christianity

The Not in the Devil’s Tale

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We continue with the account of the Fall of Adam and Eve as the devil, the serpent, subtly lies about God and lures Eve into three appeals for her heart: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. John the Apostle corroborated these three temptations in 1 John 2:16-17:

For everything in the world–the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life–comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever. – 1 John 2:16-17

We can see the irony of John’s comment in verse 17 as he says we live forever by doing the will of God. Living forever pertains of course to our resurrection to eternal life, something Adam and Eve likely did not understand in the garden of Eden. Their disobedience meant certain death in a physical sense.

But how does the devil trick Eve? He says, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” He plays on her innocence. Eve of course knew that God specified the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The fact that the tree was forbidden gave it special importance. The moment they ate from that tree, their knowledge would replace their innocence and they would know good and evil. So Eve answers the serpent fairly accurately but with some subtle differences from the facts. Perhaps because she was getting her information second hand through Adam, she made some slight variations, such as, “You must not touch it.” She says, “You will die” rather than “You will certainly die.” The serpent said, “You will not surely die,” directly contradicting God and casting doubt on God’s word and His motive.

The serpent crafted his words carefully and said, “For you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” This has an element of truth to it. God said later, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:22). Eve looked at the fruit, and it seemed good for food (the lust of the flesh) and pleasing to look at (the lust of the eyes). She thought it would make her wise (the pride of life), knowing good from evil. Probably she did not understand good and evil, because she could not yet discern the difference.

How many of us long to be the captain of our own destiny, in charge of our life, completely independent, with no boss but our own will? We want to be like God. The most arrogant want to be God. Emperors in history have demanded worship of themselves! Think of Nebuchadnezzar, or Caesars Nero and Domitian, or Emperor Hirohito. Eve’s temptation was therefore universal and arises from our own will taking priority over the Creator’s will, and over what is right and good.

I say that the temptation is universal, although it is tailored to the individual’s psyche and circumstances. Let us consider the temptation of Jesus in Luke chapter 4. Satan said to the very hungry Jesus, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread” (Luke 4:3). He appealed to the lust of the flesh when Jesus was weak with hunger.

Next Satan showed Jesus all the kingdoms from a high vantage point, saying, “I will give you all their authority and splendor…if you worship me, it will be all yours.” He appealed to the lust of the eyes.

Finally Satan appealed to pride, telling Jesus to throw Himself down from the temple. Jesus’ feat of survival would have been a show of His divine nature. What a spectacle this would have been, like Superman leaping tall buildings with a single bound! But the man Jesus would have tested God the Father, contrary to Scripture. Deuteronomy 6:16 forbids testing the Lord your God with false gods and further, testing Him by complaining and demanding things from God. Anyway, in Jesus’ case, this would have been a demand to rescue Jesus from His own folly of throwing Himself off a building. Pride would become apparent from seeking to make Himself a spectacle for His own benefit.

What about you and I? What’s your weakness? For some of us the weakness of the flesh pertains to physical pleasures, such as gluttony or sexual promiscuity. The lust of the eyes may fall into impurity with pornography, or the longing for treasures that are visually pleasing, such as a mansion or sports car. Bigger, better, faster! The dream house, the corner office, the Ferrari. But houses and offices and Ferraris in themselves are not evil! Yet they can lure your heart away from righteousness. How you acquire them can become all consuming and lead to crimes.

In 1 Timothy 6:10 we find St. Paul’s sanction against the love of a good thing, money!

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.

This touches on the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes, and furthermore, when such pursuits become entangled in our pride, further sin is born. I know of a man serving twelve years in prison for fraud who was so thoroughly entangled in lust and pride that he defrauded people of many millions of dollars to feed his lusts and his desire for prestige as head of a busy company. He even gave interviews on national television as the CEO and posed as an expert in his field before his fall. He pierced himself with many griefs.

Our lesson has focused thus far on Satan’s modus operandus, that of appealing to our lust and pride, even as Satan casts doubt on God’s honesty, God’s care for us, and even God’s very nature. God’s word we know to be reliable. Reading the entirety of the Bible we see the consistency of God’s promises that begin in Genesis 3:15 (the prediction of Jesus versus Satan) and develop into a nation dedicated to God through the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The call of Abraham begins in Genesis 12. Isaac has two sons, Jacob and Esau, and Jacob becomes patriarch of twelve tribes. The nation of Israel begins shakily in captivity in Egypt, but is brought out in spite of the Egyptian stronghold, settling in the land of Canaan, developing for hundreds of years into many millions of people, until a monarchy is established, ultimately leading to a king above all kings, the Savior and Messiah. We know this from reading the testimonies and the history found in the Bible.

But let us focus again on Genesis chapter 3 to see how God cares for Adam and Eve. Can man live forever in a fallen state? God’s answer was no, in Genesis 3:22-23. He could not allow the man to live forever as a sinner, separated from the holy God. Can you imagine Adolf Hitler living forever? Death is the curse given for sinning in the first place. However, living forever in this condition cannot be. Eternal life comes only after we are freed from the curse of sin, but it comes with our redemption and resurrection. There are very few exceptions (Enoch, Elijah, and the chosen at the Rapture predicted in Revelation).

