Life with an Eternal Perspective

There is this pervasive pull within us to live as if this physical, temporal life were all there was to existence.  But this pull is but an undertow that tries to rip us away from the profound and devastating truth: life has an eternal value.  It is not enough to think of life as merely something that is confined to the here and now, to the present.  Instead, we must live life with an eternal perspective, recognizing the eternal nature of our lives and letting that perspective compel us to live life in a way befitting that perspective.  In the end, we are called to live life focused on the eternal One, which reminds us that our lives do, in fact, possess within them an eternal element as a result of bearing the image of God.  This is to be our eternal perspective, that guides every part of our lives and our beings.  We would do well to keep this focus in every aspect and every facet of our loves.

A Statement About the Necessity of Rebirth

The Christian life should seem an outright oddity to any bystander examining it.  The oddity of the Christian life, the source of the indescribable to an outsider is that the Christian life is an internal ordeal that expresses itself, as all internal things do, externally.  The rub here is to misconstrue the good and necessary externals as the thing of Christianity itself and not merely the perceivable effects of the internal processes that are being undertaken.

For the most part, Christians seem to be the same as any other human person.  Yet for those who are actually living the Christian life we would have to assert that the Christian is something altogether other than the average.  However, the diference in the Christian, as has been already noted, is an internal one.  More concisely, the mark of the Christian is a constitutional one; the difference is foundational, in the very nature of the person.

This may seem all fine and good unless we begin to consider the external alterations that a Christian will incur as the change occurring.  It is not enough to say that the Christian lives right or has good morals or is virtuous.  Apart from the internal transformation, these external evidences are worthless.  It is the internal change that prompts and precedes everything.  To think otherwise would be to betray the very heart of the Christian message and thus forms the core of Christian life.

This would be akin to going to a funeral, walking to the coffin, and asking the dead man to try to live.  As preposterous as this sounds, this is exactly what I mean by focusing on the externals while disregarding the necessary internal transformation.  A dead man cannot do anything.  More than that, the dead man is not capable of coming alive–he needs a rebirth, a new life to be able to do anything other than being dead.

At this point, we run into the challenging reality that must be confronted: apart from direct relationship to He who is life, we are dead.  Sin relegates us to death because it separates us from the One who is life.  By virtue of that death, the human is by all rights dead only pretending to live.  Once we overcome this fact, then we are able to assess the process of rebirth, that by a renewed and reconciled relationship to God through Christ, we are made alive.  Recognizing this, we can begin to understand that Jesus is not spiritualizing when He tells Nicodemus that a man must be reborn.  Surely, we can now see that the Christian life is, at its core, a matter of a new nature that pours forth in new life style, new morality, and new virtues.

Believe God

In the modern world in which we live, the usual starting point in the conversation(s) of theology begins with the question of God's existence.  For this, the discussion launches with the question whether to believe in God or not.  However, the presuppositions of this question betray the question and biblical perspective, for Scripture's starting point is somewhere else altogether.

Scripture begins, not with a proposition for man to believe in God, but in the assertion that God is and the man is asked to believe what He says and commands.  God never explains or gives proof of His existence to Adam.  In fact, to do so would seem ludicrous and redundant considering the nearness and intimacy of God's relationship with Adam.

Moreover, God's negative command to not eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is not based on God needed to assert His existence.  Rather, the essence of Scripture is not and is never whether mankind can/should believe in God, but is concerned with whether mankind will believe God.

The prevailing presupposition of Scripture is that God exists, and His very existence places humanity in a dilemma of sorts.  The question is not whether we will believe in God, as in some philosophical quandary but whether we will believe what He has commanded us.  This needs to be the entry point in the conversation and it should be where we start when we discuss the basic matters of God.  In the end, though, we must point to the Gospel.  This is the heart of the dialogue and it is our obligation to bring any inquirers and sophists to it.

Beginning to Know God Exists

A certain young man who was long overdue for a haircut decided to go to the local barber one day.  While sitting in the barber's chair the young man and the barber began conversing.  Near the end of the haircut, the conversation turned to the subject of God.  The barber, as nonchalantly as one with scissors can be, said, "I do not believe God exists."

The young man, being a believer, was taking aback at the barber's atheism and so he asked the barber, "Why do you say that?  What makes you believe that God doesn't exist?"  The barber paused mid-cut and, with gusto, replied, "Just look around, son. There is evil and sadness all over.  If God exists, then there shouldn't be any of that.  It seems so clear to me.  Maybe when you're a little older you'll understand."

The barber finished the cut and the young man paid him for his services, even leaving a nice tip.  While walking out the door, the young man turned back to the barber and said, "You know, I don't believe barber's exist.  I am sure of it that barber's just do not exist."  The barber, a little surprised, said, "How can you say that?  I just worked on you!"  The young man sharply replied, "But barbers can't exist because their are so many disheveled, messy, and long-haired people in the world, so barber's just can't exist."

