"God of the Gaps," or God Behind it All?

I was reading this article in the Boston Globe today (http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2005/10/23/missing_links/), about evolution and Intelligent Design, and one particular paragraph really struck me. Now, I should say, I frankly don't know tons of biology and I don't know what processes God may have used to create the universe and life on Earth. But listen to this:

"Significantly, Kirschner and Gerhart write, while random genetic mutations in our DNA code cause variations, these mutations do not create random effects (a traditional working assumption of many evolutionists). Instead, all organisms have maintained an essentially intact set of vital mechanisms-metabolism, reproduction of DNA, growth mechanisms, and more-for at least 2 billion years. These elements, along with a long-conserved body plan common to many animals, serve as the platform for subsequent, often more visible variations."

Now, since I'm not a biologist I can't comment on whether what these scientists are saying is true or not. But even if it is true (and the writers seem to think this would be a blow against Intelligent Design), listen to what they're saying! Basically, "These crazy organisms are even more amazing, even more capable of adapting to difficult situations, even more strangely and beautifully made to deal with all the crap this universe could throw at them in order to produce life and life abundantly." To me, the beautiful simplicity of complexity has God's signature all over it! You take a complex, insane, wacky idea like mass and energy being correlated, and you boil it down to the beautiful, elegant and simple E = mc^2 -- how could the universe BE that way unless God made it that way? How could such elegant simplicity be the driving ingredient in this soup of chaos? How could such simplicity as these biologists are describing--the same basic body plan, metabolism, etc. for 2 billion years--nonetheless producing the vast, dizzying array of diversity we see in life on Earth, NOT lead one to stare in awe at the glory of the God who put it all into being, who thought of these beautiful, simple and elegant solutions to such complexities as the development of life on Earth?

Evolutionists (and even Intelligent Design theorists at times perhaps) miss the key argument in the question of God's existence--the very awesomeness of any potential theory to explain the existence of the diversity of life, including intelligent, conscious beings like ourselves, cries out for explanation from a deeper source than just mere mechanisms. We can say, "Well, natural selection and genetic mutation, produced by these crazy modular structures we're discovering in genetic adaptions, is responsible for the evolution of life." But even if that's true, that explanation demands a further explanation--if life is so amazing like you say, how did it get that way?? Why is it here to begin with? Why are we here to begin with? Why is the whole universe here to begin with?? If the universe began at a specific point in time, as the Big Bang theory argues (and as nearly all scientists nowadays accept), then Something must have caused it, Something must have caused us. There's no way around that one, no matter how nifty or how elegantly, complexly simple your evolutionary theory gets. The very complex simplicity of your theory ought to drive you even more strongly into the pursuit of your Creator.

How many are your works, O LORD!
In wisdom you made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures. (Psalm 104:24)

My prayer is for all the scientists who are studying the works of God, that they might see the grand signature of their Creator in the awesome beauty of His creation, and fall into repentant, joyful worship.

Great are the works of the LORD;
they are pondered by all who delight in them.

(Psalm 111:2)

Pray for Dalits in India

So the last will be first, and the first will be last. (Matthew 20:16)

As a member of the dominant race, dominant class, and dominant gender of a country which is the dominant power of the globe, I'm humbled and grateful to know that God cares just as much about one of the poor and oppressed millions in the world as He does about me--that He knows their suffering and hears their cries. I just received this e-mail from GFA (Gospel For Asia), calling for prayer for the Dalits (the "Untouchables") who still struggle today for civil rights in India. Millions of these extremely marginalized people are coming to Christ, and in doing so they risk making their legal and social position even more precarious. Please pray this would change, and pray that God would continue to reap an abundant harvest among these people who suffer so much. Pray that God's people around the world would reach out to them in love and compassion.

The LORD works righteousness
and justice for all the oppressed. (Psalm 103:6)

-------------------------------------------
Dear Friend in Christ,

With a deep burden from the Lord, I write this letter asking you to please pray.

On October 25 the government of India must respond to the Supreme Court regarding the Dalit Christians' rights under the constitution of the land. It has been that when Dalits become Christians they lose their "reservations" (certain number of placements specifically for Dalits) for education, employment and many other rights that are granted specifically to Dalits under the law.