Now the science lovers among us certainly know about the law of entropy. Entropy has never been refuted and means that things deteriorate. Putting this simply, things eventually fall apart unless someone shepherds them along. We call this “someone” God. Speaking of the Son of God, Paul wrote:

For in Him all things were created…all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. – Colossians 1:16-17

The universe holds together by God the Father through His Son, Jesus. Otherwise, things would go chaotic. So our bodies also deteriorate, and we die. Now in the garden of Eden there was also the tree of life, which God mentions in Genesis 3:22. Overcoming entropy, in the case of man’s body, could have been intended through his eating from the tree of life. We do not know, but this seems implied. Man could no longer have access to the tree of life, because he was not allowed any longer to live forever. This was a kindness from God. Instead God provided another way, the way of redemption through Messiah. The first strong hint for this is found in Genesis 3:15, when God told the serpent:

“And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers. He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”

Satan was the serpent and the heel bruiser, who put Jesus on the cross. The Messiah, Jesus, was the head crusher, destroying Satan’s plot to destroy mankind, and eventually throwing Satan into the place of fiery torment – hell – prepared for the devil and his angels. (See Matthew 25:41.) The devil’s offspring may be interpreted as his angels (the demons) or wicked humans who follow his commands. The woman Eve’s offspring is the child of the promise, Jesus, who would save the people from their sins, as predicted in Matthew 1:21, and who would reign on the throne of David forever and rule over the house of Jacob forever, as predicted in Luke 1:33. Luke 1:33 is quite similar to the prediction of Daniel 7:13-14, referring to the Son of Man who would be given all honor and glory and power, and who would rule forever over a kingdom that would never be destroyed. Jesus triumphed by overcoming the temptation to avoid the cross and through His atoning death for our sins, as well as through His resurrection.

Therefore, we may view God as kind to Adam and Eve and us by assigning the curse of death for sin, but providing eternal life through faith in the Resurrected One, Jesus. Jesus, the way, the truth and the life (John 6:14), is the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Him will live, even if he dies (John 11:25).

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In His great mercy He has given us new birth into living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you. – 1 Peter 1:3-4.

Now we know that we live in a fallen world. We know this from Scripture and from the evidence around us – the decay in nature, wars, animosity, depravity, hatred of the good, love for evil, and blasphemy against the holy God. Even “the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God” (Romans 8:21). Creation suffers decay because of the sins of humanity, the crown of God’s creation. Beginning with Adam and Eve in their fallen state, they were separated from paradise and from God. Furthermore, animals were now sacrificed on their behalf. The blood of the innocent animal allowed a temporary relief as a sin offering. God even sacrificed an animal by providing animal skin or hide for their clothing, in Genesis 3. God proved to be kind to them, even though they had disobeyed Him. We shall see through further study that there is no forgiveness without the shedding of blood (Hebrews 9:22); the sacrifices provided a temporary atonement as a type for the permanent solution to our redemption given us through the blood of Jesus.

The Sanctity of Human Life

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Recent history includes two world wars that killed scores of millions of people. Hitler’s evil empire attempted to wipe out the Jewish people in the Holocaust. Despots have continued attempted genocide and barbaric cruelty in several nations. Let us pose these questions: What would our world look like if all human life were valued? What would become of death at the hands of murderers and warmongers? Would genocide be unheard of? Would slavery and human trafficking be nonexistent? Would pornography and prostitution and drug vending and kidnapping be abolished? After the Great Flood desribed in the book of Genesis, the Lord God commented that “every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood” (Genesis 8:21).

God has shown us a better way. Respect for life even extends to other creatures. Animal sacrifice included one purpose of atonement for our sins. As the wages of sin is death (Genesis 2:17; Romans 6:23), the penitent would offer the life of the innocent animal on the altar to pay for his sin. God accepted this offering and forgave the sin, but the life of the animal had to be respected by abstaining from consuming its lifeblood.

“For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life.” – Leviticus 17:11

The taking of another person’s life indicates contempt for God Himself, as the murderer effectively despises God’s creation, man, who is made in God’s image (Genesis 1:27). We are God’s image bearers and have many unique abilities that set us apart:

  • Reason and ingenuity
  • Communication
  • A sense and acknowledgment of eternity
  • The capacity to worship our Creator
  • Some limited creative power (but unlike God, we cannot create material out of nothing)
  • Choice with regard to good and evil
  • An eternal spirit
  • The capacity for the fruits of the Holy Spirit to be manifest in us: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control.

Murderers discard their relationship with mankind and their Creator by demonstrating the utmost contempt for others, as well as God Himself. Jesus described this attitude of heart as murderous from its core, which is expressed in human wrath and words of contempt. In fact, Jesus regarded such hateful words of contempt as the moral equivalent of murder (Matthew 5:21-22). The Apostle John wrote of this:

Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him. — 1 John 3:15

For this reason we are commanded not to commit murder (Exodus 20:13), but to love one another (John 15:12). The act of kindness foils the evil tendencies, such as spiteful and hateful words tantamount to murder. As we nurture the good things of bearing God’s image, such kindness becomes apparent, even in how we greet one another (Matthew 5:47).

The punishment for murder varies, and in the United States its most drastic punishment comes after “capital murder,” defined as multiple killings, assassination, or murder combined with another major felony such as bank robbery, etc. These examples and the punishments vary from state to state, while some states have banned capital punishment. The Scripture gives one punishment, which is capital punishment — the execution of the murderer, also termed a life for a life. The rationale for biblical capital punishment is that we are made in the image of God, and the murderer is therefore accountable for the life of another by the forfeiture of his own life.

