Friday 25 December 2015

Sleeping Watchmen

Sleeping Watchmen

May I start by wishing you all the joy and peace which is in Christ Jesus this Christmas

I was sad and angry when I read the Christmas messages of church leaders in the newspapers this Christmas.

During the year in my home state of Victoria (Australia) the anti-Christian lobby has felt strong enough to come out of the woodwork. Two examples churches could not fail to notice were these:

One, Christian education in schools. The State schools had allowed half an hour per week for children whose parents did not object to receive Christian Education on a government approved syllabus using volunteer teachers from the various churches. During my ministry the content of this syllabus has been progressively watered down for fear of offending anyone or appearing to proselytize. eventually it had been so emptied of any Christian content that it had become just a social studies course dressed up in a few Bible verses, teaching the secular sentiments of the day.

Towards the end of 2015 even that was banned from state schools by the government.

Then as Christmas neared, the government issued a decree that from next year the singing of Christmas carols, and indeed any songs which mentioned God would be banned from State Schools. There would of course be no nativity plays or nativity scenes in classrooms.

“Blind Freddy” as the saying goes, should have concluded that there was a powerful lobby strongly opposed the Christianity, who wanted the message of Christ swept from the national consciousness.

Then came the newspaper clips of the church leaders' Christmas messages. All on the theme “make room in the inn of your hearts for strangers” - especially Syrian refugees.

These leaders might have though they were being topical – they were actually a couple of centuries in the past. A past where the whole nation was at least nominally Christian, a past where they were maybe the official religion of the land, a past where the Gospel was (in theory if not in practice!) so well known that it could be taken for granted and a homily about attitudes was acceptable.

These people, called to be shepherds and watchmen, had failed to see the change that had crept up on Christian nations over the past few centuries. They have been sleeping on watch!

The message they should have been giving to a nation well on the way to forgetting about God was this: “Christmas: celebrating the saving love and power of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit: God the Son enters the world he created as one of us, as a human baby. His purpose to be the greatest revelation of who God is: to show God's love, and to be God's love in dying for our sins, to show and be the power of God in rising from the dead, breaking the power of sin and death.”




Friday 4 December 2015

Separation of Church and State

Separation of Church and State

Now might be a good point in our exploration of “Saving the West” to think about the separation of church and state.

Jesus famously said “render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's.” Although he was at the time adroitly avoiding the trap his enemies had carefully set for him. To his disciples he stressed how differently those he gave spiritual authority to were to act compared to “rulers of the world”. Later when Pilate questioned him about the allegation that he was a rival king to Caesar he answered : “My kingdom is not of this world.”.

Given this it seems out of character that Christian “organised religion” rapidly became just like “the rulers of this world”. It is just a (very sad) fact of church history that so often prelates have seemed only interested in power and money. I won't labour the point, but the fact is that history is replete with power struggles between “the church” and the secular ruler. Conversely, secular rulers have at many times sought to control organised religion both to legitimate their rule and as a means of controlling the populace.

Out of this insalubrious past came emancipation in more recent times. Young countries like the United States where early settlers were fleeing persecution and the government telling them what they should believe enshrined the “separation of church and state”. Old countries like Great Britain who had an “established church” broke that connection.

This is all common knowledge, but it is often swept under the carpet when the term “separation of church and state” is used polemically – as it increasingly has been in the campaign by secularists to eradicate active Christianity.

Given the – to use an old concept – sinful nature of human beings, no human or human organisation is infallible. I have an extremely high view of that Church for which the Bible uses beautiful imagery such as “the temple of the Holy Spirit”, “the Body of Christ” and even “the Bride of Christ”. But that Church will only be revealed fully when Christ returns – that will be its first meeting! Those organisations of human beings which we call “churches” or even – of our own denomination naturally - “THE Church” are only human organisations. God may be gracious and work with and through them, he may care enough to prune and discipline them when they get too rotten, but they are still very human and frequently dominated by evil.

If anyone doubts this, consider the problem of paedophile priests and church workers, and the lengths bishops and church organisations went to to silence the victims, cover up rather than to confess terrible things which had been done, and even, horror of horrors, to protect paedophiles and allow them to continue! No, the thing we often call “the church” is still human, fallible and frequently sinful.

So to allow such an organisation to exert authority over the lawful government is indeed a bad idea. BUT to go one further and say that our laws should not exemplify Christian principles, or that avowedly Christian men and women should be disbarred from being in the government is a travesty!

Secularists have urged both these things, and Christians seem to have given way without a fight. Perhaps it was the mood of the times and fighting would have been to no avail, but now we must wake up!

The West is in peril of disintegrating: the freedoms, the laws, the attitudes, the prosperity that it has produced are in danger of fading away – or being brutally scrubbed out.

In the question of church and state we need to believe and proclaim that we disavow absolutely the bad “old” days of power struggles by “organised religion” and government and government mandated churches; and the bad “new” days exemplified by Islamic Sate. Then we must stand up for the achievements wrought by godly men and women who knew that the Bible was God's word and that God's aim was for people to have life and have it in all its abundance.




PS – no more posts for two weeks

Saturday 28 November 2015

Nations who Reject God

Nations who Reject God

Does God hand nations who reject him over to the consequences of their folly? If it comes to that does the act of a nation and its leaders rejecting God inevitably lead to foolish political decisions?

This would seem likely to be the case, but I would like to establish that it is biblical teaching, not just a likely looking theory.

We have all heard platform speakers who take a short narrative section of the Bible and use it as the “proof” for even the most blatantly un-biblical notions. I certainly don't want to be like that! So how do we try to find accurately what the Bible teaches (if anything) on this question).

First we can check if more general teaching is consistent with our theory being true.

The Bible does say that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Ps 111:10, Prov. 1:7, Prov. 9:10) and conversely “the fool says in their heart 'there is no God'.” Ps 14:1. So there is a link both between being God-fearing and making wise decisions, and between folly and rejecting God, so this is positive so far.

There are prophecies against Israel's rulers, pictured as shepherds over God's flock, which shed some light:

Jeremiah 10:21 “the shepherds are senseless and do not enquire of the Lord; so they do not prosper and all their flock is scattered." Here rejecting God's counsel on the part of the national leaders has bad consequences for the people.

