Sunday, April 20, 2014

THE MIRACLE OF THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS, WAS IT REALLY POSSIBLE?





Presented by Dr. Diego Sausa

The meaning of Christianity hinges on the belief that Christ was resurrected three days after He was crucified. Without the Resurrection, Christianity is meaningless as Paul says, "if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty" (1Cor. 15:4). Why? Because the wages of sin is eternal death (Rom. 6:23) and since we all have sinned we are all bound to die eternally, life becomes, as Sartre wrote, "a useless passion." Without a God who is able to answer the problem of eternal death condemnation of mankind, religion becomes pointless.

SCIENCE AND MIRACLES

Is the miracle of the Resurrection possible? Of course! If we believe in the evidence in modern science of astronomy, the miracle of the Resurrection is dwarfed by comparison. Non-believer agnostic astronomer Robert Jastrow, who was head of the Mount Wilson Observatory and founder of NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies admits, "Astronomers now find they have painted themselves into a corner because they have proven, by their own methods, that the world began abruptly in an act of creation to which you can trace the seeds of every star, every planet, every living thing in this cosmos and on the earth. And they have found that all this happened as a product of forces they cannot hope to discover....That there are what I or anyone would call supernatural forces at work is now, I think, a scientifically proven fact" (A Scientist Caught Between Two Faiths: Interview with Robert Jastrow," Christianity Today, Aug. 6, 1982).

Facing the same evidence of instant creation of the universe, atheist Arthur Eddington honestly concedes, "The beginning [of the universe] seems to present insuperable difficulties unless we agree to look on it as frankly supernatural" (Arthur Eddington, The Expanding Universe, 178). Since frank honest atheistic and agnostic scientists admit the supernatural miraculous creation of the universe, the miracle of the Resurrection pales by comparison. As former atheist-turned-Christian, C. S. Lewis aptly says, "If we admit God, must we admit Miracle? Indeed, indeed, you have no security against it. That is the bargain" (Lewis, Miracles, 106). If God could perform the miracle of creating the universe in an instant, then the miracle of the Resurrection is nothing compared to it.

HISTORY AND THE RESURRECTION

Famous Jewish historian for the Roman Empire who was a contemporary of Christ but who was not a Christian records the existence of Jesus and His resurrection, "Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works - a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day" (Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, XIII, iii, 3).

EYEWITNESSES TO THE RESURRECTION

There were nine independent eyewitnesses to the Resurrection who wrote down their testimonies on 27 different scrolls which we now call the New Testament. When Christ's apostles Peter and John were summoned by the Jewish authorities and were commanded to stop teaching in the name of Jesus they answered: "Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God's sight to obey you rather than God. For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard" (Acts 4:18-20). Paul, a former Pharisee and persecutor of Christians turned-apostle after his encounter with the risen Christ on the road to Damascus, confirms that the eleven disciples and 500 other saw the resurrected Christ (1 Cor. 15:4-8).

The eyewitnesses to the Resurrection were trustworthy because, number one, they included details in their books that were embarrassing to them and to their Lord (e.g., Jesus was not believed by His own family, Jn. 7:5; He was thought to be as a deceiver, Jn. 7:12). Number two, modern archaeology and history corroborate the veracity of the characters and places that they described in their accounts. Number three, and perhaps the most significant reason why these eyewitnesses were trustworthy was because none of them recanted his testimony about Jesus' resurrection even in the face of persecution and death. People may die for something that they believe is true although they may be wrong, and certainly, there are people who would rather die than recant something that they know is true, but hardly is there anyone who would die for something that he knows is a lie.

So the only plausible reason why all of Christ's disciples who were rag-tag Galileans who had nothing to lose, never recanted their testimony that they witnessed the resurrected Christ in the face of losing their lives, not for a day, not for a year, but for the rest of their lives, was because they did indeed see the resurrected Christ. All of them but one (John) were martyred proclaiming the risen Christ. By divine providence John, the lone apostle survivor, was spared and was able to write the book of Revelation while on exile on the isolated island of Patmos. Nevertheless, even during his exile on that desolate island, he never stopped testifying about the risen Christ. The only rational explanation for the audacity and fortitude of all the apostles for independently proclaiming their risen Savior and God to the point of death, was because indeed they saw the resurrected Christ.

LOGIC AND FAITH IN THE RESURRECTION

Assuming that the non-believer is correct that there is no God and there was no Resurrection (which current scientific evidence contradicts because science confirms that there is a supernatural Being), then if the non-believer dies and he is correct, he did not gain anything. That means he and the believer are even in the grave. But if the believer is correct and the atheist is wrong, then the atheist loses what would have been his everything - eternal life. So the believer loses nothing for believing God and the Resurrection. Former agnostic turned Christian, Clifford Goldstein aptly says,

"The historicity of Jesus, the evidence for His resurrection, or the testimony of the apostles, who lost all things for Christ, are not the best reasons for belief....A better reason to believe is our need to believe, and a better reason to seek transcendence is our need for transcendence....How sad to be captured and commandeered by what's so small, so fleeting, so trivial in contrast to the eternal, which is all around us and which beckons us - even if with nothing more than the idea itself, especially when we wake up, half asleep but startled, blood pumping frightfully at the knowledge that one day we'll be gone while the idea remains!

And yet...the cross has made eternity more than just an idea....The cross has made it gift for us, more real than everything else in this world, because everything in the world wears away. It is as if each turn of the earth on its axis, each revolution around the sun, grinds all things slowly into the ground and leaves only the gift, as eternal as the Giver, the God who cannot lie, who through sacrifice of Himself has made us a way to escape the fate from which there is (as Sartre wrote) no exit, but from which Jesus says, 'I am the door' (Jn. 10:9) and promises all who step through it eternal life. Either He is, or He isn't; either we do or we don't" (Clifford Goldstein, God, Godel and Grace, 108-111).

CONCLUSION

Bottom line: If the atheist is right about believing that there is no God (which honest atheistic scientists admit that scientific evidences point to the fact that there is), then it does not make any difference between Mother Theresa and Hitler, between the school mass murderers and their victims, between the saints and the monster serial killers, eventually we all end up dead forever. However all evidences in science, history, and biblical prophecy point to the reality of God, His vicarious death for mankind and His resurrection. The believer therefore does not lose anything believing in God and the Resurrection. For to believe otherwise is like betting you life in a gamble, where the only outcomes are lose and lose.

Sunday, April 6, 2014

QUANTUM PHYSICS AND GOD

WELCOME TO THE QUANTUM WORLD

A Scientific and Biblical Study on God and the Universe

Presented by Dr. Diego Sausa

ON LIGHT SPEED AND GOD SPEED

For years scientists had debated about light whether it was a particle or a wave. Physics which is the ultimate science of the physical universe, and is the major tool of materialistic science because the physical can be seen and tested, has never quite figured out the nature of light until the advent of quantum physics, the study of the most basic structure of the physical universe at the subatomic level. First there was Einstein who theorized that E=mc2, that is any matter (m) whether it is from uranium or petals of a rose or from your muscles, if subjected to the square of the speed of light (c2), equals to an exponential energy (E).

This theory is now the Law of Relativity because it’s been proven to be true. That’s why we have nuclear bombs. For 150 years physicists believed that with the knowledge of the laws of physics in the universe, things become predictable. Einstein himself said, “The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible.” With his theory he postulated that nothing travels faster than light. If we have to travel to the nearest star (Proxima Centaurus) at the speed of light which is 300,000 kilometers per second, it would take us about 4.3 years to get there, if we travel at the speed of the fastest rocket it would take us thousands of years to get there.

If it’s been proven that nothing travels faster than the speed of light, how is it then that the Bible records that when Daniel prayed, God sent the angel Gabriel from heaven to earth to answer Daniel at an instant speed even before Daniel could finish his prayer (Dan. 9:20-23)? How does God do that? Can God and angels travel faster than the speed of light? Is there a visible reality and another invisible reality? Comes quantum physics, the ultimate science of reality at the most basic level. Scientists are now able to study the atom at its minutest subatomic level with modern instrumentation in today’s laboratories. But the deeper man goes into the atom, the deeper are the mysteries that he encounters. Because the atom, which is the most simple particle of all living and non-living things, quantum physicists have found out, is not simple at all.

