Grief

There’s nothing like death to remind me of my immortality. I am that person who think he will live forever. Who thinks he is invincible. Who thinks he will never die. Yet, with the passing of Andy Meadows, I am reminded that this is not true. There is one day that I will die because I am mortal.

Death causes me to be confused. When I say confused, I don’t mean the generic term confused as in terms of being conflicted. I literally mean confused, or “with fusion.” With the death of one who does not know Christ, we should not be confused, we should mourn. We should mourn because that person will never know life. We should mourn because that person will never know Jesus. We should mourn because that person will spend the rest of eternity apart from a God who knows and loves them.

Yet, with the death of a Christian, it is hard not to be confused. This is one of the few times in life that our emotions are conflicted against each other, and they shouldn’t be. It is with the death of a Christian that these conflicting emotions should be fused, come together. On the one hand, we feel grief of the deepest sense on “losing” a brother or sister. We are sad because that is a life lost to those who love. At the same time, though, we are joyful because what person is with Jesus. The joy of knowing that one’s struggle with sin is over and that that person is in the presence of Almighty God is indescribable.

This is what it means to be confused. We don’t let our emotions conflict with one another as though they are fighting and one has to win. Though it may feel as though the grief will never let go and our joy is being overtaken, we must not let our emotions win. It is at these moments in which we must be confused. We must let the grief and the joy fuse with one another. Eventually, the grief will begin to loosen its grip. Eventually, the joy, that seemed so lost early on will begin to take a turn for the better. And while the grief that was so strong in the beginning, will never go away, our insurmountable joy in God will not let go. And while there will be times of grief, there will be many more times of joy.

One day, you will die and people will grieve over your death. Will they grieve knowing that you will be lost for an eternity, or will they grieve with hope?

Week in Review (Part 2)

1 John 5:16-17

In our Sunday School class we’ve been studying 1 John.  Well, we’ve gotten to the end of the book and John doesn’t use the time to sum up his previous ideas in a way that is “This is what I was talking about no go do it.”  Instead he says some things that cause us to think even harder about what he has just said.  This has been one of the most challenging things to think about over the past week, so I will hopefully be able to help this make sense to me as I post a blog about this.  Yes, I’m still thinking about this.  As I said, it’s challenging to think about, so here goes.

These are the verses I’m talking about.  “16 If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask, and God will give him life—to those who commit sins that do not lead to death.  There is sin that leads to death; I do not say that one should pray for that. 17 All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that does not lead to death” 

Clearly John had a specific sin in mind, but unfortunately we don’t know what that is nor do we know what he means by death.  Even as I write this I am still tossing thoughts around.  Many people point to this set of verses about an “unforgivable sin” and point to Matthew 12:31, Mark 3:29 or Luke 12:10 and say that John is speaking of the “unpardonable sin.” This sin would be blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. According to the concordance, blasphemy is the worst possible type of slander. The way I understand this sin is that a person would not ascribe these qualities to Jesus or the Holy Spirit. Let me explain. In the passage of Matthew 12 Jesus had just cast some demons out of a man and the Pharisees saw this and rather than seeing Jesus as the Messiah they quickly said that the power He came not from God, but from Beelzebub (Satan). So they had instead not ascribed these powers to the Holy Spirit and had given Satan the credit. This, in my opinion, is what blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is, so I would say that this is not what John is talking about in this passage.

Apostasy is another word tossed around in the conversation about these verses. Apostasy, in essence, is backsliding.  Apostasy is only mentioned twice in the ESV Bible and both times is in the Old Testament.  It is mentioned in the NASB in 2 Thessalonians 2:3 and the ESV translates this word as rebellion.  It is also talked about in Hebrews 6:4-8 or in 1 John 2:19.  A person commits apostasy when he has been involved with the church, has claimed to be a believer, but for some reason, never full commits his life to Christ and walks away from the church.  Not only do they walk away from their local believers, they fail to join another.  They rebel.  If I understand it this way I would understand that they person has not placed themselves under the authority of Christ.  They have not lost their salvation because they never had the salvation to begin with.  These first two arguments are if we take into account that the “death” John is talking about here is a spiritual death.

