Predestination and Freedom

by Robert Hatch

The biblical concept of predestination has, in the hands of Calvinistic theology, been twisted into a superstition that has distorted the image of the biblical God into the picture of a capricious and pernicious deity who programmed each of his human creatures, before the creation of the world, to either believe and obey him or disbelieve and disobey him, and to experience the respective consequences of his choice forever. Accordingly, while people may seem to make their own choices regarding whether or not to believe in the biblical God and behave accordingly, they are actually unconsciously acting out a script that was written for them before they were ever born.

While many Christians reject Calvinistic theology in this extreme form, most seem to have been nonetheless influenced by it to view God as, more or less, a cosmic control freak. Which is to say that God does not smile on the desire of humans to be free to choose and to experience the natural consequences of their free choices. Or, perhaps more precisely, God allows humans to delude themselves into thinking they are free to make choices, only to make clear to them at the end of the line that human freedom is a demonically inspired fiction.

The chief error of Calvinistic theology is its concept of the sovereignty of God. In this view, God is sovereign in that whatever occurs does so because God has decided that it should occur. Whatever happens is,ipso facto, the will of God. (As in, “There’s a reason for everything that happens.”) It could have happened in no other way because if it did, God would not be

sovereign.

In truth, however, events and circumstances may transpire in countless ways without lessening or altering the sovereignty of God in the least.

Calvinistic theology allows no room for the possibility that the freedom of God’s human

creatures is central to God’s sovereign will. That the wise exercise of their freedom may, indeed, be the sense in which human beings reflect the divine image in which they were created. It was, after all, the apostle Paul (whose letters include a number of references to predestination) who wrote, “For freedom Christ has set us free” (Gal. 5:1). If these words are to be taken seriously, they must at least call into question the notion that God’s sovereignty is synonymous with absolute control over all that God has created.

Understanding the biblical idea of the sovereignty of God, and therefore ofpredestination, requires a somewhat more nuanced understanding of the will of God than fundamentalism and evangelicalism generally allow. The Old Testament (OT) and New Testament (NT) writers shared a prophetic perspective on human events. Which is to say that the will of God was, for them, indistinguishable from the word of God, through which had been revealed to them God’s purpose for creation. From this revelatory perspective, God is indeed sovereign over all that occurs in the world he created, and this means that all that occurs is, in some sense, the will of God. Having said this, however, the will of God must be understood in terms of two broad

categories, which may be termed God’spurposive will and God’s permissive will.

God’s Purposive WillFrom a biblical perspective, God’spurposive will consists of what God originally purposed for his creation, and thereafter, revealed in what God promised to his people. The Bible is the prophetic history of the revelation of the word of God, which is synonymous with God's

purposive will.

God’s promise, which began the progressive revelation of God’s purpose for creation, was first made to Abraham: that God would give Abraham a son, through whom God would make of Abraham a great nation, through which God would bless all nations. This promise was

progressively fulfilled through the birth of the son God promised to Abraham, Isaac; through Isaac (and his son Jacob, whose name God changed to “Israel”) descended the twelve tribes of Israel which, under Moses’ leadership, became the nation of Israel, which became the great nation promised to Abraham under King David; one of David’s descendents—the comingAnointed One (Hebrew, Meshiach, or “Messiah”; Greek, Christos, or “Christ”: biblically, the human being whom Godanointed, or chose, to rule God’s kingdom)—God promised to place on the throne of Israel in order to fulfill God’s ultimate purpose of blessing all the nations of the earth.

This is the biblical story about the fulfillment of God’s original purpose for creation through the progressive fulfillment of his promise. In that the purpose of God for creation is the content of the word of God, the progressive fulfillment of God’s promise is also the progressive revelation of God’s word. (Biblically speaking, then, the word of God is not the Bible itself but the biblical message, the word of promise and fulfillment that God revealed to and through his biblical

messengers, whose message is woven into the biblical story. Accordingly, the Bible is the messenger, and “the word of God” is itsmessage; for the NT writers, “the word of God” is synonymous with “the gospel” [1 Pet. 1:23-25], the mesage proclaimed first by Jesus and subsequently to all nations by Jesus’ apostles.)

In that the Bible claims to be the story of the revelation of God’s purpose for all nations of the earth through the fulfillment of God’s promises, if this claim is true, the Bible is the source of information regarding God’s purposive will for his people.

Calvinistic theology notwithstanding, God’s people are not, in biblical terms, a fixed set of

individuals who, throughout human history, constitute his people through no choice of their own. Instead, the people of God are a community of faith, consisting of whoever throughout human history has heard God’s word of promise, revealing God’s purpose for humanity, and have chosen to believe it.