The components of an atom the electron, proton and neutron have their own smaller components (photons, quarks and neutrinos) and they suspect that those smaller components have also their still smaller components far beyond the grasp of human perception. And what puzzles scientists, is not only the nature of these subatomic particles but also the way they behave. It defies logic and empirical observation. Scientists call this “quantum weirdness.” Niels Bohr, one of the pioneers of quantum physics says, “Anyone who is not shocked by quantum physics, has not understood it.”

PHOTONS TRAVEL FASTER THAN THE SPEED OF LIGHT
In the famous double-slit experiment which was repeated and demonstrated again and again in many laboratories, quantum scientists found out that photons, the smallest subatomic observable components of light can travel faster than the speed of light. When scientists shot photons into one hole, they were also present in the second separate hole at the same time. After observing this phenomenon, physics professor, Timothy Ferris, writes: “It is as if the quantum world had never heard of space – as if in some strange way, it thinks of itself as being in one place at a time.” Can anything or anyone be in different places at the same time? Impossible according to empirical science, but demonstrated by modern quantum physics repeatedly in laboratories.

Before, we had to take what the Scripture said about God’s omnipresence totally by faith. We had to take Jesus’ promise by faith when He said that when He comes again all eyes shall see Him even if an object as immensely big as the sun cannot even be seen by everyone worldwide at the same time. Today, God has given us a glimpse of His omnipresent power, of being able to be there for us and for everyone in the universe instantly everywhere at the same time through His footprints in quantum physics. Through the minutest observable entity of the atom, God shows us a trace of His awesome power like a wake of a boat in the water. What is impossible with man, is possible with God. God can be in all places at the same time, and the photons tell us that it’s true. The photons can do it, their Maker can.

Non-believers are at a loss about this phenomenon in quantum physics, it’s beyond their comprehension. Physicist Roland Omne writes of quantum physics: “This theory penetrates reality to a depth our senses cannot take us. Its laws are universal, and they rule over the world of objects so familiar to us. We who inhabit the world, cannot make our own vision prevail over the arrogant laws, whose concepts seem to flow from an order higher than the one inspired by the things we can touch, see, and say with ordinary words.” In other words, modern empirical science cannot explain the most basic reality of man’s own existence. There is too much wisdom embedded in the quantum world – the most basic unit of our existence that’s beyond man’s ability to comprehend because it is the insuperable wisdom of God that designed it.

When scientists studied two groups of photons and put them in two different holes, they found out that the photons in the second hole “knew” what was going on in the first hole, that is, when the other photons in the first hole were spinning clockwise, the other photons in the second hole started to spin counter-clockwise. If scaled to life size, it’s like a ball in Australia starting to spin counterclockwise because a ball in Europe started to spin clockwise. And not only that, they found out that photons were “conscious” when they were being observed and that it changed its nature when being observed.

When scientists put detectors in two holes and shot photons into them, they behaved like particles, when the detectors were removed, they behaved like waves, that is, invisible energy like radio waves. When scientists put one detector in the first closed hole and no detectors in the second closed hole, the moment scientists opened the first hole that had the detectors, the second hole that was closed and had no detectors still behaved like the photons in the first hole that was being observed, they also collapsed or changed into particles. The moment detectors were removed from both holes, the photons behaved back like waves, like the invisible radio waves. Somehow the photons in the second hole were “conscious” that the first hole was being opened and that the photons in there were being observed and so they reacted the same way as the photons that were being observed, they turned into particles.

Talk about weirdness and bizarre behavior. We have this minutest entity of light or of atom, that can assume two different natures, 100 percent invisible radio wave and 100 percent visible particle, at the same time. Two natures that are mutually exclusive yet found in one entity, the photon.

The Scripture also tells us of the two natures of God: His transcendence and His immanence. He is too Holy in His eternal majesty for mortals to see, thus He is invisible, yet through His amazing love and grace, He became One of us that we might see Him face to face. Christ was both 100 percent invisible God and 100 percent visible Man in one person. The photons tell us that an entity can be both visible and invisible. The photons can do it, their Maker can do it too.

THE VISIBLE MADE OF THE INVISIBLE

First of all, we, including all the things around us are made of atoms. And if we scrutinize what we’re all made of to the minutest unit, we’re nothing but empty space. Just imagine an atom scaled to the size of the solar system, but not with nine or eight planets orbiting the sun, but only one planet (electron) orbiting the sun (nucleus), the rest is nothing but empty space. That’s what we’re made of at the minutest level – the atom. The electron orbits around the central nucleus of an atom which is about 1,800 times bigger than the electron, and yet the negative electrical charge that is generated by the orbiting electron is the same as the positive electrical charge that is generated by the proton that is inside the central nucleus.

Without the balance in the electrical charge in the atoms around and inside of us, no life can exist. Why there is a balance in electrical charges between the electron and the proton (which is 1800 times bigger in size than the electron of an atom) despite the big difference in size, nobody knows. And the electron that orbits around the nucleus and the nucleus itself that contains the proton, are all electromagnetic waves and not particles. In other words the most basic component of the physical visible universe including ourselves, is invisible. What is empirically visible, is according to quantum physics, is made of the invisible. Suddenly physics, the study of the physical, ends up being the study of the metaphysical. The only reason why we can see, touch, and feel things as solid is because of the varying force fields that different things possess.

For example we can’t go through a wooden door because the force field of the atoms of wood is stronger than the force field of the atoms in our body. A nail can penetrate a wood because the force field of the atoms of an iron is stronger than the force field of the atoms of wood. What if God somehow someday recreates us into immortal bodies and the force fields of our atoms become stronger than the force fields of nature around us? Is it possible then that we cannot be hurt when we fall, or we can walk through shut doors like what Jesus did after the resurrection? Just a thought, but quantum physics now gives us a clue about what’s seemingly impossible in the physical world, is possible in the quantum world.

The things that can be seen in the universe are after all made of things that cannot be seen. Wait a minute, doesn’t this quantum phenomenon sound familiar in the Bible? Hebrew 11:3 says, “By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.” Wow! Is this quantum physics or what?

Indeed from the complex human being to the minutest one-celled organism, from the subatomic photons to the grandest island universe in space, they all declare the wonders and the glorious signature of God’s awesome power and majesty. But the most amazing of all is not God’s awesome power, not His power to create the limitless universe of stars and galaxies out of nothing, nor His power to hold all His vast Creation in place, but the most amazing of all is that this God who created and who controls and maintains the universe through His immense power, loved us so much that He came down to this one dark tiny dot in the universe called Earth, assumed our human nature, and suffered and died the eternal death condemnation that was ours. He assumed our sinfulness and our eternal death punishment, that we might have another chance and only chance at eternal life.

Jesus, the transcendent, uncontainable, inscrutable, omnipotent God and Creator, is also our Savior, our Brother, our Friend and our fellow human. That my friends, is the most amazing thing in the whole universe, and it would continue to puzzle the whole of creation throughout eternity.

Because of Him it became possible for us to wing our flight throughout the realms and limitless frontiers of the universe that are outside the bounds of time and the speed of light. I like the way how a third grade woman, described what awaits the saints; written at around the time when Darwin came out with his now proven fallacious book, Origin of the Species. Ellen White writes: “All the treasures of the universe will be open to the study of God’s redeemed. Unfettered by mortality, they wing their tireless flight to worlds afar…. With unutterable delight the children of earth enter into the joy and the wisdom of unfallen beings….With undimmed vision they gaze upon the glory of creation – suns and stars and systems, all in their appointed order circling the throne of Deity. And the years of eternity as they roll, will bring richer and still more glorious revelations of God and of Christ. As knowledge is progressive, so will love, reverence, and happiness increase” (The Great Controversy, pp. 677-678). You have no idea about the universe that awaits for the saved to explore at instant speed.

Saturday, March 29, 2014

DOES THE PASSAGE IN PROVERBS 8:24-25 IMPLY THAT CHRIST WAS CREATED?



IN-DEPTH BIBLICAL STUDY ON CHRISTOLOGY


by Dr. Diego Sausa


People with Arian leanings use Proverbs 8:24 and 8:25 as proof texts for the belief that Christ had a beginning. But do these passages intimate at all that Christ was created or that He had a beginning? Let us examine the two passages:


Proverbs 8:24 says, "When there were no depths, I was brought forth [chuwl]."

Proverbs 8:25 says, "Before the mountains were settled, before the hills I was brought forth [chuwl]."