Ezekiel 34 deals with Israel's corrupt leaders at length and leads up to the thrilling prophecy that YHWH himself will step in and rescue the flock and be their shepherd – a Good Shepherd! But in the early part of the chapter, the faults of the leaders are laid bare, and the fact that (up to a point) God did allow the whole nation to suffer the consequences of their mis-rule: “The word of the Lord came to me “Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy and say to them: ' This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Woe to your shepherds of Israel who only take care of yourselves! Should not shepherds take care of the flock? You eat the curds, cloth yourselves with the wool and slaughter the choice animals, but you do not take care of the flock. You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost You have ruled them brutally and harshly. So they were scattered ...” (my emphasis)

There is a great deal of food for thought in this passage for civic and national leaders – and ministers about what God requires of them, but the point relevant to our discussion is the result of their failure in the case of Israel : God's sheep were scattered. So although he promised – and performed – a wonderful future rescue of his sheep; at that time the natural consequences of these leader's decisions were allowed to follow.

Again from these passages there is a link between leaders rejecting God's way and what God requires of leaders, and harm flowing on the whole nation. This is further support for our theory.

Now to two cases-in-point in the Bible.

The first is the time of Jeremiah. The successive kings and even more so their chief advisers were not men of God. The chief priests were actively opposing the prophet. The people were, as we learn in the later chapters of Jeremiah actively worshiping idols.

The first hurdle, a low one as it happens, is that the disaster which falls on Israel is attributed by the Bible to God's judgement. It is a commonplace in philosophy (and accident investigation!) that the question “What caused this to happen?” can be answered on different levels – all of which can be true. So in this case, it was God's judgement. It was also a result human folly in not taking the advice and the choices that God offered which would have averted the disaster.

As I said in an earlier post, ancient Israel was in a particular covenant relationship with Godnot shared by modern democracies. So some aspects of what God did to Israel when they rebelled against him and worshiped idols cannot be simply transferred to our situation. On the other hand God did punish eve pagan nations for extreme evil, so some of God's warnings of judgement linked to evil acts may well be applicable. But  to be on the safe side, I will not use the level of the cause being God's judgement in looking at our situation.

On the simultaneous level of the cause being human folly and disobedience, there is good support for our theory – except that God's mercy is so great that he holds out open arms to them right up to the end! They continue to reject him!

On the political level the rulers made foolish choices. Flirting with the waning Egyptian empire and rebelling against their powerful Babylonian overlords was proved by subsequent events to be sheer idiotic folly. And God warned them to this effect. So their rejection of God's reality, power and goodness led to them becoming really bad political decision makers. (Or possibly, the same inner workings which made them reject God also had the effect of making them make stupid choices in other areas)

Even on the personal level, they would not go against human pressure and obey God. Near the end, King Zedekiah sough out Jeremiah and asked counsel of God. By this time it was obvious that the court prophets had been, as Jeremiah said, lying in God's name. It was also obvious that the policies urged on the king by the pro-Egypt lobby were a disaster. God told Zedekiah to surrender to Nebuchadnezzar. He promised that if he did, he and his would live. He warned that if he did not the city would be burned and his family killed. Zedekiah did not obey this simple advice. He and the city paid dearly for his poor choice.

Applying this to our situation, we may or may not as nations be incurring God's judgement for our sins: but certainly our leaders and the dominant voices in our countries have been rejecting God and busily sweeping Christian morals and teaching out the door – this has left them wide open to human folly and the deceits of the devil!


My second example is the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans.

Jesus wept over the city ans said: “How often have I longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing” (Matt 23:37)

In Luke 19:41 ff, we read: “As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.”

In the light of Jesus sorrow over Jerusalem and his prayer on the cross “Father forgive them ...” It is unlikely that the disaster which did indeed befall Jerusalem was divine retribution! However Jesus does link it to their national failure to recognize him – the Messiah.

This event also seems to support our theory: Had they as a nation recognized Jesus, events would have turned out differently. They did not, and their rejection of God's purposes for them left them open to also commit the political folly which led to their destruction.

So in the modern Western world, to varying extents nation after nation that has in the past given at least nominal allegiance to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ has rejected him. Radical secularists have campaigned to remove all overt Christian influence, even Christians have been demoralized and churches infiltrated. Our nations are now left defenseless against human folly and the destructive influence of the devil.


Friday 13 November 2015

My theory "Busted"

Yes, my Theory Crashed & Burned

Last week my theory crashed and burned. As I looked at the Bible prophesies about judgement on non-Israelite nations, I found they did not support the theory I was developing. Embarrassing, yes: but the truth is far more important than any pet theory!

What I thought would be the case was this: The West has cast off God (that is true enough) therefore they have lost their moral compass (also likely true) therefore they have done bad things to a degree which brings about punishment from God.

What I actually found in the Bible was this: Nations did get punished for doing really bad things but the sort of things they were condemned for doing were the sort of thing ISIS is doing now in the middle east – crimes which the Western nations are uniformly recoiling from in horror and moral disgust. In short the Western nations, for all their faults have not been really bad.

Then I also saw a danger of opening the door to progressive moralists who have thrown away the Biblical standards of good and evil, and created their own quite different standards.

The Bible judges phenomena like the social acceptance of “abortion-on-demand” and of sexual immorality which in turn leads to high rates of divorce, with the inevitable follow-on of high incidence of child abuse, as really bad. But progressive moralists applaud these, and bring in their own definition of “evil”: such as Christians being “intolerant”; “capitalism” being inherently evil; failing to “save the planet” as the crime of crimes, and so forth.

One result of this both in Australia and the US, is a political dogma that incites people to hate and deride their own country and culture. This may not be completely new – the Gilbert & Sullivan operetta “The Mikado” has a line about the person “who praises every age but this and every country but his own”. But it is now a very vocal movement.

I do not believe for a moment that this national “self flagellation” is any more wholesome or useful than the medieval personal version.

Yes, our nations in previous and current generations have done bad things. Yes, just as we need to let God search our hearts and to repent and change our ways in personal life, so there needs to be the equivalent in national life. But honesty, not false modesty and false confession is required.

Compared to nations around the globe and back through history, we have been relatively virtuous.
Just remember that at one time that ruthless tyrant Colonel Gadaffi got to be chairman of the UN Human Rights commission! Maybe we should not take criticisms of Western nations by such bodies as necessarily being true!

