American Politics and Jesus

The political situation of a citizen in the Jewish state in Jesus’ day was peculiar if not sometimes precarious. The days of the Israelite's dreariest darkness were during the centuries of captivity in Babylon. Now it’s liberties temporary won by the Maccabees, just prior to the coming of Christ were forever gone. Palestine was subject to imperial Rome, but Claudius allowed the Jewish people considerable autonomy. They had their own king, Herod; but they also had an appointed governor from Rome to manage civil strife named Pontius Pilate.

Still this situation was not satisfactory to many of the Jews. A large contingent followed the Zealots who were patriots longing for the independence of Israel as in the days of the Maccabean revolt started in 166BC (Ref: Josephus, Antiquities, 17:3:4). A smaller faction supported the family of Herod, most of who were in favor Roman rule with all its attendant benefits. Into this political patchwork/circus, our Savior Jesus entered the world. To make His position more diffi­cult, He was not only a Jewish citizen and a Roman subject, but the long expected Messiah. Albeit a highly misunderstood Messiah even by the religious scholars of His day.

Unfortunately, due to the recent past history of the Maccabees, the Jews, especially the Zealots, ex­pected the Messiah to assume Herod’s throne and de­liver the nation from the yoke of foreign domination in a militant manner. Furthermore, He had the power to stop all the paltry strife and could have lifted Himself over it…but He did not.

Jesus in-fact steered clear of political squabbles and pat­riotic zeal. He was not a civil agitator advancing His agenda to reform civil government. He didn’t need to. His ideas and modus operandi to bring Scriptural salvation to men did plenty to intensify political strife regardless. In the attempt to bring righteousness to men we see why political divisions and conflict formed instead. We see clearly to the heart of why Jesus always attempted to steer clear of the human politicking. At the root of the political strife, division and contention lies demonic ideology which itself will always fight against the righteousness of God. Those that rabidly pursued their political ends or political power were and are nearly always driven by a demonic engine. This should be brutally apparent today. One needs good spiritual discernment to see through the intrigue and subterfuge to the root of the problem. A demonic political cleaver that can and will cut down the middle of all relationships; societal, ecclesiastical and familial.

Jesus was a law-abiding citizen. He violated no ordinances of the state, whether the Jewish state or the Roman Empire. All the testimony against Him at His trials broke down (Mark 14:56, 59). At His civil trial, He was falsely charged (Luke 23:2). Pilate ignored the findings of the Jews, and after he examined Him he judged Him innocent (Luke 23:4; John 18:38; Matt. 27:24). Jesus was a good citizen. He told all to render to Caesar what was Caesar’s and to God what was God’s. Any astute student of Scripture understood what he was saying.

He encouraged obedience to civil laws, and stifled all disorder. The Pharisees and Herodians sought to entrap Him on several occasions with questions about civil ordinances (Mark 3:6; Luke 11:53, 54; John 7:32; 11:47, 57). At last, they proposed the problem of hated taxation, “Should a Jew pay taxes to Caesar” (Matt. 22:17-21)? If He said, “Yes,” He was not a patriot to the Jewish state; if “No,” He was a traitor to Rome. Jesus answered, “Yes” because it was the law of Rome. He told His accusers the truth without fear of consequences. Jesus also demonstrated lawfulness by leaving Jerusalem quickly to prevent civil unrest (John 6:15). Jesus respected the civil laws of Rome and was not a revolutionary regardless of how His spiritual enemies painted him otherwise.

Jesus did not attempt to obtain through political methods what He knew could only be accomplished by spiritual forces. He was not a civil reformer; He was a redeemer of life. Redeemed life would express itself in a desire to purify the government. Satan tempted Him to seize power first, and rule people with an iron fist second (Matt. 4:8). This was the way of Rome and the desire of the zealous Jews. Jesus sought in society and in politics what He sought in each person’s life, redemption and restoration (Matt. 12:36; 23:26; Luke 6:45; John 10:10). Not depravation and destruction. Jesus was a true reformer, using spiritual forces, not political power to establish His platform...His Kingdom.

He laid the foundations for a true state. We need to remember that there was no such thing as popular government in Jesus day with majority vote. Government was totalitarian; it was top down. Jesus set forth principles reversing this unilateral tyranny. In our country, we have a far greater role to play than citizens or subjects during Jesus’ day. During Jesus’ day, people endured because they had no power to change things. Now if things are wrong, we are accountable because we possess the ability to reform. We are building the kingdom Jesus started and laying the foundation for a true state to come.