According to the government census some 20 million Dalits have become Christians. These precious people's rights are violated: Their women and children are raped, they are not allowed to draw water from wells in many communities, and so many more accounts of cruelty. Some of the communities, like the Banjara with 61 million people, live with 90 percent illiteracy and horrible poverty!

And this is the fate of nearly 300 million men, women and children!!

Please fast and pray that the government of India will correct these injustices on October 25 when the Supreme Court rules on this case. We have only a few days now to intercede and pray with a broken heart for the sake of these millions who have suffered so much for the last 3,000 years!

Thank you so much for seriously taking this to the Lord in prayer.

Yours for His name's sake,

K.P. Yohannan
Founder & President
Gospel for Asia
_______________________
P.S. For additional information about this prayer need click the link below. http://www.gfa.org/dalitprayer1?motiv=WA5A-G6LQ

Fasting, Ramadan, and Jesus

Salami upon you, ;)

Today the Muslim Student Association at the U of Arizona sponsored a "fast-a-thon," where if you fasted from sunup to sundown local businesses would give donations to the Tucson Food Bank. This sounded good to me, so I fasted in the Muslim style, including not drinking water, which I don't usually do (especially in a dry environment like Tucson).

So, during the day today I was noticing how thirsty I would get, especially after riding my bike or walking around. (Luckily it was quite cool today, high of 80.) After a full day of not drinking anything, on my bike ride home right before sunset I was thinking of Psalm 63, where it says:

O God, you are my God,
earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you,
my body longs for you,
in a dry and weary land
where there is no water.

It really touched me to think of the way Muslims seek, and thirst, both physically and spiritually, during Ramadan, and how Jesus wants to satisfy their thirst with His living water. At the end of the day, they (and we, and everybody else) can drink a glass of water, but there is only One who can truly satisfy the deepeset thirst of the human heart. "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life" (John 4:13-14). The promises of the Qur'an, the comfort of believing that you are pleasing God with your actions of piety, are like water in a desert that is poured out on the ground--the parched ground may drink it up, but its thirst remains. Only Jesus, the Living Water, is a well deep and pure enough for us to drink from, a well that will never run out, never leave us hopeless or in despair.

Muslims trace their physical or spiritual ancestry through Hagar, Abraham's wife, and her son Ishmael. Two times Hagar was out in the desert with Ishmael, having been exiled by Sarah's jealousy. Both times God met her in the desert, and provided for her and her child. In the moment of her despair, "God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. So she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink" (Gen. 21:19).

I pray that the physical and spiritual children of Sarah would not reject Hagar's children, but would reach out to them in love. But even if they do, may "the God who sees" reach out to Hagar in her loneliness and despair, and provide for her a spring that will never run dry, whose water "wells up to eternal life."

Lord, you are the God Who Sees Hagar's suffering. You are the God Who Hears Ishmael's cry. In this month of thirsting, may you satisfy the thirst of Hagar's children with your Living Water, that they may never thirst again.

.يا رب، ﺇرحم

Knocks Over the Head, Part Two

In the last post I wrote I mentioned the most often cited Messianic prophecies in Zechariah, in chs. 9 and 12, so I wanted to add to what I'd already written by throwing those ones in too, because there's a reason Matthew and John liked them enough to quote them in their gospels. :)

Let's start with chapter 9:

Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion!
Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem!
See, your King comes to you,
righteous and having salvation,
gentle and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

I will take away the chariots from Ephraim
and the war-horses from Jerusalem,
and the battle bow will be broken.
He will proclaim peace to the nations.
His rule will extend from sea to sea
and from the River to the ends of the earth.

As for you, because of the blood of my covenant with you,
I will free your prisoners from the waterless pit.
Return to your fortress, O prisoners of hope;
even now I announce that I will restore twice as much to you. (9:9-12)

Wow, that's pretty good stuff. :) First off, it says that Jerusalem's King will come on a donkey, a symbol of humility. This is exactly how Jesus entered Jerusalem the week before He was crucified, with the people shouting "Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!" (itself a reference to Psalm 118--"Hosanna" in Hebrew means "Save us!").

The second paragraph states that through this humble King, peace will be brought to Israel and to the nations, which again reflects what we saw last time in Zechariah 2:10-11. The last paragraph is wonderful--"because of the blood of my covenant with you," it says--the blood of the Messiah Jesus which sealed the new covenant God promised to bring about (see Jer. 31:31), we will have freedom, life and hope restored to us. Hallelujah!!

