Category: New Testament

Posted in John, Psalms

Born Broken

Posted on by Tom Flaherty

“As He passed by, He saw a man blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?’ Jesus answered, ‘ It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him.’” John 9:1-3

Many people become blind because of an accident or disease, but some are born blind. The disciples are troubled by this because they think bad things only happen to bad people and this doesn’t fit their formula. When they ask if it was this man’s sin you see how predisposed they were to this thinking. You can almost hear their thoughts: It absolutely has to be this man’s fault that he’s blind… but he was born blind… maybe he sinned in the womb!

Jesus says that it wasn’t his sin or his parents’ sin. He also says that the work of God is not his blindness, but him being healed and made whole. So why was he born blind? I think it’s just the brokenness that sin has caused to the human race passed down from generation to generation. It has affected everything, including our DNA, so much so that some people are born blind even though Adam and Eve weren’t created blind and no one will be blind in heaven.

We have spiritual DNA as well as physical and it too has been broken by sin. In fact, the Bible says that the effects of sin multiply over generations. The sin nature passed down will become worse and worse if given into by the previous generation, so much so that people can be born with strong tendencies toward addictions even though they themselves haven’t done anything wrong yet. It doesn’t seem fair, but the truth is all of us are born broken in some way.

Although God has allowed this, He has promised to be close to the broken (Psalm 34:18) and He sent Jesus to redeem us from our sins and to bind up our brokenness. He doesn’t judge us for being broken, but invites us to make our identity in Him instead of in how broken we are. The work of God is that we become whole. Although blind eyes can be instantly made whole, spiritual wholeness is a process that won’t be completed until heaven.

Posted in 2Peter, Hebrews, Isaiah, Jude, Matthew, Revelation

Raising Hell – Part Three

Posted on by Tom Flaherty

“Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.  Rather be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”  Matthew 10:28

As I have explored the church’s traditional view of hell, I’ve learned a lot about the power of confirmation bias.  Once we believe something, it’s hard for us to consider something that contradicts it, no matter how much evidence there is.  It leads us away from “believing what we read,” into a place where we only, “read what we already believe.”  It’s hard to learn or grow in this place because we already think we know how things are.

At the foundation of the doctrine of eternal torment is a belief that our souls are eternal.  The early church didn’t explicitly comment on this topic, but two later church fathers did.  Tertullian and Augustine both referenced our eternal souls, but as proof they quoted Plato, not Scripture! (Tertullian; Resurrection of the Flesh; 3; The Fire that Consumes; 300).  The Old Testament described man as a transient being: “For all men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord stands forever.” (Isaiah 40:6-7)  Only Greek philosophy describes us as automatically having an eternal soul.

The New Testament gives many descriptions of what eventually happens to souls who reject Christ, if we will only listen:

  1. The body and soul will be destroyed. (Quoted above)
  2. The chaff will be burned up in eternal fire. (Matthew 3:12)
  3. The enemies of God will be consumed by fire. (Hebrews 10:27)
  4. The wicked will perish like beasts. (2Peter 2:6)
  5. The wicked will be burned to ashes like Sodom and Gomorrah by eternal fire. (2Peter 2:12; Jude 7)
  6. Those whose names are not in the book of life will experience the second death in the lake of fire. (Revelation 20:15)

This is what Scripture says, but if we believe the soul is eternal then destroy can’t mean destroy, consumed must not mean consumed, burned up doesn’t mean burned up, perish must mean something different then perish, and death can no longer mean death.

Posted in Genesis, John

Raising Hell – Part Two

Posted on by Tom Flaherty

“He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat and live forever.” Genesis 3:22b

Part of becoming a Christian for me was accepting the Bible as the final authority on every area of life and doctrine. I was brought up in the Lord by people who believed that the Bible was clear on the nature of hell’s punishment, so I never even questioned it.