Some think that Jesus’ declaration that His kingdom was not of this world (John 18:36) deprives His disciples of duties in civil government. If all Christians stand aloof from political duties, the very people preventing Christ’s rule and the advancement of His Kingdom will rule in its stead. The duties Jesus urged on His disciples are present human duties that encourage neighborliness, lawfulness, and order—this is a summary of the virtuous state (Matt. 18:15, 35; 19:17-21; Mark 9:42; 10:43-45; Luke 6:38; Luke 10:25-37). Christ’s disciples are to use their gifts, and if they are political in nature, the civil government is the sphere to use them.

The wretched qualities of some politicians then and now...manipulation, lying, compromise, and the exaltation of expediency above principle, Jesus despised. These are not the character traits of a Christian politician. These types of behaviors should never be tolerated of an elected official. If they are it is more a statement of the spiritual decrepitude of the voter or constituent majority than the elected official. People do in fact get the leaders they deserve. That example was shown repeatedly in Scriptures. No one has ever equaled Jesus in the exercise of humanitarian efforts, constructive achievement, noble management of people, and the use of compassionate and spiritual forces to strengthen, purify, and advance society. Although Jesus was not a politician, He teaches us the true goals of government, which are the true foundation for political wisdom and power. It is wisdom and power sorely lacking in a majority of American politicians and their constituent acolytes today. This is why America is under judgment and on the decline.

American Hedonism and Jesus

So, what was Jesus’ attitude toward the so-called pleasures of life? What would His take be on American hedonism and excesses in and outside the church nowadays? This question requires another... what are the pleasures of life? 

Some understand pleasure to be sensual gratification, the indulgence of appetites, or those things that gratify the senses. Jesus used this meaning in Luke 8:14, where He explains the Parable of the Sower. He says, “The seed that fell among thorns stands for those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by life's worries, riches and pleasures, and they do not mature.” Jesus has in mind, putting worldly pleasures in the place of God. This is a bad place to be, Christian or not. Jesus' parable clearly frowns upon this.

People absorbed with frivolous, light-minded, superficial activities, and wasting time and strength merely to please the senses, this is what Jesus condemns. The people “choked” are those focusing solely on entertainment, sports, games, parties, eating for the sake of eating, dress, and etc.—these people are drunk with the cares of this world, and, therefore, bring no spiritual or worthy fruit to perfection. They're hedonists.

Did Jesus condemn everything that was not solemn or serious? No. He went to a marriage-feast with His disciples (John 2:1, 12). He told His disciples what to do when they celebrated feasts (Luke 14:13). He accepted invitations to social functions (Luke 5:29; John 12:2; Matt. 9:11; Luke 13:26). Indeed, Jesus attended celebratory events and dinner engagements so regularly, that the Pharisees called Him “a gluttonous man and a wine-bibber” (Luke 5:30; 7:34). Although He ate and drank joyously, He went to events to fellowship and used them as an occasion to discuss spiritual matters (Luke 7:36-50; 11:37-40; 14:1-14). Jesus did not seek to indulge the appetites or senses, however; He even neglected food on occasion (John 4:31-34; Mark 3:20, 21). He practiced restraint. He fasted. He overcame temptation.

Jesus didn’t desire worldly pleasure as an end in itself. The early Church understood this about Jesus, which is why the Church condemned the world so vigorously (Tit. 3:3; 2 Pet. 2:13; 1 Tim. 5:6; Jas. 5:5). Waste, extravagance, vulgarity, selfishness, prodigality, and exclusiveness are hostile to the spirit of communion and blessing in Jesus’ life and teaching (Luke 12:19-21).

Jesus’ constantly emphasized those things that were enduring. He told people not to focus on this present world with its trite pleasures but on the afterlife with its everlasting joy (Matt. 6:19, 20; 13:22; Luke 16:13). This does not mean Jesus did not enjoy the beauty of the world. He pointed to the creation often in His teaching (Matt. 6:28, 29; Luke 15:11- 32). He was pleased to have His disciples admire the beauty of God’s (His) creation (Matt. 18:1-3; 6:16). Yet He urged them to keep these things in the proper spiritual perspective.