Another anecdote that comes to mind is this: The mantra has long been that the British colonial system was terribly wicked. But some decades ago I heard a (black) African bishop talk. He said two things that have stuck with me. The first was “You gave us the Gospel. That was good. But you gave it away: you don't have it yourself any more. That is very bad!” the other was this: “In Education and health, in quality of life and quality of government, African nations have yet to return to the levels they enjoyed under colonial rule.” So maybe our forebears were not so bad as they are being made out!

Perhaps the most important flaw in this modern national self loathing is this: these criticisms come from judging our nations by Progressive morals (sometimes even when they come from church leaders and dressed up in Bible verses!) not Biblical morals. And as previously said, progressives for all their good intentions frequently end up calling right wrong and wrong right.

Back to the story ...

Since my previous theory is – as they say on the TV show “Myth Busters” - “Busted!” I need to think again.

My next idea to explore comes from Romans 1, particularly v.21: “For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened” and the thrice recurring theme in verses 24, 26 and 28 “therefore God gave them over to ...

Our nations did know God. But theological liberals have pushed the knowledge and fear of God out of most churches and rejected the Bible. Concurrently secularists and then Progressives have pushed the knowledge of God and having God the supreme goal of human life and the basis for right and wrong out of most of our social institutions, and swept away social mores based on the Bible's teachings.

Is it possible that God has given out nations over to the natural consequences of this?

Are our cultures declining because we abandoned God as their basis. Are western nations self-destructing because God has given us over to our human folly. One example might be Greece: They have huge economic problems; but the populace vote out governments who advocate the hard path back to national health and vote in ones who promise “an end to austerity” even though this is the path to utter ruin.

Next time I will see if this idea can stand up to a Biblical reality test!

Friday 6 November 2015

Does the Bible apply to Nations

Does the Bible speak to Nations?

We are delving into the question “can the West be saved”. We have established that if there is a God, then the Bible has the best credentials for being God's message to the human race. So a good question to examine is: “Does the Bible have anything to say about the rise and fall of nations and civilisations?”

There is a technical problem to consider before we start. It is this: “to what can we compare Western civilisation as a whole or indeed individual modern nations in terms of entities depicted in the Bible?”

From Moses onwards there is a lot in the Bible about the 12 tribes of Israel, then the unified kingdom of Israel, then the separate kingdoms of Judah in the South and Israel in the North. But these have a special relationship with God: “You have I chosen out of all the nations” so their dealings with God were on a level unmatched by any modern nation.

The nations of the ancient world which did not worship YHWH do indeed come in for mention, but unlike them Western civilisation does have a strong Christian heritage, and although modern nations now boast of secular government, their populations have, perhaps more in the past than the present, claimed to be “Christian”. Since Jesus said: “unto whom much is given, much is expected...” the modern West may face a higher standard of accountability before God.

So modern nations may rate somewhere between the Israelites and the ancient gentile nations.

A further caution comes from Jesus' teaching about the Kingdom of God under the New Covenant, particularly that, as he said to Pilate: “My kingdom is not of this world”. I believe we would be mistaken if we tried to identify any denominational church, let alone any nation with the Kingdom of God, even though both these claims have been made down through history.

With these warnings that we will need to exercise some care in how we extract principles from the Bible which can be validly applied to our quest, let's see what we can find!

Let's start with an easy one – and one I think may be applicable now – Israel in the time of the “Judges”.

The previous happenings under Moses and Joshua had of course been part of a very special covenant relationship and specific promises made by God to Abraham which modern nations cannot claim. Similarly the loss of “the land” and the 70 years exile in the 8th century BC were closely tied up in scripture with the covenant – this time punishments for breach of it.

Even in this period of the judges, cripture makes it clear that what happened was a playing out of the exclusive covenant relationship between Israel and God (eg Judges 2:20 “this nation has violated the covenant I made with their ancestors”), but I am hoping we may find there is also something here we can apply to our modern situation.

In Judges 2:6,7 we read “After Joshua had dismissed the Israelites, they went to take possession of the land, each to their own inheritance. The people served the Lord throughout the lifetime of Joshua and of the elders who had seen all the great things the Lord had done for Israel.

But then things slid. Judges 2: 10ff “After that … a new generation grew up who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel. Then Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals. They forsook the Lord … they followed and worshipped various gods of the peoples around them … They aroused the Lord's anger because they forsook him and served the Baals and Ashtoreths. In his anger against them, the Lord gave them into the hands of raiders who plundered them … they were in great distress. Then the Lord raised up judges who saved them from the hands of these raiders. Yet they would not listen to their judges but prostituted themselves to other gods … Whenever God raised up a judge for them he was with the judge and saved them from their enemies … for the Lord relented because of their groaning under those who oppressed and afflicted them. But when the judge died the people returned to ways even more corrupt than their ancestors ...

The pattern stated here is borne out by the historical cameos which follow. Some of the judges are simply mentioned, but on my count for five of them the cycle of: they reject God – fall to oppressors - cry out to God for deliverance – God raises up a judge and uses him or her to deliver them – they are faithful to God for a while – then they begin the cycle all over; is depicted.

In the history of the Christian West, the pattern may not be quite as clear – there seems never to have been some “golden age” - but certainly in different places at different times there have been revivals of faith in and obedience to Christ, and conversely descents into great evil (often wearing the mast of “religion”).

From the book of Judges we can at least see that these repeated descents are true to human nature, and the revivals due to the continued grace, mercy and power of God. We can also see that whilst the present falling away of Western nations in unison may be novel in Christian history, and the “gods” we are turning to different to the Baals and Ashtoreths, the process itself is nothing new.

It gives us an explanation for what we see currently happening in the world around us and in our own societies. It also holds out for us the hope that as God repeatedly had compassion on those rebellious Israelites when they cried out to him for help, he will have compassion now.

Friday 30 October 2015

Is the New Testament Consistent

Is the New Testament Consistent with the Old?

In a very brief way we have established the internal consistency of the Old Testament. The next question is the dual consistency of the New Testament with the Old and within itself.

The new testament message revolves around Jesus Christ. Who he was. What he did. How we should live in the light of this. So I will start with the “letters” and then look at the Gospels.