The argument went something like this: Because men and women are made in the image of God they are automatically eternal beings. The great tragedy of someone rejecting Christ, therefore, was that they would live in conscious torment for all eternity. No one chooses, whether they are eternal, I was taught, it is just a by-product of being in the image of God. Everyone is born with eternal life – they either spend it in heaven with Jesus or in the conscious torment of hell with Satan and his angels.

In the last few years I’ve questioned whether this is true Biblically or if it is only a tradition of man that was passed down. The context of the passage quoted above was God putting Cherubim with swords at the entrance to Eden because He wanted to ensure that Adam and Eve would not eat from the tree of life and live forever apart from Him.

Apparently being in the image of God didn’t mean Adam and Eve would automatically live forever, but only that they had the potential of being eternal. According to the text, to live forever they would have to eat of the tree of life.

Jesus said, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him would not perish, but have eternal life.” (John 3:16) Eternal life is God’s gift to humanity in Christ; without it, I believe, you and I will eventually perish. It was never in God’s heart that we would be able to live forever apart from Him.

Posted in John, Matthew

Raising Hell – Part One

Posted on by Tom Flaherty

“Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” Matthew 10:28

Two years ago I approached our elder board with a desire to present a position on the nature of hell that is different from what most of the traditional church believes. The elders asked me to wait on doing the talk publicly until they had a chance to study and discuss the topic with me. So I waited, and we went through Scripture together. Here are some of the points we were in full agreement about:

  1. Hell is a place of punishment where those who reject Christ will go.
  2. Hell is a place of conscious torment.
  3. Hell is a place of eternal, irreversible judgment or punishment. There isn’t a second chance nor is its punishment remedial.

What some respectfully disagreed with is the duration of conscious torment. I believe Scripture teaches ultimate annihilation after souls have paid a just penalty for their sins while others believe the traditional opinion that the torment of hell goes on forever. Of course, they would argue that in God’s economy, this too is a just penalty.

I was given the freedom to do the talk as long as I was clear that we were in agreement on the essentials and that the exact nature of hell’s punishment is a non-essential that Bible believing evangelicals can agree to disagree on. (I ended up writing an ebook on the topic called: Raising Hell: A closer look at the church’s darkest doctrine)

God wants us to behold His severity so that we will never experience it. He loves us and has made a way for all of us to be saved through Christ, so that all we ever need to know is His kindness. Yet we are to behold His severity, so that we never forget that He is a holy Judge. If we choose to turn our backs on Christ, Paul warns, we will experience His severity along with all those who have hardened their hearts to His love.

It is important that we believe in hell. There is a heaven, Jesus said so, and He even said that if it wasn’t so He would have told us. (See John 14:2) But the One who is the truth also said there is a hell. In fact, He warned us many times about hell urging us to make sure we didn’t end up there.

Posted in 2Chronicles, John, Romans

Let’s Talk about Politics

Posted on by Tom Flaherty

“My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, My servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place.” John 18:36

“You would have no power over Me if it were not given to you from above. Therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.” John 19:11

In our texts above we see that there are two kingdoms – the kingdom of God and the kingdom of man. Jesus says that the kingdom of God is from another place and that it does not advance with physical force at the present time. The kingdom of God isn’t here to overthrow governments; it’s here to change hearts. “The kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 14:17) Only the kingdom of God can bring real hope and change to a human being.

But God is also over the kingdom of man, so Pilate is assured that he would have no authority to judge if it wasn’t given to him from above. Paul says: “The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently he who rebels against authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong…For he is God’s servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God’s servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.” (Romans 13:2-5) Because of the power and possibility of sin, God has appointed civil government to limit the evil man is able to do while on this earth.

The kingdom of God alone can redeem; the kingdom of man can only restrain. If we don’t believe in redemption, we tend to see government as the solution for all mankind’s problems. For Democrats the answer usually means more government involvement, and for the Republicans, less. When problems continue there is a lot of time spent blaming each other because “if there was only more”, or “if there was only less”, things would get better.