There is also the argument that John was talking about physical death.  This letter from John was written to a church.  Apparently, there was a schism in the church he was writing to and this is the basis of the letter.  (1 John 2:19)  With this in mind Apostasy (explained in the previous paragraph) could have been the sin that John was talking about that leads to death.  Or John could be restating that which he has been talking about throughout the letter.  (I’m going to back up a little).  There are three themes of 1 John which are the assurances of salvation: Love, Doctrine and Obedience.  1) Love is the love we have for our brothers and sisters in Christ and how we treat them.  If we aren’t treating them with love this should be cause for us to reevaluate our relationship with Christ.  2) Doctrine is what we believe.  We have to always evaluate what we believe about the Bible to make sure that what we believe about the Bible is true and not only leading us off course, but those around us.  3)  Obedience.  This is the major theme that draws us into this passage. 

John throughout this book has been harping on Obedience and that if a person is not obeying the law of Christ one has to really evaluate what they believe about the Bible.  Belief in Jesus leads to obedience for what he said.  If one isn’t willing to obey Christ then they can’t say they are a Christian.  In 1 Corinthians there are two points that would support this idea of thinking.  The first is 1 Corinthians 5:1-5 in which Paul says

“It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father’s wife. And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you. For though absent in body, I am present in spirit; and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing. When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.”

and the second is 1 Corinthians 11:27-30 in which he says

“Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.”

So Paul is speaking of sinning that is leading to physical death, but death nonetheless.  So what is the sin that leads to death?  I would say unrelenting nonrepentance.  This would explain both physical and spiritual death.  Repent means “to think differently.”  As a Christian we are to be repenting constantly.  Not of our values or beliefs or things that would contradict the Bible, but we are to be repenting of our sins, of our unbelief, of our misconceptions of the Bible and the list could go on.  The reason I say that this could be the sin is if one is “saved”, but unwilling to repent of his sinfulness he isn’t saved.  If one is saved, but is not willing to repent of a sin in his life he could be excommunicated from the church and in 1 Corinthians 5 it shows that this could be a way of disciple from God in that God takes his life so that his soul may be saved and also in 1 Corinthians 11 in that people weren’t evaluating themselves and because of their sinfulness they were getting sick and even dying.  These people were unwilling to change their mind about who they were and who God is. This would also explain the group in 1 John 2:19 that left the church.  These people were unwilling to repent of their original beliefs about God and because of that they left the church and pursued their pleasures. 

I’m not summing this up to say “The End,” but rather to bring some closure to my thoughts.  You may now be asking, “Why does John tell us not to pray for the sin that leads to death?”  I don’t know.  I do know that all things work out for our good and for God’s glory and I know that ultimately if God doesn’t initially reveal himself to a person that doesn’t mean He won’t.  God is on His own time table and who am I to argue?  Instead, we should pray for them and if the Holy Spirit guides us to use our prayers in a more profitable way so that we are not using the energy to pray for that person, but to be praying for a more immanent request then we need to follow the Spirit’s guidance.  If God will reveal himself to a person and convict that person of their sins He will do so on His time table.  As I stated at the beginning of this blog I have not figured this out completely.  If there is a flaw in my reasoning then please tell me.  For I would love some thoughts on this subject.

The Selfless Gene

I recently read this book and was thoroughly disappointed.  The title and subtitle for this book is “The Selfless Gene:  Living with God and Darwin,” but I think the title should have been “Darwin: Living with God and Dawkins.”  Throughout this book Darwin and most of the times Dawkins is praised for the scientific work they have done, but in this book Foster belittles those that believe in a six day creation.  Ultimately, Foster believes that God did not create a morally perfect world and that when God said that everything was good that’s not what He meant for “how can light be morally good?”  Foster has a way of using the scripture he wants to and to twist it to his own desire and to also throw out those scriptures which would disagree with his position.  He even disregards some of Paul’s writings because he doesn’t know what Paul is talking about. 

He goes as far as to say there was physical death before the fall.  His view of God in creation is so misconstrued.  He misses the point of Romans 8:20-23 “For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.  And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.”  Yes, the world was affected by the fall, not just humans.  I would give this book negative numbers, but alas I cannot.  I do agree with him on one thing, he was angry in writing and I was angry in reading.

If you really want to buy this book (which I would not recommend) you can get it at Lifeway.

I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com <http://BookSneeze.com> book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 <http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html> : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”