Jesus taught His disciples about lasting and everlasting pleasures. Therefore, Jesus says, “It is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32). Paul spoke often about the pleasures of God (Eph. 1:5, 9; Phil. 2:13; 2 Thess. 1:11), and about our ability as His children to please Him (1 Thess. 2:4, 5; 4:1; Gal. 1:15; 1 Cor. 12:18; Col. 1:19). In some of these passages, the word translated please/ἀρέσκοντες, means to “think well” or to “choose.” What I/we think about and choose to do is what pleases me. Jesus lifts life’s tastes and desires to a new and higher plane of pleasure, to fill people with true joy—not of fleeting sense, but of spirit; not of the beauty of this world only, but also of the incomprehensible luxuriousness of the world to come in our glorification in spirit bodies.

Is this how American Christians approach pleasures? I fear not. Do American Christians reflect this in their words and behaviors? If not something is awry. We'd be well advised to course correct and do some deep soul-searching self-analysis. If not our pleasure will be fleeting and temporary and our condemnation may be eternal.

 

Scientific Accuracy of the Bible VI: God Created

Physics (φυσικός /phusikos). It is the science that studies matter, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. Physics is one of the most fundamental scientific disciplines. Its main goal is to understand how the universe behaves. As the origin of the word implies, physics is the study of nature and speculation on the constitution of the natural world. It had its origin in the primal speculations of Thales of Miletus (640-546 B.C.), the founder of science and philosophy, who set forth two doctrines of fundamental scientific importance, first, that of a single elementary type of matter from which all other things are formed (atomist); and, second, that of motion or change inherently associated with substance.

His ideas of elementariness and changeability were both embodied in his choice of water as the primitive substance out of which endless modifications all else was made. Succeeding philosophers adopted his ideas but with the substitution of earth, air or fire, or all four of them, as the elementary substances. By the time of Aristotle the substances themselves were often replaced by the properties, cold, heat, moist and dry, to which he added the divine “quinta essentia,” or fifth essence, of which the refined and perfect substance of the heavenly bodies consisted. The doctrine of elements had previously been enlarged by Empedocles with the opposing principles of “love” and “hate,” later replaced by the non-emotional forms of “warmth” and “cold,” to account for the coherence and diffusion of matter.

The opposing ideas involved in the constitution of the world as One or Many originated another train of speculation which in the course of time developed into philosophy. Ultimately the world and human nature became comprehensively embraced in an all-inclusive scheme of mental philosophy, moral philosophy and natural philosophy.

When the separation of these great branches of knowledge into philosophy, ethics and physical science occurred their unity is lost, and it is even made to appear that they are mutually exclusive and often antagonistic to each other. Just as the metaphysical and physical and irrationalism and rationalism are viewed today. But of course this is philosophically incorrect when done by science and the atheist philosophers when they preclude the existence of a priori or metaphysical knowledge.

The enormous expansion of the study of nature in modern times, by establishing the sciences of astronomy, geology, paleontology, meteorology, chemistry and biology, has deprived physics of much of its primitive colossal empire, and the term is now used in the severely restricted sense of the study of the properties and laws of inorganic matter and energy under the titles mechanics, heat, radiation, sound, electricity, magnetism and radioactivity. The metaphysical elements or reality are diminished in importance and relegated to obscurity or irrelevance.

Physical science was developed in ancient Greece by attempting to establish uniform principles of nature by philosophical speculation, the only means then known, in opposition to the popular mythology which attributed the phenomena of nature to the capricious actions of the jealous and quarrelsome deities. The Greek philosophers though dimly perceived an ordered world through the operation of principles and laws which they struggled to formulate. Though God as revealed in the Bible bears no resemblance to the mythical deities of Greece, the process of separation of the ordered world of nature from a Creator God has been vehemently pursued in modem science by some of its exponents until it is often made to appear that the universe does not now require, nor has it at any time needed, a creating God. The truth is that unbelief is contrary to the principles of physics itself.

Although physics is concerned with the origin of matter, force and energy (origin of the universe) this cannot actually be studied by physicists. Why? Physics cannot study origin because there was no human there to observe it. Nor can creation or Big Bang be repeated. At best it is a subject for only physical speculation and theory. Four solutions of the problem of the origin of the universe may be proposed: 

1. The universe is an illusion
2. It spontaneously arose out of nothing
3. It had no origin but has existed eternally
4. It was created

The proposal that the universe is illusion has had and still has more adherents than one would initially believe possible. The theory generally asserts that there is no problem to solve except the metaphysical one of human consciousness. Recently the idea of the world as an illusion has been revived in physical science in the last century. The ideas of relativity, quantum physics and wave-mechanics, the constitution of the electron and proton, are so novel that sufficient time has not been available to obtain a full theoretical knowledge of their nature and relationship to each other. The semi-obscurity that veils them lends itself to metaphysical speculation on the fundamental nature of the world of matter, energy and space especially at the quantum level. I mean a majority of matter is indeed empty space.