The Hebrew verb chuwl rendered "brought forth" has a wide range of meanings in English depending on the context and the grammatical morphology used by the author, it can mean "to wound," "to hurt," "to writhe in pain," "to bear," "to dance," "to suffer pain," "to form."

The grammatical morphology of chuwl (cholaltiy) in Proverbs 8:24 and 8:25 is in the Hebrew Pulal (passive) stem. The Pulal stem occurs 21 times in the OT and is like the Pual stem in that it conveys the passive idea of the action, and when chuwl is in this stem it means "to be made to writhe in pain," or "to be made to bear" or "to be brought forth."

Isaiah for example uses chuwl to mean "to be in pain" in Isaiah 26:18, he says "We have been with child, we have been in pain [chuwl]" (KJV).
The Chronicler uses "chuwl" in the context of being wounded, he says, "And the battle went sore against Saul, and the archers hit him, and he was wounded [chuwl] of the archers" (1 Chron. 10:3, KJV), while Jeremiah uses chuwl in the context of being in pain, he says, "My bowels, my bowels! I am pained [chuwl] at my very heart; my heart maketh a noise in me; I cannot hold my peace, because thou hast heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war" (Jer. 4:19, KJV). Notice that these renditions of chuwl as "in pain" or "wounded," are all by the KJV.

While the verb chuwl can also be rendered "to form," there are two exegetical internal contextual controls that exist in Proverbs chapter 8 that disallows the rendering of chuwl with the idea of "to form."

Control number 1, in Proverbs 8:30 Solomon declares that the Messiah was the Creator with God the Father and "was by Him [was by God the Father] as One brought up [amown] with Him" (KJV). The Hebrew word amown rendered "brought up" by the KJV is not a verb, it is a Hebrew noun. It means "an architect," "a master craftsman," or "a master workman." The KJV's translation of amown as a verb is therefore a gross mistranslation. The ESV, the NIV and the NASB render the noun amown more accurately. The ESV renders the passage, "then I [the Messiah] was beside Him [God the Father], like a master workman [amown];" the NIV renders the same as "Then I [the Messiah] was the craftsman at his [God the Father's] side," while the NASB renders the passage, "Then I [the Messiah] was beside Him [God the Father], as a master workman."

What Solomon is saying in Proverbs 8:30 is that the Messiah was co-Creator with God the Father at His side at creation, which of course agrees with John's testimony in John 1:1-3 that Christ was with God and that Christ was God who created everything and no created thing that had existed that He did not create. This explicit declaration of Solomon in this passage therefore disallows the idea that his usage of chuwl in 8:24 and 8:25 should be translated as "formed" because the Messiah was not formed, He was the One who formed everything with God the Father.

Control number 2, in Proverbs 8:23, Solomon, under inspiration quotes the Messiah saying, "I was set up [nacak] from everlasting." The Hebrew verb nacak (pronounced nasak) rendered "set up" by the KJV, means "to be anointed king" in the Niphal (passive) stem, which means that what the Messiah is saying is "I was anointed King from everlasting" which only solidifies the testimonies of all the Bible authors and God the Father that Christ had no beginning because He was King forever and ever (Heb. 1:8) or King from everlasting. In other words, the pre-incarnate Christ Himself is saying that He was the King forever and ever, He therefore cannot be formed. So Solomon cannot be made to contradict himself in Proverbs 8 because he explicitly testifies in Proverbs 8:30 that the Messiah was the co-Creator with God the Father, and in Proverbs 8:23 he declares that the Messiah was King from everlasting. In simple terms, Solomon is saying that Christ was the uncreated Creator and King from everlasting, and therefore, He had no beginning and cannot be formed or created.

The Hebrew word chuwl in 8:24 and 8:25 therefore, cannot be translated as "formed" because it would make God contradict Himself which He does not. The most appropriate rendition of chuwl in 8:24 and 8:25 is therefore, not that the Messiah "was formed," but rather that Christ through Elohim's (God's) foreknowledge, was made to suffer or made to bear the sin of the world even before the earth was created. J.P. Green, Sr.'s The Interlinear Bible, Hebrew-Greek-English (Hendrickson Publishers, 1986) correctly renders the verb chuwl in Proverbs 8:24 and 8:25 literally as "I travailed." In other words, under inspiration, what Solomon is trying to say in Proverbs 8:24 and 8:25 is that through Elohim's (God's) omniscience and foreknowledge, the Messiah was made to suffer or made to bear mankind's death penalty even before the world was created or He was slain from the foundation of the world which agrees with Revelation 13:18 where John describes the Messiah as one who was "slain from the foundation of the world."

So what appeared as evidence for Arianism in these passages in Proverbs 8, actually nullifies the idea that Christ had a beginning or was created and solidifies the ubiquitous testimonies of God the Father and the rest of the Bible authors that Christ was the uncreated Creator and King from everlasting, forever and ever.

Saturday, February 15, 2014

DID JUDAS REALLY REPENT AND WAS FORGIVEN?

An In-depth Biblical Study On Judas

By Dr. Diego Sausa

Did Judas repent and was he forgiven? What does Scripture say about Judas after the betrayal? In the NKJV translation of Matthew 27:3 we read that Judas "was remorseful [metamelomai].” The same Greek word “metamelomai” is translated by the KJV as “repented,” the NASB translates the same as “felt remorse,” while the ESV translates the same word as “changed his mind.” The Greek word “metamelomai” gives the idea of total change of mind or a 180-degree turnaround or about face, trying to do diametrically opposite to what was previously done. Matthew uses the same Greek word to depict the repentance of a wayward son in Christ’s Parable of the Two Sons in Matthew 21:28-29. “What do you think? A man had two sons. And he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard.’ And he answered, ‘I will not,’ but afterward he changed his mind [metamelomai] and went” (ESV). The KJV renders “metamelomai” in this passage as “he repented” while the NASB renders the same as “he regretted.”

The picture of “metamelomai” in Jesus’ parable in this passage is diametrically opposite of or a total about face from what was done earlier by the son, a positive change of mind for the better. In other words, “repented” is an accurate translation of “metamelomai.” The Greek word “metamelomai” is therefore a synonym of another Greek word “metanoeo” which is the more common Greek word in the NT translated into English as “repent.” Matthew uses “metanoeo” five times in his book. For example in Matthew 3:2, he quotes John the Baptist saying, “Repent [metanoeo], for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (ESV). The Greek word “metanoeo” also means “to change one’s mind for the better.”

Both Greek words “metamelomai” and “metanoeo” are therefore synonymous and are both used to mean “repent,” expressing the person’s sincere abhorrence of his past actions and change of direction opposite those past actions that he came to abhor. In other words, Matthew was expressing that Judas repented. In fact in Matthew 27:4 Matthew depicts Judas confessing his sins, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood” (NKJV). One may ask, was he sincere in his repentance? No doubt about Judas' sincerity, in fact he hanged himself once he realized that he could not change Jesus’ fate because of his betrayal (Matt. 27:5).

All indications in this testimony by Matthew regarding his comrade Judas seem to point to the fact that Judas repented, confessed and was therefore forgiven, until we consider Christ’s own testimony about Judas. Talking about Judas in Matthew 26:23-24, Christ says, “He who dipped his hand with Me in the dish will betray Me. The Son of Man indeed goes just as it is written of Him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been good for that man if he had not been born” (NKJV). In Gethsemane Jesus prayed and says of His disciples, “Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are. While I was with them [the disciples] in the world, I kept them in Your name. Those whom you gave Me I have kept, and none of them [none of the disciples] is lost except the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled” (Jn. 17:11-12).

These direct testimonies from Jesus Himself regarding Judas seem to explicitly confirm that Judas was a “son of perdition” who is the only one of the twelve disciples who got lost. The words "son of perdition [huios apoleia]" appear only twice in the NT, here in this passage used by Christ (Jn. 17:12) and in 2 Thessalonians 2:3 where Paul describes the "son of perdition" as "the man of sin" and "the apostate" who belongs in the group but who falls away by transgression, "the lawless one...who the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming" (2 Thess. 2:8). This means that Paul makes a parallel between Judas and the apostate Christian church that will be destroyed by Christ's in the judgment.

In other words, what Matthew was depicting of Judas was repentance in the sense that he felt a terrible sense of condemnation, remorse and guilt that he had betrayed the innocent Son of God and that he wanted to reverse the wrongful arrest of Jesus, but he did not really repent in the sense that he wanted to totally change his life and dedicate it to a loving service for his Lord like Peter did.

