This passage is one of my favorites about Jesus. If you haven’t read it lately, I’d recommend it. It has Jesus speaking at length to the Pharisees about who he is. You can’t say Jesus did not try to make them understand. I think Jesus’ deity is clear from this passage, especially taken together with the miracles he did. The Pharisees seemed to be mystified about who Jesus was. They just couldn’t understand what he was saying about himself. It brings up something it took me a long time to realize about people. As a former teacher this seems like a really important thing about human nature that you are not taught in education courses. One of the reasons people may not understand something is simply that they don’t believe it, because they don’t want to believe it. Or they may not believe the person who says it. Not believing the truth blocks the understanding. Or perhaps you could say that the rejection of the truth in the will can block the mind. This is especially true in spiritual things.

Jesus was not speaking of himself and God the way prophets of the past had. He was claiming more about himself. The Old Testament prophets might have said something like “God is the light of the world” or maybe “Israel is the light of the world.” But Jesus said HE was the light of the world. No Old Testament prophet would have dared say “I am the light of the world.” The Pharisees criticized Jesus for acting like his own witness (see vv 14-18). So they were treating him like he was on trial and that his testimony would not be admissible evidence because it required someone else speaking for him. Jesus, being God and being sinless, could not call any other human being to be his defense. No other human being was worthy to be a witness for him really. So he called God the Father as his witness. He also pointed out that even if he did speak for himself and judge, it would be right. Jesus was without sin, after all. So who was qualified to accuse him? No one.

Jesus then points out how lost and confused the Pharisees really were. They did not comprehend their own spiritual condition. They seemed unable to face their own sin problem. The first way Jesus tried to communicate their lostness was in speaking about God as his Father. Jesus emphasized that the Pharisees did not know his Father. They thought they did, they knew something of the events surrounding Jesus’ birth I suspect. They didn’t understand he was speaking of God as his Father. Then he told them that he would go away and that where he was going, they could not come. Jesus spoke plainly to them that if they did not believe in who he was, they would die in their sin (v 24). This is the same quandry people are in today. They don’t realize that their eternal destiny depends on who they believe Jesus is. I think Jesus, without saying it explicitly, was clearly implying that he was the Messiah that the Jews hoped for. But the Jewish religious leaders generally wouldn’t consider this. There are times when people who do not believe the truth actually do know it inside but they will not admit it or accept it. I suspect that is what Jesus referred to regarding his death, when he said that “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me (ESV).” Saying “lifted up” is likely a reference to crucifixion. But people are responsible for what they are able to know about God. Knowledge of God comes with responsibility, even if you reject it.

Then Jesus said the most wonderful thing that is a great encouragement to Christians! “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free (John 8:31-32, ESV).” But his audience here was apparently primarily the Pharisees. The Pharisees had great knowledge of God’s word. Some of them may have been able to recite it at length. But that was not enough because they did not really accept and believe it. They did not really trust in the truth of God’s word, though they knew it. Their hearts and motives were not right and they had not really faced their own sin problem. They had not made it personal. The Pharisees failure to understand their sin problem is shown by their response to this statement from Jesus. They said (v 33) “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?” Then Jesus spelled out the sin problem everyone has so even the Pharisees should be able to understand. He told them “everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.” Then he essentially told them He was able to change them from being a slave to being like a son in the Father’s house. The Son could set the slave free. That is what Jesus does for us.

Then Jesus goes on to tear down the thing they were trusting in to be right with God. They were children of Abraham. They were biological descendents of Abraham, but that was not enough. Jesus confronted them with their desire to kill him and pointed out that Abraham would not have done that. So even on the level of being Abraham’s “children” they fell short because they were guilty of something Abraham would not have done. At this point the Pharisees attempt to “escalate” the argument by attacking Jesus’ birth and parentage. This would be a scandalous thing in Jewish society to bring up. They claimed he was born of sexual immorality, probably assuming Mary was raped by a Roman soldier or something. They then go farther and claim God as their father. Jesus then points out that if God were their father they would love Him also, instead of wanting to kill him. Their hatred of Jesus speaks volumes. Jesus also escalates in response to them by saying that the Pharisees were of the devil and they were trying to do the will of the devil. Jesus goes on to say they were not of God. So they accused him of being demon possessed (a preposterous claim to make about Jesus). Then Jesus goes on to talk about Abraham being glad to see the day Jesus’ came. This reflects knowledge of the spirit realm apparently, something no one else could claim. Then Jesus makes the statement that made the Pharisees want to stone him, he said “Truly, Truly, before Abraham was, I am (v 58).” This statement implies Jesus existed before he was born as a baby, in eternity past. Furthermore, in this statement he uses the name God told Moses to refer to him with in speaking to the Israelites in Egypt, “I AM.” So in this Jesus is implying he is equal with God. Thus the Jewish leaders thought him guilty of blasphemy and worthy of death.