“Whoever sheds human blood, by humans shall their blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made mankind.” – Genesis 9:6

However, is abortion murder? Perhaps legally abortion is not murder, but the laws of man and God’s word may not always agree. Now the arguments for and against abortion in the United States recently became quite heated after Roe v. Wade was overturned, with abortion regulation turned over to the states. The same arguments continue over so-called reproductive rights (an ironic misnomer) or the right to choose — the choice to kill the life within the mother’s womb. The attempt to justify abortion with semantics, referring to a fetus as a tissue mass and other euphemisms only serves to cloud the issue. This covers the fact of baby killing with a lie attempting to negate the reality of the infant’s death, which then strikes many women with remorse for a lifetime after the act. The word of God shows the Lord God’s attitude toward the fetus, the life of the unborn:

15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. 16 Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. – Psalm 139:15-16

Two brief accounts in the Bible refer to babies (not fetal mass or tissue mass) in the womb. The first example actually calls the fetuses babies. Genesis 25 relates the pregnancy of Isaac’s wife, Rebekah, who was suffering from twins in her womb (Jacob and Esau) who were jostling each other so much that she inquired of the Lord what was happening. His answer came with authority:

“Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you will be separated; one people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger.” – Genesis 25:23

The seminal account of Jacob and Esau became the archetype of God’s sovereign choice that at times chose the dominance and blessing of the younger over the older offspring, which rings true in Hebrew and Jewish history in the lives of Jacob, Joseph, Gideon, and David. More important in this current discussion, the account of Rebekah’s twins tells us that God cares for children in the womb and foresees their future.

The second account of the child in the womb comes through the testimony of Jeremiah, who was called by God to be His prophet in the book of Jeremiah, chapter 1. God said to Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you; before you were born I set you apart” (Jeremiah 1:5).

I cannot help but wonder if our nation will be held accountable for some 63 million lives taken for the sake of convenience or the “right to choose.” Violence is condemned, and continuous and unabated violence brought about God’s judgment of humanity by the Great Flood. The next judgment will come by fire, according to 2 Peter 3:3-7,11. The prophet John the Baptizer emphasized this in Matthew 3:11 and Luke 3:16, when he said Jesus “will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.” Baptism of the Holy Spirit we receive as believers in Christ; the fire of judgment those receive who are unbelievers. Jesus’ winnowing fork will gather up the wheat (the faithful) for His barn, and reserve the chaff (the wicked) to be burned with “unquenchable fire” (Matthew 3:12; Luke 3:17). Judgment is coming for those who take human life lightly, including devaluing the helpless in the womb for the sake of one’s convenience. The question for the guilty must be this: What will you do about it?

Repent, says the Lord. Confess before the Holy God and He will lift you up. Your confession, repentance, and faith helps you receive God’s gift, your salvation. Nothing you did in the past cannot be cleansed by the blood of the Lord Jesus, whose atonement is available to all who come to Him. By the mercy and grace of God through your receiving His Son, you may become a son or daughter of our Lord God (John 1:12).

Babel – Genesis 11:1-9

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Located in the plains of Shinar of northern Mesopotamia, Babylon, or Babel, ushered in the world of many languages and nations scattered over all the earth. The brief Babel narrative finds people in opposition to God, and tells of the scattering of the nations developed from the descendants of Noah’s three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. How did the peoples of the earth in chapter 10 – the Table of the Nations – become so distinctly different and settle over the whole earth? In brief, God scattered them. The Babel account begins and ends with the Hebrew words, kal-ha-eretz, all the earth. This framing device gives a clue to the writer’s ingenious, compact method of imparting wordplay, repetition, and an hourglass literary device intended to convey the contrast between man’s foolish arrogance and the Lord God’s majestic power. Babel’s secrets are unlocked in just nine verses. The hourglass account of Babel presents itself like this:

The first two verses and last two verses provide two opposite narrations. Kal-ha-eretz, all the earth, had just one language and one common speech or vocabulary. This is the top of the hourglass. However, God confused their language and scattered the people over kal-ha-eretz, all the earth. This is the end of the account and the base of the hourglass.

The second set of two verses (verses 3 and 4) and the second-to-the-last set of two verses (verses 6 and 7) give two opposing discourses. In the first discourse the people say, “Come, let us bake bricks and use mortar,” and “Let us build ourselves a city with a tower that reaches to the heavens to make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of kal-ha-eretz.” In the opposing discourse, verses 6 and 7, God says, “If as one people with one language they can do this, there is no limit to what they can do. Come, let us go down and confuse their language, so they will not understand each other.”

The central verse (5) serves as the transition between the discourse of the people and the discourse of God and says that the Lord came down to see the city and the tower they were building. The fact that God “came down” gives us a clue that the heavens were not reached!

The final narration in verses 8 and 9 presents the opposite effect of the first narration. Their languages are now different and the people become scattered over all the earth, kal-ha-eretz.

They were building a tall ziggurat, a tower to reach the heavens, so that they could make a name for themselves. The tower of Marduk in Babylon reached a height of 300 feet and demonstrated the new technology of bricks of mud and mortar made of tar or asphalt. The new method of construction gave taller structures more strength, and for certain, gave them confidence in their enterprise. The city was very possibly under the supervision of Nimrod, a descendant of Ham and Cush, and a king of this region. Mesopotamia included ancient Sumer, the cradle of the first civilization after the Great Flood. Unfortunately, God’s directions to the people included being fruitful and multiplying – a task they had no problem accomplishing – but also spreading out over all the earth, kal-ha-eretz.

