Tag Eternity

From the Ruins of Rome

Todd R 2 Comments

I really enjoy travelling when I can and one of my favorite places is Bath, England, which I’ve visited twice.  Bath is almost a 3-hour drive west of London and a great place to spend a weekend.  The relatively consistent Georgian architecture in the city is amazing, there are lots of interesting shops to visit, including along the Pulteney Bridge, and certainly a lot of history.  What the city is really known for, and what it is named for, are the Roman Baths that have been there for about 2,000 years.

A photo of the Roman Baths I took in 2022.

Built by the Romans around AD 60 and in use until about the 5th century, the Roman Baths are a symbol of the geographical breadth and technological achievement of the Roman Empire, the greatest civilization the world had ever seen.  Britain was about as far away from Rome one could go and still be in the Empire, and the city was almost like a resort for Roman soldiers to help them deal with being stationed so far from home.  The Romans believed the hot waters of the baths contained magical blessings from the goddess Sulis, and much later in the Victorian Era, the British would drink the hot spring water believing it had healing properties.

The baths themselves were an impressive engineering accomplishment for the time.  In addition to a complex series of baths and springs, a temple was built alongside to facilitate the worship of Sulis and other gods.  One of the most amazing things you learn when visiting the baths is that many of the pools were lined by the Romans with interlocking copper tiles, and that many of these are still waterproof today!

But, as great as Rome was, and the baths were, it is now just ruins.  The gods worshiped at the baths are mostly forgotten by the modern world.  Over time, the Roman Baths were completely abandoned and buried, only rediscovered centuries later.  The springs were used in the early 1700s, but much of what we can now see of the Roman Baths was not excavated until the late 1800s and early 1900s, but they remain in ruins.

The view of the Abbey from the Baths in 2022.

What I like better about visiting Bath is what you see when you look up from the Roman Baths: Bath Abbey, one of my favorite buildings.  Like the stone from Daniel’s vision that destroyed the image of this world’s kingdoms and “became a mountain that filled the while earth”[1], the Abbey to me symbolizes the expansion of God’s eternal church, and when you look up at the Abbey from within the baths, it almost seems to have risen right out of the ruins.

Mankind likes to celebrate our achievements, our breadth of knowledge and technological achievement, but the view of the Abbey from the ruins of the Roman Baths reminds us that all human civilization will one day be less than ruins.  Even Bath Abbey won’t last forever, but the church it represents will, in a new earth.  God will discard this world, which will “wear out like a garment” and He will “change them like a robe.”[2]  Starting over, God will create a new, perfect world where all of our accomplishments will seem as nothing in comparison, and where we will be able to create even more amazing things as reborn children of God, giving God all the glory.

Until then, thinking of Bath, England reminds me that everything we see here is temporary, no matter how impressive it seems.  That all of our work here should be done for the glory of God, as it will be in heaven.  That everything man accomplishes here won’t last, but that God’s church is eternal.

Amen.

[1] Daniel 2:35
[2] Psalm 102:26

The Work of Our Hands

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Psalm 90 is the only one out of 150 that was written by Moses.  Psalm 90 is also the first in book 4 of the Psalms, which some say carries many of the themes and ideas from the 4th book of the Pentateuch, the book of Numbers.  That book tells of the consequences of Israel’s disobedience and grumbling on their journey to the Promised Land.  The nation of Israel spent 40 years wandering, seemingly aimlessly, in the wilderness and only Joshua and Caleb from the prior generation actually entered the Promised Land.

As noted in a recent post, the Psalm begins by saying we are only home when we are with God, but the Psalm ends with this petition to God for us:

“Let your work be shown to your servants,
            and your glorious power to their children.
Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us,
            and establish the work of our hands upon us;
            yes, establish the work of our hands!”

Photo by Jamie Street on Unsplash

It may seem easy, or even natural, to just go with the flow of our surrounding cultures while in this world, but that would really be like wandering in the wilderness instead of getting God’s promised blessing.  Instead, do we seek that God’s “work be shown to your servants,” and that He “establish the work of our hands upon us”?  Do we seek “the favor of the Lord,” and experience His “glorious power”?  This is what Moses asks for in this prayer, that we find our purpose in Him by doing His work.  We all have “worldly” responsibilities we need to take care of in this world, but none of them are the ultimate goal.

