Category: philosophy – theology

Torah of Tradition…

John J Parsons

In this audio podcast I discuss the role of tradition in our understanding of the Torah and the Holy Scriptures. Though this is a somewhat complex subject, it is comprehensible if we take the time to carefully think through some of the issues. Among other things I consider the philosophical idea of the “Tao” as described by C.S. Lewis in relation to human conscience, the intuitive idea of the moral law as empirically expressed in various world cultures, and the argument that objective values are implied in any statement of right and wrong. I also consider the role and influence of tradition regarding the revelation of the law of God given at Mount Sinai, the subsequent preservation and transmission of the written words of Scripture, the creation of the biblical canon, and how both Yeshua and the Apostle Paul accepted and ministered in the context of the theological traditions of their day. I hope you might find it helpful…

 

 

 

Podcast: Torah and Tradition

 

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Healing from Spiritual Death…

John J Parsons

People tend to underestimate the radical nature of their sinful condition, which truly is a “sickness unto death.” However, even the metaphor of lethal sickness itself is not strong enough, since the spiritual condition of the natural man is the state of being spiritually dead… Apart from direct divine intervention on behalf of the individual soul, a person is literally unable to respond to God and receive the gift of eternal life. That is why Yeshua taught that we need a spiritual rebirth in order to see the Kingdom of God (John 3:3).

This is the new principle of life from God (i.e., chayim chadashim: חַיִּים חֲדָשִׁים) that operates according to the “law of the Spirit of life” (Rom. 7:23, 8:2). God loves His children with “an everlasting love” (i.e., ahavat olam: אַהֲבַת עוֹלָם) and draws us to Himself in chesed (חֶסֶד, i.e., his faithful love and kindness). As it is written: “I love you with an everlasting love; therefore in chesed I draw you to me” (Jer. 31:3). Note that the word translated “I draw you” comes from the Hebrew word mashakh (מָשַׁךְ), meaning to “seize” or “drag away” (the ancient Greek translation used the verb helko (ἕλκω) to express the same idea). As Yeshua said, “No one is able to come to me unless he is “dragged away” (ἑλκύσῃ, same word) by the Father” (John 6:44). We are chosen from above (John 15:16). God’s chesed seizes us, takes us captive, and leads us to the Savior… Spiritual rebirth is a divine act of creation, “not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:13). God is always preeminent, and the salvation of a particular soul is ultimately His prerogative.
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The Word Made Flesh…

John J Parsons

(Originally published Dec. 19, 2020)

At Sinai we heard the voice of God (קוֹל אֱלהִים) speaking from the midst of the Fire (Deut. 4:33), an event that foreshadowed the great advent of the King and Lawgiver Himself, when the Eternal Word (דְבַר־יְהוָה) became flesh and dwelt with us (Phil. 2:6-7; John 1:1,14). Any theology that regards God as entirely transcendent (i.e., God is beyond any analogy with the finite) will have a problem with divine immanence (i.e., God is inherent and involved within the finite), since the highness, holiness, and perfection of God will make Him seem distant, outside of us, far away, and unknown…

Incarnational theology, on the other hand, manifests the magnificent humility and nearness of God to disclose the divine empathy. Indeed, the LORD became Immanuel (עִמָּנוּ אֵל), “God with us,” to share our mortal condition, to know our pain, and to experience what it means to be wounded by sin, to be abandoned, alienated, forsaken. It is God’s own bittul hayesh (בִּטּוּל הַיֵּשׁ) – his self-nullification for the sake of love and truth. The “Eternal made flesh” bridges the gap between the realm of Ein Sof (אין סוף), the infinitely transcendent One, and the finite world of people lost within their sinful frailty. Of course we believe Adonai Echad (יְהוָה אֶחָד) – that the “LORD is One” – both in the sense of being exalted over all things but also in the sense of being compassionately involved in all things (Rom. 11:36). We therefore celebrate the giving of the Torah both at Sinai and especially at Bethlehem with the birth of Messiah. We celebrate that God is indeed the King and Ruler over all, but we further affirm that God’s authority and rule extends to all worlds – including the realm of our finitude and need…

