word, love. But what kind of love—what is the love of a Christian man?
1. A Christian man's love is grounded in the love of God.
First John 4:19 says, “We love because he [God] first loved us.” The love of a Christian man is rooted by faith in his Savior Christ Jesus. Apart from Christ there is no true love, but what is the nature of true love—what does it look like, what does it do, and how can you tell? The love of a Christian man is sacrificial, just as Jesus' love for his people was sacrificial. John writes in his first letter,
By this we know love, that he [Jesus] laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. (1 John 2:16)
In the book of Ephesians Paul writes,
Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. (Eph. 5:25)
In a marriage with a Christian man, it is the man who is specifically called to love sacrificially—to give up himself, his own wants and desires—for the benefit of his wife. The love of a Christian man focuses on others, cares for others, and benefits others. It is sacrificial.
2. A Christian man leads his family.
With Christian love as the foundation, a Christian man leads his family by providing for them, setting a godly example, and teaching them through words and actions. In 1 Timothy 5:8 Scripture warns men not to neglect their families but instead to take care of them. Humanity was designed by God for work; just as God works, we work because we are made in God’s image. A Christian man who is able works in order to provide a home, food, and other needs for his family.
The work that a man does is one way of setting an example of leadership for his family; it serves to show his family the loving traits of a Christian leader—his sense of responsibility and care for others. Leading also means teaching. Ephesians 6:4 encourages fathers to rear their children “in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” This means fathers must know the Lord's instruction—they must know the word of God and pass it on to their children.
3. Christian men lead in the church as they are called by God and given gifts from the Lord.
God has declared that only men are to serve in the offices of the church as pastors, elders, and deacons (1 Tim. 3:1-13; Tit.1:5-9). Especially in the first letter to Timothy and the letter to Titus, God, speaking through Paul, is very specific about the attributes of a Christian man who is called to be a leader in Christ's church. He is to be above reproach and the husband of one wife. His children are believers, respectful, and well-behaved. He is to be humble, in control of his emotions, not greedy, and of course, not an alcoholic.
A Christian leader opens his home with hospitality and sets the example of Christian holiness and self-discipline. He is trustworthy and knows the word of God well-enough to enable him to teach the Bible and to correct those who contradict it. He should not be a new convert to the faith but instead should demonstrate his godly leadership abilities by managing his own household well and having a good reputation with others, even those who are outside of the church.
These are a few of the traits of a Christian man and leader. Christian men must never lose sight of God's love, which is the source of any love and sacrifice a Christian man makes for the benefit of others—especially his own family. And though the traits of a Christian man who fills a leadership office in the church are specifically aimed at pastors, elders, and deacons, they are also attributes which all Christian men should strive to attain by the grace of God and the power of the Spirit. For God is pleased when his love flows through godly Christian men to his family and the family of faith.