Now let's look at chapter 12, which is also quoted in John's Gospel. This is a truly amazing one, especially when you compare it to Zechariah chapter 2 which we looked at last time.

And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son. On that day the weeping in Jerusalem will be great, like the weeping of Hadad Rimmon in the plain of Megiddo. The land will mourn, each clan by itself, with their wives by themselves...On that day a fountain will be opened to the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and impurity. (12:10-12, 13:1)

It's clear from the context before and after that God is the speaker. He says He will pour out on Jerusalem and the house of David a spirit (or, the Spirit) of "grace and supplication." Now look carefully at the next part:

"They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son."

WOW!!! God says, "they will look on me, the one they have pierced." So the people will have "pierced" God Himself. Not only that, but He then switches persons from first to third and says, "they will mourn for him" as they would mourn for an only child, a firstborn son. This is the same kind of voice-switching that we see in Zechariah 2, where the Son speaks of being "sent" by the Father. But in this case, the idea of the "only child" or "firstborn son" is explicit!! Jesus (God the Son) says "They will look on me, the one they have pierced," and God the Father says "they will mourn for him as one mourns for a firstborn son." Why as a firstborn son, an only child? Because Jesus, the One who was pierced, WAS the one and only Son of the Father (John 1:14). So not only does this passage prophecy the nature of Jesus' death by crucifixion (where God Himself says, "They will look on me, the one they have pierced"), but it also testifies to Jesus' divinity and the relationship between God the Father and God the Son.

But not only that, in 13:1 it goes on to say, "On that day a fountain will be opened to the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and impurity." Not only does God show us the manner of Jesus' death and testify to His divinity and unique Sonship, but He shows us why that happened--to bring about the fountain that would "cleanse" the people from their sin. And what is that fountain? The very blood of Jesus the Messiah! Which is exactly why John cites this passage in his telling of the crucifixion:

But when they came to Jesus and found that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. Instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus' side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water. The man who saw it has given testimony, and his testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth, and he testifies so that you also may believe. These things happened so that the scripture would be fulfilled: "Not one of his bones will be broken," and, as another scripture says, "They will look on the one they have pierced." (John 19:33-37)

John obviously finds this important enough not only to cite Zechariah, but also to make clear that this event is a sign of which he testifies in truth, so that we also may believe. What is that sign? When the soldier pierced Jesus' side (the very event prophecied in Zechariah), out flowed blood and water--a symbol both of Jesus' death and the cleansing fountain that would wash away our sin and impurity, as Zechariah 13:1 says. So we know through this that the very piercing, the death by crucifixion of Jesus the Messiah, is precisely what brings about the fountain for us that cleanses us from sin and impurity. Wow!!! And not only that--the other scripture John quotes is from Exodus 12:46, which speaks of the Passover Lamb's bones not being broken. On the first Passover (the holiday during which Jesus was crucified) the Israelites slaughtered a lamb and painted the doorpost of their houses with its blood, using a hyssop plant. (Right before the quote above, in John 19:29, Jesus drinks the bitter wine vinegar through a "sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant.") This blood of the lamb spared the Israelites from the angel of death, the bringer of God's wrath, that passed by. So the blood of Jesus, the Lamb that was slain, washes us from our sin and impurity, and His blood on our doorposts spares us from the impending death that we deserve! He drank the bitter cup of death for us, so that we might have life and forgiveness and restoration in Him!!

Oh, Lord, you are so amazing. You have given us such amazing signs in your Word of your greatness, your plan to bring about salvation through your Son Jesus. Lord, even the name of Jesus points us to the salvation He brings--"Yeshua'" means "He saves." Thank you for showing us through your Word, prophecied hundreds of years before Jesus lived on this earth, that He would be the King of Israel, the Son of David, who would come and bring peace to Israel and to the nations, and who brings us freedom and hope through the blood of your covenant with us. Thank you for speaking of His crucifixion, His "piercing," and His blood that cleanses us from our sin and spares us from death. Thank you for showing us that He is the LORD, the Word made flesh, and for pouring out your Spirit of grace and supplication on us, that we might mourn with you for your Only Son. And thank you that in the end, because of your power revealed in His resurrection, through which you overcame sin and death and demonstrated your victory in all things, we have the joy of being restored to you, cleansed from our sins, delivered from death, free from the waterless pit of despair and brought into the very presence of the King of Kings, the Humble Servant, the LORD Almighty.