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, the climax of Sinai was the revelation of the Sanctuary. The two tablets of the law, summarizing the Ten Commandments, were stored inside the famous Ark of the Covenant (אֲרוֹן בְּרִית־יְהוָה), a sacred “three-in-one” box placed in the innermost chamber of the Tabernacle called the Holy of Holies (קדֶשׁ הַקֳּדָשִׁים). As such, the Ark served as kisei ha-kavod (כִּסֵּא הַכָּבוֹד), the Throne of Glory itself. Upon the cover (or crown) of the Ark (i.e., the kapporet) were fashioned two cherubim (i.e., angel-like figures) that faced one another (Exod. 25:17-18). According to the Talmud (Succah 5b), each cherub had the face of a child – one boy and one girl – and their wings spread heavenward as their eyes gazed upon the cover (Exod. 25:20). It was here that God’s Voice would be heard during the Yom Kippur service, when sacrificial blood was sprinkled upon the crown to symbolize the atonement of sin secured through Messiah, the Word that became flesh for us… In the very heart of the Sanctuary, then, we see the Word of God and the sacrificial blood.

The LORD God Almighty was clothed with human skin: our flesh, our bones… The miracle of the incarnation is the Absolute Paradox, as Kierkegaard said, wherein the infinite and the finite meet in mystery of the Divine Presence. Here God “touches a leper,” eats with sinners and prostitutes, sheds human tears, and suffers heartache like all other men… The gloriously great God, the very Creator of the cosmos, has “emptied Himself” to come in the form of a lowly servant (δοῦλος) – disguised to the eyes of the proud and hardhearted, but is revealed as High Priest to those who are genuinely broken and in profound need. The LORD God is God over all possible worlds, and that includes both the celestial realms of the heavens but also the world of the fallen, the ashamed, the alienated, and the lost… God’s infinite condescension reveals and augments the majesty of His infinite transcendence. There is no world – nor ever shall there be such – where the LORD God Almighty does not reign and have preeminence.

Do not suppose for a moment that the Torah of Moses does not teach “incarnational” theology. Since God created human beings in his image and likeness, the “anthropomorphic language” of Scripture is meaningful. The LORD reveals himself in human terms – using human language, expressing human emotions, and so on, as it says: Moses spoke to God panim el panim – “face to face” (Deut. 34:10). The Torah always has to take on human form – the Word made flesh – for the sake of human beings who live in flesh and blood reality…

The greatest expression of God’s word is found in the Presence of Yeshua. This is the Word of God that “tabernacles” with us, full of grace and truth (John 1:14). Yeshua is the “Living Torah,” Immanuel (עִמָּנוּ אֵל), “God with us,” who enters our world to rescue us from death. Our Scriptures state that “in these last days God has spoken to us by his Son, whom He appointed the Heir of all things, through whom also He created the worlds” (Heb 1:2). Note that the Greek construction for the phrase translated, “by his son” is ἐλάλησεν ἡμῖν ἐν υἱῷ, which literally means “he spoke to us in Son” — that is, in the language or voice of the Son of God Himself… God speaks the language “of Son” from the midst of the fire revealed at Zion. “Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe (μετὰ αἰδοῦς καὶ εὐλαβείας) – for our God is Esh Okhelah – a Consuming Fire” (Heb. 12:28-29).

 

Hebrew Lesson
Isaiah 7:14b Hebrew reading:

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Addendum:  Consider further the metaphorical and anthropomorphic language of the Scriptures: God “sees,” God “hears,” the “hand of the LORD” saves, etc. Without an implied incarnational theology, there would be no language that we could comprehend about God who is the Infinite One that transcends all things… God gets angry; God feels sorrow; God is jealous; God is a lover, etc. all these metaphors bring the language of heaven into the world of humanity… The Spirit that imparts revelation does so inside a human brain and is translated into human apprehension. Yeshua is the Substance of the shadowy talk of analogical language; he embodies God-life before us…. Yeshua is the Word of God made flesh — able to touch us, know us, share in our suffering, heal us of our sin-sickness, etc.