In other words, the best way to spend our short lives here is to do work that matters in eternity, which God has laid out for us to do:

“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” – Ephesians 2:10
“So teach us to number our days
            that we may get a heart of wisdom.” – Moses, in Psalm 90:12

God, Our Eternal River

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When comparing Genesis and Revelation, we find similarities between the Paradise man lost and the Paradise to come.  Consider these verses about each:

Genesis 2:8-9: “And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed.  And out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers.”
Revelation 22:1-2: “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.”

A stream in Llanberis, Wales.

In each description is the tree of life, and also a river. Rivers are greatly beneficial to the growth of cities and civilizations, providing benefits for agriculture, trade, travel, etc.  Even today, most large cities that don’t border a large body of water have a navigable river nearby or flowing through it.  A big city without one is rare: in the United States, Dallas, Texas, and Charlotte, North Carolina, may be the only major cities not located near a significant river.

Rivers are mentioned a lot in the Bible, including in this Psalm about God being our refuge and fortress.  An unnamed river in the “city of God” is mentioned:

“There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
            the holy habitation of the Most High.” (Psalm 46:4)

However, Jerusalem, the place Jews in the Old Testament period would have considered the “city of God” does not have a river.  The Psalmist certainly knew this, so their point is about something else, that the “city of God” has, well, it has God, as described in the next verses:

“God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved;
            God will help her when morning dawns.
The nations rage, the kingdoms totter;
            he utters his voice, the earth melts.
The LORD of hosts is with us;
            the God of Jacob is our fortress.  Selah” (Psalm 46:5-7)

Jerusalem may not have a river, but it has God who provides all it needs and more.  No river required.  Even though the literal, ancient Jerusalem was eventually destroyed by the Babylonians, and later by the Romans, the eternal City of God will never be moved.  All other nations “rage” and “totter,” but God’s kingdom is forever secured by the One whose voice melts the earth.  Hebrews 1:10-12 (quoting from Psalm 102:25-27):

“You, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning,
            and the heavens are the work of your hands;
they will perish, but you remain;
            they will all wear out like a garment,
like a robe you will roll them up,
            like a garment they will be changed.
But you are the same,
            and your years will have no end.”

Do you worry that you lack things others have?  Things that would provide benefits for your business, spare time, or other pursuits?  With God as our fortress and refuge, we don’t need a river, but in Paradise He will provide one anyway.

Fret not, for you have God, our eternal river.

Jesus was Born to Overthrow King Herod, but How?

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The story of Herod and the three wise men is familiar to most who celebrate Christmas.  After the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, the wise men came looking for Him, having seen a star they believed signaled His coming.  Arriving in Jerusalem, they asked “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”[1]  Word of this search made it to Herod, the then-current king of that region under Rome’s authority, and his first instinct was to eliminate what he saw as a threat to his own power.  In Herod’s eyes, only he was king of the Jews.

Herod came up with a simple plan: to use the wise men to help him find this threat.  “And he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, ‘Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him, bring me word, that I too may come and worship him.’”[2]  However, the wise men were warned in a dream not to return to Herod, so they went home after visiting Jesus.  “Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men.”[3]

Herod believed so strongly in the necessity of the power of Rome and of his place in it that he was willing to commit mass murder.  If he couldn’t find the one child he wanted, he’d just kill them all.  He feared Jesus (or His followers) would overthrow him as king, and he was right but in the wrong sense.  Jesus would overthrow Rome.  He was born to overthrow every earthly kingdom – that is inevitable.

Much of Rome is already in ruins. Photo by Giu Vicente on Unsplash

Isaiah 40:17 proclaims that “All the nations are as nothing before him, they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness.”  The word “emptiness” here is the Hebrew “bohu,” part of the phrase “tohu va’bohu” translated as “without form and void” in Genesis 1:2.  This phrase represents empty things with no eternal value or purpose.  So, while Isaiah doesn’t use the whole phrase from Genesis, he uses “less than” for emphasis instead.  When compared to God’s eternal purposes, all that every nation has ever devised and achieved is less than useless.  God has nothing to learn from our political and economic visions – He transcends them all.  No nation can or will accomplish what God has accomplished and will accomplish.

Therefore, Jesus’ other mission was to overthrow Herod’s dominion over Herod.  But Herod was determined to resist.  His heart was so hard that he preferred to hang on to a government willing to commit mass murder to preserve its own self-centered ways.  He thought he could preserve the façade of “Pax Romana,” the idea that worldly government can solve all of our problems, even while he, as an agent of Rome, was killing innocent children.  Herod saw it as in his own best interest, and in the interest of Rome, but this is one of many examples of “a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.”[4]

Jesus can overcome death only by overthrowing our views of our own “best interest” and what “seems right.”  He was not born and did not die and rise again just to overthrow Rome, but He came so we would have a way to overthrow ourselves and death itself.  Jesus will establish the only government that will matter in eternity: His Kingdom.  The soul of Herod, and of all of us, will outlive every society that ever existed, and ever will, on this earth.  The nations are all “accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness.”  While Herod could find hope in Jesus if he wanted to, Rome itself never had any hope.