In so doing, believers have chosen to identify themselves with God’s purpose for his creation. And by so doing, they have chosen to become members of the community of faith, which God foreknewand, therefore, predestined for salvation. That is to say, God did not know beforehand which specific individuals would become members of the community of faith. Instead, God “foreknew” and, therefore, “predestined” that this community would be “called” by the hearing of the gospel, and “justified” through believing the gospel, and “glorified” as the eventual

outcome of their ongoing faith in the gospel (Rom. 8:29-30). Whoever, then, hears and believes (and continues believing) the gospel has freely chosen to identify herself or himself with the predestined community of faith.

This is analogous to the scheduling of a public mode of transportation—a bus, for example—to arrive at a destination. If all goes according to schedule, the bus—and therefore all who travel therein—will arrive at its destination. Whether or not any specific individual arrives at that destination with the bus depends on his or her having purchased a ticket, boarded, and stayed on board until the bus reaches its destination. Individuals are free to choose to travel or not, but the bus (barring unforeseen developments) will arrive at its destination—is predestined to arrive—regardless of whether they arrive with it or not. The difference between public

transportation and God’s purpose, of course, is that God’s faithfulness makes the fulfillment of his purpose inevitable (which is the biblical meaning of predestination) whereas buses are subject to the contingencies and exigencies of time and chance. The point is that a collective body—a category of people known as believers—ispredestined, not the specific individuals who choose to believe and, therefore, enter that collective body.

According to the prophetic understanding of God’s sovereignty, whatever God purposes—God’s purpose being synonymous with God’s sovereign will—God foreknows (i.e., knows beforehand) and, therefore, predestines (orforeordains, i.e., ordains beforehand) to occur. God’s purpose is subsequently worked out in human history in terms of what God has promised to his people. Biblical foreknowledge and predestinationare simply words of encouragement to God’s people signifying the assurance that God will be faithful to his promise. That the fulfillment of God’s promise is a foregone conclusion, as good as done, only a matter of time. And, therefore, that those who believe God’s promise are assured of enjoying its fulfillment.

God’s faithfulness to his promise is, in fact, the biblical definition of God’s righteousness: “You are the LORD [Hebrew,YHWH, the name of Israel’s God, rendered “LORD,” with all capitals, in English versions of the Bible out of respect for Jewish reticence about speaking, or writing, the name of God], the God who chose Abram and brought him out of Ur of the Chaldeans and gave him the name Abraham. You found his heart faithful before you, and made with him the

covenant to give to his offspring the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Jebusite, and the Girgashite.And you have kept your promise, for you are righteous”

(Neh. 9:7-8; see also Rom. 3:1-5; 1 John 1:9; and a large number of other OT and NT texts that equate God’s righteousness with God’s faithfulness).

Once again, that God has predestined this community of faith to live in his presence (that is, in the kingdom of God) forever does not mean that God has predestinedthe specific individuals who would be members of the community of faith. It is the spiritual community as a whole, that category of people known as believers in “the word”—not the specific individuals who choose, through faith in “the word,” to enter the spiritual community—that isforeknown and

predestined to enter the everlasting kingdom of God at the end of the age.

Biblical predestination, then, rather than discouraging believers with uncertainty as to whether their shortcomings or tribulations may mean that God has notpredestined them for salvation, encourages believers that, regardless of their shortcomings or the trials they face, their

membership in the spiritual community of faith means that their entrance into the kingdom of God at the end of the age is assured.

The compatibility of biblical predestinationand human freedom is expressed in Jesus’ saying, “Many are called, but few are chosen” (Matt. 22:14). All who hear the word of God—defined in NT terms as “the gospel” proclaimed by the historical Jesus and, after his death and

resurrection, by his apostles—“are called” into the predestined community of faith. Nevertheless, “few are chosen” in that few choose to believe the gospel (to put on “the wedding garment” of Matt. 22:11), and so, to join the predestined—which is to say, the “chosen”—community. One chooses, then, to be one of the “chosen.” In that God has “chosen”—that is, purposed and promised, foreknown and foreordained—the community of faith to enjoy life in the kingdom of God forever, God has, in effect, already “chosen” all who, of their own volition, choose to believe: collectively, their chosen-ness was purposed and promised, foreknown and foreordained from the beginning; individually, they choose to be part of the chosen community when they hear and believe the NT gospel.

God did this choosing of those who choose to believe when, in the beginning, he chose to send his Anointed One into the world he would create and eventually redeem. In choosing to send his Anointed, God chose all who would believe “the word” of and about his Anointed: “He was

foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for your sake, who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God” (1 Pet. 1:20-21). Accordingly, God “chose us [i.e., believers] in him [i.e., God’s Anointed] before the foundation of the world . . . In love, he predestined us [i.e., believers] for adoption through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will . . .” (Eph. 1:4-5). By choosing to send his Anointed to be the source and object of faith, in effect, God chose all who would, as a matter of their own choosing, believe in his Anointed.