Paul's letters first: remember we are not looking at the entire message of them this time – just the description of God's character that would either agree with or contradict the one in Exodus we chose: Exodus 34:6,7. (YHWH) “passed in front of Moses proclaiming: “YHWH, YHWH the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, and forgiving wickedness rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished ...”

The short answer is that in Paul's letters all these attributes are demonstrated in Jesus. Jesus hanging on the cross dying for the sins of the world is exactly this character of God previously stated to Moses displayed now in actions for all to see. There is an abundance of examples available, for instance:

Romans 3: 23ff: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified feely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement through the shedding of his blood – to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in forbearance he had left sins committed beforehand unpunished – he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.”

God's grace and compassion are evidenced in his actions, as is the combination of forgiveness but not leaving evil go unpunished.

Ephesians 2: 1ff “you were dead in your transgressions and sins … all of us also lived … at one time gratifying the cravings of our flesh … like the rest we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions – it is by grace you have been saved.”

Again god's great compassion, graciousness, love, and forgiveness are the triumphal theme – because this wonderful character has been demonstrated in action in Christ, and made real and effective to us who believe.

Hebrews 1: 1ff “In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, … The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being … after he had provided purification for sins ...”

John follows closely in his letters, for instance: 1 John 4: 9ff “ This is how God showed his love among us: he sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we have loved God; but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

1 Peter 1: 3 “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”

Revelation 21: “ 'Look! God's dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people and God himself will be with them and will be their God. And he will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.' … The one who was seated on the throne said “ … It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost form the spring of the water of life. Those who are victorious will inherit all this and I will be their God and they will be my children. But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars – they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulphur. This is the second death.

I'm sure I do not need to join the dots! Exactly the same character of God in these areas is consistently displayed throughout the letters and Revelation, and it is exactly the same character as maintained throughout the Old Testament.

Now for the Gospels. Again, the Gospels are all about Jesus. Who he said he was, what character he displayed in word and deed. The mighty miracles by which God endorsed him. And ultimately his suffering, death and resurrection. In John's gospel in particular the slowing of the pace as Good Friday approaches highlights that this is the single most important act.

I started with the other books of the New Testament because of their commentary on Jesus death and resurrection. That this was God – Father Son and Holy Spirit – demonstrating beyond all question and beyond all imagining, the true character of God. And showing in actions what had been revealed in words to Moses, showing now that God was the very essence of Compassion, Graciousness, and Love. And showing supremely now what he had demonstrated in smaller ways throughout history: his utter faithfulness to those who trust in him.

Also during his few years of public ministry Jesus demonstrated this character in his every day dealings with people. As this is obvious by reading any of the Gospel accounts I will not give examples here.

Forgiveness is both amply demonstrated in the Gospels and amply understood by the general public. The enigma of this co-existing with God's stated character of not leaving evil unpunished is also amply demonstrated by Jesus' suffering, death and resurrection “the righteous for the unrighteous”.

Hence the double-barrelled reason given in Romans 3: a) to demonstrate god's justice since he, the just Judge had indeed forgiven sins in the Old Testament period. And b) to be just even in justifying those who believe in Jesus.

All I think that remains to be demonstrated is the trait of not leaving the impenitent guilty unpunished. This should be obvious on any reading of the Gospels, but as it has been denied by much modern liberal theology I shall give some examples.

Matthew 7: 13,14: “ Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life and few find it

Matthew 18: 6ff “If anyone causes one of these little ones … to stumble it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and be drowned in the depths of the sea. … If your eye causes you to stumble … it would be better to enter life with one eye than to … and be thrown into the fire of hell.”

The parable of the unmerciful servant in Matthew 19 ends with the warning “… the master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured until he should pay back all he owed. This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless ...”

Jesus condemnation of the practices of the religious leaders includes this dire warning: (Matt. 23: 33 “You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?”

Jesus' depiction of the Judgement concludes: (Matt 25: 46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

So the gospels also give a consistent account of God's character in the area we chose to examine.

To sum up: The Bible claims throughout to be a record of “the God who made heaven and earth” making known things to human beings about God's character and how God desires humans to live. Written by a large number of different people over roughly a millennium and a half the Bible exhibits the sort of consistent message we would expect if its claim were true.

Thus examining the Bible in a scientific sort of way has paid dividends. We have not proved that God exists, we have not even proved that the Bible is what it claims any more than a scientific experiment can prove a hypothesis is true. But … just as with scientific experiments … we have established that taking the Bible's claims as “true” is a good working hypothesis.

Friday 16 October 2015

Is the Bible Consistent Pt. 1

Is the Old Testament Consistent?

Does the Bible give a consistent message over its span of a millennium and a half and over its many authors, and genres of literature? To cover every thread of Biblical teaching, or even every author is beyond the scope of a blog. So I will take one theme only and just a few authors spread over the timespan of the Bible. This week : the Old Testament.

I accept that Moses wrote most of the first five books of the Bible. Tradition holds this and it seems the most probable explanation since he was educated in the Egyptian royal court and so would be literate. (interestingly Mohamed nearly two thousand years later could not read or write and his first followers had to memorize his sayings)

So in Exodus we have early 13th century BC writings. Let us look at just one passage in this incredibly early writing; a passage where God says something about his own character.

Exodus 34:6,7. (YHWH) “passed in front of Moses proclaiming: “YHWH, YHWH the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, and forgiving wickedness rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished ...”

In the narrative of God's dealings with his people throughout the Exodus period, this is certainly born out time and again. But let us see if it is in later writings.

In the book of Judges we have historical cameos from the period covering a few hundred years after Moses' death.

Here there is a recurring theme: The Israelites are loyal to God for a while, then they forsake him to worship foreign idols. Then God withdraws his aid. Then the Israelites are subjugated by more powerful neighbours. Eventually they cry out to God for help. God (usually) sends a messenger to tell them to throw away their idols and return to God. Then God raises up a national hero who beats back their oppressors and they enjoy a period of peace. Then the cycle starts again.

In this we see in action that God is: compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, forgives (when people repent!) wickedness and rebellion, but does not leave the guilty unpunished (in these instances he withdraws his aid and they are oppressed by their neighbours).

The same elements of God's character are illustrated in his dealings with individuals and the nation of Israel throughout the “historical” books of the Old Testament, as anyone can easily check for themselves. Now let us look at a different genre of literature in the Bible.