Hosanna to the Son of David!
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!
Hosanna in the highest!

God Knocks Us Over the Head with Jesus' Coming

I think the prophecies and symbolism in Zechariah are some of my very favorite in the Bible. So I want to just write down for myself an explanation here of why they're so great, and why God is so great. :) (Some of you may have already heard this stuff, but perhaps you will be joyfully reminded.) This exposition is by no means complete, but just the main things that I see that get me excited.
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"Shout and be glad, O Daughter of Zion. For I am coming, and I will live among you," declares the LORD. "Many nations will be joined with the LORD in that day and will become my people. I will live among you and you will know that the LORD Almighty has sent me to you." (Zechariah 2:10-11)

Look at the verse above carefully. God is speaking. He says, "I am coming, and I will live among you." That's pretty exciting! But look especially at the last sentence--"I will live among you and you will know that the LORD Almighty has sent me to you." God is still speaking (notice that he repeats "I will live among you" as before, but also that the sentence before he says that many nations will become "my people," ie God's people). But He says that "you will know that the LORD Almighty has sent me to you." In other words, God says "I'm coming to live with you and you will know God has sent me to you."

WOWWWW!!! So, 1) God will come to live among us ("God with us" = Emmanuel - Isaiah 7:14). 2) God will also in a sense "send" the Lord to us. This sounds very suspiciously like what Jesus talks about repeatedly in John, that the Father has "sent" Him. Yet both the one who is "sent" AND the one who is sending is the LORD, Yahweh, Himself. Both are God, yet one sends and one is sent. If this doesn't scream out Father and Son, I don't know what does.

Also, when that happens, he promises that "many nations will be joined with the LORD...and will become my people." Which is exactly what happened--Jesus died on the cross and broke the "dividing wall of hostility" (Ephesians 2:14), so that the "nations" (the Gentiles) would have access to God's mercy through Jesus Christ as well as the Jews--they could then become "my people." As Paul wrote, "Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household" (Eph. 2:19).

That's pretty fabulous, wouldn't you say? But wait--THERE'S MORE!!

"Take the silver and gold and make a crown, and set it on the head of the high priest, Joshua son of Jehozadak. Tell him this is what the LORD Almighty says: 'Here is the man whose name is the Branch, and he will branch out from his place and build the temple of the LORD. It is he who will build the temple of the LORD, and he will be clothed with majesty and will sit and rule on his throne. And he will be a priest on his throne. And there will be harmony between the two.'" (Zechariah 6:11-13)

So, there was a historical figure, a high priest by the name of Joshua (or Jeshua), which in Hebrew is Yeshu'a, in Greek "Jesus". He lived at the time when the exiles were returning from Babylon. God says of him, "Here is the man whose name is the Branch...He will be a priest on his throne. And there will be harmony between the two." But Joshua the high priest never sat on the throne; he was never a king. Yet God tells Zechariah to prophesy about this Joshua, that (in some sense) he is the "Branch," and that he will be a priest and a king together. Now, obviously there are strong parallels between this "Joshua" and the "Yeshu'a/Jesus" that we know of later, whom the New Testament describes both as a "high priest" (eg Hebrews 3:1) and a "king" (eg Matthew 27:11, John 18:37).

But what of this "Branch"? What is God referring to?

In Jeremiah 33, it says:

"The days are coming," declares the LORD, "when I will fulfill the gracious promise I made to the house of Israel and to the house of Judah.

"In those days and at that time
I will make a righteous Branch sprout from David's line;
he will do what is just and right in the land.

In those days Judah will be saved
and Jerusalem will live in safety.
This is the name by which it [or he] will be called:
The LORD Our Righteousness."

For this is what the LORD says: "David will never fail to have a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel, nor will the priests, who are Levites, ever fail to have a man to stand before me continually to offer burnt offerings, to burn grain offerings and to present sacrifices." (33:14-18)

So we can see from here and elsewhere in the Scriptures that this Branch is very clearly the Messiah (the Anointed, the Christ), the King promised from David's line (see also Jeremiah 23:5-6, Isaiah 11:1-10, esp. 11:1). God's promise of the Messiah's coming in chapter 33 is tied to His promise to David (the king) and the Levites (the priests), that there will always be a King and a Priest to serve before Him. Which ties again to God's promise about Joshua the high priest in Zechariah. SO, when God (figuratively?) calls Joshua the "Branch," He is calling him the Messiah.