All of which is to say that the proclamation, crucifixion, resurrection, exaltation, andparousia (Greek for presence, coming: coming-to-be-present at the end of the age) of God’s Anointed was God’s purpose from the beginning of his creation, and therefore, all who believe the NT

proclamation of and about Jesus are, by doing so, predestined by God to be raised from death to everlasting life in the kingdom of God.

And so, biblical predestination turns out to be entirely consistent with the freedom of God’s human creatures to choose their eschatological (from Greek, eschatos: last-in-time) destiny. It is this eschatological destiny itself that is foreknown andpredestined for all who choose it by hearing and believing the NT gospel.

Calvinistic Proof Texts
But what about those NT texts that seem to assert the opposite, that God’s will is inimical and unalterably opposed to human freedom? That God wills and does what he will do entirely apart from human choice?

Among the most notorious of these texts is Romans 9:13: “As it is written, ‘Joseph I loved, but Esau I hated’” (quoted from Malachi 1:2-3).

In this text, the Calvinistic interpretation notwithstanding, God is not expressing a negative attitude he had toward Esau before Esau was born, nor was God expressing a predetermination to damn Esau’s soul or to save Jacob's. Rather, the writer used a Hebrew idiom to describe God's choosing of Jacob rather than Esau to be in the line of promise from Abraham, the Patriarch, to Jesus, the Messiah ("Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated").

According to the same Hebrew idiom, Jesus warned his hearers: “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money” (Matt. 6:24). Rather than that Jesus’ disciples must feel a literal contempt for money, Jesus’ words mean that they must choose to “serve God” rather than money.

Likewise, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26). Rather than that his disciples must feel animosity toward their families—which would contradict all that Jesus instructed his disciples about their relationships with others—Jesus employed the same Hebrew idiom to say that his disciples must choose to follow him even though their families might be offended or disappointed by their doing so.

An understanding of the biblical writers’ metaphorical use of love and hatred makes clear, then, that God did not, before either were born, literally hate and, therefore, condemn Esau while loving and, therefore, saving Jacob. Their standing before God was not Paul’s subject and, therefore, was not at issue. Paul’s subject was, in this case, God’s sovereign right to choose according to his own purpose. That God chose Jacob over Esau not to be saved or damned but to be in the Abrahamic-Messianic line of promise that would eventually fulfill God's purpose, before either had had a chance to do good or evil, is evidence for Paul’s argument (made throughout Romans 9) that God does not choose based on works of law.

Paul’s point is not that God’s choices are arbitrary. God’s choice of Jacob over Esau may seem arbitrary—after all, God had to choose someone to be in the physical line from Abraham to Jesus. Nevertheless, Paul’s argument is that God’s choice of those who believe the Messianic gospel for a righteousness of faith over those who rely on their obedience to the Mosaic law for a righteousness of works is based on the very purpose for which God chose Jacob over Esau: “. . . in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of his call . . .” (Rom. 9:11). When it comes to salvation and destruction, God has always exercised his sovereign will not capriciously but consistently with his righteousness, to choose believers in his Abrahamic promise, whether Jews or Gentiles. Whether Esau, or Jacob for that matter, died in the hope of salvation depended on their faith in God’s promise to their grandfather Abraham, not on which of them God chose to be in the physical line of promise from Abraham to Jesus.Therefore, the case of Jacob and Esau is not an example of God's havingpredestined anyone to be saved or lost.

Equally subject to Calvinistic distortion has been Romans 9:17-18:“For the Scripture says to Pharoah, ‘For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.’ So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills” (from Exodus 9:16).

God predestined Pharaoh's role in the exodus of Israel from Egypt according to his original purpose and Abrahamic promise to make of Abraham a great nation, through which God would ultimately bless all nations (Gen. 12:1-3; 18:18). God fulfilled his purpose and promise through Pharaoh by delivering the Israelites from Egypt and, thereby, making of Abraham a great nation through which God's "name might be proclaimed in all the earth."

Further, God hardened Pharaoh's heart not by means of a direct action but by means of "the word of God" that Moses spoke to Pharaoh, commanding Pharaoh to free his Israelite slaves. Pharaoh’s pride in his own sovereignty would not allow him to submit to the sovereignty of God expressed in "the word" spoken by Moses. That the ruler of the Egyptian empire would resist a Hebrew’s claim that the Hebrew “god” commanded that Pharaoh release a sizable portion of the slave labor that facilitated the maintenance of his kingdom is hardly surprising.