Those psalms that are ascribed to David are 10th / 11th century BC poems and worship songs. They depict God's character consistently with Exodus. For instance:

Psalm 23:6. “surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life...”

Psalm 32. “Blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven … then I acknowledged my sin to you … and you forgave the guilt of my sin ...”

Psalm 37:9 “… Those who are evil will be destroyed ...”

Psalm 40. “I waited patiently for YHWH; he turned to me and heard met cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit. Out of the mud and mire; he set my foot o a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.”

This barely scratches the surface, but should suffice to illustrate that several hundred years after Moses, and in a different genre of literature, the same character of God is depicted and worshipped.

Amos was an early 8th century BC prophet. His task was to warn the northern kingdom of Israel that God was about to punish them and urge them to repent and change their ways. Here we see that God, as he said, is one who “does not let the wicked go unpunished”

For example Amos 2:6ff “This is what the Lord says: 'For three sins of Israel even for four I will not relent. They sell the innocent for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals. They trample on the heads of the poor … and deny justice to the oppressed ...” … “Now then I will crush you as a cart crushes when loaded with grain … declares the Lord.”

True to God's self description to Moses, Amos' warnings end with a promise of hope.
Amos 9: 9ff “I will give the command and I will shake the people of Israel among the nations … all the sinners among my people will die by the sword … In that day I will restore David's fallen shelter – I will rebuild its broken walls … I will bring my people Israel back from exile.

He people did not heed Amos' warning. In 732 BC the Assyrian army devastated Israel and dispersed its people throughout their empire because they had rebelled against their Assyrian overlord.

The scroll of Isaiah may have have been written over a long period. However the first 39 chapters are clearly 8th century BC,

I am not going to try to expound Isaiah's message, merely isolate some parts of that message which indicate that, prophesying in the 8th century BC the same characteristics that God pronounced to Moses are being exemplified (where applicable) in speaking to the situation at hand.

God said to Moses that he “does not leave the guilty unpunished” this is repeated over and over in Isaiah. Just one example is:

Isaiah 10: “Woe to those who make unjust laws … to deprive the poor of their rights … to withhold justice from the oppressed of my people … making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless … what will you do on the day of reckoning … nothing will remain but to cringe among the captives or fall among the slain.”

God spoke to Moses of his compassion and forgiveness. This theme also flows through Isaiah, for instance the promise in Ch. 11 of the restoration of the nation and a new Davidic ruler (in terms only truly fulfilled by Jesus and realised in heaven)
“A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse (King David's father) … The Spirit of the Lord will be upon him … with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth … he will slay the wicked … the wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat … they will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”

God said to Moses he was “abounding in love and faithfulness” Isaiah foretells a time when God acts and his people will say: (Isa 12) “I will praise you Lord, although you were angry with me your anger has turned away and you have comforted me. Surely God is my salvation I will trust and not be afraid. The Lord, the Lord himself is my strength and song, he has become my salvation.”

Again these few examples are barely scratching the surface, but suffice to illustrate the point.

Jeremiah was a 7th century BC prophet. He had the difficult task of telling the southern kingdom that God was about to punish them for their sins and those of previous generations, but if they repented, this could be averted. They did not repent and the nation was destroyed by the Babylonians. Here are some examples of God's proclaimed character as one who punishes, and one who forgives the penitent.

Jeremiah 1: 16 “I will pronounce judgement on my people for forsaking me, in burning incense to other gods and worshiping what their hands have made” with Jeremiah 2: 8ff “The priests did not ask 'where is the Lord?' … the leaders rebelled against me … the prophets prophesied by Baal … on your clothes is found the lifeblood of the innocent poor ...”

Jeremiah 3: 12,13. “'Return faithless Israel', declares the Lord, 'I will frown on you no longer for I am faithful' declares the Lord. 'I will not be angry forever. Only acknowledge your guilt – you have rebelled against the Lord your God, you have scattered your favours to foreign gods under every spreading tree, and have not obeyed me'.”

Even in the midst of prophetic warning, the theme of God's compassion and mercy and his abounding in faithfulness and love shines out. Fir instance Jeremiah 23.
“Woe to the shepherds (ie the national leaders) who are destroying and scattering the sheep of my pasture. (ie the people) Because you have scattered my flock … I will bestow punishment on you for the evil you have done. I myself will gather the remnant of my flock … I will place shepherds over them who will tend them … The days are coming declares the Lord when I will raise up for David a righteous branch, a king who will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land.”


Malachi, the last and latest book in the Old Testament is mid 5th century BC. His task is to call his nation to repent. He points out they have broken their covenant with God: By offering blemished sacrifices; By divorcing their wives; By injustice and by not paying God's tithes. Also people have been speaking arrogantly against God. But some people have remained true to God. Here is a segment near the end: (4:1ff)

“'Surely the day is coming, it will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble and the day coming will set them on fire' says the Lord Almighty. 'Not a root or branch will be left to them. But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its rays. And you will go out and frolic like calves'.”

Again a God who does not let the wicked go unpunished, but shows compassion, forgiveness and constant love to the penitent and faithful.


Next Week: The Old Testament gives a consistent message but does the New Testament follow suite?


Friday 9 October 2015

Scientific test of the Bible

Lets Get Scientific About the Bible.

Western scientific method has helped transform the world. One aspect of it is forming a hypothesis and then testing that hypothesis against reality, often by using the hypothesis to predict what should happen if the hypothesis is correct and then doing the experiment to see if in fact that does happen.

Can we apply this technique to investigate the claims of the Bible?

The reason I want to use this technique to check out the Bible is this: Readers brought up in our “post Christian” era probably don't think the Bible is worth a second look. I can't blame them. Even many churches act as though it isn't ! I'll tell you two experiences of mine which illustrate this.

When I came back to Christianity in my early twenties I thought I should read some books about it. Naturally I wanted to pick ones which had something to say, so I chose ones where the author had a long string of university degrees after their name! Big mistake! The more impressive their list of academic qualifications the less they seemed to believe anything. Not the Bible, not the historic Christian faith, not that Jesus was God, not heaven ….. and so on. I ended up nearly becoming a church-going atheist! Mercifully God took a hand and got me sorted out again. But I can understand people who have been interested in Christianity and tried to find out about it and have encountered that sort of thing being convinced that there is nothing worth their while looking at there.