Saturday, February 8, 2014

A GIGANTIC LEAP OF FAITH: THE WIDOW OF ZAREPHATH

A BIBLICAL EXPOSITORY SERMON ON THE ENCOUNTER BETWEEN THE PROPHET ELIJAH AND THE WIDOW OF THE CITY OF ZAREPHATH

By Dr. Diego Sausa



Our message this morning is based on 1Kings 17:8-16. I would like to invite all to open their Bibles to this narrative, I’ll be reading from the English Standard Version,

“Then the word of the Lord came to him [Elijah], ‘Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there. Behold, I have commanded a widow there to feed you.’ So he arose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, behold, a widow was there gathering sticks. And he called to her and said, ‘Bring me a little water in a vessel, that I may drink.’ And as she was going to bring it, he called to her and said, ‘Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.’ And she said, ‘As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. And now I am gathering a couple of sticks that I may go in and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it and die.’ And Elijah said to her, ‘Do not fear; go and do as you have said. But first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterward make something for yourself and your son. For thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, The jar of flour shall not be spent, and the jug of oil shall not be empty, until the day that the Lord sends rain upon the earth.’ And she went and did as Elijah said. And she and he and her household ate for many days. The jar of flour was not spent, neither did the jug of oil become empty, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke by Elijah.”



INTRODUCTION
In order for us to really appreciate this story we need to understand the background of this narrative. This biblical narrative is couched in the reign of King Ahab of northern Israel. David was now dead for more than a hundred years and the once powerful united kingdom of Israel was divided into two kingdoms: Judah, the Southern Kingdom which was ruled by the descendants of David, and the Northern Kingdom or Israel, which was ruled by different kings from different blood lines. Both the northern and the southern kingdoms had apostatized but the northern kingdom of Israel was worse than the southern kingdom of Judah. God sent prophets to both kingdoms to woo them back to Him.

At the time when our story happened, the king in the Northern Kingdom was Ahab the son of Omri who was himself a wicked king (1 Kngs. 16:25). But his son Ahab was even worse than his father. King Ahab married a Gentile woman named Jezebel who was the daughter of the King of Sidon called Ethbaal, a title which means, “with Baal” or “with the authority from Baal.” Jezebel’s father therefore was not only the king of Sidon, he was also the high priest or vicar of Baal. Thus, when Jezebel became Israel’s queen, she brought with her pagan religion and her husband Ahab, the king of Israel became her foremost supporter. King Ahab built a temple for Baal in his capital city of Samaria and made all Israel worship Baal instead of God. Scripture says that “Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel who were before him” (1Kngs. 16:33). Baal was the pagan god of rain, fertility and agriculture.

GOD’S JUDGMENT OF AHAB AND HIS KINGNDOM
God confronts King Ahab through the prophet Elijah. Certain Jewish tradition held that Elijah was an angel because he just suddenly appeared before King Ahab’s throne room in Samaria and then suddenly disappeared. Scripture does not record who his parents were. But James 5:17 tells us that “Elijah was a man subject to like passions as we are. He therefore, was just human like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain in Israel for three and a half years.” The author of 1Kings tells us, “Now Elijah the Tishbite, of Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, ‘As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word’” (1Kngs. 17:1, ESV). As James in the New Testament later had explained, it did not rain in all of Israel for three and a half years (James 5:17) because Elijah prayed for it to prove that Baal, the god of rain that Israel was now worshiping was a false god. So the Lord answers Elijah’s prayer, and Elijah relays God’s message to King Ahab.

ELIJAH’S SELF-CENTERED SURVIVAL
After proclaiming God’s judgment on Israel before the king, God instructs Elijah to leave the area and go “eastward and hide…by the brook of Cherith, which is east of Jordan” (1Kngs. 17:3). There, God would supply Elijah with water from the brook and would command the ravens to feed him twice a day with bread and meat. The brook of Cherith was in a wilderness in the province of Gilead where the town of Tishbe was also located where Elijah was from. While the rest of Israel was in want for water and food, God took care of Elijah’s own basic needs. This continued for about a year until the brook of Cherith dried up because of prolonged drought in the land. There was no more water and there was no more food from the ravens.

Certainly the Lord blesses His people with their needs, even those ones that they didn’t ask for and didn’t know about. The Lord blessed Elijah with his own needs, but the Lord can only bless us with things that cater to our own selfish needs for so long. After a while that self-centered living dries up. Life is not all about self, it’s not all about what we receive, what we can get, what we can do to look good or what we can do to achieve, because when all the things that we do are motivated by selfish gains, our life dries up. It becomes empty and meaningless. In order for our lives to be full and meaningful, we have to get out from our comfort zone, we have to divert our attention from what we can get to what we can give and start blessing other people. By blessing others, we bless ourselves, because it gives life its full meaning.

The rich young ruler was blessed with riches, and he thought he did everything necessary for himself to attain eternal life, that is, literally obey all of God’s commandments. But we can obey all the letter of the law without obeying the spirit of the law. Yes the rich young ruler kept the Sabbath, gave back his tithes, obeyed all the Ten Commandments for his own needs and purposes. But still he felt that something was wanting and missing in his life. And Christ identified what exactly he needed in his life. He needed to redirect his attention and focus from himself to others, so that by living for others, he lives out the purpose and meaning of his life and reaches the goal of his life. A life that is solely based on self-interest always ends up miserable, meaningless and purposeless.

And so after about a year of living in the wilderness of Cherith, God commands Elijah to get out of his little self-centered comfort zone, by drying him up. The brook of Cherith stopped flowing with water and the ravens stopped bringing food. There’s no doubt about it, God could have intervened and let the brook keep flowing with water, but a life that is focused on self destroys self, so God commands Elijah to get out and minister to others outside his own comfort zone. “Then the word of the Lord came to him, ‘Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there.” When our refrigerators are getting empty, when our bank accounts are getting dry, and our IRAs get in the negative territory, God allows them to happen because He has something else for us to do. Get out, stop thinking about self, about what you can get and what you can gain and start blessing the lives of others.

THE WALK TO ZAREPHATH
God commands Elijah to go from the brook of Cherith which was in the province of Gilead to Zarephath a walled city in another country of Phoenicia which is now Lebanon. Zarephath was a coastal town facing the Mediterranean Sea about 13 miles north of Tyre and 8 miles south of Sidon. In other words, Zarephath was in between Tyre and Sidon. Zarephath was under the kingdom of Sidon whose king was Ethbaal the father of Ahab’s wife Jezebel. The first irony was God was sending Elijah into Jezebel’s and Baal’s territory so that Elijah might find sustenance and protection from the murderous plots of Jezebel in God’s own people’s territory. The second irony was, God was sending Elijah to witness a Gentile woman’s faith, a kind of faith that Elijah could not find from God’s own people. In effect, Elijah becomes the first missionary to the Gentiles. The walk from the brook of Cherith to Zarephath was about 100 miles to the northwest of Israel. And God extended the drought in Zarephath and Sidon, the land of Baal the god of rain.

BIG EXPECTATIONS, AND GOD’S SENSE OF HUMOR
So God tells Elijah to walk 100 miles northwest to the heathen town of Zarephath because the brook of Cherith had dried up. God assures Elijah, “’Behold I have commanded a widow there to feed you.’ So he arose and went to Zarephath” (vv. 9,10). If you were Elijah and you heard this kind of reassuring words from God, what do you think would you imagine? You must have said, “O thank you Lord for some rich widow in Zarephath who would be able to feed me throughout this period of drought and hunger.” Elijah must have been imagining a big house with big food and water reservoirs, and a big special banquet waiting for him, but lo and behold, when he gets there what does he see? (v.10 says) “And when he came to the gate of the city, behold, a widow was there gathering sticks.”

You know sometimes, I think, God has a little sense of humor. He is full of surprises. Often He performs marvelous and big miracles through the most unlikely, unthinkable, and unexpected marginalized ways. When you expect a grand display of power and majesty to accomplish His purpose, He accomplishes it through a still small voice. When you think He will accomplish His purpose through a dazzling display of pomp and extravagance, He accomplishes it through a couple of sticks. Often we ask God for big things as solutions to our big problems, when God’s solution to our problem is just the mere couple of sticks in our hands.