Most importantly, God did not harden Pharaoh’s heart for the purpose of damning his soul but, instead, “that my name be proclaimed in all the earth” (Rom. 9:17). Which is to say, so that all nations might hear about the Hebrew God and eventually be prepared for the coming of his Anointedto fulfill God’s Abrahamic promise to bless all nations.

Again, therefore, God's hardening of Pharaoh was for the purpose of fulfilling his original

purpose and Abrahamic promise, which would reach its ultimate fulfillment in the proclamation, crucifixion, resurrection and exaltation of Jesus. Neither of Paul's examples (Jacob and Esau nor Pharaoh) are intended to illustrate that God predestinesall that occurs. Nor that God

predestines individuals to be saved or lost. Individuals are free to choose whether or not to believe and are responsible for their own choices.

The difficulty Paul faced with his Jewish readers (his Roman letter having been written to a mixed community of believing and unbelieving Jews along with Gentile believers who had joined themselves to the Jewish community of Rome) was to persuade them that their election by God was not for the purpose of their own salvation and the destruction of the rest of the world, as (not Moses and the prophets but) their religious tradition had taught them. Rather, God’s election of Israel was for the purpose of their becoming “a light for the nations” (Isa. 49:6; see also Isa. 60:1-3), that is, for the purpose of the salvation of the rest of the world, to fulfill God’s Abrahamic promise to bless all nations. And that as they, through faith in the gospel, accepted the purpose of their election, they would enjoy the salvation that God intended for all nations, including Israel.

And so, God "has mercy on whomever he wills," which is to say, God wills to have mercy on those who claim a righteousness of faith rather than of works, and "he hardens whomever he wills," which is to say that God wills to harden those who reject his word of promise, whether he be an Egyptian Pharaoh or a Pharisaic Jew who claims a righteousness of works.

Because of the failure to distinguish between God’s election of specific individuals, like Jacob and Pharaoh, to be in the physical line of promise from Abraham to Jesus in order to fulfill his purpose, on one hand, and God’s election of whomever believes the gospel to be saved as the fulfillment of his purpose, on the other, Calvinism perverts and distorts the biblical knowledge of God.

Calvinism represents the failure to understand that God's sovereign will is that human beings be free to choose to believe "the word" or not, free to love their Creator or not, free to accept or reject the hope of salvation. All that occurs is God's will in the sense that God's sovereign will bothpurposes and permits. God's purposive willwas expressed in his promise to give Abraham a son, through whom God would make of Abraham a great nation, through which God would bless all nations. Godpredestined this to occur and guaranteed its ultimate fulfillment in his Anointedbecause of his love for his human creation.

The significance of the biblical writings is that they preserve the progressive revelation of God’s purposive will.

God’s Permissive Will
All else that has occurred, does occur and will occur in human history is a matter of God's

permissive will. Which is to say that it is God’s will to permit human beings to exercise their freedom to reject his purpose and disbelieve his promise if they so choose.

World events or personal circumstances reveal not God’s purposive will but God’spermissive will: “Again I saw that under the sun . . . time and chance happen to them all” (Eccl. 9:11).

This does not mean that God is not sovereign but that God’s sovereign will for the present age is to permit events to run their natural course, leaving human circumstances to “time and chance.” As Jesus said of his heavenly Father, “he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matt. 5:45). Good fortune or misfortune are as likely to fall on believers as on unbelievers (to which the OT story of Job certainly attests). On the dark side of the coin, God permits both natural disasters and human atrocities.

Accordingly, “the whole world lies in the power of the evil one” (1 John 5:19), who is the lord of “all the kingdoms of the world” (Matt. 4:8), “the god of this age” (2 Cor. 4:4) and “the prince of the power of the air” (Eph. 2:2). Which is to say that Godpermits Satan to be the administrator of the world of the present age—which makes Satan the face of God’s wrath—until day of

judgment, which Jesus called “the end of the age” (Matt. 13:39, 40, 49). God counters the evil one by means of the revelation of his purposive will for all nations in "the word," in the hope of persuading human beings away from the evils of both hatred and indifference and toward the goodness of love and servanthood. (This often seems insufficient in the face of injustice, but the only alternative God has to persuasion by means of "the word" is coercion by means of direct intervention, which could only be effected by God at the cost of human freedom.)

That the Creator of all things would permitevil, and all of its attendant human suffering, to occur is the problem oftheodicy, which posits an either-or proposition: Either God is good but not all-powerful, or God is all-powerful but not good; God cannot be both good and all-powerful because in that case God could and would not allow evil to have its way in the world.

The reply of Calvinism is that God is both good and all-powerful but that human depravity makes it impossible for fallen humanity to accept that God has the right to do as he will here and damn whomever he will hereafter. The creature has no right to question the will of the Creator. Instead, the creature must accept that the will of God is a mystery that will only be understood in the hereafter (if one happens, through no choice of her or his own, to be one of the chosen few who makes it to the hereafter).