Now nobody believes that this dude Joshua back in the 500's BC was the Messiah of Israel. Why not? Well, for one, he never was a king, as stated before, nor did anybody call him a king. So could God have been speaking figuratively when He called Joshua the "Branch," and spoke of the unity of the kingship and priesthood in him?

To find out, let's look at Zechariah 3:8-9:

"Listen, O high priest Joshua and your associates seated before you, who are men symbolic of things to come:

WAIT!!!! What did it say?? Let's look at that again:

"Listen, O high priest Joshua and your associates seated before you, who are men symbolic of things to come:"

God WHOPS us over the head with it!!! If there were any doubt that God is speaking figuratively, symbolically in chapter 6 about this "Joshua/Yeshu'a/Jesus," the Branch, the Messiah, the King and High Priest, He dispels it with this verse. It's one thing for God to put amazing symbolic connections and prophecies in places like Isaiah chs. 7, 9, & 53; in Psalms 16, 22, 110; etc. etc. But God specifically SPELLS IT OUT for us that we should look at this Joshua as a "symbol of things to come."

Let's continue with the rest of the quote:

"Listen, O high priest Joshua and your associates seated before you, who are men symbolic of things to come: I am going to bring my servant, the Branch. See, the stone I have set in front of Joshua! There are seven eyes on that one stone, and I will engrave an inscription on it," says the LORD Almighty, "and I will remove the sin of this land in a single day."

WOW! This one is jam-packed with Jesus. God says that Joshua is a symbol (by the way, Joshua is the "son of Jehozadak," whose name in Hebrew means "the righteous LORD," so "Joshua son of Jehozadak" is equivalent to "Jesus son of the righteous LORD [Yahweh]"). God says He will bring the Branch (the Messiah); then He speaks of a stone with seven eyes, with an inscription engraved on it. Jesus is called "the stone the builders rejected" (Acts 4:11, see Psalm 118:22). In Revelation Jesus is described as "a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain" who "had...seven eyes" (Rev. 5:6). So Jesus is the stone with seven eyes. When you engrave an inscription on a rock, you make the engraved word permanent. So engraved on the stone is the Eternal Word, which is Jesus Himself.

And, of course, the best for last: What does God say will happen when He brings His servant the Branch (the Messiah), symbolized in Joshua the high priest?

"...and I will remove the sin of this land in a single day."

What is that day? The day of Jesus' crucifixion!!! Through the cross of the Messiah Yeshu'a, God will remove the sin of this land (Hebrew "eretz," which can also mean "earth") in a single day. How can this sin be removed in a single day? The writer of Hebrews answers:

Unlike the other high priests, [Jesus] does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself. (7:27)

Because Jesus offered Himself on the cross as a sacrifice for sins, the sin of the land, the earth, is removed immediately and absolutely, to all those who look to Him.

Oh, praise God!! It's so amazing that all of this was written hundreds of years before Jesus (and we have actual manuscripts through the Dead Sea Scrolls dating to before Jesus' birth), and yet these verses so clearly point to Him as the Messiah, the King, the One who will bring redemption and forgiveness of sin! He is the LORD who is coming to live among us, Emmanuel, whom God has sent, who will join the nations with His people. He is God Himself, the promised King, the Son of David, the High Priest who rules on His throne and brings harmony between the two, who fulfills God's promises to David and the Levites.

These Scriptures are so amazing. And what's even more amazing to me is that this is really only HALF of what's written in Zechariah about Jesus--we haven't even mentioned the most commonly cited Messianic prophecies in Zechariah, 9:9-11 and 12:10-13:1, which are quoted in the New Testament (John 12:15 and 19:36). That will have to wait for another entry.

I just pray that everyone who reads this would have their eyes wide open to the glory and majesty of this King and Priest, God with us, the Messiah Jesus, who "for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God" (Hebrews 12:2). Let us fix our eyes on Him, seeing His glory reflected throughout Scriptures in the way His coming was prophesied.

!!תודה ישוע