GOD’S REAL REASON FOR SENDING ELIJAH TO ZAREPHATH
When Elijah sees the widow picking up sticks by the gate of Zarephath, he realizes that this was the woman who God promised would sustain him. At that point, Elijah must have realized that God had sent him there mainly not because God wanted to feed him through the woman, but mainly because God wanted to save the Gentile woman and her son through him. God made Elijah walk the 100 miles to save the woman, make no mistake about it! God heard the cry of this Gentile mother. You know back in the Ancient Neareastern culture, widows were the most vulnerable in society. When calamities and droughts happened they were the ones who died first because they only thrived through their meager earnings because their major bread winner in the household died. Such was the situation of this woman. She was losing hope. Like her fellow Sidonians, she must have prayed to Baal, their god of rain and fertility, but Baal was nowhere to be heard from, days, weeks, months passed by, now it’s been a year, and no dew nor rain came down from heaven. 

She must have heard about the true God of Israel and in desperation cried out to Him for help, and what a God we serve because even if while we were still sinners, God hears us and loves us! God heard this Gentile woman’s cry for help! So when we cry and suffer and desperate for help and no one seems listening and we feel that we’re so all alone and nobody sees us, and we feel that we are so small like a needle in the haystack, remember this woman of Zarephath, God was willing to let his servant walk 100 miles just to save this woman, and He is willing to walk the hundred miles just for you to save you from your plight! God sees those tears and pain inside, all we need to do is call Him and He will answer, try Him, because I’m speaking not from the standpoint of not only one but of multiple experiences of God’s wonderful salvation and deliverance in my life. Often His answer is not what we expect but what we need.

GOD ASKS US TO GIVE HIM FIRST NOT JUST PART OF US BUT OUR ALL
Once Elijah realizes his purpose and mission, God must have shown him right away what would happen next. So Elijah calls the woman and says, “Can you please bring me a little water in a vessel, that I may drink?” (v. 10). In the Ancient Neareastern culture, it was the duty of every host to give water to strangers and travelers. So what Elijah was asking was normal and nothing out of the ordinary. As soon as the woman hears the “stranger” asking for water, she leaves to get him water. But as she was leaving to get water, Elijah stops her again and says, “O by the way, I forgot, can you also bring me some bread in your hand?” (v. 11). It would have been normal to ask this if there was no famine in the land and if this person was not a poor widow. But what Elijah was asking from the woman the second time, was absolutely abnormal and out of the ordinary. The water was free and did not cost the woman anything, but the bread was her everything. It’s like a person whose only source of livelihood is his car, and then you tell him, “Can you give me a lift on your way to town?” And then as the person gives you a lift, you say, “By the way, I forgot, can you give me your car?”

What Elijah was asking the woman was literally a life and death decision. Elijah was asking the woman all that she had to keep her and her son alive for a few moments before they died. The woman answers Elijah, “As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. And now I am gathering a couple of sticks that I may go in and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it and die” (v. 12). The woman tells Elijah, “I swear by the Lord your God who lives, I don’t have any bread. I only have my last handful of flour and last portion of oil in a jug just enough for one last meal for my son and myself, and after that there’s nothing left, and there’s nothing I can do about it, my son and I will have to prepare to die. I’m sorry stranger from Israel, man of the Lord God of Israel who lives, but all I have left is only good for our last meal before we die.” It’s interesting that the woman recognized that Elijah was a man of the living God of Israel, which indicates that she knew the God of Israel and she knew that Elijah was a man of Israel’s God by his looks. But although she believed that Elijah’s God was alive, He was not her God, He was “your God,” that is, Elijah’s God, not hers, she recognizes her being an outsider to Israel’s religion although she believed in Israel’s God.

Then Elijah tells the woman, “Do not fear; go and do as you have said [that is, bake the flour]. But first, make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterward make something for yourself and your son. For thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘The jar of flour shall not be spent, and the jug of oil shall not be empty, until the day that the Lord sends rain upon the earth.’ And she went and did as Elijah said. And she and he and her household ate for many days. The jar of flour was not spent, neither did the jug of oil become empty, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke by Elijah” (vv. 13-16). Elijah was virtually telling the widow of Zarephath, “You believe in my God, that the God of Israel lives? Well this is what He says, give Him your all first, and then He will give you all that you need.”

You know the woman had all the reasons in the world not to give Elijah what he asked for. She could have said, “You’re asking me for charity? I’m on welfare myself, are you kidding? I’m the one who needs charity. All that I have is even barely enough for my survival, now you’re asking me to give it to you? Are you out of your mind, Mr. Stranger?” But the woman decides to give her all to God and trust all her life and her family’s life in God’s hands, and surely God supplied her with everything that she and her son needed. This is the secret to success in life! God through Elijah told the woman, “Give your everything to me first, and you’ll have everything that you’ll need.” What God told the woman through Elijah, would later be echoed by Christ Himself, He says, “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matt. 6:33).

THE INSECURITY OF HUMAN SECURITIES
Often God places us in a situation where we are on our last dime, on our last lifeline, at the end of our rope, at the bottom of our jug, on our last handful of flour, on our last measure of oil, and He asks us, give it all to Me and trust your life on Me.” He allows these “bottom-out” circumstances because when our refrigerators are overflowing, when our bank accounts are full, when our shares in the stock market keep going up, when our investments churn out more profits, when our job is doing great, when health is super, we don’t feel the need for faith in God to bless us, we feel that we did it ourselves. We have this false sense of security that our tomorrow is secure because of these man-made securities. But September 11, the current global economic turmoil, sudden deaths, stealthy cancers and health problems, disasters and catastrophes remind us that none of human securities are secure. We could lose it all in a moment. And it doesn’t get any better because in the end everything will crumble except our investments in God. So like this woman in Zarephath, we need to experience the last dime, we need to reach rock bottom, to be at the end of our rope, so that we’ll realize that without God we can do absolutely nothing, therefore, we have to trust our all in Him because without Him we are simply empty jugs and empty barrels ready for the furnace.

When you’re in a situation where you’ve tried everything that you could, tried all the solutions that you knew, did everything possible, and still, you come up short and you find it impossible to get out of your dilemma and there’s nothing else that you can do, you are exactly where God wants you to be. Throw those bottomed-out vessels, that last measure of flour, that last drop of oil, in God’s hands, give it all to Him and see His marvelous salvation that you’ve never imagined was possible.

THE LEGEND OF THE DESERT WATER PUMP
I don’t know if you guys are familiar with hand water pumps. In the Philippines they still exist in many rural areas. Many times, when a hand water pump hasn’t been used for some time, the water that gives the suctioning power that brings the water up from down below the well dissipates, and so you have to add a jug of water into the pump to prime the pump to restore its suction ability. My friend, Dr. Manny Sansano during our Bible sharing, told us a legend about a water pump. According to this legend, there was a man who walked in the desert for days and had run out of water. He was getting so thirsty and weak that he was ready to die if he couldn’t find any water. Fortunately, right in the middle of the desert he stumbled into an old beaten shack and inside he saw an old rusty water pump. And so with his last energy he managed to get close to the pump and he tried pumping the handle, but no water came out. He staggered and fell down and found an old jug that was full of water, but the jug had a message on it that says, “You have to prime the pump with all the water that is in this jug to make the pump work, and then be sure you fill this jug again before you leave.”

The man was confronted with two choices: drink the water in the jug, and just go on and walk through the desert but risk running out of water and die in the desert, or follow the instruction, pour all the water into the pump to prime it so that if it works, he could refill all his containers with water enough to make him get to his destination but risk wasting all the water in the pump and die if it did not work. He decided to pour all the water from the jug into the pump to prime it and lo and behold, water started gushing out of the pump and he was able to fill all his containers and refill the jug. And before he left he wrote an additional note on the jug for the next traveler, he says, “Believe me, it really works. You have to give it all away before you can get everything back that you need to live.”

Giving up all what we got in God’s hands works. Because the widow of Zarephath trusted her all to God, she, her son, and Elijah, were able to survive the famine for the next two years until it was over. The story of this woman is so significant that Jesus Himself had to mention her story again to His Jewish listeners recorded in Luke 4:24-26. God is a God of the impossible, it is His middle name. When you think that it’s hopeless and it’s the end of your rope, when you think that you have done all what you could and you still come up short, when you’ve tried everything but your coffers still end up empty, when you think that you’ve reached the end of the road and there’s nothing else that you can do, give it all up to the Lord and prepare to see the unending miracle of His salvation. “Prove me now,” God challenges us, give your all to God and He’ll supply everything that you need.