The biblical answer is that God permits evil because his sovereign will includes his desire for the exercise of human freedom, even when the consequences of human freedom are destructive. The freedom to do good must also include the freedom to do evil, just as the freedom to love

must also include the freedom to hate. Enough intelligent creatures joining together, however unwittingly, for evil and hateful purposes creates tidal waves of human suffering that engulf the earth.

Nevertheless, how else can God's human creatures grow into maturity except through the exercise of freedom?

Finally, God’s permissive will is the framework within which God’s purposive will—revealed in “the gospel" proclaimed by Jesus and his apostles—moves toward the day of judgment (“the end of the age”) and the kingdom of God (“the age to come”). That what God purposes for creation is sure to prevail over all that God permits in the meantime is the meaning of biblical

predestination.

Biblical Interpretation: Certainty or Persuasion?

by Robert Hatch

No interpretation of scripture is provable. How would anyone know that it had been proved? Who would be the judge and jury to rule that the case had been made beyond the shadow of a doubt and was now, therefore, closed? Would it then be a fact on which everyone would agree?

The reality is that we tend to think an interpretation has been proved when we are persuaded (or, more commonly, have been indoctrinated) that it is true. But that only means that we believe it. No matter how much evidence we find for our position, it will not be persuasive to everyone. Which is to say that our interpretations will never be the same as facts. Doesn't the possibility always exist that we may be wrong?

The fact that we engage in persuasive discourse regarding alternative interpretations of various biblical texts suggests that none of them are provable. Nevertheless, we reason our way to conclusions that are supportable by the evidence of scripture. Because an interpretation isn't provable doesn't mean that it is without sufficient evidence to make it persuasive. Just never persuasive to everyone.

I think that faith is a matter of persuasion rather than of certainty. The subjectiverendering of Hebrews 11:1 that identifies faith with "being certain of what we do not see" would be improved by the objectiverendering "the evidence of things not seen," according to the scholarly resources I've consulted. Biblical faith is not a feeling of certainty that comes from a religious experience. Instead, biblical faith ispersuasion regarding one’s understandingof the biblical testimony about God's fulfillment of his promise. What God has done to fulfill his promise to Abraham (from the birth of Isaac to Sarah through the exodus of Israel from Egypt to the resurrection of Jesus from the dead), asevidenced by the eyewitness testimony preserved by the biblical writers, is thecontent of “the word,” which is the objectof biblical faith. As Paul wrote, “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of [meaning both from and about] Christ” (Rom. 10:17). (Any interpretation of Jesus that doesn't focus on the fulfillment of promise is, in my view, suspect.)

And since biblical faith is persuasionregarding (and, therefore, depends on) one’s understanding of the biblical testimony, how can one ever be certain that one has understood correctly? Or that one’s understanding can’t be improved? (And the only alternative to being persuaded by one’s own understanding is being indoctrinated—as in told what to believe—by religious authority figures and structures.)

Which is why Jesus exhorted his followers, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you” (Matt. 7:7). The object of one’s asking and seeking and knocking is not some earthly good for which one feels the need (which seems to be the most common object of prayer); the object is the truth about God—which, when believed, creates a covenantal relationship with God—as it is revealed in and through Jesus. And the search for a true understanding of God is a lifelong process.

However certain I may FEEL about my interpretation, my feeling of certainty does not equate to absolute truth. If I think it does, I may feel entitled to "disfellowship" anyone who disagrees with me on the grounds that he or she refuses to believe “the word of God.” Feelings of certainty, which are sometimes called "convictions," can lead to behavior that is anything but "Christian."

The desire to "prove" interpretations of scripture and achieve absolute certainty may be related to a desire to determine what is essential to believe in order to be saved. The well-known restorationist slogan, "In essentials unity, in nonessentials liberty, in all things charity," assumes that someone or ones are qualified to determine what the "essentials" are. What's to be gained, however, by identifying certain beliefs as essential to salvation, other than the exclusion from “salvation” of those who disagree? (Which seems more like a loss than a gain.) And it inevitably excludes the “charity”—that is, Christian love—that is supposed to govern “all things” in which Christians engage one another.

It seems better to keep seeking and speaking the truth as one understands it, and let that common search be the ground for unity. And let the power of "the Spirit of truth" (John 16:13, a NT metaphor for the persuasive power of the biblical message) do the persuading.

Absolute certainty is, it seems to me, the prerogative of God. (Which suggests that those who pretend to absolute certainty are “playing God.”) The only human approximation would be God’s biblical agents—called “the apostles and prophets” (Eph. 2:20)—to whom God revealed "the word,” inspiring them to reveal it to others, who preserved their message in the biblical writings. Since they are not around to tell us precisely what they meant and, therefore, what their words mean today, the rest of us must be content with reasoning our way, as the grace of God has opened the way, to persuasion regarding the truth about God.