The ancient problem of hubris so famous in the Greek tragedies of Euripides, Aeschylus, and Sophocles had a much earlier beginning with Babel. This in part is what God meant when He said, “If as one people with one language they can do this, there is no limit to what they can do.” He was not speaking of great undertakings, but of great sin, arrogance, hubris. Essentially, the people succumbed to Eve’s temptation in the garden of Eden, the idea of being like God. In this case, to be as gods the people thought they could reach the heavens and make a name for themselves. The wordplay becomes a mnemonic for the sin. In Hebrew the phrasing sounds alike for name – shem – and heavens – shamayim. “Let us reach shamayim and make shem.” If we consider the dominance of consonants over vowels, the two words sound remarkably close. The phrasing of wordplay and the tight structure of this account would have been helpful to Moses’ listeners as they heard the reading of the new scripture. Availability of the manuscript would have been limited and many people were illiterate, a good reason for getting their attention orally in a memorable way.

Moses, the presumed author, further enhanced the wordplay by repeating the words for heavens and the earth – shamayim and ha-eretz – echoing Genesis 1:1, the first sentence of the Bible:

In the beginning created God the heavens and the earth.

Bereshit bara Elohim et has-shamayim et ha-eretz.

– Genesis 1:1

The account of Babel therefore has something to do with the distinction between the heavens and the earth. A Psalm of David gives an important clue:

The highest heavens belong to the Lord,

but the earth He has given to mankind.

– Psalm 115:16

The peoples’ overweaning presumption was their attempt to become God, in effect doing away with Him – Nietzsche would say killing God – as they would take His place and make a name for themselves. This sin contained the seed of perhaps greater arrogance than their disobedience to the commission God had given them at Ararat, when the Lord spoke to Noah and his three sons, saying to be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth (Genesis 9:1). Surely they had multiplied, but they chose to remain concentrated on the plain of Shinar, the land between the rivers (Tigris and Euphrates). They even said as much in 11:4 – “Otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.“

In a sense the Lord God laughed at their prideful arrogance. Imagine the Almighty One examining their ziggurat, the 300-foot tower of Babel, as He descended from the highest heavens to see their paltry work. The confusion of the language occurred easily, at God’s command, just as God said to Abraham,

“Is anything too hard for the Lord?” – Genesis 18:14

Further wordplay occurs with the words for brick, L-V-N in Hebrew, and confuse, N-V-L. This reversal reinforces how God reversed their intention by confusing the language and scattering them.

We may further observe that the name they made for themselves had quite the opposite of the intended effect. The name of the city became Babylon, or Babel, which sounds like confusion.

Now mankind did not fully learn the lesson of Babel. At least 30 ziggurats have been found in ancient Mesopotamian ruins. Some have inscriptions about reaching the heavens. Many cultures have built pyramids and tall structures to reach the heavens for religious purposes, making a “shem” for themselves by reaching “shamayim.” However, in effect, God’s purpose for mankind – to fill the earth – came about from God’s will exercised at Babel. The moral for readers today may be found in the words of Jesus as he taught His disciples the Lord’s Prayer:

“Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10).

Oh, that we could deny our tendency for self-glorification and self-deification and self reliance, independent of our Creator! If we could only spurn the temptation of Eve to be like God (Genesis 3:5). The better path follows our Lord’s example. We may pray this: “Lord, may your will be done.”

The Battle for Self-Control

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The Apostle Paul wrote in Romans chapter 7 that he waged a war with himself. In Paul’s day, the battle of self-control was not a new concept by any means. Solomon wrote of this in Proverbs.

Better a patient person than a warrior, one with self-control than one who takes a city. – Proverbs 16:32

We know of course that the battle of self-control is a universal human condition that is not confined to Judeo-Christian Scriptures and writings! About four centuries after Solomon, Plato wrote of this as the war against oneself. In his Socratic discourses, Laws, Book I, Plato asserted that victory over oneself was superior to victory in war or battle, while self-defeat was both “the worst and the most shameful” defeat. We may ascertain the moral implications of self-defeat from such sins as unholy wrath, violence, hatred, profanity, impurity, intemperance, immorality, dishonesty, graft, self-indulgence in myriad ways, and the more “socially acceptable” indulgences such as gossip, complaining, and even worry. The long list of our potential self-defeating sins, which goes beyond what I’ve only begun to name, suggests that we have a sin problem that even the best of men and women struggle to keep in check.

Even the Apostle Paul struggled, writing to the church at Rome that although his mind wanted to do right, his sinful nature would at times get the better of him. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. 21 So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? 25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! – Romans 7:19-25

As humans, the wiser of us crave deliverance from the sin that wages war against our minds; more so, as Christians in love with God’s moral code of conduct in His Holy Book, we long for deliverance from the sin that wages war against our mortal body and wrestles against our spiritual being. We cannot win this war alone, which is one reason why God has given us His Holy Spirit to resist temptation.

11 And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you. 12 Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. 13 For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live. – Romans 8:11-13

Now Paul, of course, was writing about spiritual life and death, just as Jesus claimed in John 11:25, when our Lord said, “He who believes in Me will live, even if He dies.” Our spiritual living, even though we die, is our resurrection, just as Jesus said in the same passage, “I am the resurrection and the life.” Yet with faith, our active belief and trust in Christ, we are able by the promised Holy Spirit in us to go about putting to death the sinful deeds of the body. Therefore, Paul and we the faithful can say, “Thanks be to God who delivers us through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 7:25).