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Destiny of the Soul…

John J Parsons

The Scriptures define “man” as the creation of God, a union of body and soul, that is, a unity of physical and spiritual elements, as it is written: “Then the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground (adamah: אֲדָמָה) and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life (nishmat chayim: נִשְׁמַת חַיִּים), and the man became a living soul” (Gen. 2:7). The miracle of creation means that God imparted his own neshimah (נְשִׁימָה), his own “breath,” to give life to the man, who was named “Adam.”

Note then that man was made in two distinct stages. First the LORD “formed” (יָצַר) his body (גוּף) from the “dust of the earth” (עָפָר מִן־הָאֲדָמָה), and then the LORD breathed (נָפַח) into this body a “soul” (נֶפֶשׁ ,נְשָׁמָה), that is, the consciousness that represents the self or the “I” that inhabits the body. This is sometimes called the “image of God” (צלם אלוהים), the “I am” of self-consciousness, the ability to reason and to make decisions, to discern intuitions of logic, to apprehend moral and aesthetic reality, to wonder and glory over the the beauty and greatness of the Divine Presence, and so on. The image of God means that man reflects (analogically) God’s very attributes and characteristics.

The Scriptures also refer to the soul of man as “ruach” (רוּחַ), generally meaning “breath” or wind (Psalm 78:39). The unity of the body and soul is called “nefesh chayah” (נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה), a “living being.” The body serves as a “habitation” for the soul as it lives in this world, and the separation of this unity, that is physical death, causes the body to return to the dust, though the soul continues to exist (Psalm 90:3; Eccl. 12:7).

According to “kabbalistic” (i.e., neoplatonic) interpretations of Judaism, the individual soul goes through distinct stages in its “journey” emanating from God and then returning back to God. The first stage is nebulous “preexistence,” or the soul before it enters a body while being suspended in the “treasury of souls”(הָאוֹצָר); the second stage is physical life, when the soul “falls” into the body and where it is actuated, imprisoned and tested in human form. The soul then works to remove the barriers to spiritual life in this world, and upon death of the body is released to either to Paradise (heaven) or to Gehenna (hell), but finally, the soul will have a share in the “world to come” (olam haba) after the resurrection of the dead. In some forms of kabbalah the soul is reincarnated until it attains success in its mission that was given before it “fell” to the realm of this world (olam ha’zeh). The final vision of the world to come is unified into one world that is inhabited by God in all fullness.

It should be noted that such a kabbalistic vision is not biblical, though it includes some biblical truths…. Let’s therefore review Scripture to get an understanding of the human soul and its ultimate end. So we begin at the beginning, where Torah clearly states that God created Adam as a union of body and soul. First Adam’s body was formed from the dust of the earth, and then Adam’s soul was imparted when God breathed it into his body (Gen. 2:7). Note that Adam’s body apart from his soul is not alive, and it is only after the soul is imparted to the body that man is called “nefesh chayah,” a living creature. So at the outset of creation God made Adam “for life” and worship in the paradise of Eden. That was the original ideal.

Read more “Destiny of the Soul…”

The Miracle of Teshuvah…

John J Parsons

Have you ever considered what the “self” really is? Most people tend to think of it, I suppose, as a conscious and emotional “center” of experience that is distinct from others and that has a sense of continuity through time and place. However, the self (or soul) has the ability to “transcend” itself, that is, to become conscious of itself, and this sets up an inner “dialog” within that enables the self to examine its own thinking, or to regard itself in relation to itself…. In this connection Soren Kierkegaard wrote of two types of “despair,” by which he meant a condition of being wrongly related to your self. First, you can despair by rejecting (or denying) the self, and second, you can despair by elevating and exalting your self. In the first case the self is “lost” or abandoned by various forms of escapism; in the second case, the self is “idolized” and given god-like prerogative; in either case, however, the self is in despair because it is not grounded in the truth of reality, since there can be no true “self” apart from relationship with God who is the ground of all being…

