Monthly Archives: September 2010

Whose salvation?

We’ve been reading Revelation as a family, tonight getting to Revelation 7. What a wonderful picture of the safety and completeness of God’s people!

I was struck by the song of verse 10. The multitude from all nations sing:

“Salvation belongs to our God,
who sits on the throne,
and to the Lamb.”
(niv, as we read together)

I thought: What does it mean by ‘salvation belongs to our God’?

There’s no verb in the Greek, but I am sure the niv translators had good reasons to put it in English like this. After all, a dead literal rendering also raises questions of understanding.

Here’s the literal nasb:
“Salvation to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.”
Now the Message, usually very periphrastic:
“Salvation to our God on his Throne!
Salvation to the Lamb!”
The New Living Translation has switched the order right around, using from instead of to:
“Salvation comes from our God who sits on the throne
and from the Lamb!”

I could continue, of course.

The surprise to me comes because I think of salvation as all about me. ‘My salvation is cause for joy.’

But Revelation 7:10 tells us that salvation is a bigger picture. Salvation points foremost to the Saviour, not to the saved. God enthroned in heaven is the only one able to save – so let’s sing!

(By the way, how good is www.biblegateway.com as a resource for on-line Bible study? Fantastic.)

Death/judgement

In the Bible, human death and judgement for rebellion are associated.

For every individual, death leads to the judgement

From Hebrews 9 (esv)
… it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment …

More than that, we can see when human death is judgement.

From Genesis 2 and 3 (esv)
[Before human sin] And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

[After human sin] “Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken.

So far, so straightforward.

But what about the argument that death always means ‘sin is present‘? It’s an argument in the opposite direction from the Bible material, which move from sin to death.

And yes, this is a post about young earth creation theories, which say that death is therefore impossible before human sin.

We’re not justified to argue in reverse, and we know this from the gospel.

The gospel of Jesus tells us that all who die trusting Jesus do so in perfect assurance of forgiveness. They certainly die, but not for their sins – it was Christ who died for their sin. In other words, there is at least one situation that uncouples death from judgement. Which means, of course, that there may be more than one such situation.

Perhaps I am mainly writing this for myself, and for thinking it through. That is, it’s likely I haven’t explained every step of the process or all the implications. But if you’d like to comment or ask for some more, go ahead. I’ll see if I make any sense!

Doubts

I had a question on the weekend, ‘What do you do with your doubts?’

A good question, for we all have doubts and questions. Here were my quick thoughts (even if my quick words did not convey them well).

1.
Know your own doubts. Some people mainly have intellectual queries (can I trust the history in the Bible?), others more moral (how is it fair for God to judge evil?), yet others have questions of personal confidence (surely God would not love someone like me!).

Knowing yourself will help you understand where to look for answers. It also puts the question in a different setting – the personal variation shows that the troubles are ours, not God’s.

2.
Think of your doubts as the opposite of a plant. Plants thrive with adequate light and attention. Doubts flourish by shoving them into a dark corner and trying to neglect them. Bring the doubts into the open. God’s not scared of them. And you have not ever come up with something new – sorry to burst your bubble there.

3.
Seek with humility. A single question can be asked with cynical faithlessness, or with humble expectation. The former is a demand of God (prove it, buster, or I’m outta here). What arrogance! God sent his son, who willingly went to the cross for a rebellious world – God has nothing to prove to us. The second method admits of pain or difficulty, but seeks comfort instead of confrontation (God, this is so painful and I can’t see what you’re doing, but I long to know why).