Many years later as an Anglican priest I went to some clergy gatherings. One incident is burned into my mind. I was discussing some point with one – who was a former Catholic priest – and I quoted some words of Jesus from John's Gospel. Quick as a flash he came back: “Oh, Jesus didn't say that! Those were just words put into “Jesus” mouth by the early Christian community who wrote 'John'.” I was so flabbergasted I couldn't answer! Anyone who has heard rubbish like that from priests and ministers (and it is a common school of thought) would undoubtedly think: “If not even religious professionals believe the Bible is anything, why should I believe it!”

Interesting aside: There is a quirky twist to this phenomenon! I have come across many, many ministers from the “liberal” end of the church spectrum who say they don't believe Jesus actually said this or that thing: but, and this is the weird bit, they obey the command just the same!

Conversely I have come across many, many ministers from the evangelical end of the spectrum who proclaim very loudly that the Bible is “The Word of God” but do not obey what it commands.

Again I have heard pentecostal platform speakers who begin by proclaiming something like “I stand on the Bible” - generally whilst flourishing a large copy over their heads. They then proceed to use it merely as a grab bag of mis-quotes to bolster a message which is the very opposite of what the Bible actually teaches from cover to cover. They have often provoked in me the thought : “If you really believed that the Bible was from God you wouldn't dare treat it like that!” Of course it is possible this sort don't actually believe in God as such, just the gods of Money, Fame and maybe their own Ego!

With this behavior is it any wonder people are skeptical of the Bible or reject religion altogether.

So in the remainder of this section I want to treat the Bible's claims as we would a scientific hypothesis and see where we get to.

For this scientific test I want to make as my starting hypothesis that there is a God who made this universe who is not some impersonal “force” but is possessed faculties such as character, will, intelligence and so forth that we humans are familiar with as constituting a “person”.

Then I want to use this hypothesis to make a prediction we can test. (of course, as in science a positive result does not prove the hypothesis, it just keeps it in play!)

So we have (in our hypothesis) that there is a God who was responsible for creating the universe, including our nicely habitable little planet. Responsible also for plant and animal life including us humans. This God is, we hypothesize, possessed of intelligence, will, and some of the other faculties we (rightly or wrongly – ask any cat or dog lover!) say distinguish humans as a higher form of life from other animals.

What could we predict?

Well. I think one fair prediction is that this God would want to communicate with the intelligent life forms they had created – especially the highest: humans.

1. Given we suppose God is at the very least as intelligent as we are, they would not want to “reinvent the wheel” so to speak for every generation. So once these humans had writing I would predict that God would have some people they interacted with write down useful information for succeeding generations.

2. Given that even us humans know messages need to be transmitted more than once to ensure accuracy I would predict multiple, different-but-saying-the-same-thing documents. On this, every parent knows they have to repeat instructions several times! Every teacher knows that different students learn best in different ways (visual, auditory, tactile, conceptual, concrete example, and so on) so that they repeat the thing they want to teach over and over in different forms to get through to the different styles of learning. Communications engineers have long practiced multiple sampling to improve reliability. So I would be looking for, not just one writer's work but a compendium of many different authors using many different styles and approaches but giving a consistent content.

3. I would also expect God to know that there are many human languages, and that language changes over time. So I would expect this communication to be robust enough that it can be translated without losing the essential points. I would also expect a conscientious God to preserve at least either near-to-the-original documents or a relatively robust “chain of custody” of documents in their original languages so that translators and readers can be confident they have “the real thing”.

4. Given that even we humans know that stories are very effective teaching tools – they say even very young children are adept at appropriating the “moral” from a story. I would expect this compendium to include lots of stories. Both since, as the saying goes, truth is often stranger than fiction and because an account of something that really happened and the good or bad result that followed is much more persuasive that a made-up story: I would expect a lot of these stories to be real-life events.

So is there anything which fits this prediction?

There are in the world lots of religions, but once we start looking for a written compendium which at least claims to be a record of God (or the gods) communicating with the human race, the list thins out!

The Qur'an of course claims this, but only has a singly author: Mohamed. I realize that there are millions of Muslims who devoutly believe he was The Prophet, however for the reasons given above, I would respectfully dismiss its claims if I found something which better fulfilled the hypothesis existed.

The Bible: how does it stack up?

1. The claim to be God communicating with humans.

The books of the various prophets in the old Testament – 16 or so – make this claim the most boldly. They claim that what they had recorded was messages from God. Often the individual message-bites contain “this is what YHWH says” or even use first person speech by God.

Just one example: Malachi begins: “A prophecy: the word of YHWH to Israel through Malachi.

Come to the New Testament: Jesus is the key figure, what does he claim? Of course he claims to be God. But for his teachings he claims firstly that it is exactly what God said through the Old Testament prophets. He even quotes a passage from Genesis and prefaces it “God said ...” Secondly he claims his teaching has God-the-Father's authority:
eg John 12:49 “For I did not speak on my own, but the Father who sent me commanded me to say all that I have spoken.

The New Testament letters re-iterate the claims of the Old made by the Old
eg 2 Peter 1:20 “Above all you must understand that no prophecy of scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation of things, for prophecy never had its origin in the human will but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

Revelation begins: “The revelation from Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who testifies to everything he saw...

This is only the briefest of sketches, there is much much more where these examples came from! However it is sufficient I hope to illustrate that what we call the Bible – an anthology of 66 “books” by many different authors spanning from the 14th century B.C. to the 1st possibly 2nd century A.D. and incorporating material for maybe as early as 25th century B.C. definitely makes the claim to be God creating a repository of communications with the human race.

Next I will look at whether this anthology gives consistent teaching over the 66 books, numerous authors and time span of more than 1,400 years.


Friday 2 October 2015

False Argument 2 : the Problem of Evil

This overlaps the previous argument, so for different perspective I am posting an article one of my sons wrote back in '05.

 
David Alexander Greentree - October 2005

"Yes, but what about the problem of evil?" asks the wizened old atheist to the pink faced young Christian, clutching a bible under his arm. 
 
"What's the problem of evil?" the young man asks in a quavering voice, sweating under the piercing gaze. 
 
"Ah..." says the old man and so he beings his demonstration of why no serious intellectual could believe in the existence of God……….