This is connected with the task of cheshbon ha’nefesh (חֶשְׁבּוֹן הַנֶּפֶשׁ), or taking account of ourselves to do teshuvah (i.e., repent). Note that Kierkegaard understood the experience of the “self” as a conscious “synthesis” of the infinite/finite, the temporal/eternal, and freedom/necessity, all in relationship to God, who is the Source and End of self-conscious life. We will exist in a state of “despair” when we attempt to deny any one of these paradoxes and thereby choose to understand ourselves apart from relationship with God. We all stand at the “crossroads” of the eternal and the temporal, and we can only know ourselves for what we are when we surrender to God for each irrepeatable choice of our lives. Because of this, teshuvah (or “repentance”) is an ongoing activity of the heart – the “daily bread” and sustenance in the way of becoming whole before God.

Read more “The Miracle of Teshuvah…”

Knowing God Truly….

John J Parsons

“I never knew you…” O dreadful vision to consider that we, even though we profess faith in God, may become strangers to the truth, and that the essence of our life was discovered to be a lie, a vanity, everlasting loss…

That is the substance of Yeshua’s warning to each of us. “The inner is not the outer.” Not every one who says that he believes in him truly does so, and not every one who thinks he knows him does so truly (Matt. 7:21). Truth is revealed by what a person does with his or her life, since this manifests who they are and what they really believe, far more than mere words. We can say a lot of things about what we may believe, but the test is whether we are doing the will of God – or not. Those who “enter the kingdom” are those who seek to do the will of God as the utmost passion of their existence.

Clearly none of this is about religion or religious “scrupulosity.” It is far more serious than that. Yeshua warned that many people do various religious activities, “good deeds” such as feeding the poor, protesting social injustice, or ministering to the oppressed, and so on. Some may even teach or preach the very gospel message itself, but alas! all these may be outsiders who break the inmost law of truth by refusing to surrender to God.

Hear Yeshua’s words: “Many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in your name, and in your name cast out demons and do many powerful deeds?’ (Matt. 7:22). But note the plural pronoun used in this self-reference. Why does the crowd speak on its behalf regarding what “they” have done to justify themselves? Are these people trusting in their religious associations or virtues to make them right with God? Do they identify themselves with some church or righteous cause and assume that should suffice to obtain favorable judgment from heaven? Be careful. Yeshua always speaks to the individual heart, not to groups, tribes, or political parties… “I never knew you” is spoken in the plural: Οὐδέποτε ἔγνων ὑμᾶς.

But Yeshua is saying something more. In this admonitory vision of judgment there is a surprising twist. There is no indication that he denied that some people objectively did such things. Many did prophesy (or teach) about God; many did cast out demons and do “powerful” or miraculous works. The essence of the judgment, however, is that despite all this, despite their ostensible allegiance to God, they were really practitioners of lawlessness, workers of iniquity, and therefore they were cast out: “I never knew you” (Matt. 7:23).

Yeshua had warned us before. He made the matter clear: “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. But the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few” (Matt. 7:13-14). The “wide” gate is the way of the crowd, spacious enough to accommodate the masses. It’s the way of open-ended “tolerance” coupled with the unthinking repudiation of moral convictions. The “paradox of tolerance” is that absolute tolerance is self-contradictory and ultimately leads to self-destruction. As Karl Popper said: “If everyone is tolerant of every idea, then intolerant ideas will emerge. Tolerant people will tolerate this intolerance, and the intolerant people will not tolerate the tolerant people.”

The “narrow way,” on the other hand, leads to life. It is not the popular way. It is not the way of the masses or the “politically correct” crowd. It’s not amenable to the way of the jaded skeptic who has no faith in truth. It is not the path of the proud or arrogant. Nor is it the way of “religion” or social justice organizations. It does neither “jihad” nor affect compassion through worldly philanthropy. It is certainly not the way of the State nor political movements driven by mass appeals of the tyrants and demagogues. Nor is it the way of the “institutional” churches. It is not a mass “Christian” movement. It is not concerned with teachings of theologians, or professors, or even preachers who are simply “interested” in the things of God but who never engage in raw personal struggle and agony of heart to do the will of God. No, the way of true surrender involves confessing your brokenness and poverty – your need for deliverance from yourself – and in humility coming before the light to ask God for the miracle of salvation, “life-from-death” deliverance, resurrection, and newness of life…