Jesus as Lord and God

by Robert Hatch

According to John 20:28, upon seeing, and hearing words from, the risen Jesus, “Thomas answered him, ‘My Lord and my God.’”

The common assumption that the title “God” can only apply to the Creator (whose OT Hebrew name is YHWH) is without biblical support. The words in Hebrew (eland elohim) and Greek (theos) that are translated "God" (and “god” or “gods”) in the Bible are used by the biblical writers not only for the OT YHWH and the NT God and Father of Jesus but also, in an affirmative sense, for Moses (see Exo. 7: 1), the judges of Israel (see Psa. 82: 6 and John 10: 34), and the house of David (see Zech. 12: 8). That is to say, Moses, the judges (as well as the prophets), and the house of David (from which Jesus was descended) were YHWH’s delegated “gods,” chosen to be his spokespersons.

As Jesus explained, regarding why he was not blaspheming by calling himself “the Son of God,” God “called them gods to whom the word of God came” (John 10:35). In other words, when God’s inspired messengers spoke, their hearers heard not their own words but the word of God. They spoke on God's behalf, as God's representatives, to whom God, therefore, delegated the title “gods.”

The delegation of the title “gods” to God’s spokespersons is in keeping with the biblical principle of agency, according to whichone’s agent is regarded as oneself. In any case in which one sends a representative to speak on one’s behalf, that representative is to be regarded as an extension of one’s own presence.

Agency is illustrated even today in the case of diplomats, who represent the leaders of their countries in dealings with other countries. Agency, then, is synonymous withmediation. One’s agent is the mediator between oneself and to whomever the agent is sent.

The biblical principle of agency explains a few apparent discrepancies in the NT writings. For example, one NT Gospel testifies that “the mother of the sons of Zebedee” (Matt. 20:20) requested that Jesus grant her sons positions of authority at his future coming with the kingdom of God, whereas another testifies that “James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came up to him” (Mark 10:35) and made the request. Insofar as their mother approached Jesus as their agent/mediator/representative, the discrepancy disappears in that the Jewish mode of expression would have allowed for either telling. Likewise, one NT Gospel testifies that “a centurion came forward to him” (Matt. 8:5), requesting that Jesus heal his servant; another testifies, “When the centurion heard about Jesus, he sent to him elders of the Jews, asking him to come and heal his servant” (Luke 7:3). The Jewish elders served as the centurion’s agent, in which case their words to Jesus were regarded as the words of the centurion himself. In both cases, the principle of agency was so familiar to and accepted by the original hearers and subsequent readers of the stories that either telling was considered truthful.

The same biblical principle of agency, when applied to the sending of God’s messengers to Israel and the nations, makes clear sense of what otherwise would appear to divide the biblical God into multiple persons.

In a negative sense, the Bible is also full of references to the “gods” of the nations (the same Hebrew and Greek words for “God,” no distinction being made in the original language regarding capitalization), gods whom Paul called “demons” (1 Cor. 10: 20-21). Likewise, the prince of demons, Satan, is called “the god [Greek, theos] of this age” (2 Cor. 4: 4). As such, the “other gods” (Exo. 20:3) that the Israelites were prohibited from worshiping by the first of the Ten Commandments were counterfeit agents, misrepresenting God by presenting false revelations of the will of God.

The word “God,” then, is not a name but a title, which the biblical writers applied not only to the Creator but also to his delegated spokespersons (of whom Jesus, as God'sAnointed One, was and is the ideal and ultimate agent), as well as to the fallen angels (Greek, angeloi, literally, messengers) who usurped the title by delivering false revelations of God. (The word “president” is comparable in the sense that it can be applied not only to the chief executive of the U.S., in which case it is typically capitalized as “the President,” but also to the heads, or “presidents,” of banks, universities and other organizations.)

When John's Gospel summarizes its message and purpose, it makes clear what claim about Jesus it calls its readers to believe: “. . . these things [that is, his testimony to the miraculous signs performed by Jesus, culminating in God’s resurrection of Jesus from the dead] are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20: 31). When Thomas called Jesus, “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28), he meant no more nor less than that he now recognized Jesus as “the Christ, the Son of God” (John 20:31), the one whom God the Father had promised through the prophets and now sent to speak and act on God's behalf, to fulfill God's OT promises and, therefore, to speak God's word in its fullness. Thomas affirmed that Jesus was, and therefore continues to be, God’s ultimate and preeminent agent/mediator/representative, the one who, according to the principle of agency, is to be regarded as God’s self.