THE MEMBERS’ FAITH THAT MOVED THE MOUNTAIN BEHIND THEIR CHURCH
A small congregation in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains built a new church building on a piece of land willed to them by a member who recently passed away. But ten days before the new church was to open, the local building inspector informed the church pastor that the parking lot was inadequate for the size of the building. They needed to double the size of the parking lot in order for them to use the new church. The problem was, they’ve used up all the lot space for the building and the existing parking lot, there was no more land to expand except the back part of the church which was a mountain against which the church’s back portion had been built. In other words, they would have to move the mountain out of their church’s backyard to give space for the additional parking space needed. Feeling the impossibility of the situation, the pastor gathered 24 of the 300 members one night to have a season of prayer that God would do the impossible, that is, move the mountain out of the way so that they could have enough parking space. They claimed in faith God’s promise that He could move mountains. They prayed for three hours that night and after the prayer, the pastor told the members that the church would be open for church service as scheduled the following weekend.

The next morning, as the pastor was working in his study, he heard a loud knock on his door. When he looked, there was a rough looking construction foreman right at his doorstep, and he says, “Excuse me, Pastor, I’m from Acme Construction Company from the other county. We’re building a huge shopping mall and we need a lot of dirt to fill and elevate the construction site. I wonder if you are willing to sell us a chunk of that mountain behind your church? We’ll pay for the dirt that we remove and pave all the flattened area free of charge if we can have it right away.” The whole job was done in a few days and they got paid for the mountain that was removed and spent nothing for the extra parking lot that was made. By the following weekend as scheduled, the church services started just as the pastor had said.

CONCLUSION
The woman of Zarephath started with calling God “your God” (v. 12), but after experiencing God’s salvation through the ministry of Elijah, she ended up calling Elijah’s God her God too. After the two-year daily miracle that she experienced with God, and after the miracle of the first resurrection ever recorded in Scripture, God’s raising up of her dead son (v. 22), the woman of Zarephath declares to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God [no longer “your God” but now also her own personal God], and that the word of the Lord [no longer Elijah’s Lord, but “the Lord”] in your mouth is truth” (v. 24).

Have you bottomed out and there’s nothing else that you can do? Try God. He majors in the impossible because that's His middle name, trust your everything to Him first, and He’ll take care of your everything.

Friday, February 7, 2014

JONAH, WAS HE DEAD OR ALIVE FOR THREE DAYS IN THE BELLY OF THE FISH?


An In-Depth Biblical Study on the Biblical Narrative on Jonah 


By Dr. Diego Sausa

A BIG FISH OR A WHALE?

Which was the miracle in the story of Jonah, the fact that he survived for three days in the belly of the fish, or the fact that he was resurrected after dying for three days in the belly of the fish? It's been a long held tradition that Jonah was alive inside the belly of a whale for three days and three nights before he was vomited out into the dry land. First of all Scripture says that Jonah was swallowed by a "great fish [da'g]" that the Lord had prepared (Jon. 1:17). The Hebrew word dag means "fish" and does not specifically mean a whale although in OT biblical parlance, a whales would also be considered a dag (fish). In Matthew 12:40 however, the KJV says that Jonah was in the "whale's belly" for three days and three nights. The Greek word for "whale" in this passage is ketos which also means "big fish." It seems consistent then in both the OT and the NT that a huge fish not necessarily a whale swallowed Jonah.  The fact that many whales are filter feeders and have very small esophagi and therefore are not aggressive towards humans nor can they swallow humans whole, seem to favor the idea that it was really a big fish that swallowed Jonah.

THE LAST MOMENTS OF JONAH IN THE BELLY OF THE FISH

This difference is important because unlike whales which are mammals and which breathe oxygen into their lungs and thus some air may go into their stomach in the process, to the contrary fish have no lungs. They breathed through their gills which are highly vascularized and the oxygen that is extracted from the water through the gills goes directly into the fish's blood stream. The stomachs and intestines of fish therefore do not have breathable oxygen if a big fish swallows a human whole. The inside of the fish's digestive tract is highly acidic which aids in the digestion of the food that they swallow. If Jonah was swallowed by a big fish, he could only survive inside the stomach of the large fish for a very short time because of the absence of oxygen and the hyper-acidic environment inside the belly of the fish. Jonah narrates his experience inside the belly of the big fish after he was swallowed. Jonah 2:1 tells us that Jonah prayed to God inside the fish belly. Jonah got to the point when he was dying and during those times he was praying to God as his life "fainted ['ataph] within me" (Jon. 2:7).

THE MEANING AND GRAMMATICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF 'ATAPH

The Hebrew word 'ataph which means "to faint" is in the Hithpael stem and absolute infinitive (high intensity) mood, meaning that the action word is reflexive (Hithpael, i.e., happening to one's self) and the absolute infinitive mood is better described by the adverb "utterly" or "extremely" to express intensity.  

The verb ‘ataph is not used as a verbal noun in this passage, instead, it is used as a regular verb expressing action that happens to the subject himself (Hithpael stem), it is therefore in the infinitive absolute mood instead of being in the infinitive construct mood (if used as verbal noun). Because of the obvious infinitive absolute mood of the verb in the Hithpael stem, the author’s emphasis is superlative intensity. So Jonah 2:7 should literally read like this in English: “When my life was utterly (adverb showing InfA mood intensity) fainting away [‘ataph] within myself [“within myself” added to show the reflexive action of Hithpael stem], I remembered the Lord.”  Jonah’s emphasis using ‘ataph in the Hithpael stem and infinitive absolute (intensive) mood in Jonah 2:7 is therefore indicative that he prayed to the Lord as he was losing total consciousness or simply stated, Jonah prayed to God as he was nearing death.  In other words, as Jonah was gasping for his last breath and ready to die, his thoughts were communicating to God as he was dying.

JONAH'S NARRATIVE ABOUT HIS DEATH AND RESURRECTION IN THE BELLY OF THE FISH

We always have very good traditions about significant stories in the Bible and Jonah is one of those stories that has been traditionally embellished with tales that don't seem to match with biblical data. And that traditional embellishment is that Jonah was alive for three days inside the belly of the fish. But what Jonah himself tells us seems to be to the contrary. He says in Jonah 2:6, "I went down to the moorings of the mountains; the earth with its bars closed behind me forever; yet you have brought up my life from the grave [shachath], O Lord my God." The Hebrew noun shachath means "the grave," or "the place where the dead decays." Psalm 30:9 for example says, " “What profit is there in my blood, if I go down to the grave [shachath]? Will the dust praise you? Will it tell of your faithfulness?" It is clear then that when Jonah says, "I went down to the moorings of the mountains; the earth with its bars closed behind me forever; yet you have brought up my life from the grave [shachath], O Lord my God," it means that Jonah was saying that he died inside the belly of the large fish"with the bars" of death "closed behind" him "forever" but the Lord "brought up" his "life from the grave" after three days.  Jonah clearly tells us in this passage that he died and God caused him to rise up from the dead.  Jonah's words, "yet you caused my life to rise up ['alah] from death [shachath]" are very emphatic of death and resurrection.  The Hebrew word 'alah here for "brought up" means "to rise up," or "to shoot forth" as in a plant germinating from a seed. It is in the Hiphil (causative) stem not in the Qal (simple active) stem, meaning that Jonah did not "shoot forth" or "rise up" to life from the dead actively by himself, it was God who caused him to rise up to life from death.

SEMANTIC RANGE OF THE HEBREW VERB 'ALAH

The verb ‘alah is used 856 times in the OT. Of this total number, it is translated as “rise up” 676 times, as “ascend” 15 times, as “raised up” two times and as “arise” two times. In other words the idea is vertical movement instead of horizontal movement. The common verb for horizontal movement is yatsa which occurs 1,076 times in the OT, 1,068 usages of which convey the idea of horizontal movement. The Hebrew verb qum also occurs 628 times in the OT.  Of the 628 occurrences, it is translated 240 times as “rise up,” 211 times as “arise,”, 47 times as “raise,” 27 times as “establish,” and 27 times as “perform.”  Both ‘alah and qum, therefore, can be used synonymously to convey the idea of rising up from sleep. The idea conveyed is vertical movement instead of horizontal. Basing on these semantic ranges of the Hebrew verb ‘alah and qum, Jonah’s use of the verb ‘alah to describe his rising up from the dead [shachath] is perfectly in order.