Jesus’ life and statements about himself do not make sense unless he was both fully God and fully man. As C. S. Lewis pointed out, you have to decide is Jesus a liar, a lunatic, or Lord. He didn’t act like a liar and he was too good and sensible to be a lunatic. I say he was and is Lord.

Recently a movement in some Christian circles is saying that the Bible is not literally true regarding Adam and Eve. People are doubting 1) that Adam and Eve were the first man and woman, 2) that the Bible is literally accurate in what it says about Adam and Eve, and 3) that the whole human race descended from one couple. So there are various “alternatives” to believing Genesis that have been put forward.

One way is to take the early chapters of Genesis as mythological or allegorical. This is a very convenient copout because it means you can ignore the details of the text and take the meaning to be whatever symbolic concept seems convenient. From this kind of approach, different people may get different applications from the text and you would not expect there to be complete agreement between various Scripture passages about Adam and Eve, because none of them are taken as historical anyway. Indeed this is sometimes how scholars approach many things in the Old Testament since they have trouble believing the miracles and they question the historicity of much of the Old Testament. I think this whole approach is a serious mistake and that it mishandles God’s word. God revealed Truth to mankind using language and so we can do better than this sloppy approach.

The new challenge to believing in a real Adam and Eve comes from evolutionary genetics research. The idea goes something like this. Modern homo sapiens, according to evolution, did not all arrive at all our modern characteristics from one couple. It took a sizable population of maybe at least 10,000 so that some characteristics came from some and some from others. The evolutionists are hoping in chance, numbers, and time to provide the right combination of traits in our genome to make ape-man intermediates into humans. They do not allow for the possibility of God miraculously creating the first man and woman by design. With miraculous creation as Genesis 2 describes, there is no need for a sizable population at the start. Rather, the consequence of the Genesis record is that humans were created with an initially perfect genome, without mutations and with plenty of variability for what humans needed all built-in from the start. Then over the course of history, humans lost genetic information in the genome. With initially long life spans about 10 times that of us today, every married couple could have many kids with a variety of characteristics. Then there was a genetic bottleneck at the time of Noah’s Flood because the human population was reduced to 8 people. This is not just a story, according to Genesis, or even according to Jesus or the Apostle Paul. This is our history, our genesis, if you will. This does have implications for genetics and there is new evidence that this explains some aspects of human genetics beautifully.

So, another view that has been proposed on Adam and Eve is that long ago perhaps 2 million years ago there were some neolithic primative people who were farmers. God chose a pair of them to know him in a personal way. This pair of chosen primatives and their descendants have been called Homo Divinus. (You can laugh at this point if you want to.) These would have been anatomically modern humans but were very ignorant until God called them. So God developed a relationship with certain individuals as his chosen people among the many primatives. They learned and developed somehow with God’s help into more enlightened and capable people who had a faith similar to the ancient Jews. This may be a quaint idea but it will not make sense in a Christian world view.

I’d recommend reading the following blog entry commenting on this Homo Divinus idea by a well known evolutionary scientist, Jerry Coyne. CLICK TO GO TO Jerry Coyne is a well known scientist from the University of Chicago, from the department of Ecology and Evolution. Coyne has a number of very valid criticisms of this idea that I agree with. But there is another way of looking at the genetics that apparently Dr. Coyne does not know or accept. The evidence does not disprove the Bible. Scientists have learned wrong ways of approaching the problems. Science has to be rethought regarding origins and history. There is progress in this by young age creationists who have found they don’t have to turn to illogical ideas like the above to deal with the evidence. See this article by Robert Carter for a taste of this.
Dr. Coyne made an interesting point about the Homo Divinus idea above, “Of course there’s still a historical problem here: how did this pair of annointed farmers bring the curse of sin on humanity by contravening God’s will?” Dr. Coyne seems to reject Genesis altogether, but he raises a good point. Without a literal Adam and Eve, there is no explanation for what went wrong with the human race to make us need a savior!

Scripture is clear in teaching that Adam and Eve were real people. We cannot give up on the early chapters of Genesis about Adam & Eve, the Fall, and the Flood. First of all, if Adam was not a real person, why does Genesis 5 give his age? Also, who was Seth and Cain? 1 Chronicles 1 also lists Adam in the longest geneology in the Bible, thus implying he was a real person. Hosea 6:7 also mentions Adam. The New Testament mentions Adam even more than the Old Testament. In Luke 3:38 Adam is listed in Jesus’ geneology. In Romans 5:14 Adam is mentioned in the same sentence with Moses. Do we also question the existence of Moses? The Apostle Paul refers to Adam explicitly as the “first man” in 1 Corinthians 15 and in 1 Timothy 2:13 Paul says Adam was formed first, then Eve. So clearly the Apostle Paul accepted Genesis literally about Adam and Eve. Furthermore, there is no way you can make the creation of Adam and Eve from Genesis 2 agree with evolution.