Do you have trials and temptations, as the hymn says? Then “Take it to the Lord in prayer.” Do not fight the battle for self-control alone. We have the promised Holy Spirit within us who came to our aid the moment we first professed Christ as our Savior. As the Apostle Peter said, the promised Holy Spirit “is for you and your children, and for all who are far off, for all whom the Lord our God will call” (Acts 2:39). Now this is how we know the Spirit of God is in us: by how we live our life according to the Word of God. Check yourself against His Holy Book. This is a beginning to see the evidence of Christ in us: Galatians 5:22-23, which says “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”

We put to death those evil deeds and desires on a daily basis, even as we take up our cross (Matthew 16:24). Paul wrote to the Colossians that they “died,” and their life was “hidden with Christ in God,” so that they, therefore, could put to death their earthly nature (sin), while Christ was their life (Colossians 3:3-5). How then is our life “hidden with Christ in God?” Perhaps you have heard the hymn, “He Hideth My Soul.” Jesus is our strength, and He covers us as we stand behind His greatness, a bulwark against the wiles of the devil. We do not stand alone against the forces of evil, but as Michael the archangel said to Satan, “The Lord rebuke you” (Jude 9). Satan the accuser fights against us to use our own sinful past to weaken our faith, and by all accounts we are not worthy for salvation, and not worthy to stand before the Lord’s throne of grace, and yet by the grace of God who has redeemed us, we do not stand by our own power, but rather, we stand by the power of the cross and the risen Savior. Therefore, we stand in the power of the resurrection of our Lord. We overcome the evil one “by the blood of the Lamb,” Jesus, and by “the word of [our] testimony” (Revelation 12:11). When we deny ourselves according to Matthew 16:24, we become dead to self, but alive to Christ. Is your life “hidden with Christ in God?” Ask yourself: Is Christ your life? Where do you focus your attention each day? Just as your thoughts govern your actions, then your thoughts of Christ will fill up your mind and your actions. “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he” (Proverbs 23:7).

By the power of the cross and our risen Christ, whose testimony is sure and whose promised deliverance is our steadfast hope, the Lord bless your spirit with His Holy Spirit within you. Amen.

The Standard for Ethics

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How do the laws in human history relate to ethics today? We may read of the laws of mankind from ancient times, such as the Code of Hammurabi and the Ten Commandments, combined with the laws in the Hebrew people’s teachings, the Torah. Many centuries later, Plato wrote an extensive, though unfinished, dialogue entitled Laws, which attempted to analyze legal codes of various Hellenic countries of the 5th Century B.C. In comparing these ancient codes and commentary, we find one particularly significant property in common, which is the appeal to deity in one form or other for establishing the authority of the laws. The rationale for appealing to such authority has its basis in the absolute standard of purity, without equivocation or error; otherwise, ethics and faith in God Himself have no standard but are reduced to mere relativism. Therefore, a comparison of ancient legal codes and commentary with the Bible would seem not only appropriate but vital.

Even though earlier legal codes of a Sumerian culture are also extant, these appear much more fragmented and incomplete than Hammurabi’s. The Code of Hammurabi dates back to the 18th Century B.C. under a Mesopotamian leader, probaby King Hammurabi himself, in the region of the Euphrates. Oddly, the most complete preservation of the code, the basalt stele of Hammurabi, was discovered in Susa, Iran (Persia) near the border with modern-day Iraq, and stands reassembled today in the Louvre Museum. Scholars surmise that the stele had been moved to Susa by force of war; nevertheless, other fragments found in the Near East point to the code of Hammurabi having a lasting influence across several cultures over some centuries in the overall region. The stele has a prologue and 282 legal paragraphs inscribed in cuneiform in the Akkadian (Semitic) language, followed by an epilogue, and it prescribes the legal requirements for such topics as family and civil law, business law, property law, and criminal law. The legal paragraphs are amazingly advanced in both format and concept. The casuistic style for each legal paragraph states “if” such-and-such, “then” such-and-such shall apply as to the legal remedy, and either a reward or punishment. Probably the most notable paragraph similar to a biblical nature mentions exacting punishment for the crime of violence – “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” as later cited in the law of Moses: Exodus 21:24; Leviticus 24:20; Deuteronomy 19:21; and repeated in the New Testament in Matthew 5:38. The carved relief at the top of the stele depicts the king revering Shamash, also known as Utu, the Babylonian god of the sun and justice.

Another remarkable code chronologically after Hammurabi’s would of course be the law of Moses as found in the parchment manuscripts of the Hebrew books of instruction – the Torah, consisting of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy (written c. 15th Century BC). The earliest extant manuscripts of the Torah today, along with many other Hebrew scriptures and Jewish writings, were discovered between 1946/1947 and 1956 at the caves of Qumran near the Dead Sea. They were probably copied by Essene scribes dating between the 3rd and 1st Centuries BC, with some manuscripts even earlier, and some later. The advance in scholarship and corroboration finds a remarkable similarity in the wording and clarity of translation between the previously “oldest” extant manuscripts and the Dead Sea Scrolls. The law of Moses found in the Torah reveals the law code of God to His people that organizes around the Ten Commandments presented to the first generation of the liberated Hebrews who exited Egypt (Exodus chapter 20), and then a second time to the next generation as the people prepared to enter the Promised Land (Deuteronomy chapter 5). We may note that the Ten Commandments give four “vertical” commandments on how to relate to the Supreme Being, followed by six “horizontal” commandments on how to relate to fellow humans. The summary commandments for each of these two categories may be found in the narration and admonitions by Moses to the people. Deuteronomy 6:4-5 provides the famous “Shema,” meaning “Hear,” which states the oneness of God and the Greatest Commandment – to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and strength. The first four of the Ten Commandments relate to honoring God as the only true and living God, the use of His name, and keeping the Sabbath, and all fall under the Greatest Commandment, Deuteronomy 6:4-5 – the Shema. The Second-Greatest Commandment, to love your neighbor as yourself, lies deep in Leviticus in the context of not holding a grudge, but to love instead, in Leviticus 19:18. “Love your neighbor as yourself” provides the primary emphasis and reason for the last six of the Ten Commandments, which include:

  • Honor your father and mother.
  • Do not murder.
  • Do not commit adultery.
  • Do not steal.
  • Do not bear false witness.
  • Do not covet.

This law code includes the simple major and universal Commandments but branches out into the sacrifical system of worship and animal blood atonement for sin, as well as various cultural regulations, sacred holidays, and worship requirements that provide a type for Christ, the projected Messiah, who was to come centuries after Moses. We may state unequivocably that the law of Moses points to the Divine, and as Bible believers, we say on faith that it comes from God.

We now come to the bulwark of Western legal and political thought, the philosphers of ancient Greece, which included the Big Three: Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Of these, we may focus on Plato’s final work in his old age, his dialogue, Laws. Today Plato’s discussion of laws may be criticised for its style and antiquated opinions, which at times seem to border on the naive. However, the major point comes from the statements of Plato’s character in the dialogue, the Stranger of Athens, as he propounds the divine nature of good law. “The laws of the Cretans,” he says to Clinias the Cretan, “are held in superlatively high repute among the Helenes. For they are true laws inasmuch as they effect the well-being of those who use them by supplying all things that are good. Now goods are of two kinds, human and divine” (Laws, Book I). He further expounds on humanity’s dependence on divine direction. We may wonder whether, assuming pagan gods to be nonexistent, a “divine” order or direction from the ancient Hellenic world would have any relevance, even in the 5th Century BC. The answer must come from their perspective, which would be affirmative. Although at times Plato’s Athenian Stranger mentioned God as the source for good law, we may only gather that he referred to someone in the ancient Greek pantheon. In the reading, one may find a reference to Zeus and Pythian Apollo. Now Zeus in general would be regarded in Hellenic culture as of highest rank, the deific king of Olympus. However, Apollo, a god of great influence in multiple areas of human endeavor, specifically became involved in Greek religious tradition as the source for the power of the oracle at Delphi, the ancient Greek center of the universe. There at Delphi on the Bay of Corinth, Pythia, the oracular priestess, practiced her art of divination. Belief in law from the mouth of Apollo through Pythia had great weight to the Hellenic peoples.

Our thesis, after some comparison of legal and religious cultural references, lays out the universal need for authority for objective ethical principles, which we may further focus as commandments and laws of religious importance; namely, there must be a standard by which ethics are judged that stand independent of mere opinion and relativism. Even as Bertrand Russell, a self-described agnostic or atheist, admitted, he could not definitively judge goodness and badness (right and wrong) without requisite “non-natural properties of goodness and badness” (Stanford, 2021). Therefore, we may surmise that, according to Russell, without the supernatural ethical standard, objective ethical correctness would be reduced to debate. God must exist for an objective ethical standard, and as God said, “I AM” (Exodus 3:14). Remarkably, the ancient philosophers and lawgivers tended to agree on divine direction, if only ostensibly to justify the laws. Divine decree was invoked by Hammurabi, Moses, and Plato. Bible believers say that God will judge the people of the world, past, present, and future, and His judgment is right. We have His Book by which we may know His standard, in the pages from Genesis to Revelation.

For God shall bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil. – Ecclesiastes 12:14

Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of Him to whom we must give account. -Hebrews 4:13

We are fortunate to have the hope of God’s promises to believers, and may call on the name of the Lord and plead in faith for His grace and mercy, turning to Christ, the author and finisher of our faith (Romans 10:9-10; Hebrews 12:2). We are privileged to live out our faith, not under judgment, but under grace and a sound mind in Christ (Romans 8:1; 12:1-3). May the Lord’s peace be with you.

REFERENCES:

Britannica Online, britannicaonline/topic/Britannica-online. “Code of Hammurabi.” Accessed 10

February 2024.

Britannica Online, britannicaonline/topic/Britannica-online. “Dead Sea Scrolls.” Accessed 10

February 2024.

Britannica Online, britannicaonline/topic/Britannica-online. “Shamash.” Accessed 10 February 2024.

Plato, Laws. English trans. by R.G. Bury. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1926.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Russell’s moral philosophy,” under subtitle “1. The open

question argument and its aftermath: Moore’s influence on Russell,” revised 4 May 2021.

The Cost of Following Christ

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Jesus had much to say about the cost of being His disciple; in fact, true discipleship will cost you everything, and yet, the value of His grace is limitless! This quote from Jesus compares such a cost with the practicality of war:

31 “Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Won’t he first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? 32 If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. 33 In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples. -Luke 14:31-33

We also know of the cost of a stronger nation at war against a weaker power, which holds out with great resistance and perseverence, because the weaker power’s homeland means everything to the people, even life itself. The stronger power must be forced to weigh the cost, even weighing the diminishing returns from a seemingly endless war. America has witnessed this from the Vietnam War and the war in Afghanistan. Russia may be experiencing this principle in its war against Ukraine, and also suffered heavy losses in the 1980s in the Russian invasion of Afghanistan. In fact, the principle of diminishing returns goes back in history to ancient times. Aristotle referred to the fading Persian empire’s struggle against Atarneus, a stronghold town on the coast of Asia Minor (Politics, Book II, iv, 10), in which the city’s mega-wealthy financier, Eubulus the Bithynian banker, suggested to the Persian general, Autophradates, that he count the cost in time, expense, and lives to take the city. Autophradates wisely withdrew the seige from Atarneus.