‘ALAH MEANS RESURRECTION FROM THE DEAD

That the verb ‘alah is used to portray resurrection from the dead is biblically concrete and irrefutable. Ezekiel 37:12 for example says, “Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up [‘alah] out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel.” Jonah’s use of ’alah in Jonah 2:6, therefore, to describe his being caused to rise up (‘alah) from death (shachath) by God is grammatically appropriate and solid. Jonah himself is clear, God caused him to rise up from death.  This is an explicit testimony of Jonah’s death and resurrection from Jonah himself.  In other words, Jonah's story is another account of death and resurrection in the Old Testament.

THE DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF JONAH AND THE SIGN OF THE MESSIAH

That Jonah died for three days and was resurrected from the dead after three days becomes even clearer when Christ Himself describes Jonah as a type of Him, and He describes His death as parallel to that of Jonah's, Christ says,"For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth" (Matt. 12:40). If Jonah was alive for three days and three nights in the belly of the fish, then if follows that Christ was alive for three days and three nights in the heart of the earth, meaning, Christ did not really die just as Jonah didn't die. But if Jonah really died in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights, then it becomes true that Christ indeed died for three days and three nights in the belly of the earth just as Jonah did. Christ's parallel between His three days and three nights death to that of Jonah's three days and three nights death is striking. What is even more interesting is what Christ said prior to this parallelism. The scribes and Pharisees were asking for a sign from Jesus that He was the Messiah and He answered, "An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah" (Matt. 12:39). What is that sign? The sign was what was implied in Jesus' following words, that is, Christ was virtually saying, "Just as Jonah was dead for three days and three nights in the belly of the fish and was resurrected, so will the Son of Man be dead three days and three nights in the heart of the earth and will be resurrected." That was the Jonah sign that became the Jesus' sign: the resurrection from the dead after three days in the belly of the earth.

WHAT THE JEWS IN JESUS' TIME BELIEVED ABOUT JONAH

It is interesting to note that Jonah was the only minor prophet mentioned by Jesus as a type of Him, and specifically of His three-day death and His resurrection. Already in the Jewish tradition in the time of Jesus, Jonah was already a significant prophet. He was not known as a man who lived in the belly of the fish for three days but the prophet who was resurrected from the dead. Jewish tradition already had it that Jonah was that son of the widow of Zarephath who was resurrected by God through the prophet Elijah.  So the scribes and Pharisees in Jesus time most likely already believed that Jonah was resurrected twice, first when he died as a boy, and the second time when he died in the belly of the fish and was resurrected after three days. So when Jesus said in Matthew 12:40 that just like Jonah who was in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights He would be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights, Jesus' listeners already understood that what Jesus meant was that He would be dead for three days and be resurrected thereafter just as Jonah died for three days and was resurrected on the third day. The Jewish midrash in Pirqe d’Rabbi Eliezer (פרקי דרבי אליעזר ג) says:


Rabbi Simeon said,
From the strength of a righteousness woman
are the dead to live in the future.
Whence do we learn (this)?
From Elijah the Tishbite
who walking from mountain to mountain
and from cave to cave,
walked on to Zarephath
and a widow woman received him
with great honor.
She was the mother of Jonah,
and from her morsel and from her oil they were eating,
and were drinking he and she and her son,
as it is said (1Kings 17:15),
“And she did eat he and she.”

PAUL USES JONAH'S DEATH AND RESURRECTION AS THE TYPOLOGICAL PROPHECY OF CHRIST'S DEATH AND RESURRECTION

Although this tradition that Jonah was the son of the widow of Zarephath may not be true, nevertheless, it shows us that the Jews believed that Jonah was that son of the widow of Zarephath who God resurrected from the dead through the prophet Elijah based on the narrative in 1Kings 17:17-24. When Paul said in 1Corinthians 15:4 that Christ "was buried, and that He rose again the third day ACCORDING TO THE SCRIPTURES [i.e., according to the Tanakh or the Jewish Old Testament because there was no New Testament yet]," most likely Paul was alluding to Jonah as the type of Christ who died in the belly of the fish and was caused to rise from death by God (Jon. 2:6) on the third day because in Paul's time, there was no other "Scripture" that talked about resurrection on the third day except the book of Jonah. In other words, Paul was alluding to the death and resurrection of Jonah on the third day as the Scripture that typologically prophesied the death and resurrection of Jesus on the third day.

CONCLUSION

What all these biblical and historical data tell us is that the story that Jonah was brewing coffee in the belly of the big fish for three days until he got vomited out into dry land is a myth and has no biblical backing. What Scriptures say is that Jonah died in the belly of the fish and was resurrected on the third day and he became the type of Jesus who died and was in the belly of the earth and was resurrected on the third day.

The death and resurrection of Jonah on the third day, was his sign, and the "sign of Jonah," that is his death and resurrection on the third day (Matt. 12:39) became the sign of the true Messiah because He also died and lived again on the third day (Matt. 12:40; 1Cor. 15:4). The Messiah who after being baptized in the Jordan River Scripture records, "Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove [i.e. "dove" is jonah in Hebrew] and lighting on Him, and behold, a voice out of the heavens said, 'This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased'" (Matt. 3:16-17. Jonah (the dove) is indeed a favorite sign of God's salvific resurrection from the dead, allegorically, jonah (a dove) appeared at the death and resurrection of Jesus in the water at his baptism, and literally, the three-day physical death in the water and the literal resurrection of Jonah on the third day became the type for Jesus' three-day physical death and literal resurrection on the third day. 

THE EVIDENCE FOR GOD IN NATURE (THE EVOLUTION DELUSION PART 2)

Key Text: Gen. 1:1-5: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day.”

GOD'S FOOTPRINTS IN NATURE



We have faith in God even if we haven’t seen His face not because there is no other alternative but rather because we’ve seen the evidence of His footprints. Just as He told Moses, God could not show His face to us because the glory of His presence would kill us mortals. And yet just like He did to Moses, if we really want to see God, He will let us see His back, His footprints, His signature written everywhere around us. Ariel Roth, one of the world’s most prominent Christian scientists once said, “God never performed a miracle to convince an atheist, because his ordinary works provide sufficient evidence.” A minister once preached that it takes faith to believe in God because we cannot show any evidence that He exists. I beg to differ! We believe in God, because of the evidence around us! And because of the evidence around us, it doesn’t require a lot of faith to believe in Him just as it doesn’t require a lot of faith to believe that there is a builder when you see a building standing.


To examine the evidence for God, we will first take a look at what Gen. 1:1 says, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” In the surface, this statement seems to be simplistic in its explanation about our origins. But when we get deeper into what Moses is trying to say, we’ll find out that today’s science sheds more light to what Gen. 1:1 is saying probably more than the light that Moses saw when he was inspired to write the words. The English translation of what Moses originally wrote in Hebrew, does not give full justice to what Moses really meant. The Hebrew word for “In the beginning” is Be’reasheet. It’s a compound word with the prefix Be’ which means “with” and reasheet which means “first wisdom.” Literally it means “with surpassing or with transcendent wisdom” God created the heaven and the earth. The Hebrew word be’reasheet is a word with dual entendre (dual meaning). It is commonly translated “in the beginning” but it can also be translated “with transcendent wisdom.” The 2,100-year old Aramaic Bible has the closest meaning to the original Hebrew, instead of “In the beginning,” it says “With wisdom God created the heavens and the earth.”


In other words, when God first created the heavens and the earth He left His signature in them, His footprints, His back. He left His wisdom in His creation so that when we look at His creation, it unmistakably points to Him, the Creator. His supreme transcendent intelligence can be seen in all of His creation. Even by just looking at the surface we can see it, that’s why the Psalmist says, “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night reveals knowledge” (Ps. 19:1-2). And again David echoes what Moses said in Genesis 1:1, “How manifold are Your works, Eternal, You made them all with wisdom” (Ps. 104:24).


EVIDENCES THAT WE TAKE FOR GRANTED


Indeed only a fool can say that there is no God because it only takes a normal brain and eyes that work to see the footprints of God. We take everything for granted around us as a given and don’t see the intelligence and wisdom in all of creation. Just look at a banana for example. God is so good to create a banana with us in mind. It is color coded. He lets us know that it’s not yet ready when it’s green, ready when it’s yellow and too late when it’s brown, use gloves when it’s black. It’s also user friendly. Notice how it fits snugly in your hand with a non-slip surface, the tab on top makes it easy for you to open and unlike Coke, even if you open it quick, it doesn’t squirt in your face. Not only that, it perfectly fits in your mouth and curves towards your face to make everything easy for you to eat. Thank God for making bananas the way they are.


