Endings

Endings

I love stories and movies with happy endings, endings like ‘guy gets girl’ and ‘they all lived happily ever after’. A lot of the old Westerns used to end like this, after the climactic gunfight. Nowadays, happy endings are viewed as corny. It used to be pessimistic Christian cults that preached a doom and gloom any minute end of the world. However, now everyone seems to be getting in on the game, such as environmental extremists. If we only have a few years left before the weather destroys the planet, shouldn’t we just ‘eat, drink, and be merry’, rather than impose hardships on ourselves? Is the world going to have a happy ending or is it all going to end in catastrophic disaster? To the law and to the testimony!

A favourite verse of Christians is John 3:16, ‘For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.’ Wouldn’t it be nice if they would also memorise the very next verse where Jesus speaks of a happy ending for the world? ‘For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him’ John 3:17.

If you were to follow the theme that goes all through the Bible, start to finish, you’d see that God has a people and a place for His people to live: e.g., Adam and the Garden, Abraham and a land that God will show him, Israel and the Promised Land. Notice what the Bible says about Abraham, ‘It was not through the law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith’ Romans 4:13. The word for world here is cosmos. Those who believe in the Son shall not perish. They will along with Abraham, the father of the faithful, inherit the earth. They are heirs of the world. ‘Understand, then, that those who are of faith are children of Abraham … So those who rely on faith are blessed along with Abraham the man of faith’ Galatians 3:7; 9. It’s all through the Bible. Jesus says, ‘Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth’ Matthew 5:5, cf., Psalm 37:11. Therefore, ‘the land flowing with milk and honey, the Promised Land, was only a token of God’s Promise. ‘For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ’ 2 Corinthians 1:20a. It’s as Matthew Henry puts it, ‘Now Christ is the heir of the world, and it is in Him that Abraham was so.’ Therefore, the world does have a happy ending, i.e., for all those who believe in Christ Jesus.

God the Father promised His Son a people and place in which He and they shall live. ‘Yet I have set My King on My holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree: the LORD has said to Me, “You are My Son, today I have begotten You. Ask of Me and I will give You the nations for Your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for Your possession … Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and You perish in the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are those who put their trust in Him’ Psalm 2:6-8; 12. The happy ending will not come till all Christ’s enemies have been subdued. ‘Then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to all rule and all authority and power. For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet’ 1 Corinthians 15:24-25.

Let’s look forward to the nations not lifting swords against each other, nor learning war anymore (Isaiah 2:4). That’s the happy ending of the world for all who believe in Christ.

Disembark the Ark

Disembark the Ark

‘Then God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the animals that were with him in the ark … Then the ark rested  … in the mountains of Ararat.’ Genesis 8:1&4. The inside of the ark was a microcosm of the once dry land and its inhabitants – a floating menagerie. The released ‘dove found no resting place for the sole of her foot, and she returned into the ark to him, for the waters were on the whole face of the earth.’ Genesis 8:9. It had rained forty days and forty nights, but the once drowned earth soon bobbed into view to greet those in the ark. Door wide open, Noah disembarked the ark with his family and brought out all the wild beasts with him, ‘so that they may abound on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.’ Genesis 8:17b.

              Noah and the ark typify Jesus. The ark was baptized when it was rained upon (1 Peter 3:20&21). Jesus was rained upon at His baptism. After it had ceased raining on the ark Noah sent out a dove that returned and alighted upon the ark. ‘And immediately, coming up from the water, [Jesus] saw the heavens parting and the Spirit descending upon Him like a dove.’ Mark 1:10. The ark with wild beasts aboard was in the Flood ‘wilderness’ for forty days. ‘Immediately the Spirit drove Him into the wilderness. And He was there in the wilderness forty-days, tempted by Satan, and was with wild beasts; and the angels ministered to Him.’ Mark 1:10-13. After the Flood Noah offered up to God of every clean animal and bird. Christ offered up Himself. Noah planted a vineyard, drank wine, fell asleep and lay uncovered inside his tent. On the cross Jesus was given wine and then He died. (John 19:29&30). Two men, Shem and Japheth, covered Noah’s nakedness (Genesis 9:20-23). Two men, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, covered Jesus’ naked body and laid Him in His tomb. (John 19:38-42)