I don’t think God is looking at Democrats or Republicans to turn America around; He’s looking at His people, the church. “If My people, who are called by My name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” (2Chronicles 7:14)

Posted in 1Peter

Generational Telephone

Posted on by Tom Flaherty

“God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all were saved.” 1Peter 3:20

Do you remember playing “telephone” as a kid? Someone comes up with an original statement that they whisper into the next person’s ear. That person, in turn, tells the next until it goes all the way around the circle. At the end you have the last person tell what they heard and then compare it to the original to see how much it’s changed.

Less than 5,000 years ago there was a world-wide flood on this earth and only eight people survived it. Five generations later people had strayed so far from God they built a tower to make a name for themselves, so God confused the languages. Five generations after that God spoke to Abraham and from there the Jewish race was established who carried the promise of Messiah and were entrusted with the story of what actually happened in the early years of mankind. Moses was the one who finally wrote it down.

Most cultures that arose out of the original eight people eventually wrote down their version of what happened as it had come down from their ancestors. Today we have over 300 different versions of a flood story from people who live all over the earth.*  After so many retellings it is amazing how similar they are. Of the over 300 accounts:

  • 95% are worldwide floods
  • 88% favor one family
  • 66% the family was forewarned
  • 66% it was the result of man’s sin
  • 70% survival was by a boat
  • 67% animals were saved
  • 57% survivors landed on a mountain
  • 35% birds were sent out

Georges Cuvier, the father of modern geology (he was the first who recognized mass extinctions in the earth’s past), maintained that catastrophes had happened in the earth’s history, the most recent being a world-wide flood. He wrote an essay called: “The Concurrence of historical and traditionary testimonies, respecting a comparatively recent renewal of the human race, and their agreement with the proofs that are furnished by the operations of nature.” To Cuvier the evidence of these testimonies meant there had to be an original. Noah’s flood is not a children’s story; it’s part of the history of our planet.

Posted in Genesis, Isaiah, Jeremiah, John, Revelation

The Age of the Earth – Part Three

Posted on by Tom Flaherty

“You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning…” John 8:44

Satan was already Satan at the beginning; not his beginning, but our beginning. Even though God called everything He made good, there was something evil left over from another time. The story of Satan’s fall is an untold story in Scripture even though we are repeatedly assured of the presence of an evil kingdom and given many instructions on how to stand against evil and how to exercise authority over demons.

So when did he fall? Genesis 1:2 says that after creation; “The earth was formless and void.” The greatest Hebrew scholars in the world say that the word “hayah” translated “was” in this text, can just as easily be translated, “became.” (See the footnote in the 1984 translation of the NIV Bible) In fact, the King James Bible translates “hayah” as “became” in 67 other places. Is it possible that God didn’t create the earth formless and void but that it became formless and void sometime after the creation?

The Hebrew words translated “formless and void” are “tohu va bohu.” The phrase “tohu va bohu” is only used in two other places in Scripture. One is in Jeremiah 4:23 where God is describing the result of His desolating judgment on Israel’s rebellion. Because they rebelled, God left Israel “tohu va bohu.” The other place this phrase is used is in Isaiah 34:11 where God is describing the result of His desolating judgment on Edom. Because Edom rebelled, God left the land “tohu va bohu.”

What if Genesis 1:2 is describing the result of God’s desolating judgment on the earth following Lucifer’s (Satan’s) rebellion? God created the early earth perfectly and it was inhabited by angels and animals but when Lucifer fell, God’s judgment followed. We don’t know when or how long until other angels followed him, we only know that a third did fall (Revelation 12:4, 7) and that judgment did come. The earth is covered with water and darkness in Genesis 1:2, not because God created it that way, but because it became that way after Satan’s rebellion.