Something more is therefore needed than merely thinking about God or doing various forms of good works, and that “something more” is having an honest and genuinely tested relationship Yeshua, knowing him in the secret communion of your heart as you live whatever remains of your days in surrender to his will. Doing so will nake you a wise person who “builds his life upon the Rock” – the solid foundation of God’s heart given in Christ – and you will thereby be able to weather the inevitable storms of life without failing (Matt. 7:24-27).

So do you truly know the Lord, friend? Or better – does He really know you? Again, this is not some abstract knowledge about God or the practices of religion, but constitutes the passion of the heart. It is the “knowledge” of knowing someone that you truly love. And that is the key: love. To know God is to know his love and to receive his passion. You simply cannot know Yeshua apart from knowing his love for you, for these are bound together as one.

God loves you despite yourself. It’s not your love for God that saves you but God’s love for you: ῾Ημεῖς ἀγαπῶμεν αὐτόν, ὅτι αὐτὸς πρῶτος ἠγάπησεν ἡμᾶς. “We love him because he first loves us” (1 John 4:19). We were born into this world alienated, lost, spiritually dead, and therefore unable to know the truth of God’s heart. Our love (and knowledge) of God comes from God’s love for us, and we receive that love by the miracle of his intervention in our lives. There is no other way. We do not ascend a “stairway to heaven” to find God, but he descends to the depths and rescues us from the shadowy world of exile and fear.

Yeshua was once asked: “What shall we do to do the works of God?” and he answered: “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he sent” (John 6:28-29). This, then, is the will of God; this is what the Lord requires from us; this is the key that opens the door to enter in the Kingdom: to believe in God’s personal love for us given in Yeshua and to live the truth of that love humbly and in all our ways.

If you forget the essence of your soul you begin to lose sight of your reason for being, the “why” that underlies all other whys… This essence, however, is not discovered by means of reason, but by revelation — it is a divine disclosure that awakens you to newness of life. Teshuvah is a return to the arms of your Heavenly Father…

 

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Psalm 139:23-24 Hebrew page (pdf)

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Parables and Perseverance…

John J Parsons

The traditional Jewish expectation of the Messiah (מָשִׁיחַ) was that he would be a great king of the line of David who would overthrow Israel’s enemies and establish the Kingdom of God upon the earth. This expectation was founded upon various promises written in the Torah of Moses as well as various oracles of the Hebrew prophets. For example, in the scroll of Isaiah it is written: “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder: and his name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end, upon the throne of David and over his kingdom, to order it and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward, even forever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this” (Isa. 9:6-7). On the face of it, this prophecy says that the Messiah would establish the Kingdom of David as an everlasting kingdom and that all the promises of Zion would be fulfilled: the Temple would be restored in Jerusalem; the exiles would be regathered; the world would experience peace and the knowledge of God would flow to the nations (for more on the Messianic expectation, see “As the Day draws Near“).

When Yeshua therefore proclaimed “Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand,” the Torah scholars and religious leaders of Israel wondered what he meant. Didn’t Moses say that God would one day raise up someone “like him” who would spectacularly lead the people? (Deut. 18:15). Didn’t the prophets say that Messiah would restore Israel to greatness beyond that known in the days of King Solomon? Would he not restore the Holy Temple? Gather in the exiles? Is it not written of the day of Messiah: “God will be King over all the world; on that day, God will be one and His Name will be one” (Zech. 14:9)?