              The Flood was God’s wrath poured out upon the ungodly. But God saved Noah and seven others. (2 Peter 2:5) God poured out a baptism of fire upon Christ on the cross. But God saved a people innumerable. (Rev. 7:9&10) After the Flood Noah removed the covering of the ark and he, his family, and all the animals exited the ark. (Gen. 8:13-19) An angel of the Lord came and rolled away the stone and the resurrected Christ exited the tomb with all His redeemed and the redeemed creation following after Him. (1 Corinthians 15:20; Romans 4:13; Revelation 21:1). As everything in Noah’s ark was protected from the judgment of God, so is everything that is in Christ. Once saved from the judgment they disembarked the ark. Then the LORD God reissued the ‘Cultural Mandate’ in which man is to be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and have dominion etc. (Genesis 9:1-7, see also 1:28). Then men, birds and animals began to spread throughout all the earth. Thus the microcosmic ark was transformed into a macrocosm.

The death of Jesus on the cross was the judgment of God on all that God is saving, for the dead Jesus in the tomb was the microcosmic creation. By being bodily resurrected and exiting the tomb He became the macrocosm. His name and fame continue to spread throughout all the earth, while – like the mustard seed becoming a tree – His kingdom keeps on growing on the whole face of the earth. To ensure that His kingdom would continue to grow, Jesus issued the ‘Great Commission’ where He says, ‘All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.’ Matthew 28:18-20.

Jesus said to Mary after He had exited the tomb, ‘Do not cling to Me…’ not because He was radioactive, but because He was ascending to His Father. Likewise, Noah and his sons did not cling to the ark when they exited it. Thus Jesus does not want Christians to exit the world but to cultivate it! He prayed to the Father, ‘I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one.’ John 17:15. Therefore Christians today need to understand that our Lord would have us continue to obey the Cultural Mandate and cultivate all things in His creation – such as art, architecture, education, politics, music, science, animal husbandry, agriculture, horticulture etc. etc. – to the glory of God. Isn’t it time then for all Christians everywhere to disembark the stuffy ark?

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Moths, Monkeys, & Me

Moths, Monkeys, & Me

Introduction

I want to discuss three things in the following. And, like a good Presbyterian sermon, there are three points to help our discussion stay on track: Moths, Monkeys, and my favourite subject, Me. The main take away that I’m trying to convey is that we chaplains, and those other people who are also carers, need to take care of ourselves, as in self-care. Dealing with other peoples’ problems shouldn’t become a problem for us if we learn how to drop off other peoples’ baggage as opposed to lugging it around along with our own baggage.

Loch Lomond from Duncryne Hill

Moths

I heard Billy Connolly tell this joke. I’m a natural at doing the accent! And you’ll be pleased to know that I’ve cleaned it up, a wee bit. The joke went something like this:

A man went into a doctor’s office and said to the doctor, “I am a moth!”

The doctor replied, “You think you are a moth?”

“I don’t ‘think’ I’m a moth. I am a moth!”

The doctor said, “Let me see. You believe that…”

“I don’t ‘believe’ that I am a moth. I AM a moth!”

“I’m a GP. Why did you come to see me? You should visit a psychologist or even a psychiatrist. Why did you visit me?”

“Well, I was going past your office and I saw that your light was on.”

Monkeys

I went to see a psych, a friend of mine. She is a psychologist. We talked about many things, but in the course of time I told her that, as a chaplain, people often come into my office with monkeys.

Monkeys? There is a saying in Scotland in reference to some sly person being “As fly as a bag of monkeys.” Some substitute box or barrel for the word bag. Speaking of monkeys, Charles E. Funk says,

One monkey arouses a great deal of amusement. Two or more then double the interest and amusement. If one were to release a barrel full of monkeys, we must suppose that their antics would become hilariously comical.   

Anyway, whatever you think of monkeys, people come into my office with a monkey on their back. The give their monkeys to me, you know, the monkey they’ve been wrestling with. They give that monkey to me. My office is full of monkeys.  

The psych asked me, “And what do you do with those monkeys?”