Posted in Romans

The Great Designer

Posted on by Tom Flaherty

“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – His eternal power and Divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made.” Romans 1:20

C.S. Lewis tells about a man who stumbles over a watch in the middle of a desert. Where did it come from? He didn’t see anyone leave it there and no footprints are visible around it in any direction. There are no video tapes of what happened beforehand, and there is no scientific experiment that can be run to test why this watch appeared. Any explanation concerning this watch will have to be based on faith.

The man examines the watch more carefully. The metal band is elastic and can be stretched so that it fits snugly on the wrist. There is a plastic, clear covering that appears to be designed to protect the face of the watch. There are ordered numbers going around in a perfect circle and three hands pointing to different numbers. Hold it! One of them is moving – this object is ticking!

Here are the two faith explanations available to our man. One is that the watch is the result of a designer and has been left here by someone. The other is that over an immense period of time the sand blew together in such a way to form the band, face, and plastic covering of the watch. In a freak accident, numbers were etched on the face, remarkably in order, and by some natural stimulus (who knows what it could be), it started ticking all by itself. The appearance of design is deceiving because it is the result of nothing more than time and chance.

Both of these are faith explanations, but I submit, one of them is much easier to believe than the other. Our universe is so clearly designed at so many levels, it is incredible to me that anyone can believe it is only the result of random coincidences over a long period of time.

Posted in Romans

Science Proving God

Posted on by Tom Flaherty

“For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and Divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made.” Romans 1:20

On December 26, 2014, the Wall Street Journal ran an article called: “Science Increasingly Makes the Case for God,” by Eric Metaxas. The article tells of Carl Sagan’s original announcement in the 1960s that there were two important factors for a planet to support life: The right kind of star, and a planet the right distance from that star. With this easily attainable goal in a universe as vast as ours, there was a project put together with both public and private funds called: “Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence” (SETI).

The enthusiasm to find life on other planets has diminished since then as scientists have discovered that there aren’t just two factors necessary for life on a planet; there’s actually more than two hundred. The probability of life existing on any planet, including ours, turns out to be zero. I will now go to direct excerpts from the article:

Metaxas writes: “As factors continued to be discovered, the number of possible planets (that could sustain life) hit zero, and kept going. In other words, the odds turned against any planet in the universe supporting life, including this one. Probability said that even we shouldn’t be here. Today there are more than 200 known parameters necessary for a planet to support life – every single one of which must be perfectly met, or the whole thing falls apart.”

“Theoretical physicist Paul Davies has said that ‘the appearance of design is overwhelming’ and Oxford professor Dr. John Lennox has said ‘the more we get to know about our universe, the more the hypothesis that there is a Creator gains credibility as the best explanation of why we are here.’”

God is speaking through creation about His own existence. It turns out that it takes more faith to believe He doesn’t exist than to believe He does.

Posted in John

Difficult Questions

Posted on by Tom Flaherty

“And His disciples asked Him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?’” John 9:2

The disciples asked Jesus a difficult question and He answered them. I’m so glad they asked it, so that we could all hear the answer. The church can either welcome questions or see them as a threat to the established system. God is very secure in Himself, and I think He likes questions when they are accompanied by a heart that wants to know the truth. Asking often leads to study which can lead to deeper convictions than those who never bothered to ask.

There are some people, I am convinced, that want to not believe. They have another issue with God and may use difficult questions to hide the real problem. Sometimes people are mad at God because of unresolved pain, so their questions are really only accusations against God. Others seem to resent that they are not the ones who ultimately decide what is right and wrong. They question God to justify their own lifestyle.

But there are others who are genuinely open to believe, and some who actually want to believe, but they have honest questions that hinder them. God does not ask us to set aside our minds to believe in Him. In fact, He calls us to love Him with all of our minds. Faith does not contradict our minds, but it does transcend them. For these people, it can be very helpful to give the mind rational answers for troubling questions. Explanations for difficult questions will not give a person faith, but they can give a person’s mind permission to exercise the childlike faith it takes to connect with God. He is so much higher than us, and His ways so beyond us, that we must humble ourselves like children to experience the fullness of His love and salvation.