I don't mind people not believing in God. I really feel it is up to each one of us to make our own way through life as best we can, perhaps sharing some little discovery with our friends as we go. I don't even really mind proselytisers of other religions, and believe you me, atheism is a religion. 

What I object to is people getting on their high-horse and making other people feel stupid for believing something which is not actually stupid. Just because one is cleverer than another does not make one correct. Cleverer people merely find cleverer lies to believe.

But so as to demonstrate my good faith, I will here outline the best version of the "Problem of Evil" argument that I know of, and do my best to demonstrate why a bible believing Christian should not feel particularly threatened by it.

As a precursor, I feel it only fair to say that it is infinitely more difficult to prove something does not exist than to prove it does. For example, to prove there is a needle in a haystack, one has only to find the needle. To prove it does not exist, one has to go over the entire haystack and prove that every single strand of hay there is not, in fact, a needle in disguise. 
 
That is why there are quite a number of really quite good arguments for the existence of God (although they may not be as water-tight as philosophers like). But there are very few arguments against the existence of God. Some people appear to be under the misapprehension that Science disproves the existence of God, or Christianity in general. This is most certainly not the case. 
 
The Problem Of Evil argument does not try to actually disprove any god exists, but rather it attempts to find a flaw with the nature of God as believed by Christians. 

The argument goes something like this:

1. God is all good, so he must hate evil.
2. God is all powerful, so he can do whatever he likes.
C1. Therefore God will stop evil.
3. There is much evil in the world.
C2. Therefore God has not stopped evil.
C3. Therefore an all good, all powerful God does not exist.

Well, I am perfectly willing to concede that there is a lot of evil in the world. One only has to read a newspaper to know that! And I do thoroughly believe God hates evil. But I think there is an inescapable flaw in premises 2, that God is all-powerful in the sense that he can do anything.

For example: A triangle has three sides, and a square has four sides. God can make a triangle, and God can make a square. However God cannot make a triangle with four sides, because it's not a triangle, it's a square. God can do the difficult. God can do the complex. God can do things requiring an infinite amount of energy and calculation, such as create a universe. God can do the seemingly impossible like make sentient moral beings. But he cannot do the logically contradictory!

But that does not mean that destroying evil is inherently self-contradictory. The Bible speaks of a day, Judgement Day in fact, when God will destroy evil. So a bionically based Christian will maintain that it is not a matter of if God will destroy evil, but a matter of when. 
 
Nevertheless, the perceptive atheist will argue that a good God should hate evil absolutely and not tolerate evil even for a moment.
I agree: God does hate evil absolutely, but let us examine for a moment the consequences if God did eliminate evil, entirely, right now. 
 
One cannot simply "eliminate evil". "Evil" after all is merely a concept. To eliminate evil, one would need to eliminate all the agents that perpetrate evil. It is acts of evil perpetrated by agents that must be the object of God's hatred. 
 
Now if one believes in the Devil, then one gives a little cheer and thinks to one's self "Won't the world be a better place now the Devil is gone!" And I certainly agree that it would be a better place, but not yet a perfect place, not entirely free of evil. Because although I agree that non-human forces may well be the major agents of evil in the world, I see in most of humanity, including myself, a certain complicity. 
 
Now for some humans, the complicity is very clear. Satanic cults that make human sacrifices or Adolf Hitler perhaps, seem quite active and willing servants of evil. And no doubt God is definitely going to have to destroy people like that. But when one considers, that if God is all good, anyone not 100% on his team is going to be proportionally on the devils team. Good and evil really are bi-polar. Many of us live in the comfortable fantasy that we are somehow "in the middle" or "on our own team". But really, if one is only 50% for God, then one is in fact about 50% for the devil. If one was even 99% for God, one would still be 1% for the devil. And if God needs to destroy ALL perpetrators of evil to eliminate evil, I'm afraid this is going to have some rather disastrous effects on the human race, as I think none of us can really claim to be 100% on God's side. 
 
So if God is happy not to eliminate evil just yet, let's not be too hasty in urging him on.

But again my perceptive atheist friend notes, “why did God create evil in the first place?” 
Well obviously, God did not create evil. A wholly good God would do nothing of the kind. 
"Aha!" Cries my atheist friend," So God is either not wholly good, or not all-powerful". Well, hold on a minute.

God did not create evil. But he may have created something with the potential to become evil. But why would God do such a thing?

I agree that God must hate evil absolutely, but imagine for a moment there is something God loves absolutely. Hold that thought for a moment.

I said earlier that God could not create a 4 sided triangle, because it is logically contradictory. Being a triangle implies that you have 3 sides, not 4.
Well, imagine this for a moment:

1. God wanted a creature with the property A,
2. but in order to create A, God had to give the creature the property B,
3. and that property B was capable of creating either property A or evil
 
Property A would have to be something God loved absolutely to balance his hatred of evil. And it would have to be something that could not be obtained any other way. 

This would then explain why God would tolerate evil for a time; He would not eliminate evil until he had succeeded in cultivating A.

Now that alone gives us grounds to dismiss the Problem of Evil argument. God could have reasons to allow evil to exist
 
But while logically adequate, I realize this explanation is not emotionally sufficient to allow us to deal with the evil we see in this world. So I will move into a slightly more speculative area and try and demonstrate what I think these properties that are so highly prized by God might be.

Now our intermediate property B is something that is able to create evil, or property A which is something intrinsically desired by God. 
 
Yet property is B itself is not evil, because God cannot create evil. 
 
I can only think that B must be free will, or choice. 
 
God creates creatures with choice. These creatures can chose to become evil, or develop this other property A, and A is so valuable to God that he will tolerate evil to achieve it. Well, some might say no property in humans could be so valuable that God would allow evil to flourish. But imagine for a moment that Love is only possible through choice. 
 
I don't think I can demonstrate this deductively, but it seems very intuitive to me. Love must be based on a choice. Love springs from a free will. And for someone who disagrees that Love requires choice, I can only ask what you think the difference is between loving sex and rape? 
 
I think essentially God cannot create a creature that loves without giving them choice any more than he can create a four sided triangle. I think choice is a necessary pre-requisite of Love. 
 
However, choice implies that there are different objects to choose between. If Love is one of them, then Evil would surely be the other option. So the only way God can create creatures who love, is to give them choice, and allow that some of them will choose evil and have to be terminated eventually, as defective. But those that make the correct choice would then become unified with God in a most wonderful relationship. 
 