“I know a monkey handler – let me tell you about Jesus! – I hand over the monkeys to Him.”

“And have you been doing that?”

This is where I thought long. I was struck dumb for moments. Like the panic you have when you find your credit card is missing from your wallet.  “Well, er, no. I mean not really. I just kind of fire arrows of prayer up to the Lord as I drive my car to work. I haven’t really been handing over the monkeys to Jesus as I should!” Aaaargh! I have bags and bags of monkeys all wriggling free from the bags and escaping into my mind.

Me

I had a terrible time last year with a brother-in-law going through treatment for leukemia. Then his wife went through the same. Then my mother in law was dying from cancer and subsequently died. Meanwhile I was in an out hospital for surgery, then back in umpteen times to fix something the botched in the surgery.

Like an boat unhitched from its moorings, I drifted away from God. I got lost at sea. I didn’t stop believing that God exists, because that would be stupid, because that would make me a true fool, because of course He exists. But I became distant from Him. Truth be known, like many of the psalmists, I was angry with him. Why this? Why that? Why me?

How long, O Lord? Will You forget me forever?

How long will You hide Your face from me?

How long shall I take counsel in my soul,

Having sorrow in my heart daily?

How long will my enemy be exalted over me?

Psalm 13:1-2.

I was busy, constantly on fast-forward. I even wanted someone to invent a laptop that I could use in my spa, a waterproof laptop. Yeah, I would sit in my hot tub or lie on a sunny beach with a good systematic theology book. I didn’t know how to relax. I thought I was doing “self-care”. But I didn’t really know what self-care meant.

All Presbyterians know what the first question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism says: “The Chief, and we’ve got to include Martians in here nowadays, the chief end of man, which includes everyone, men, women, kids, and the elderly, is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. I was glorifying Him. But I had forgotten about enjoying Him.

Now I go for walks. I enjoy God through the things He has made, birds singing, ducks swimming, breeze and trees, the sun sparkling on the water, etc. I enjoy Him, giving thanks to Him for the things He has made, the works of His hands. Now I enjoy Him, now I really enjoy Him!

Conclusion

The thing I want everyone to remember, is self-care. Look after yourselves. What were my three points again? Moths, Monkeys, and Me. The “Me” is you. If you look after the me, then you’ll be able to also look after the moths and the monkeys.  

I Believe! The Apostles' Creed

INTRODUCTION

Old picture River Leven & Bonhill Church

The word ‘Creed’ comes from the Latin ‘credo’ which simply means ‘I believe.’ All words have meanings and histories. Like everything else, as far as words are concerned, context is most important. Therefore the words of the Apostles’ Creed ought to be read in their proper context.

The historical context is not that the Apostles’ formulated this creed, but rather that the early Church Fathers formulated it in accordance with the teaching of the Apostles as recorded in Scripture. Therefore the Apostles’ Creed is a brief statement of what the Bible says about God, Christ, the redemption He provided, and redemption’s access and application.

The Apostles’ Creed or Symbolum Apostolicum, is, as to its form, not the production of the Apostles, as was formerly believed, but an admirable popular summary of the Apostolic teaching, and in full harmony with the spirit and even the letter of the New Testament.[1]

Christianity is not subjective, but rather is objective. Christianity is based on truth, propositional truth, communicated by God through men and recorded in Scripture (i.e., the sixty six books of the Holy Bible). Unlike Materialist belief-systems (e.g. neo-Darwinism), beginning with God Christianity is solidly scientific.

To believe in something is to hold to the truthfulness of the object in which one believes. Therefore those subscribing to the Apostles’ Creed are stating that the object of their belief is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – i.e., the three Persons who are one God, His actions, the redemption He has provided, what this means and to whom it applies. All of this is according to God’s Word, the Scriptures.

Christianity therefore is based on objective truth. Whereas the Atheistic presupposition is that the Father Almighty is not the Maker of heaven and earth, Christianity's touchstone is the presupposition that the sixty-six books of the Bible is the Father Almighty’s (written) revelation to fallen man.