The barber smirked, shooting back at the young man, "But barber's do exist!  That's just what happens when people do not come to me!" "Exactly!" harkened the young man, "That's exactly the point!  God does exist.  The pain and suffering and evil is just the evidence of a world that has not gone to Him for their trim!"  The young man turned and left, leaving the barber dumbfounded in his own disbelief.

How do we know God exists, really know that He is who He claims to be? This is a difficult but absolutely necessary question.  The consequences for neglecting it are dire and eternal.  For, if God is who He claims to be and Jesus is who He claims to be, then to know Him are of the utmost importance.  We are not left without testimony, though, in this discussion.  The Scriptures themselves attest to the knowledge of God.  And we should find comfort in their witness, for its truth is both self-attesting and authoritative.

At the onset of such a discussion, a brief note about knowledge must be made.  Knowledge refers to knowing someone or something.  True and definitive knowledge, though involving the intellect is a holistic endeavor, requiring all of the faculties of a person.  This is the necessary starting point for knowledge, particularly when discussing matter of spiritual and eternal significance.

While there are many verses to support the knowledge of God,  Paul's definition of spiritual knowledge in matter of receptive revelation in his first letter to the Corinthian church seems to cover the topic quite well (1 Cor. 2:6-16).  In this comprehensive statement Paul indicates that not only is the knowledge of God a spiritual ordeal, but more more importantly, it is revealed by the Holy Spirit. The relevance of such a truth is that although people, like the barber above, would prefer to use their physical sensory perceptions to know God, who is Spirit, the way to know God begins with the spirit of a person.

Additionally, unless we recognize that our knowledge of God is revealed and not earned, we will fail to know.  Because of this reality, we need to come to God in humility for Him to reveal Himself to us.  Paul, in his letter to the Romans, indicates that God has revealed Himself in creation, His eternal power and invisible qualities, and that the only appropriate response to such revelation is praise and thankfulness (Rom. 1:18-23).

In the end, the matter is a spiritual one.  Our knowledge of God is based on our spirit's malleability to be affected by the Holy Spirit revealing Himself in our hearts.  If we are hard of heart and deaf of ear, we will not receive that revelation, for to accept God's revelation one must first have faith that revelation is in fact possible.  But this knowledge is of a holistic and transformative nature, meaning that to know God forms the backbone of all knowledge.

Therefore, let us start the conversation of the existence of God where it needs to begin: in the spirit.  Starting there and working itself outward through every facet of our person, the knowledge of God will transform us.  But we must receive that revelation in order for it to take its affect within us.  But praise be to God that He has revealed Himself and that we can know Him!

The Defense of Faith

There is no neutral ground in the battlefield of salvation.  In the war that wages in the mind, the heart, and the soul, there is no demilitarized zone.   In truth, no supposed neutrality exists in the battle over the eternal state of a person and it is a dangerous myth to assume that there is a neutral zone in spiritual matters, particularly when it comes to discussing these affairs.  Ultimately, because all of existence is made by, through, and for Him, the ground marked "neutral" belongs to God.

When believers engage, then, in any sort of dialogue with unbelievers, they need to do so from the standpoint that recognizes the reality: all common ground is God's ground.  Nothing is hidden from the eyes of the Lord, He peers into every crevice of humanity and all creation (2 Chro. 16:9; Job 34:21; Psa. 33:13-15; Pro. 20:27; Eze. 28:3; Heb. 4:13).

This is far from irrelevant.  We should, nay, need to engage the world with this understanding, not giving ground to so-called neutrality because we know that neutrality is but a ploy of the evil one to divert us form the truth and to lead us away from God.  Remember that all wisdom is dependent upon a foundation of fear and reverence of God.  This means that repentance is the gateway to all wisdom and knowledge.

Truly, as Paul indicates in Colossians, every shelf in the storehouses of knowledge are filled in. through, by, and for Christ (Col. 1:16-17, 2:3).  Therefore, there can be no hidden nor neutral ground in the battle over our souls.  It should, however, come as no surprise that the world would continually appeal to the need for "common ground" in the dialogues over faith.  Because in acquiescing to neutrality, Christians have all-too-quickly given valuable ground in the battle to unbelief.  But, as there is no such common ground that does not belong to God, any attempt to say otherwise is only veiled unbelief.

Instead, Christians should always commit the Scriptures that call for unequivocal obedience in every aspect of life, body, mind, heart, and soul (Matt. 22:37; Rom. 12:1).  Christians need to hold to their guns in this regard.  Although we may be labeled absolutist or dogmatic, we need to hold tightly to the truth of the Gospel and its particulars because it is true and the power of God.  Because of this, we should praise God who has revealed Himself to mankind through His Word!