But what does that say about this world? Is this world nothing more than a testing ground, where some of us will choose Love and some of us will choose Evil? And is God so callous that he would just delete form the subject group those specimens who failed his test? 
 
I think first of all we have to work on the assumption that this all good God does not wish to "delete" any of the objects of his creation. However, think for a moment of that supposed being, the Devil. One must allow that some creatures may have become irredeemably evil. 
 
While some people may not think it scientific to believe in the Devil in this day and age, I must say, I find his existence to be a marvellous comfort. When I see some of the absolutely horrendous things that humans are capable of, such I would not like even to describe, I can only hope that it was not us humans who invented evil. Sometimes when one reads news from dark anarchic countries, one wonders if humanity is worth saving. 
 
But there is an old fable about a man and woman in a garden, and they did not do evil things. They lived at peace, until one day a serpent, an age old symbol of the Devil, tempted them to eat an apple…and we discovered then what Good and Evil were, because up till then we had only known Good. And thinking we had become wise, we had only in fact become corrupted, less than we had been in our naivety. But we did not begin it. Our first act of "evil" was more foolishness than anything else. No, it comforts me a great deal to think that although humans do evil, we did not invent it. It gives me hope that we may be redeemable.

Such a being as that, a Devil who could create evil and corrupt the innocent, surely such a being should surely be deleted. But humans, all of us some good and some bad; I hold out hope for us. But let us return to our all-good, all-powerful God who will soon delete all agents of evil.
Now if God were only able to save those humans who had passed his test with 100%, few, if any of us, would pass. In our own petty ways, I am sure all of us have at one time or another contributed to the sum total of pain, misery and/or evil in the world. But I can not imagine an all-good, all-powerful God to be so thoroughly defeated in his aim to produce loving creatures.

Well, how would he go about turning mixed results, like most of us have, some good, some bad, into pass results? 
 
I think it quite possible for God to correct our human nature so that we do not feel the compulsion to do evil. But that would require him to override our ability to choose. That is to say, in order to make us "pass-worthy", God has to ensure that we will never again become agents of Evil. But that requires the removal of choice. If we have not yet chosen Love, then removal of that choice would not make us pass-material. So God is still held by his original problem of our choice. 
 
I sincerely believe all God needs to make us pass-worthy is one sincere choice of Love from us, coupled with a willingness to be transformed. Then, after we have chosen love, he can remove our ability to chose evil without invalidating his "experiment" and we can become wholly good.

Now love for another human is terribly complicated. It all gets very hormonal, and I don't know if that would be sufficient for God to work with, but perhaps one sincere act of love, such as dying to save another, would give God enough to consider the experiment successful. But I think in the general case, to really be able to close the book and say "this humans passes", I think we need to demonstrate love towards God in a pure, un-hormonal and simple form. But how does one go about that? Hold that thought, too.

As I said, this one choice on our behalf is all we need to do, but I do see some complications on God's side. One of the oldest names of the Devil in fairytales is "the Accuser". Let us assume for a moment that such a being of age old malevolence and famed cunning exists, at every moment trying to thwart the plans of God. Now this being is altogether Evil and totally irredeemable. This being is without doubt going to be deleted from the sample, and perhaps even knows this. 
 
Now when God takes a human, some good, some bad, and awards them a pass mark on the basis of a single decision, I can only imagine this Devil would wish to call this into question. This Devil would remind God, as if God could forget, that this human had been an agent of Evil. Although now this person might be committed now to never again being an agent of evil, at some time in the past they were an agent of evil, and God ought to have destroyed him or her at that point. In fact the old atheist was correct; an all-good god ought to destroy evil on its first appearance. Deletion can be delayed, but can God undo a judgement that has already been made?

Now I am most pleased to report that I believe God has found an answer to the Devil's accusations.
It is incredibly difficult, if not impossible for our finite minds to comprehend the workings of an all-good, all-powerful God's mind, so I shall not try. But an image comes to me that I shall share, because perhaps it gives us the smallest peek into invisible realms. 
 
Imagine the Devil standing in front of God, already shackled with the chains of the condemned. And behind him stand all of humanity. And the Devil says to God,

"You wish to condemn me for being an agent of evil. But you cannot. You must release me. All these humans also were co-conspirators with me. If you destroy me, you will have to destroy all of them. Release me, and I will let them live."

But God shakes his head and replies in a voice booming like thunder
"I will not release you." For God knows that if the Devil were released, Evil would never cease. The Devil trembles at the sound of that voice, but looks up defiant and says,

"If you destroy me, all these whom you love you have to destroy as well. They were also agents of evil. You know this is true. You cannot judge me for being an agent of evil. Release me."
But at that moment the vast crowds of humanity part, and a young man walks forward. He has dark hair and a close cropped beard. His eyes are a lively brown and he laughs. The whole crowds shivers with expectation to hear him speak. Blood still stains his wrists and head. As he walks forward towards God, he grows in stature, the mangled purple flesh of his wounds transforming into golden scars in healthy flesh. He bows to God, and God bows back, and God says,
"Behold, my son. He was never an agent of evil, but yet you killed him. I pronounce amnesty for all agents of evil, save those who killed my son. They will die for that."

The Devil screams with rage and cries,
"You cannot forgive them! You must be fair. You must release me to!"

And God looks at him with a gaze that makes the Devil wither. But God does not reply in deafening tones. Instead he smiles and says,
"I forget, Devil. Did you kill my son?"

And the Devil falls down flat on his face and grates out,
"But so did they. They killed your son, too."

And God turns to his Son, the man Jesus, and says,
"Do you want justice against your killers?"
And Jesus shakes his head and says,
"Not all of them. Only this one, the Devil."

And the Devil is lead away to the place of his execution. But of the humans who remain, what of them? 

Well, all I can say is this: are you the sort of person who would have cheered when Jesus was killed? Many people there did. They were the proud, the arrogant, the powerful and the rich. They could not even make one choice to Love God when they saw him, they could not submit to be changed into something good. They chose the freedom to do evil, because not all freedom is good. I do not know what fate they will receive. 

But do not you be one of them. Make your choice now that you would have wept to see God killed. Make the choice now to surrender your freedom to do evil. 
 
For I know that whoever calls on the name of Jesus will be saved.