The Apostles’ Creed … sums up in a few words the main points of our redemption, and thus may serve as a tablet for us upon which we see distinctly and point by point the things in Christ that we ought to heed … The whole history of our faith is summed up in it succinctly and in definite order, and it … contains nothing that is not vouched for by genuine testimonies of Scripture.[2]

The external object of the Christian system of belief is the Triune God as revealed in Scripture, and His plan and execution of redemption revealed from Genesis to Revelation. Therefore the Bible is redemptive-historical and God’s revelation therein is progressive.

Generally speaking, the Old Testament predicts Christ’s work of redemption. The Gospels record the events of Christ’s redemption. The Epistles explain what it all means and how we ought to live in light of redemption. The final book of the Bible, the Book of Revelation, by much use of symbols, illustrates the success of Christ’s work of redemption and the certainty of the (future) new heavens and the new earth, in which all sin, evil and its effects are banished, and in which only righteousness dwells. The renewed earth is the Heaven in which the redeemed and resurrected will live forever with Christ. Those not redeemed will be resurrected, but will be in hellish-torment forever. ‘Those who believe do not come into judgment (John 5:24); those who do not believe are already condemned and remain under God’s wrath (John 3:18, 36).’[3]

Though brief descriptions of the Father and the Son are given in the Creed, the Holy Spirit is mentioned without detail. The Heidelberg Catechism dealing with articles of The Apostles’ Creed, under the heading “The Holy Trinity Lord’s Day 24” says,

24. How are these articles divided?

Into three parts: the first is of God the Father and our creation; the second, of God the Son and our redemption; the third of God the Holy Spirit and our sanctification. (1 Peter 1:2)

The object aimed at in the Apostles’ Creed is to state belief in:

a) The Triune God – as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 

b) The Father – as Maker of Heaven and Earth.

c) The Son – as Redeemer, bringing redemption as Jesus Christ:

i. God’s only Son our Lord Jesus Christ.

ii. His conception by the work of the Holy Spirit.

iii. His being born of the Virgin Mary.

iv. His suffering under Pontius Pilate.

v. His being crucified, dead, and buried.

vi. His descending into Hell.

vii. His rising from the dead the third day.

viii. His ascendance into Heaven.

ix. His reigning with God in Heaven.

x. His coming from Heaven to judge the living and the dead.

d) The Holy Spirit.

e) The Holy Catholic Church.

f) The Communion of Saints.

g) The Forgiveness of Sins.

h) The Resurrection of the Body.

i) The Life Everlasting.

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ARE ALL WHO DIE IN INFANCY SAVED?

Introduction

Coal River and Richmond Bridge (1825), Tasmania

The issue of what happens to those who die in infancy can be emotional. Dealing with infants can be like dealing with fire or sticks of dynamite; all ought to be handled with tenderness and the utmost of care. A verse of the Scottish poet, Robert Burns’ satirical poem about a so-called Calvinist he calls Holy Willie quickly springs to mind and strikes a piercing but painful note in the ears and hearts of those born of the Spirit. The poem is called Holy Willie’s Prayer:

When frae my mither’s womb I fell,

Thou might hae plungèd me in hell,

To gnash my gums, to weep and wail,

In burnin’ lakes,

Where damnèd devils roar and yell,

Chain’d to their stakes…

Do Calvinists really believe that any dying infants go to Hell? Surely all Christians who have suffered the loss of an infant or a little child believe that the Bible gives ample comfort that they will see them again in glory. The 1619 Canons of Dort in Article 1:17 sums up what Calvinists believe regarding their own children who die infancy:

Since we are to judge the will of God from His Word, which testifies that the children of believers are holy, not by nature, but in virtue of the covenant of grace, in which they together with the parents are comprehended, godly parents have no reason to doubt of the election and salvation of their children whom it pleaseth God to call out of this life in their infancy.

Holy Willie is William Fisher (1737-1809). He was an elder in the Mauchline Kirk Session. His body lies buried in Ochiltree cemetery. Therefore he was not just some windmill in Burn’s mind that he tilted at because of what he perceived to be Fisher’s hypocrisy. It would seem (at least according to the words Burns put in his mouth) that Fisher disagreed with Article 1:17 quoted above.

