Believing Unbelievable Things

I ran across YouTube video the other day showing a visit to the Ark Encounter in Kentucky.

The person on the video describes the Ark Encounter as a “recreation of a fictional Bible story”. So, you know his perspective right from the jump.

He is next shown interviewing a couple asking them to confirm what he is reading on the sign in front of him stating that Noah was 600-years old when he built it.

His question is simple: “How was Noah able to live that long when we’re barely able to live to 100 nowadays?” An honest answer is given by a woman standing by, but his feigned fascination continues as he says, “It really is a truly unbelievable story, that should not be believed.”

And that’s the point of the video. Don’t believe the biblical story about Noah and his ark, because it’s unbelievable.

The interesting thing about the video is that it’s set up as if it’s coming from a very reasonable person who just wants the best for others. And, honestly, that could very well be the truth. I don’t know this guy. His motivation could be that pure.

So, being that that may be the case, my intention with this short article is not to poke holes in his motivation for the video; instead, I’d like to push back against the idea he sets forth about believing unbelievable things.

Christians are in a peculiar spot here. In one sense, the guy in the video is not that far off from what we actually think. It does seem unbelievable that 1) Noah lived hundreds of years, and 2) he built an ark that held his family, countless animals, and survived a worldwide flood. The amazing this is—and, here, this might be news to the gentleman in the YouTube video—this isn’t the most unbelievable thing we believe.

You see, Christians all over the world believe a person born in the first-century went around teaching and preaching about the Kingdom of God. This person ate with the outcasts, argued with religious experts and zealots, got his hands dirty helping the poor, and healed many, many people—driving out demons, giving sight to the blind, and once bringing a friend back from the dead.

On one occasion he went to a wedding and, after they had run out of wine, he even turned something like 150-gallons of water into wine. Then some time later, as he was traveling around, a large group of people (probably somewhere around 10,000 to 12,000) were following him. Because they had been with him so long, he couldn’t just send them home, because they were hungry—they wouldn’t make it. So, he fed all of them with food that wouldn’t have been enough to feed 10 people. And, more than that, he did it again—but, this time feeding closer to 8,000 or 10,000 folks.

Christians also believe this person was so locked in to the storyline of the Hebrew Scriptures (where that pesky Noah’s ark story is found) that he was claiming to be the fulfillment of everything it was pointing to. He even climbed up a small mountain to explain to those who were following him how he was offering a fresh and life-giving interpretation of the Old Covenant. Not stopping there, he actually claimed to be ushering in the New Covenant—that same New Covenant written about in Jeremiah 31.

This person invited people to follow him and he called them his disciples. Specifically, he picked 12 and did this intentionally to show those around him that something new was happening that took its cues from the Israelite tribes of old. These 12 disciples were then tasked with following their teacher so that they could do what he did. In fact, he told them that they would do even greater things than he did.

Not only that, but Christians for over 2,000-years have believed that this first-century, itinerant, miracle working, preacher was crucified by the Roman government under trumped up charges brought about by the religious leaders of his day. They believe that he was nailed to a cross and died as a lot of his followers abandoned him.

Lastly, and most unbelievably of all, Christians believe that this person who had died and was placed in a tomb for several days, was not found one early morning because he had risen from the dead. They don’t believe his body was stolen; they believe that he was once dead and then he was alive again, never to die—forever. We actually go so far as to believe that this dying and rising from the dead is the foundation for everything else we believe. If this didn’t happen, if Jesus didn’t actually rise from the dead, if he isn’t really alive right now, then our faith is in vain and we are, of all people, most to be pitied.

Christians have spent their lives believing unbelievable things.

And, to be honest, a 600-year-old Noah building an ark, doesn’t even come close to being one of the more unbelievable things we believe.

A Moment on the Scriptures: The Theology of Christmas (9)

Systematic theology is all over the ancient creeds and confessions of the early Christian church and here, with the Athanasian creed, as it discusses the unity of the person of Jesus, it’s as dense as it gets.

The creed reads: He is one, certainly not by the blending of his essence, but by the unity of his person. 

That which made the Son of God, the Son of God, did not change during the incarnation. We saw that much in the previous statement, and through the words of Paul in Philippians 2. Instead of the Son of God being changed by becoming a human being, he took upon himself humanity and, thus, remained as he was and always had been: the Son of God from all eternity.

This truth leaves us with the wonderfully complex and mystifying reality that Jesus Christ, is one within himself while being God and man. There is no hint of a complex unity of persons like there is within the godhead (see Genesis 1:26: then God said, “Let us make man in our image.”). 

There is not a fractured existence with Jesus where his divinity and humanity are fighting it out with one another. As we saw before, Jesus is truly and completely God while, through his incarnation, being truly and completely man.

In the one person of Jesus—the Son of God—there is unity. There is unity between the natures of Jesus, just like there is unity among the persons within the Trinity. It is impossible to speak of the biblical God without assuming the existence of the Trinity. In a similar manner, following the incarnation, it is impossible to speak of the existence of Jesus without assuming the reality of his divinity and humanity.

To put it another way: God is complex, therefore, the Son of God is complex. However, his complexity is not a barrier to keep us from him; instead, it’s an invitation to come and see, and worship this Jesus.

A Moment on the Scriptures: Bible Translation Comparisons

By any conservative count, there are at least 50 different English translations of the Bible. One of the main questions for us, then, is: What do we do with all those options?

I think it’ll be helpful in this situation to compare several translations to each other to see how they’re similar and different.