Therefore, the question Jesus asks all people is: Will we let Jesus overthrow us or will we, like Herod, go to great lengths to resist Jesus and try to preserve a world that is doomed to fail?

Isaiah 9:6 says “and the government shall be upon his shoulder.”  His Kingdom will be the only government we need, and He alone is uniquely qualified to establish and rule it.

“For to us a child is born,
            to us a son is given;
and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
            and his name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
            Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

[1] Matthew 2:2
[2] Matthew 2:8
[3] Matthew 2:16
[4] Proverbs 14:12, 16:25

All You Need is Love, But What is Love?

Todd R 2 Comments

A recent survey said that only 9% of American adults have a “biblical worldview.”  I’m generally skeptical of polls unless I know how they were done.  After looking into this one, I wonder if I fall in to the 91% of American adults who don’t have a “biblical worldview.”  Why?  In their definition of “biblical worldview” the word “love” was nowhere to be found.  Maybe they thought “love” was too hard to define to base a survey on.  If so, I can understand because love is a complicated thing.

In this survey, “love” was not in the definition, but “absolute moral truth” is, which bothered me not because truth is a bad thing, but because moral law is what condemns us.  Moral law would still exist if Christ had not died for us.  The Gospel, or Good News, of Christianity is that we can be saved despite failing to follow the law. Truth without love is like describing Easter and leaving out the Resurrection.  If we have not love, we have nothing but condemnation.  Love is essential.

But what is love?  Love means many things to different people and is a word people like to leave undefined or use to mean whatever sounds good.  Often people agree that “we should all love each other” without knowing what exactly they’re agreeing on.

Photo by Christopher Beloch on Unsplash

Confusion about what love is has been around for a long, long time.  The Bible itself talks about several different kinds of love, making a “biblical worldview” definition harder.  In English translations of the New Testament, the word “love” shows up over and over again, but the Bible wasn’t written in English.  I’m no Greek scholar, but what follows is how I personally understand “love,” and I hope it clarifies rather than confuses.

In Greek, there are at least 4 words for love, including these three:

  • Eros – sexual or passionate love
  • Phileo – this is a root of “Philadelphia”, literally the city of brotherly love.  Loosely, phileo means an affection for people who are “brothers,” who we like because we admire something about them, or because they are like us.
  • Stergo – This is a love toward kindred or family, typically between parents and children.  This love is like a loyalty to those we are related to by blood.

These words and ideas were part of the culture in which Jesus lived, died and rose again over 2,000 years ago.  However, the writers of the New Testament Bible couldn’t line the meaning of these words up with what they wanted to say about Jesus.  Therefore, they took a little-used word – agape – and poured new meaning into it.

A Better Love
Agape is epitomized by the act of Jesus dying on the cross, but also by His selfless love for others repeatedly demonstrated in the gospel records of His life.  Agape is putting the interests of others above the interests of yourself, even if there is no benefit to yourself, or even if there is a significant cost to yourself.  Even if those others don’t love you.  Agape motivates acts of benevolence or charity.

Why is love so important to a Christian worldview?  Not only because if God didn’t love the world, He wouldn’t have sent His only son, but also because if individual Christians leave love out of their worldview, they use “absolute truth” as a reason to judge.  Love that requires sacrifice may be less popular than love that doesn’t, but without it there is no cross.

As I see a Christian worldview, this kind of love is absolutely essential.  From it comes a framework of the entire history of God’s relations with man in three phases: love rejected, love redeemed, and love restored.

Love Rejected
While vague “love” is popular, true agape love is not.  When I took a college class on Interpersonal Psychology, one of the topics was the multiple meanings of love. The professor explained the multiple Greek words used for “love”, but when he got to “agape” he asked if anyone in the class could explain because he didn’t “understand” it (or so he said).  I raised my hand, answered by describing the self-sacrificial love of Jesus, and was snickered at by much of the class.  The professor smiled at me and moved on to the next topic.  He probably set up the same situation every semester.  So, yes, not only does the world often not know what “love” means in a Christian sense, but they actively ridicule it when it’s explained to them.