Fisher is not alone, for some still hold that there have been infants who have died and gone to Hell. Not only that, they add contempt to their objection to the Calvinist view, by alleging that it promotes infanticide! Their reasoning is that it promotes the idea that parents can ensure their children’s election and salvation simply by murdering them or having someone else do it! But, if Article 1:17 of the Canons of Dort is a true statement of Scriptural doctrine, then those who object to it stand in danger of accusing God of promoting the murder of infants, including abortion!

The onus of proof on those who believe that there have been any who have died in infancy and gone to Hell, is to demonstrate their doctrine from Scripture. But know that no Reformed Confession states this contrary position. Even though it is the sovereign Almighty God who holds our breath in His hand, even though it is He who gives us length of days, all murderers, including all abortionists, are held accountable to God for their actions. Hell is a real place awaiting such unrepentant sinners.

We believe therefore that Christians whose children die in infancy have no reason to doubt that their children are with the Lord awaiting them. But does the Bible provide any hope for infants dying outside of the covenant community of God? We believe that the Bible gives probable hope that all who die in infancy are saved, and if so, are saved by the grace of God alone. 

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The Nexus - The True Nature of Nature

INTRODUCTION

This is a book about two conflicting worldviews. In particular it is about how differently Calvinists and Darwinists view the world. If you are under-whelmed with excitement at the mere thought of attempting to read a whole book dealing with this topic, then let me reassure you with an old North American Indian adage: ‘Walk a mile in another man’s moccasins before you criticize him’! This is very much the path we have taken throughout this book.

As we travel together we will examine the nature of things – as seen through the eyes of both John Calvin (1509-64) and Charles Darwin (1809-82). As you already can see, the year 2009 was the five-hundredth and two-hundredth anniversary of the birth of each of these men respectively.

Why write a book about the thoughts of two men from so long ago? Well, Calvin with his ‘Institutes of Christian Religion’ and Darwin with his ‘The Origin of Species’ have very much influenced Western thinking. For example, arguably many of the democratic freedoms we in the West today enjoy owe a great debt to the busy pen of John Calvin – including the freedom of speech that allowed Charles Darwin to pen his ‘The Origin of Species.’

Mind you, was it not for Evolutionary Thought we would not be entertained by the likes of Star Trek and Star Wars movies. For, the premise for all the alien life-forms in these and other movies of their ilk is due to the Theory of Evolution. Think about it: If it is believed that life has somehow evolved on earth then it is likely to have somehow evolved elsewhere in the universe. Such-like views are extrapolated from Darwin’s Theory of Evolution so called. The millions of dollars spent funding SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) projects are also based on the Theory of Evolution.

However, as much as watching movies with aliens in them, and as much as serious alien searches in outer space also can be fun and exciting, there is a downside to the Theory of Evolution that also needs to be noted. For, it is from the views espoused in Darwin’s The Origin of Species that much of the Militant Atheism in our own day has arisen! Make no mistake, Calvinism and Neo-Darwinism are two very much opposed worldviews. They are locked in mortal combat. So serious is this matter that, if it hasn’t already, Western democracy will become detached from its Christian moorings to be set adrift in the uncharted seas of relativism – i.e., if Neo-Darwinism is permitted to cut the West’s Biblical moorings.

Says one representative atheist,

We must fight for a post-Christian secularism, that is to say atheistic, militant, and radically opposed to choosing between Western Judeo-Christianity and its Islamic adversary – neither Bible nor Koran. I persist in preferring philosophers to rabbis, priests, imams, ayatollahs, and mullahs. Rather than trust their theological hocus-pocus, I prefer to draw on alternatives to the dominant philosophical historiography: the laughers, materialists, radicals, cynics, hedonists, atheists, sensualists, voluptuaries. They know that there is only one world, and that promotion of an afterlife deprives us of the enjoyment and benefit of the only one there is. A genuinely deadly sin.[1]

              Au contraire! As a matter of fact, as a Christian I enjoy this world very much thank you! I’m also looking forward to this world’s future renewal! Therefore I would much rather listen to the Frenchman and Christian John Calvin than the Frenchman and anti-Christian Michel Onfray any day! Says Calvin, 