Now Jesus’ example in Luke chapter 14 refers to the weaker power offering peace terms when the cost would be too great. We have therefore two examples from history: the diminishing returns of the stronger power in one example, and the likely defeat or excessive cost of the weaker power in another example. Our moral of these illustrations pertains to becoming a Christian. To be a Christian, Jesus says, you must go “all in.” The cost is your life, whether literally in the case of your martyrdom, or the cost over your natural lifetime as a slave of Christ.

Then He said to them all: 23 “Whoever wants to be My disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. 24 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.” -Luke 9:23-24

Self-denial places others ahead of yourself, and the motivation is love. The cost of discipleship is everything, but the gain is everything for eternity. Oh, the amazing riches of Christ (Romans 9:23; Colossians 1:27; Hebrews 11:26)!

Now the cost of discipleship to Jesus may be regarded, in the case of the strong Christian, as the stronger power waging war on the weaker, who may perhaps find himself casting his pearls before swine (Matthew 7:6) in the hope of saving the irretrievable, only to sink himself in the mire of the other’s depravity. Once you have laid out the gospel and your arsenal of prooftext – that is, your memorized Scriptures that show the way of repentance and salvation in Christ – it becomes necessary to “dissolve the bands” (T. Jefferson) that may lead to evil influence. As the apostle said, once you have warned the wayward one, watch that you yourself be not tempted. Do not be deceived: “Evil company corrupts good character,” which Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15:33, quoting from the Greek Poet, Menander.

In the case of an ordinary Christian, or a new Christian, or even a weaker Christian, how do you ask for peace against the stronger power? One must not negotiate with evil, especially the devil. Surrender, not to evil, but to the risen Savior. Do as Paul described in Colossians 3:1-3; namely, hide your life in Christ. As you deny self and hide your life in Christ, the Lord Jesus stands between you and evil. We are all weak in one way or other, and Jesus knows your every weakness. Call on Jesus for protection. Take that temptation to the Lord in prayer. Such is the resistance of the saved, calling on the name above all names, Jesus. As James wrote, resist the devil, and he will flee (James 4:7). Is he fleeing from your power? No, he is fleeing from you because of who is in you, Jesus, the hope of glory (Colossians 1:27).

Hell Is Real

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The Friday edition of The Wall Street Journal features an essay series, “Houses of Worship,” written by a different specialist each week on a topic of interest related to religion. On Friday, March 8, 2024, p. A13, Lance Morrow presented his article entitled “How We Think About Hell.” It seems every unpleasantry imaginable occupies our thoughts about hell, if we think of hell at all, although the plethora of concepts tend to marginalize the truth from God’s Word. Pope Francis, when asked what he thought about hell, said, “What I would say is not a dogma of faith, but my personal thought: I like to think hell is empty. I hope it is.”

Mr. Morrow went through a vivid list of observations by writers and thinkers on the topic of hell. Pope Francis described hell as “eternal solitude.” Jean Paul Sartre, the existentialist “pontiff,” commented that “hell is other people.” Great writers published their own particular twist on hell. Dante’s Inferno “set the standard,” says Morrow. Milton wrote a tortuously lengthy tome, Paradise Lost, putting words in Lucifer’s mouth: “Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell.” James Joyce’s novel, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, apalls the senses with the smell of rotting flesh and boiling blood of sinners, even as the fire “gives off no light.”

Then we are given a glimpse of hell on earth, such as World War I’s Battle of the Somme, which introduced mass insanity of 300,000 deaths and hundreds of thousands of injuries in a barrage of shelling, destruction of human life and limb the likes of which had never been seen before. Survivors were prone to take decades to speak of it, if at all. The butchery continued through wars and terrorism throughout the Twentieth Century and into the Twenty-first. Of course, Hitler teed up a nuance to hell on earth, delivering genocidal annihialtion to his Holocaust victims in the dehumanizing of human life as ghoulish as the hated Nineveh of the ancient Assyrian Empire.

Nowadays it seems that relativism takes the front seat of people’s concept of laying blame for sin, which is the reason for hell in the first place. But has sin become dependent on the situation? Are we no longer responsible for our actions if our psyche is the product of our genetic and social circumstances? Consequently, Morrow raised a pointed question: “Has the old idea, fire and brimstone through all eternity, gone out of business?” After all, who is responsible in Twenty-first Century thinking? Artificial Intelligence raises new possibilities of transferring blame away from a potentially punishable culprit. Do you blame the “occupant” of a self-driving vehicle when a computer glitch causes the death of a hapless pedestrian? Nevertheless, the author concludes that there is somehow a basic truth to be ferreted from human nature and our sense of justice. I would say that therein lies the problem – the finding of justice by human standards rather than God’s.