We must resist Christian scholars or Christian scientists who confuse other Christians by questioning the early chapters of Genesis. The Bible hangs together logically and it is more certain and more authoritative than science. We can believe what it says, because God is able to do as He says.

One of my favorite books in the Old Testament is Ecclesiastes, written by King Solomon of ancient Israel.  Solomon was well known in the ancient world for his wisdom and his riches.  But when his sons took over the kingdom after him, the kingdom of Israel split into two nations and went downhill dramatically.  Following are some of my thoughts on the book of Ecclesiastes.  If you haven’t read it, give it a read.  It is a book sometimes misunderstood I think.

How interesting that a book of the Bible should start out with the words, “Meaningless, meaningless, . . . everything is meaningless (Eccl. 1:2).”  The book of Ecclesiastes is a very thought-provoking book.  It is written I think from the perspective of Solomon, who, late in his life, was looking back with some regrets.  I suspect he was trying to write something to get through to people with a sort of secular mindset.  Late in the life of Solomon was a bad time in the history of Israel.  After Solomon’s sons grew up the kingdom split into Northern and Southern kingdoms under their leadership.  Solomon’s sons did not lead the nation to follow God.  I suspect Solomon looked with angst on what was happening to the nation and to the lives of his sons.  So, Solomon wrote something that you might think of as preevangelism, something intended to get the reader to think about the meaning of life.  Ecclesiastes makes you think about what you’re living for and what really makes life worth living.  It seems to me Solomon sort of switches perspectives sometimes throughout the book, sometimes writing from the “secular” or unbelieving mindset, and sometimes from the believing mindset.  Thus, Ecclesiastes makes its points in sometimes subtle ways.  If you don’t see what it is implying about God it can seem like a depressing read.  Especially the first two chapters.  But there is a good and encouraging message from Ecclesiastes.

Chapter 1 in verse 9 has the well known verse saying “there is nothing new under the sun.”  It mentions the various cycles of life in nature and the fact the man sort of goes through an endless repetitive routine in living his life.  When you view it on this level and consider only the material side of life, it can appear very empty and futile.  I think Ecclesiastes should be viewed similar to the Proverbs.  There are statements in Proverbs that should not be taken as absolutely true in all circumstances, but they are generally true in many cases.  It is making generalizations that are not intended as absolute statements that apply to all people everywhere all the time.  (Not everything in the Bible can be taken this way, but Proverbs and Ecclesiastes can be.)  Then there are other types of statements in Ecclesiastes that are expressions of feeling about how life seems, not meant to be taken as actual fact about the world.   Thus, in understanding Ecclesiastes we must understand it is making generalizations from a particular perspective.  Also, because it changes perspective, almost like changing worldviews, it looks at life in different ways in turn.

In the end of chapter 1 and on into chapter 2 Solomon comments about how even seeking wisdom and knowledge as well as seeking pleasure can seem meaningless.  In understanding the injustices of life and all the ways that life falls short of what it should be, there is sorrow.  This may be what Solomon implied in 1:18, “with much wisdom comes much sorrow.”  Yet seeking pleasure and having everything a man’s heart desires doesn’t satisfy either.  Chapter 2 verse 17 says Solomon hated life!  Solomon was fantastically rich and had owned everything and done everything a man could ask for.  In 2:2 Solomon says laughter is foolish and asks “what does pleasure accomplish?“  Even accomplishing great building projects did not satisfy.  The thing that is missing is a spiritual element that will be hinted at in later chapters of Ecclesiastes.  Solomon eventually comes to the conclusion that what makes life meaningful is to accept the good things given to us by God and live a life of obedience to Him (see Ecclesiastes 12:13-14).