Here’s the problem… if matter is merely a mental concept then energy and waves are mere abstractions. The works of an Architect are only an illusion for which no Architect is needed. In whatever way the universe is reduced to an illusion, the argument invariably abounds with contradictions. To offset these opinions it need only be stated that all the data on which these discussions and theories are based are obtained by experimental physics. To physical science it is undeniable that the world exists, and therefore the suggestion that it is an illusion isn’t worth pursuing further.

Did the universe spontaneously and autonomously appear from nothing on its own? It is unthinkable, that out of nothing, nothing of itself can come without having first being created. In an infinite void there is no conceivable way of differentiating one point either of space or duration from another in order that a spontaneous change can occur from nothing to something when no forces of any kind are in existence. This proposed solution of the problem of the origin of the universe is therefore summarily dismissed.

Has the universe always existed? These remaining two solutions of the origin of the world have one significant characteristic in common; something, either matter and energy or a Creator, must be eternal. No greater intellectual difficulty can therefore arise in one solution than in the other. We cannot escape from acknowledging an eternal Creator except by admitting the eternity of matter and energy. Since entropy exists in the universe we can dismiss the infinite universe theory also.

The assumption of an eternal material universe in the past leads to insurmountable difficulties. If the universe has eternally existed, then, since energy is being constantly dissipated, every event of which time is an element must already have taken place untold ages ago, and nothing could occur now. An eternal universe would now be a universe without events. Heat death of the universe should’ve happened at some infinitely distant point in the past. We know that since the time of Edwin Hubble in the 1930s that astronomy shows galaxies are slowly spreading out and retreating from each other with velocities increasing as they recede. In an eternal duration the expanding universe would already have expanded to infinity and invisibility leaving the exhausted sun with its desolated planets to wander aimlessly alone in space. The visible presence of the universe in its current state is therefore proof of its temporal nature.

It is generally recognized in physics that all types of energy can be transformed into other energy on the basis of strict equivalence. But this is not the whole of the universal picture. There is a steadily progressing degradation of energy in which all forms of heat are ultimately being dissipated into coldness at so low a temperature (heat death) that it can no longer be available. In scientific terms it is described this way. The universe and its energy is constantly tending toward a state of maximum entropy, which shows that all energy is gradually being degraded into heat energy at a uniform temperature near absolute zero or where no more work can be extrapolated from the universe. When the process is completed the universe will be dead. In an eternal universe such termination would long ago have been reached. 

The second law of thermodynamics points to the ultimate end of the world by cold. It is only while energy is passing from high to low potentials that work can be done. The motion even of even your eye reading this when traced to its ultimate origin (God) is therefore proof that the world is temporal and not eternal. Even if heat death or maximum entropy is the way the universe will end….it bypasses the divine intervention mentioned in 2 Peter. It doesn’t describe us freezing but rather burning up. Thermally, it hints towards just the opposite end of the thermometer.

2 Peter 3:10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.

This leaves one plausible solution. The universe was created. The Bible and facts of science endorsed that the universe must have had an origin in time, and it is entirely proper to speak of a preexistent Creator since it is logically not possible spawn something autonomously from nothingness. There had to be a first cause. The account in Genesis seems to be the only story of creation which is free from the gross concepts of idolatry and mythology. In the very first verse of the Bible we see all the things needed for reality to exist physically. For reality to "be" in terms of scientific thought we have the following four statements…all of which are simultaneously scientific and theological.

• Time: In the beginning
• Force/Energy: God created
• Space: the heavens
• Matter: and the earth

The Creation account opens bluntly with little room for misunderstanding. God (Elohim-plural form) created the heaven (plural form) and the earth. No argument is introduced to demonstrate the eternality of God. If God exists, which this text assumes, He exists by His very nature eternally. No formal argument can possibly be framed to prove it but logic requires it. Logic dictates that if all other intelligence in the Creation are temporal, it would be using the temporal to prove the eternal. The eternity of God must therefore fundamentally rest upon the declaration of that fact by Himself, and secondarily by implication from the fact of His existence which Genesis 1:1 implies. The existence of God is self-evident in the statements above. All matter, energy, force apart from life, must therefore have come into existence by divine fiat at the same time. No differences in age, though many in state, confront us. This identity in age of all inanimate matter of the universe is in harmony with the basic assumptions of our current expanding universe. The Bible is therefore scientifically coherent and accurate about origin.