In light of this, it’s understandable that the Pharisees and religious leaders were confused. This shouldn’t scandalize us, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that the prophets were regularly misunderstood and persecuted by the sages in Jewish history. Still, the sages missed the coming of Yeshua because there are two distinct pictures of Messiah given in the visions of the prophets. On the one hand, Messiah is portrayed as a great king, a deliverer, and a savior of the Jewish people who comes in triumph “in the clouds” (Dan. 7:13), but on the other he is depicted as riding a donkey, lowly and humble (Zech. 9:9), a suffering servant, born in lowliness, despised and rejected of men (Isa. 53). These two images of Messiah eventually lead to various oral traditions that there would be two Messiahs: “Messiah ben Joseph” (מָשִׁיחַ בֶּן־יוֹסֵף) and “Messiah ben David” (מָשִׁיחַ בֶּן־דָוִד).

When Yeshua said that the Kingdom of God was “at hand,” then, he clarified that this meant something more than the establishment of the kingdom of Zion on earth but further involved the sacrificial ministry of Messiah who would serve in a priestly function to atone for the sins of the people before the kingdom would be realized. This was alluded to in Torah itself with the offering of the Passover Lamb in Egypt as well as the need for blood sacrifices before the covenant was given to Israel at Sinai. In other words, just as Moses enacted the sacrifices before the establishment of the theocratic kingdom of Israel, so Yeshua would offer up himself as the LORD’s Suffering Servant to atone for the sins of his people and to establish the new covenant (Isa. 52:13-53:12; Jer. 31:31-34). “The kingdom of God does not come with observation, nor will people say ‘Here it is!” or ‘there it is!’ because the kingdom of God is to be within you” (Luke 17:20-21). The kingdom is a matter of the heart. The King was now present, at hand; and the LORD had prepared him a body to offer up so that his people would be made whole (Psalm 40:6-8; Heb. 10:5-9; Isa. 53:4-5).

Read more “Parables and Perseverance…”

Dealing with the Demonic…

John J Parsons

Though the Scriptures teach that the realm of the demonic exists, we encounter its presence most usually in thoughts and feelings that torment us. That is where the battle begins. In the mind. The monster that tempted Eve in the Garden got into her head before she bit into the fruit from the forbidden tree. And unless we are on guard against insinuations of godless insanity, we are liable to be under its influence as well…

You might think that demonic oppression is something flamboyant or requiring the ministrations of an exorcist, but long before such intervention may be necessary, the mind has been captivated by evil and deranged thinking.  Such thinking may have its origins with a demons named “worry,” or “shame,” or “unworthiness” or “envy.” But a common strategy of the devil is to supply plausible ideas that are designed to deceive us and lead us astray.

Everyone is a theologian of sorts. The difference, however, is whether you are a good theologian or one who is swamped with muddled thinking about the issues. As C.S. Lewis once said, “Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered. The cool intellect must work not only against cool intellect on the other side, but against the muddy heathen mysticisms which deny intellect altogether. Most of all, perhaps we need intimate knowledge of the past.”

The devil doesn’t care if it is a “holier-than-thou” theology, a murky mysticism of “absolute tolerance,” or a smarmy disavowal of faith in God altogether — he is equally pleased with the sensualist as well as the atheist, indeed, he is content with any distortion of the truth, for this enables him to “feed” his deluded ego as the “Prince of Darkness.”

In a way, dealing with evil thinking is prosaic and unremarkable. After all, the airwaves of mass media continually disseminate lies, disinformation, and godless thinking in countless formats and through diabolical stratagems. Whenever we encounter the demonic affecting us, then, we should not panic or be scandalized, but must instead reaffirm the truth of God and resolutely submit to his will (James 4:7). Sometimes this means contradicting the lie by quoting Scripture, offering praise to the Lord, and asking your Heavenly Father for deliverance. In extreme cases, it may be necessary to command the evil spirits to silence their blasphemies and to cease their intrusions. If we find ourselves going out of control emotionally, we are giving ground to the devil. The best tactic is to stay calm and re-center our focus on the Lord who is always present. There is shalom – that is, healing, wholeness, and soundness of mind – as we regain awareness of the greatness and the beauty and the glory of our God.