In some sections of Ecclesiastes Solomon looks at things from a kind of cynical angle that is very centered on only this life, as if our Earthly existence is all there is.  And the way he describes life in those sections does not seem to acknowledge God but treats earthly life as if God doesn’t really have relevance.  But in other sections he acknowledges God and does treat life as if God is relevant and as if there is more to life than what we sense in this life.  Chapter 3 of Ecclesiastes is like this.  3:1 starts out “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven.”  Who’s perspective is this?  Does this make sense from a human perspective?  I don’t think so.  Continuing on to verse 10 it describes the burden God has laid on men.  Then in v 11 it says He (God) has “made everything beautiful in its time.”  This is suggesting God’s providential purpose in events that seem mystifying to us.  So, when it refers to “a time for everything“, or “a time for . . . ” particular things, I think the real point is that there is a purpose in all kinds of things in life.  Both the good and the bad things that people do are wrapped into God’s providential purpose for history.  God has “set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done . . . .(Eccl. 3:11)“  Sometimes people have taken this list of “a time for ” this and that to be a sort of implication that everything is ok, as if there is no right and wrong.  But verses 2-8 do not deny right and wrong.  Man has a burden of responsibility to do what’s right even though all types of things will happen around us which God allows.  We have responsibiltiy, but God is still sovereign.  This chapter is I think Solomon presenting the wonder of God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility in comparison and contrast.  Verses 15 and 17 also both mention accountability to God as the judge of men.  So Solomon says the best you can do in this life is to enjoy the work God has given you and live life acknowledging Him.  Why does God want men (3:18-19) to realize that they are like the animals, that they have the same material fate as the animals?  Verse 21 sounds like a statement that an agnostic would make.  (I was once an agnostic.)  It’s like saying “who knows what happens after you die?”  I think this is a way of saying God wants people to see beyond our material life and realize this life does matter.  That we are not just animals and there is something eternal that matters for us.

Chapter 5 seems to be about having a healthy attitude toward possessions, money, and government.  The pursuit of material possessions and riches is an empty thing.  The more you have the more you want, unless you learn to have contentment with what you have.  If you have more money, you spend more and so people have a tendancy to run out of money however much they make.  We must learn to stop the spiraling pursuit before it destroys us.  Who sleeps better, the one who engages in hard physical labor but only has enough to live or the rich person, who has all kinds of things they have dreamed of having?  It is often the poor laborer who sleeps better and has more peace.  When you have less you learn contentment better.  The answer to the emptiness of the material pursuit is to appreciate what you have as a gift from God.  Thus, Solomon says “when God gives any man wealth and possessions, and enables him to enjoy them, to accept his lot and be happy in his work—this is a gift of God. He seldom reflects on the days of his life, because God keeps him occupied with gladness of heart. (Eccl. 5:19) ”  Be content with what you have.  How long did it take Solomon to learn this?  A lifetime apparently.

Ecclesiastes is written to help people ask spiritual questions about what life is all about.

My blog has been in existence now for about two and a half weeks.  Any kind of blog system or discussion forum system is automatically found by automated software on the web that looks for places to try and create fake links to another page.  They are fake because they create comments that are not from real users.  Someone is starting some webpage for something and they want to make search engines rank their page higher.  Links from other sites to your website do help search engines find your site.  My website does not get a lot of traffic but I do get referrals from some other creationism related websites that have links to it.  In the years I’ve had my website, search engines have found my site via traffic linking people to my site, and the various articles with my name on other creation ministry websites.  I can’t remember any case where I asked for such a link on another site, though I’m not positive.  I certainly did not go all over the internet creating bogus links to my site just to promote it.  This was slowly accomplished over time.  So most of my traffic on my website, and requests to my newsletter, are real people.  People have referred their friends to my site or my newsletter.  I hope the same happens with this blog.

In the short time my blog has existed there has been so far 16 fake comments that some persons or programs have tried to post to my site just to make a link to their site.  Their hope is that people reading my site will see the fake posts and click the link out of curiosity.  But I have installed a system on my site called Akismet that prevents comment spam.  So far it’s working pretty well.  I can tell the fakes from the real readers, so far.  So the fake comments haven’t been seen on the blog.

All this makes me think of Jesus’ parable of the weeds in Matthew 13:24-30.  Here’s the beginning of this from the NIV Bible (1984).   “Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. ²⁵ But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat ….”  

This is like comment spam.  I put what I hope is worthwhile posts on my blog hoping that it will help some who read it.  But there is more traffic from the fakes so far than from real readers.  But I will delete the spam (the weeds).  Operating a blog means you have to deal with the weeds some so that real readers can have something to read.  In Jesus’ parable, the weeds are left until the end of history when Jesus returns.  Jesus will send angels to get rid of the weeds so the righteous can live in peace.  Jesus has the right to do this because of who he is and what he has done.  The righteous in the parable are referred to as the wheat.  The seed of the truth of the gospel is spread abroad among both weeds and wheat.  The weeds and wheat both grow for a time.  Some weeds look a lot like wheat (I know this because I grew up in Kansas).  Some may have trouble telling the difference between weeds and wheat, at least when you look from a distance.  But the God who sows the message knows the difference between the real believers and the fakes.  One good thing is that it is possible for weeds to become wheat in real life!  A nonbeliever can become a believer.  Jesus has been making this kind of metamorphosis in human lives for a long time now. 

 
Just a little update on this post. It’s now March 17, 2012 and there are 33 fake comments I’ve received since this post. More weeds with the wheat. Sending them to binary oblivion.

Wayne Spencer