The Apostle Paul distinguishes believers by this mark, that their ‘conversation is in heaven,’ whence also they ‘await their Saviour’ (Philippians 3:20). And, that their courage may not fail in this race, Paul joins all creatures to them as companions. For because formless ruins are seen everywhere, he says that everything in heaven and on earth strives after renewal (Romans 8:19). For since Adam by his fall brought into confusion the perfect order of nature, the bondage to which the creatures have been subjected because of man’s sin is heavy and grievous to them. Not that they are endowed with any perception, but they naturally long for the undamaged condition whence they have fallen. Accordingly, Paul has attributed ‘groaning’ and ‘birth pangs’ (Romans 8:22) to them, that we, ‘who have received the first fruits of the Spirit’ (Romans 8:23), should be ashamed to languish in our corruption, and not at least to imitate the dead elements, which bear the punishment for the sin of another.

To prick us more sharply, Paul calls the final coming of Christ ‘our redemption’ (cf. Romans 8:23). It is true indeed that all the parts of our resurrection have already been completed; but because Christ was once for all offered for sins (Hebrews 10:12), ‘He shall appear a second time, apart from sin... unto salvation’ (Hebrews 9:28). Whatever hardships distress us, let this ‘redemption’ sustain us until its completion.[2]

              John Calvin (1509-64) systematized the Christian Religion at the time when the Church that had become very deformed under the papacy and Roman Catholicism, was being reformed. Reformed Christianity, to which I adhere, began at the time of the great Reformation – a time of getting back to what the Bible really teaches.

Perhaps you have been inoculated against Reformed Christianity and the Christian worldview. Perhaps some portion of misinformation propagated by anti-Christians such as Michel Onfray or Richard Dawkins has so gotten stuck in your craw that it causes you to spit whenever you hear Calvin’s name mentioned! A small sample of the teeth gnashing and vitriol spewing that the name of Calvin causes in some can be found in the following caricature of Calvin and some of his Biblical understandings, as painted by the Darwinist and ‘journalist’ Christopher Hitchens,

According to the really extreme religious totalitarians, such as John Calvin, who borrowed his awful doctrine from Augustine, an infinity of punishment can be awaiting you even before you are born. Long ago it was written which souls would be chosen or ‘elected’ when the time came to divide the sheep from the goats. No appeal against this primordial sentence is possible, and no good works or profession of faith can save one who has not been fortunate enough to be picked. Calvin’s Geneva was a prototypical totalitarian state, and Calvin himself a sadist and torturer and killer, who burned Servetus (one of the great thinkers and questioners of the day) while the man was still alive. The lesser wretchedness induced in Calvin’s followers, compelled [them] to waste their lives worrying if they had been ‘elected’ or not…[3]

              Hitchens goes on to state that he has had some crazy people phone him ‘with hoarse voices condemning me to death or hell or both’ … And of ‘the eternal blackening of my name by religious frauds and liars.’[4] Crazy people are crazy whatever their worldview, but, in the interest of truth, sanity, and the un-blackening of the name of John Calvin, Francis Nigel Lee sets the record straight,

Servetus had blasphemously described the most blessed Trinity as a three-headed dog and a monster from hell! Yet even at a time when the Catholic Inquisition was seeking to slay Servetus and every Protestant city in Europe had expelled him or condemned him, Calvin corresponded with him and sent him a copy of his Institutes. For Calvin sought to win Servetus to Christ!

Knowing full well that Calvin favoured the punishment of exile for heretics and the death penalty for blasphemers, the wretched Servetus arrogantly made his way to Geneva planning to overthrow Calvin and de-christianize the city. Put on trial by the civil magistrates of Geneva (and not by Calvin who was neither a judge nor a citizen of that city) Servetus was found guilty of blasphemy and sedition and sentenced to death by burning. Calvin unsuccessfully tried to get Servetus to recant his errors. When Servetus would not recant, Calvin pleaded for a milder form of punishment. And later still, Calvin also pleaded with Servetus in his death cell to get right with God and accept the Divine Christ as his Lord and Master!