 

 

The End of Evil…

John J Parsons

The Torah teaches that a personal, all-powerful, and all-loving God exists and solely created the universe “yesh me’ayin” (יֵשׁ מְאַיִן), or out of nothing. As his crowning creative achievement, God created free moral agents – both angels and man – who could choose to do what is good or what is evil. For reasons that are not entirely clear, however, some of the angels chose to rebel against God (chief among them Lucifer, later renamed Satan), and these angels, in turn, conspired to seduce human beings to do likewise. When Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s moral law, they effectively joined the angelic rebellion. The consequence of this was catastrophic, and the mankind “fell” away from God as their King into a state of alienation and exile called “spiritual death.”

Since God had created man to exercise lawful dominion over the earth (שׁגח), however, as the steward and “federal head” of creation, the effect of his apostasy affected not only his life, but also that of the entire created order itself, as Satan then usurped the authority given to man and began his reign of terror upon the earth. With the spiritual and moral order usurped, mankind was under the hegemony of Satan, and anarchy resulted. The natural order likewise broke down and dissipated. The original transgression of man therefore affected not only his relationship with God but also that of the entire created order itself. Natural evils and chaos erupted as the earth became a rebel outpost from the original Kingdom of God. Satan enthroned himself as the “god of this world” (ὁ θεὸς τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου) and humanity has subsequently suffered under his tyranny of deception and malice ever since.

Now this general account of the origin of evil may be considered philosophically, and indeed it is often discussed in such terms, since the main objection to the idea that an all-powerful and all-loving Creator exists is the concurrent existence of evil, and in particular, pain and suffering that seems to be omnipresent in the world. How could such a God allow evil in his creation? And doesn’t the prevalence of such evil impugn faith in God?

The contrary challenge being made here is that the following four propositions: 1) God exists; 2) God is all-powerful, 3) God is all-loving, and 4) evil exists are together logically incompatible and therefore one (or more) of them must be false. So the first order of business regarding this critical challenge is to consider each proposition (and its negation) to determine its credibility (or lack thereof), and then, after better understanding the meaning of the propositions, to decide if they are really inconsistent or not.

As for the first proposition, namely, that God “exists,” we need to consider various rational arguments for the existence of God, for instance, the cosmological argument (argument from cause), the teleological argument (argument from design), the ontological argument (the a priori argument), the argument from intuitions of beauty, morality, and logic, the argument from mystical experiences, arguments from fulfilled prophecies, evidences for the historical reliability of the Scriptures, and so on. Working through these arguments is beyond the scope of this short article, since my goal here is to briefly explore how “evil” and the existence of God are not only compatible, but are in indeed complementary to sound theology.

Read more “The End of Evil…”

The Significance of Rosh Hashanah…

John J Parsons

Let me begin this entry by quoting a passage of Scripture from the New Testament that admonishes us to remember our shared heritage with the Jewish people:

“Brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Messiah. But with most of them God was not well pleased, for their bodies were scattered in the desert. Now these things became our examples, to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted. And do not become idolaters as were some of them. As it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.” Nor let us commit sexual immorality, as some of them did, and in one day twenty-three thousand fell; nor let us tempt Messiah, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed by serpents; nor complain, as some of them also complained, and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come. Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall” (1 Cor. 10:1-12).

Amen.  “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law” (Deut. 29:29).

The very first word of the Bible — the very first utterance of revelation — is the Hebrew word “beresheet” (בְּרֵאשִׁית), which is commonly translated as “in the beginning” (Gen. 1:1). Note then that the Bible begins the account of creation using a word about time… That might seem a bit unsurprising or even trite, a little bit like saying “Once upon a time…” but it clearly indicates the significance of time in relation to the divine revelation given to us…

As we learn Torah, which is the foundation of the other Scriptures of the Bible (including the New Testament), we repeatedly are instructed to sanctify (i.e., honor) certain occasions throughout the year. These are called “appointed times,” or mo’edim in Hebrew, from a root word (יָעַד) that means to assemble together, to meet, and even to betroth… The first occurrence of the root occurs in the account of the creation when God said: “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons (i.e., mo’edim), and for days and years” (Gen. 1:14).