The distinction, then, must be made between oneself and one’s agent, who is to be regarded as oneself. Those who regard the agent as the one who sent the agent understand perfectly well that the agent is not literally the same as the sender. Nevertheless, they accord the agent thesame treatment as they would accord the sender. (The NT report that Thomas and others “worshiped” Jesus is not, therefore, a persuasive argument that Jesus is, in Trinitarian terms notably absent from the NT writings, a “Person of the Godhead.”)

Responsible for so much confusion is the failure to understand the NT title “Christ” (Greek, christos) as equivalent to the OT title “Messiah” (Hebrew, meshiach). Both “Christ” and “Messiah” mean, in English,Anointed One: the one whom God anointed, or chose or delegated, to rule the kingdom of God as God's agent upon its coming to earth at the end of the present age.

As “the Christ, the Son of God” (John 20:31), Jesus fulfilled the role of God's preeminent agent prophesied for him in Psalm 2.

In Psa. 2:2, “the LORD” (the capital letters used by English versions of the Bible to signify that the Hebrew term is YHWH, the OT name of the Creator and the God of Israel) is aligned with “his anointed” (Hebrew, meshiach, or Messiah, the equivalent of the NT “Christ”).

In Psa. 2:6, YHWH refers to “his anointed” as “my King,” meaning that the Messiah is, by OT definition, YHWH's anointed King, having been designated as such by YHWH, who is also called "the Lord" (the lower case letters signifying that the Hebrew term is not YHWH but adonai, always an OT title for YHWH).

In Psa. 2:7, the one referred to as YHWH's“anointed . . . King” is now called “my Son” by YHWH, who prophesies the birth of the Messiah: “today I have begotten you.” The “Son of God” is not, according to this definitive Messianic Psalm, the Trinitarian “eternally begotten God the Son” but was “begotten” on a “today” that was, according to this prophetic Psalm, in Israel's future.

Prophetic literature speaks proleptically, which means that it speaks of the future as if it were the present; whatever God has promised can be spoken of as a present reality because God has foreordained it and, thus, it will happen without fail. To speak of what God has promised as if it were a present reality is to confess biblical faith, which is “the reality of things hoped for” (Heb. 11:1).

Since God has promised to send his Messiah, God (and, therefore, God’s people) can speak of it as a present reality: “today I have begotten you.” (This sense of the Messiah's begotteness accords with Luke 1: 35, which says that Jesus “will be called holy—the Son of God,” because his birth to Mary was the result of “the power of the Most High.”)

Psalm 2 aligns Adonai YHWH with "his anointed," whom YHWH also calls “my King” (that is, the one whom YHWH has anointed, or delegated, to be the ruler of his kingdom) and “my Son.” So, the psalmist equates God’s “anointed” with God’s “King” and God’s “Son.” Nowhere, however, does this Psalm, which is definitive for the OT meaning of messiahship, suggest that the Messiah is God in the sense that YHWH is God. The Messiah (YHWH’s “anointed”) is clearly identified as God’s “anointed” agent, the one whom God chose to represent God, to mediate between God and the nations, and to eventually become God's king of all nations.

Therefore, Psalm 2 is completely consistent with the biblical concept that the Messiah is “God” in a delegated sense, that is, in the sense of God's perfect representative, or mediator, the one who exercises the authority of God on earth (which is a continual theme of John's Gospel).

Finally, the OT text most quoted by the NT writers, Psa. 110:1, is altogether consistent with this analysis: “The LORD [Hebrew,YHWH] says to my Lord [Hebrew, adoni, an OT term which refers to human dignitaries, as opposed to adonai, the OT title forYHWH]: ‘Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.’”

In this prophetic text (fulfilled, according to the NT writers, in Jesus), YHWH exalts this human “Lord” (adoni) to his “right hand,” and promises to bring all this Lord's enemies into submission to him. If the Psalmist had intended to equate the lordship of YHWHwith the lordship of the Messiah (assuming the wish to convey the Trinitarian concept of two Persons interacting within the same Being), he presumably would have usedadonai, always an OT title for YHWH, rather than adoni, an OT title for human lords, such as kings and other dignitaries. Instead, the biblical writers clearly distinguish between the Lord (adonai) God, whose OT name is YHWH, and the Lord (adoni) Messiah, whose NT name is Jesus.

Psalm 110:1, then, refers to two Lords, one’s lordship being delegated to him by the other, whose supreme lordship is integral to his being. This is precisely the meaning of the words of the risen Jesus to his apostles: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matt. 28:18), which is the fulfillment of the promise prophesied in Psalm 110:1.

Accordingly, the NT writers use Psalm 110:1 to identify Jesus as "Lord" and "God" in the delegated sense of God's anointed spokesperson, the one who speaks and acts on God's behalf, as God's representative, or agent, “the one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5). Every NT reference to Jesus as “mediator” assumes the biblical principle of agency, according to which one’s agent is regarded as oneself.