From Adam and Eve right to the modern day, agape love is the bonds that mankind seeks to break and find their own way.  In an earlier post, I wrote that the “bonds” and “cords” that the world tries to break free from in Psalm 2 are the laws of love for God and for our fellow man.  Jesus summarized all the commandments of the Bible as: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind”, and “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”[1]

I recently wrote that “the problem with every person individually is that they are unable, no matter how much external pressure is put on them, to treat other individuals the way they should be treated.”  People like to ask or demand that others practice agape love, but usually for the benefit of themselves.  It is not in our nature to demand it of ourselves first whether or not anyone else reciprocates.

Love Redeemed
People also usually like the idea that every person gets what they deserve – but we are less likely to talk about that for ourselves than for others.  The justice of God demands that anyone who refuses – at any time – to love Him and to love their neighbor should get what they deserve.  He does not miss anything but is perfect in His justice.  Jesus had to live the perfect life of agape love, under the loving guidance of Our Father, not so we won’t have to, but because we can’t.  Without Christianity and without love, the world would never be able to overcome the “Love Rejected” stage.

Christianity is not judgement, but the only way of escape from it: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16). If man had not rejected love, Christianity wouldn’t be necessary; but also, if Christianity does not restore mankind to agape love, it’s pointless.  Jesus, by willingly giving the ultimate sacrifice of Himself, satisfied God’s perfect justice and perfect love simultaneously.

By rising from the grave, He is able to share with us the power of agape love, which governs and redeems the other loves:

  • Eros – So many of the personal and societal problems in the world are driven by unconstrained eros.  In agape, God provides boundaries within which eros benefits, rather than harms, humanity.  See an earlier post on Godly Offspring for how God prevails over unconstrained eros even when we fail.
  • Phileo – Unconstrained phileo, which can become what we call tribalism, is behind a lot of the racism, sexism, xenophobia, and other group conflicts in the world.  This also is nothing new – God through His Son will redeem us.  I wrote about agape overcoming tribalism in an old post about Jesus reaching out to Zacchaeus the tax collector.
  • Stergo – Families might be expected to be the easiest places to love each other, but they are often where passions run hottest.  James 4:1 says “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?”  Only agape provides what is needed to bridge the divide, a love to govern stergo.

A Christian in our world has a restored relationship with God but is only able to practice agape love imperfectly while awaiting a new body in a new heaven and a new earth.

Love Restored
The Bible does not contain a lot of specifics about the eternal life that Christians inherit and it is often misunderstood.  For example, those who think of Christianity as a set of rules that make us “perfect” think they are right to ignore the hope of heaven.  C.S. Lewis says sometimes “our notion of Heaven involves perpetual negations: no food, no drink, no sex, no movement, no mirth, no events, no time, no art.”[2]

But thinking of heaven as love restored helps understand it better.  Elsewhere Lewis reframes heaven as: “When human souls have become as perfect in voluntary obedience as the inanimate creation is in its lifeless obedience, then they will put on its glory, or rather that greater glory of which Nature is only the first sketch.”[3]  By obedience he means obedience to loving God and man, and in heaven every person’s ability to love will be as the laws of nature, as reliable and predictable as the rising of the sun every morning or the return of leaves to the trees in the spring.

Also, we will not become something entirely other than what we are now, like an angel, but will be transformed and perfected, while retaining our individuality.  Pastor Tim Keller explains that “Our future, glorified selves will be continuous with who we are now, but the growth into wisdom, goodness, and power will be infinitely greater.”[4]

This is a future worth having.

How to Have This Love
For those who agree that the agape love we lost is the love we need back, Jesus alone is the Way, the Truth and the Life.  He offers a world where every individual person uses their individual talents, gifts and creativity in the best interests of others.  All you have to do is agree to do the same, redeemed by His sacrifice and empowered by His Spirit to do the will of the Father.

How do we accept this offer?
“…if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.  For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.” – Romans 10:9-10

If you haven’t already, ask Him to be your Lord and Savior.

Nobody is more or less Christian than Jesus makes them.  No doctrine or experience can replace a loving, personal relationship with our Maker and Lord, who guides and empowers us to love as He does.  If we have not love, we have nothing (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).  Fortunately, in Christianity we have His agape love if we will accept it above all other, lesser loves.  Christianity is not Christianity, and we are not fully ourselves, without it.

[1] From Matthew 22:37 and 39
[2] Lewis, C.S.  The Weight of Glory (1941).  P. 107
[3] Ibid.  P. 43
[4] Keller, Timothy.  Making Sense of God (2016).  P. 170