What have we seen? I think what we’ve seen is that, in general, the common modern English translations of the Bible can be trusted. The Bible translation landscape is not as dangerous as it’s commonly made out to be.

The other thing we’ve seen is that the English translations available to us have in mind to get us the word of God, albeit in a particular and specific manner, which is where the differences come in.

So, do we really have major differences between verses in different translations? Yes. However, those differences are not nefarious; instead, they’re expected due to the philosophies adopted by the translation committees.

A Moment on the Scriptures: "In the beginning" in Genesis and John

If you were to sit down and write a gospel, how would you begin?

Well, you might begin with a genealogy (like Matthew did) as a way to show your readers that this Jesus was connected back to those like Abraham and David. Or (like Mark did) you might jump right in by letting your readers know exactly what type of story you’re telling. If it was requested that you write a gospel you might (like Luke did) begin by addressing the one to whom you were writing. Or, finally, you might (like John did) directly quote one of the most well-known sentences throughout the entire Old Testament.

John begins his gospel by quoting the first line of Genesis: “In the beginning….” That’s easy enough to see in English—the words are exactly the same. The really interesting thing, though, is that since John is writing his gospel in Greek, to Greek readers, he quotes to them the first line of Genesis from the Greek translation of the Hebrew. And I think he does this intentionally to show exactly what he believes about Jesus.

Notice the way Genesis begins in Greek: Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἐποίησεν ὁ θεὸς. (In the beginning God created.)

Now, let’s look at how John begins in Greek: Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος. (In the beginning was the Word.)

Do you see the similarities and what John is saying?

It’s the exact same Greek wording that begins the Greek translation of Genesis that John uses to begin his gospel. The only difference is the use of ὁ λόγος (Word) instead of ὁ θεὸς (God). It seems to me what John is doing—and I think this becomes clearer as you continue reading his gospel—is to show that the “beginning” written about in Genesis for God is the same “beginning” for the Word. In fact, God and the Word have a unique relationship (Jn. 1:1-3).

Exegetical Meditations (2)

What kind of standing has the unregenerate person before the holy God? Condemnation.

Condemnation can be the only answer to that question, because the unregenerate person wants nothing to do with God. And, maybe even more than that, he is God’s enemy. The unregenerate person does not want to please God, because he’s not able to do so (Romans 8:8). They care nothing for God because they don’t know God. And, more than that, they don’t want to know God in their unregenerate state. As controversial as it may be to say this out loud (or in this case, to type it) the reality is as clear today as it was clear thousands of years ago.

After God flooded the earth to destroy much of what he had created, God reflects on what led to his judgment being poured forth and Moses records God’s thoughts:

“The LORD smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: ‘Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.’ ” (Genesis 8:21)

Yahweh did not come to the conclusion that men are generally good except for a few bad apples. Nor did he come to the conclusion that everyone just has a little stain upon themselves, but when you look deep within, they’re actually quite clean. On the contrary, he said that every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood.

God’s pronouncement was clear: unregenerate human beings are, to their core, evil.

As if God’s statement in Genesis 8 wasn’t enough, the apostle Paul picks up this dark reality in his letter to the Romans when he writes:

“What shall we conclude then? Do we have any advantage? Not at all! For we have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin. As it is written: ‘There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.’ ‘Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit.’ ‘The poison of vipers is on their lips.’ ‘Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.’ ‘Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know.’ ‘There is no fear of God before their eyes.’ (Romans 3:9-18)

Paul quotes the truth found in a number of Old Testament passages to make his point clear. All people are have been infected by sin.

By the mercy of God, though, this reality is not the end of the story.

The God whom none of us at one time wanted anything to do with

changed desires in the past and is changing desires today by removing hearts of stone and putting in their place, hearts of flesh (Ezekiel 36:26). In other, more blunt words, he takes dead men and makes them alive (John 11:38-44). And, because of this sovereign, monergistic work of God, he makes Romans 5:6-11 true for those whom he’s saved.

“For while we were still helpless, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. For rarely will someone die for a just person—though for a good person perhaps someone might even dare to die. But God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.How much more then, since we have now been declared righteous by his blood, will we be saved through him from wrath.For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, then how much more, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received this reconciliation.”

Exegetical Meditations (1)

Nine times in the opening chapter of Genesis we read the words: God said. (Gen. 1:3, 6, 9, 11, 14, 20, 24, 26, 29)

During one of those nine times, God tells the land to produce vegetation (Genesis 1:11). During another one of those nine times, God gives his creation (mankind and animals) every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it for food (Genesis 1:29).

Out of the nine occurrences of God said there are seven of them in which it wasn’t a command for action but a command of creation.

One of the more remarkable things about the creation account is how God’s creation comes about. You and I might expect God to have worked with an already existing base of material in order to fashion the heavens, the earth, and everything on the earth because this is how we create. In every creation made by mankind, we have started with something to make something. We started with stone to make a wheel, we started with wood to make a house, and we started with sand to make glass.

There does not exist one thing in the history of humanity that has been created that was not created out of something already in existence. This, however, is not how God created.

“And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.” (Genesis 1:3)

Before God created light, there was none.

“Then God said, ‘Let the land produce vegetation…’ ” (Genesis 1:11a)

Before God created vegetation, there was none.

What’s maybe even more striking, is how the New Testament, Hebrews in particular, speaks of God’s creation not from something that was already there, but from nothing. In Hebrews we read, “By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible” (Hebrews 11:3).

This God who created the universe, and everything contained therein, did so by speaking it into existence. And what he created through his speech was not made from something that was already there.