I would add that the groundwork for such dubious ideas of justice began long ago. Novels and speeches and articles over the modern era laid the foundations of relativism. Dostoevsky, Hardy, Dreiser, and Steinbeck – each contributed to the idea of the extenuating circumstance and the perpetrator as victim. Today we see this in the news as criminals are given a pass. If the criminal is a victim, then how can you punish him? Is not society itself responsible? As far back as Thomas More’s Utopia, first published in 1516, and in English in 1551, the foundation for such warped thinking had been laid.

“For if you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first make thieves and then punish them?” -Thomas More, Utopia

The book had a lengthy Latin name with various English translations that could be simplified to this: On the Best State of a Republic and on the New Island of Utopia. We best recognize the book, of course, as Utopia, and its rather loose treatment of crime became woven into Western culture in popular works, including the motion picture, Ever After (1998). In the movie, Drew Barrymore directly quoted the above English rendition of Thomas More’s indictment of punishing thieves.

Sin as sin can only be, at its core, a simple concept that – without grace from above – predicates the inexorable conclusion: judgment. Therefore, hell becomes crystal clear in the moral code of God’s Holy Word, the Bible. Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758), the Eighteenth Century evangelist and author of the famous sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” ignited the proper fear of the Lord God in thousands of Americans’ hearts and helped bring about the Great Awakening, the great Christian revival in Colonial America. His basic examples from Scripture atested to the reality of hell, a real place of torment for those who have earned the wrath of God, not the least of which results from intransigent rebellion against the evidence of God’s existence, beginning with unbelief in the miracle of His creation (Romans 1:20) and extending to unbelief in the miraculous, incarnate Son of God.

“Anyone who believes in him is not condemned, but anyone who does not believe is already condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God.” –John 3:18

We have the Biblical illustration from one of Jesus’ parables, “The Rich Man and Lazarus,” in which poor Lazarus dies and goes to heaven, resting on Abraham’s bosom, while the wicked rich man is tortured in the eternal fires of hell (Luke 16:19-31). Now hell was originally reserved for the devil and his angels, the fiery eternal place where Satan would be locked up as he justly deserves (Matthew 25:41). However, mankind, who is made in God’s image, was not intended for such a fate until after the Fall, when the sin of man came into being. What do we have now? We have an alternative: either to enjoy God’s grace as we look to “the author and finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2, KJV) or to face an eternity in hell. Its description leaves no doubt of its physical reality. Isaiah 66:24 describes the scorched bodies of the wicked who are the objects of God’s wrath in a place where the worms consuming them never die and the fire is never quenched; and Jesus relates this illustration from Isaiah as the place of hell, emphasizing the worms and unquenchable fire three times (Mark 9:42-48).

As mentioned, there lies before us God’s boundless grace and his unmitigated holy wrath; the choice is yours. “As for me and my house,” as Joshua said in Joshua 24:15, “we will serve the Lord.” We will turn to God’s grace freely offered, not due to our own merit, but because we look to Him in faith (Ephesians 2:8-9).

Genesis 9:4 – The Life Blood

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The Rainbow covenant that God made with Noah and his family, the survivors of the Great Flood, included a stipulation of great interest to the Abrahamic people groups and their respective faiths: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. God commanded the abstention from the lifeblood of animals when He allowed the eating of meat in the human diet after the Flood. To Noah and his wife, their three sons, and their wives, God said: “But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it” (Genesis 9:4).

God further required an accounting from any human or animal that took another human life: capital punishment.

5 “And for your lifeblood I will surely demand an accounting. I will demand an accounting from every animal. And from each human being, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of another human being.

6 “Whoever sheds human blood,

by humans shall their blood be shed;

for in the image of God

has God made mankind.”

– Genesis 9:5-6

Two points come to mind from this passage, Genesis 9:4-6:

  • Respect for the lifeblood of an animal whose meat is eaten by humans.
  • Accountability for the shedding of human blood by another, whether by an animal or a human.

The lifeblood sustains the life of both man and beast, sending oxygen, nutrients, and antibodies throughout the organism. The blood of both humans and animals truly sustains the life of the organism. The Hebrew Torah gives further rationale for respecting the blood of animals, whether by animal sacrifices on the altar to God, or whether by consumption of meat for food.

11 “For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life. 12 Therefore I say to Israelites, “None of you may eat blood, nor may any foreigner residing among you eat blood.”

– Leviticus 17:11-12

Deuteronomy 12:24 further prescribes how to treat the shed blood of the animal consumed for food; its blood was to be poured onto the ground, leaving the meat free of its blood. The reason for this care becomes clear from the principle of sacrificial atonement. The innocent animal sheds its blood for the life of the person offering his gift at the altar. Indeed, vicarious atonement, a life for a life, provided the forgiveness in the Israelites’ covenant with God. The covenant emphasized that sin promoted death, and without the shedding of blood, there was no forgiveness. The priest sprinkled the holy articles and the altar with blood from the sacrifice. In Egypt during the plagues against Pharaoh and the Egyptians, the Israelites sprinkled the doorpost and lintel of their homes with the blood of the Passover lamb, which prevented the angel from killing the firstborn of their household.

In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. – Hebrews 9:22

Non-Christians do not understand the nature of Jesus’ sacrifice of Himself on the cross. He is called the Lamb of God, because He is the atoning sacrifice for all the sins of humanity. Our only contribution is faith in His sacrifice as Son of Man and Son of God, the sinless One who took our sins upon Himself.

Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself. -Hebrews 7:27

Thus the sinless Son of God offered Himself for us, conquered death through His resurrection, and gave us eternal life through His atoning sacrifice of grace and our faith in Him.