What human beings can know, and what believers in the NT gospel of God’s kingdom and grace do know, about the one true God is mediated through Jesus, who has been delegated the titles “Lord” and “God” by his God and Father.

A Christian can, with Thomas, confess Jesus as “my Lord and my God.” The question is whether or not the Christian making this confession means what Thomas meant.

What does it mean that God will not despise a broken spirit and contrite heart (Psalm 51:17)?

Answer:

Psalm 51 was written by King David after he committed adultery with Bathsheba and had her husband killed to cover his sin (2 Samuel 11). It has been said of David that he sinned big, but repented bigger. He is a model to us of what real heart repentance looks like. He wrote this psalm as an agonized cry to God for forgiveness.

Psalm 51:17 says, “My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise.” The meaning of this is connected with the verse just before it. Verse 16 says, “You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.” David is stating that there is nothing we can offer God to appease Him when we have sinned. More animal sacrifices were not what God was looking for. God desires true repentance.

Many people miss this truth. Rather than repent, they try to "clean up their act," give more, pray more, or busy themselves in other religious activity in the hopes that God will finally "get over" being mad at them. In Psalm 51, David is saying that God wants none of that. External religious activity cannot replace internal, heartfelt contrition (1 Samuel 16:7).

Verse 17 points out the one thing God desires more than any other: brokenness over our own sin. When we agree with God about how bad our sin is, we take the first step toward reconciliationwith Him. As long as we try to justify, excuse, or rationalize the evil of our own hearts, we never find our way back into God's presence. Repentance is the doorway to freedom. Satan knows this and does everything he can to detract us from it. He suggests things that our selfish nature likes to hear: "Your sin wasn't that bad." "Compared to others, you're okay." "God has forgotten it already. No need to confess it." When we listen to the devil’s oily words, we veer away from the doorway to freedom and remain in bondage. We may feel remorse or regret, but neither is a sufficient substitute for true repentance (see Hebrews 12:17).

David reminds us that the only path to forgiveness is a broken heart and a humble spirit (Matthew 5:3). When we throw ourselves on the mercy of God, He delights to lift us up (Luke 18:13-14). When we openly acknowledge our sin against God, turn from it, and cry out for cleansing, God promises that He will hear us and forgive (1 John 1:9).

It is interesting to note that, although David sinned against Bathsheba and her husband, he makes this statement to God: “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight” (verse 4). David gets to the heart of why God so hates sin. It is a violation of His very nature. We are created in that image, but our sin mars it, like a smudge on a mirror. A broken spirit and a contrite heart invite God to clean that smudge and restore us to right relationship with Him.

Not About The Money

by Bill Crowder, Sports Spectrum Chaplain

The film “Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius,” follows the life and career of golfer Bobby Jones. In it, there is a critical scene where Jones is confronted by a professional golfer. In the 1920s, Jones dominated the golfing world, even though he was an amateur, and the professional challenged him about when he might grab for the money like everyone else. Highly educated in a variety of fields, Jones unpacked for his adversary the fact that the word amateurcomes from the Latin amo—to love. He made his definition of an amateur clear… doing what you do (in his case, playing golf) out of love for the game, not just for money.

That idea is a little shocking to our day. In our times, an amateur is often seen as second-rate or not good enough to go pro. Certainly there may be many instances where that is the case. But I would like to give a nod to the Bobby Jones perspective. No matter what we are doing, if it is done out of love it should be elevated—not diminished. Money as a motivation will always fall short because there will never be enough of it. Motivation rooted in love, however, sinks its roots into an eternal source and supply.

This idea has particular application when it comes to living as a follower of Christ, because our motives are key. Why do I do what I do? Is it for personal advancement? Is it for personal satisfaction? Is it for wealth or possessions? Indeed, why do I do what I do?

Clearly, those things are not necessarily evil or inherently wrong in themselves. But they can certainly cloud our hearts and minds with mixed motives—and that is true regardless of the arena in which we conduct our lives. Why we do what we do matters.

In the letter of 2 Corinthians, the apostle Paul is in the awkward and uncomfortable position of having to defend his ministry to people who are questioning his integrity. In 2 Corinthians 5, he is even forced to defend himself against accusations of instability. To that, he responds:

For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again. (2 Corinthians 5:14-15)

What great motivation! To be compelled by Christ’s love in what we do is the greatest of all motivations for, as Paul affirms, it is what causes the follower of Christ to no longer live for himself or herself, but for Christ.

His love becomes a driving force in our lives that allows us to gladly say that, in life, we are amateurs—for we are motivated by love. In fact, we are motivated by the greatest love of all, the love of Jesus Christ.