These appointed times were designed by God to be special occasions for human beings to have fellowship with him. Indeed, after God created Adam and Eve in the orchard of Eden, he explained that the Sabbath day was to be set apart in honor of the creation. God also regularly met with Adam and Eve in the “wind of the day” (i.e., לרוּחַ הַיּוֹם, Gen. 3:8) to instruct them about their responsibilities as his stewards of creation. God’s teachings to our primordial ancestors were later preserved as traditions within the godly line of Seth who had observed the “new moon” of the months and commemorated seasonal transitions. Similarly, the earliest forms of Passover celebrated the beginning of spring, Pentecost celebrated the first spring harvest, Sukkot (i.e., Tabernacles) celebrated the fall harvest, and so on. During these special times sacrifices to God were offered and feasts celebrated.

Moses did not write in a vacuum, of course, and he was quite familiar with the heritage of the godly line of Seth handed down through Noah’s son Shem and his descendants. The ancient appointed times were later codified and sanctioned by God when Moses wrote the Torah during the years of the Sinai revelation. Therefore we note the Torah’s calendar is divided into 360 days, 54 weeks, 12 months, 4 seasons, and 2 half-years.

There are two distinct “new years” on the Torah’s calendar: one in the spring, on the first day of the month of Nisan, called “Rosh Chodashim” (Exod. 12:2; Deut. 16:1), which marks the season of the redemption from Egypt, and the other in the fall, precisely six full months later, on the first day of the month of Tishri, called “Yom Teruah” (Num. 29:1), a day to be celebrated by shouting (teruah) and the sounding of shofars and trumpets (Lev. 23:24).

Now the new year in the spring remembers the Exodus from Egypt (Passover) and the crossing of the sea, culminating in the 49 day (seven week) countdown to the giving of the law at Sinai (Shavuot / Pentecost), whereas the new year in the fall remembers God as our Creator, our Judge, the one who purifies us from sin (Yom Kippur), as well as the one who restores us to fellowship and surrounds us with his love (Sukkot / Tabernacles). (Note that the eight days of Passover in the spring correspond with the eight days of Sukkot in the fall.)

It has been said that the liturgy of the Jew is the calendar, and the two new years, then, serve as two “axes” upon which turn the theme and tone of the calendar year. For instance, we begin getting ready for the Passover every year just after the holiday of Purim. We then plan our house cleaning, the removal of chametz, and we review the story of the exodus from Egypt to ready ourselves for the Passover. During Passover we abstain from leaven and begin the countdown for seven weeks until we reach the jubilee of Shavuot, or “Pentecost” – recalling how God gave us the law at Sinai and made covenant with us to be his holy people.

The intervening summer months offer time for reflection, recalling the various tragedies that befell the Jewish people, such as the incident of the Golden Calf (Exod. 32:4) the tragic “Sin of the Spies” (Num. 14:22-34), and (later) the destruction of the Holy Temple (2 Kings 25; Jer. 52:12-16). The summer culminates in the sixth month of the calendar, called the month of “Elul.” During this month we focus on “teshuvah” or turning back to God in repentance… Sermons are given admonishing us to repent; our Torah portions warn of the “great rebuke” (i.e., tochachah) that Moses warned would come if we turned away from God, and so on.

Because of this, Rosh Hashanah (another name for Yom Teruah) became associated with the time of divine judgment – the advent of Yom Adonai (יוֹם יְהוָה), or the “Day of the LORD” – wherein each soul would be examined by God in relation to his or her teshuvah and the decree established whether their soul would live or die in the forthcoming year…. Customs arose about making amends with others and joining in corporate confession of sin at this time.

According to Jewish tradition, on Rosh Hashanah the destiny of the righteous, the tzaddikim, are written in sefer ha’chayim, the Book of Life, and the destiny of the wicked, the resha’im, are written in sefer ha’mavet, the Book of Death. However, most people will not be inscribed in either book, but have ten days — until Yom Kippur — to repent before sealing their fate. Hence the term “Aseret Yemei Teshuvah” (עֲשֶׂרֶת יְמֵי תְּשׁוּבָה) – the Ten Days of Repentance arose in the tradition. On Yom Kippur, then, everyone’s name will be sealed in one of the books.

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