Bible Commentary

[GodfatherPartTwo]

Acts 17:30 Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now commanding men that everyone everywhere should repent, 31because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He determined, having furnished proof to all by raising Him from the dead.”

The Gospel is not merely an offer, it is a command of God. All men, everywhere, are obligated to repent and believe in Jesus. The Apostles did not preach "just try Jesus out." They preached that repentance and faith are necessary to avoid God's righteous judgment. Moreover, they were not concerned with providing evidence for the resurrection. Rather, the resurrection itself is the evidence that God has given to all that He has fixed a day in which He will judge the whole world by the Man Jesus Christ. Just as God is self-attesting, so too is His Word, not needing any external vindication for its own veracity. The problem never has been that God is mute, but that men are deaf.

32 Now when they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some began to sneer, but others said, “We shall hear you again concerning this.”

The Greeks sneered at resurrection, because in their philosophy, they drew a hard line between the material and the spiritual. They were trying to escape the body. But the Christian religion teaches both, first a spiritual resurrection, then a bodily resurrection.

 

[GodfatherPartTwo]

Isaiah 14:13 But you said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God, And I will sit on the mount of assembly In the recesses of the north. 14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’

This is the Word of God telling us the inner thoughts and heartfelt desires of the devil. The five 'I wills'. All of them communicate the desire to be like God. Incidentally, the Church of Satan's motto is 'Do as thou wilt.' I can think of some Christian denominations that, in their extolling of man's free will, would receive a hearty amen from avowed Satanists.

Notice the contrast between this and the words of Jesus.

Luke 22:41And He withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, and He knelt down and began to pray, 42saying, “Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me, yet not My will, but Yours be done.”

Biblically, slavery to God is a good thing, not bad. But our 21st century, Western ears burn when they hear that someone else, even God, is in control of our lives. For those who have faith in God and His goodness, there is no greater news. For those placing their faith in something else, namely themselves, that comes across as very bad news.

The Bible presents two ways. The first way is a life of humility, submission to God's plan, and trusting in His Word even when it doesn't appeal to us. It is the way of life. The second way is a life of pride, self-determination, and doing what's right in your own eyes. It is the way of death.

God is God and we are not.

 

[GodfatherPartTwo]

Titus 1:1 Paul, a slave of God and an Apostle of Jesus Christ, for the faith of God’s elect and the full knowledge of the truth which is according to godliness, 2in the hope of eternal life, which the God who cannot lie promised from all eternity, 3but at the proper time manifested His word in preaching, with which I was entrusted according to the commandment of God our Savior.

In one of his first Socratic dialogues, Euthyphro, Plato asks the question: Does God will something because it is good, in and of itself, or is something good simply because God wills it? I believe the Biblical answer, the correct answer, is the latter, that something can only be good if God wills it.

The problem with the first answer is that it makes a distinction between God and goodness. As if there is a standard of goodness that not only we have to live up to, but that even God has to live up to as well. This is how many pagan religions understood their gods, but the God of the Bible remains unique. Rather, goodness flows from God's own nature. God cannot be evil in anything He does because He is goodness itself. This is why it is written that God cannot lie, and that He cannot deny Himself. Profane men find this to make God arbitrary, not knowing that they are being arbitrary with God in the first answer.

John 3:19 And this is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. 20For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light lest his deeds be exposed. 21But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been done by God.

Augustine properly recognized evil as a privation of God's goodness. Evil does not have an ontological existence, it is the lack of God's goodness, in the same way that darkness is the lack of light. White light is made up of all of the colors, and darkness lacks any color. These instances of evil, all sin, are privations of God's goodness. For men who love the darkness rather than the Light, there is an absence of God in them. For men who love the Light, the truth is that his good deeds are done by God, for it is not possible to do good apart from God. When I deny that we are justified by works, what I am really denying is that we can be good unto ourselves. When I affirm the imputation of Christ's righteousness, I am affirming that the only way to be good is to be in God.

Jude 1:24 Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, 25to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, might, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.