Rarely in the annals of history has so much evangelical concern ever been shown to such a monstrous miscreant, as Calvin showed to Michael Servetus, enemy of Christ and Christianity and of public law and order! Even during that highly intolerant age, the gentle Calvin tenderly yet firmly presented Christ and His salvation to the very man who had sought to destroy him![5]

By first looking at ‘The Question that Divides’ and then considering ‘The Tie that Binds’ The Nexus book is a call for the return to the way of thinking that made the Western nations great in the first place; i.e., to thinking Biblically. Calvin shows us how to do this: We use the Scriptures as our ‘spectacles.’

Yes, there will be much sabre-rattling heard from the Atheist Fundamentalists’ camp at the mere thought of a book of this sort, but all I ask is that the reader ‘Walk a mile in another man’s moccasins before you criticize him.’ However, if you would walk a mile with me please also keep in mind what Jesus says in Scripture, ‘Whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two.’ In other words, really hear me out before you agree/disagree with me!

Under God's Rainbow

Under God’s Rainbow

Like a wander through an art-gallery in air-conditioned comfort I studied many paintings as I passed them by on a commuter train bound for downtown Brisbane. The morning sun illumined the many colourful displays. Unable to decipher what most of them meant I took the railway graffiti to be a public exhibition of Post Modernism – I took each piece to mean whatever I wanted it to mean! Not to be outdone, from time to time Queensland Rail paints over the rainbow-coloured walls with an environmentally-friendly green, thus offering a clean slate to the ubiquitous but invisible spray-canners. 

Is art still art when the viewer doesn’t understand the message depicted? If art is not in the eye of the beholder then I declare what I saw from the train window to be an eyesore! I much prefer a clean green canvass to those glorified tags of all the railway ‘anonymouses.’ This being said, even the under-the-cover-of-darkness graffitier shows forth something of the Master Artist.

Someone had inscribed the following words on an ancient Greek altar: TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Like today’s Post Modernists, the ancient Greeks had been making God into whatever they wanted Him to be. So some wise Greek thought they should build a monument to the God no one was thinking about. The Apostle Paul used its inscription to introduce the living and true God to them, saying, ‘The One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you: God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands.  Nor is He worshipped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things.’ Acts 17:23b-25.

With their hands men make temples, trains, and railside paintings, but it is God who made men. Air-conditioned railway coaches are a wonderful design, but God designed living, breathing human beings. To be sure, and as expressed to a certain extent by those who deface public and private property, all men are fallen. However, though now distorted, man is the image of God. Therefore we can wander through His ‘art gallery’ looking at the heavens and earth and all that’s in them glorifying their Creator or, Post Modernistically, we can take everything in creation to mean whatever we want it to mean.

The Bible, if you will, is the inscription on God’s creation. This inscription doesn’t say ‘Anonymous,’ nor ‘THE UNKNOWN GOD.’ Rather it says, e.g., ‘The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork.’ Psalm 19:1. God paints a new sunset on His sky canvass every evening. Every day He paints rural scenes, desert scenes, stormy ocean scenes, still life, animated life, galloping horses, butterflies, flowers, bushes, trees, and He paints you and me into scenes.

Our labour and our worship all take place under His rainbow, for He especially delights in painting rainbows. There is no need to guess what His rainbow means. Like His Word, His rainbow is not open to private interpretation (2 Pet. 2:20). For every rainbow bears the following inscription: ‘This is the sign of the covenant which I have established between Me and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.’ Genesis 9:17. Thus life on earth has continued until this very day because of God’s everlasting covenant.

The rainbow is the sign of hope to all who dwell under it. It reflects the very throne of God, for, as St John says, ‘Immediately I was in the Spirit; and behold, a throne set in heaven, and One sat on that throne. And He who sat there was like a jasper and a sardius stone in appearance; and there was a rainbow around the throne, in appearance like an emerald.’ Revelation 4:3. If the emerald here refers to the rainbow then all the other colours of this particular rainbow have been painted over with green! Says Herman Hoeksema, ‘The emerald is green. It is the symbol of nature budding forth and renewing itself in the time of spring, the symbol also of the new creation, and therefore the symbol of hope with respect to the coming of the day of the Lord.’

As you wander through life looking at the things God has made have you understood His rainbow? It’s God’s promise that life on earth will continue. Be part of that new life, for the promise is fulfilled in Jesus Christ, ‘For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.’ John 3:16.

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