If you still can’t see the wisdom of God in the banana, go to the mirror and look at yourself without taking anything for granted. Can you imagine yourself if there was no wisdom in your design, your anatomy? Can you imagine if we just happen to exist by accident? Can you imagine if your eyes were between your toes instead of in front of your face? You would all be sitting there in the pews this morning with your heels over head instead of your head over heels. Can you imagine if your nose were in your buttocks instead of above your mouth? You’ll probably be covering them with your hands all the time. What if it happens to be in your face but it’s upside down, can you imagine the hassle when it rains? What if your eyebrows grow like the hair in your head? Somebody in my household takes about an hour to do her hair, can you imagine the time she’ll waste if she has to comb her eyebrows too for another hour. Can you imagine trying to talk to someone with your long eyebrows in the way covering your eyes? We may laugh, but we can go on and on and talk about so many things that we take for granted, but when we consider them, we’ll realize the impossibility of our existence without God’s wisdom behind it. Look at a mother when she cradles her baby in her bent arms do you notice that the baby’s head is right close to the mother’s breast to make it easier for both the baby and the mother during feeding time? Thank God that He didn’t put the mother’s breast in her back, it would have been a challenge to feed the baby. Can you see not only God’s wisdom but also His love when He made us? Indeed only fools say that there is no God.


THE INVISIBLE (QUANTUM) EVIDENCE FOR GOD


God did not only create all living things with wisdom, He also created the heavens and the earth with wisdom. The Hebrew word used by Moses in Genesis 1:1 for “create” is bara. The Hebrew word bara in the Qal stem can only be equated with God. Man cannot bara, only God can bara. Bara means create out of nothing. Man with all his technology and knowledge, cannot create anything out of nothing, we can only make something out of something. God spoke and it was so. “By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things that are seen, were not made of things which are visible” (Heb. 11:3). The author of Hebrews says that the things that we see around us were made of things that were invisible. There is an inscrutable power in the word of God that as He speaks, material things that can be seen, the worlds, the stars, the galaxies, the island universes in space, and all, come into existence from something that can’t be seen. Man often talks and utters useless words that don't do anything. But o the awesome and infinite energy, the inscrutable power of the word that comes out of God's mouth! God utters words and worlds come into existence! Man utters words and often they don't mean anything. In Genesis chapter 1, we are told that God created space – the heavens, matter – the earth, moon and stars , and time – the evening and the morning was the first day. Since God created all these, He is not confined to, He is not containable by, and He is not limited to any of them, that is, He is outside of time, outside of space and outside of matter that He created, and therefore, He can see from the beginning to the end, He can know everything and can be everywhere at the same time. “Thus says the Lord: ‘Heaven is My throne, and earth is My footstool. Where is the house that you will build me? And where is the house of my rest? For all those things My hand has made, and all those things exist’” (Isa. 66:1,2, margin).


In the early to mid 1900s, scientists including Einstein, thought that the universe was static, that is, it had always been there. But with the progress in science, particularly in physics, astronomy, and technology including the Hubble telescope, scientists have found irrefutable evidences that the universe is in fact continuously expanding at a constant speed and seemingly revolving around a common center. And they found out that there was a time when the universe was nothing. In other words, there was a time when there was no time, no space, no matter, no universe, no thing. Because of the evidence, they concluded that there was a time when the universe just exploded abruptly into being out of nothing. They call it the Big Bang, we call it Creation, fiat creation. Scientists used their methods in physics and astronomy to prove that there was no God, but look where do their evidences lead them to? To an awesome all-powerful God! Somebody bigger than the massive limitless universe made it come into existence abruptly out of nothing!


Listen to astronomer Robert Jastrow, the head of the Mt. Wilson Observatory and founder of NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies, who is not a Christian: “Astronomers now find they have painted themselves into a corner because they have proven, by their own methods, that the world began abruptly in an act of creation to which you can trace the seeds of every star, every planet, every living thing in this cosmos and on the earth. And they have found that all this happened as a product of forces they cannot hope to discover….That there are what I or anyone would call supernatural forces at work is now, I think, a scientifically proven fact.” Creation of the universe out of nothing by a supernatural force, a scientifically proven fact? Wow! You think this guy is reading Genesis 1:1 or Hebrews 11:3, but he’s not, he’s saying it on the basis of evidences discovered by modern science. Atheistic scientist Arthur Eddington although feeling repugnant about the current evidence in astronomy and physics had to admit, “The beginning seems to present insuperable difficulties unless we agree to look on it as frankly supernatural.”


THE ANTHROPIC PRINCIPLE


Modern scientific evidence does not only point to creation out of nothing by means of a supernatural power that is beyond time, space and matter; but also points to the fact that the universe is created with mankind in mind (the Anthropic Principle). In other words, the balance between the earth’s gravitational force and the force of the so called Big Bang (which we call God’s mighty power that holds the universe) is so infinitely precise, so that if it was off by 1 part of 10 to the 60th power (1 followed by 60 zeros) mankind will not exist. To put it simply, in order to maintain life on earth, the force that maintains the universe has to be precise like hitting a target bulls-eye 20 billion lightyears away across the universe. That’s how precise is the force that holds the universe to maintain life on earth and it shouldn’t fluctuate at any moment, otherwise it will wipe out all of mankind.


After realizing this mid-boggling supernatural accuracy, Paul Davies, who is a non-creationist, professor of mathematical physics at the University of Adelaide declares: “I cannot believe that our existence is a mere quirk of fate, an accident of history, an incidental blip in the great cosmic drama. Our involvement is too intimate….This can be no trivial detail, no minor product of mindless, purposeless forces. We are truly meant to be here.” God showed His footprints, His back, not only in all the things that we see here on earth, but out there in the starry heavens, in the limitless space, the starry heavens are crying out loud to mankind, “There is an awesome God who created us and you and there’s none like Him!” God is telling us through his vast creation in space: “I made all these things for you, because I love you! You were on my mind when I made all these things!” When we read Gen. 1:17 which says, “God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth” we better believe it. God had us in mind when He made the moon, the sun and the stars, not only to give us light, but to give us life! Technically we call this the Anthropic Principle, the universe exists with mankind’s survival in mind.


GOD CREATED LIGHT INDEPENDENT OF THE SUN


When God first created the earth, it was without form and the waters were dark, time and light were not created yet, in other words there was no first day yet, nor second day, nor seventh day, only eternity. There was no light either, it was total darkness. Gen. 1:2-5 says: “The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.” You’ll probably notice that the light was created independent of the sun. God created the light on the first day (Gen. 1:3), and He created the sun on the fourth day (Gen. 1:14-19). Therefore, until the third day the light existed without the sun. How can light exist by itself as an energy without the sun or the moon generating it? Here in Genesis we see that light is not an intrinsic property of the sun, it comes from God Himself. While scientists know that the sun generates light, they don’t have a clue where it got all that energy. Is the sun a mere relay point of light that actually originates from God Himself? What is light anyway? Is it a particle of matter, or is it an invisible wave of energy like radio waves?


ON LIGHT SPEED AND GOD SPEED


For years scientists had debated about light whether it was a particle or a wave. Physics which is the ultimate science of the physical universe, and is the major tool of materialistic science because the physical can be seen and tested, has never quite figured out the nature of light until the advent of quantum physics, the study of the most basic structure of the physical universe at the subatomic level. First there was Einstein who theorized that E=mc2, that is any matter (m) whether it is from uranium or petals of a rose or from your muscles, if subjected to the square of the speed of light (c2), equals to a powerful energy (E). This theory is now the Law of Relativity because it’s been proven to be true. That’s why we have nuclear bombs. For 150 years physicists believed that with the knowledge of the laws of physics in the universe, things become predictable. Einstein himself said, “The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible.” With his theory he postulated that nothing travels faster than light. If we have to travel to the nearest star (Proxima Centaurus) at the speed of light which is 300,000 kilometers per second, it would take us about 4.3 years to get there, if we travel at the speed of the fastest rocket it would take us thousands of years to get there.


If it’s been proven that nothing travels faster than the speed of light, how is it then that the Bible records that when Daniel prayed, God sent the angel Gabriel from heaven to earth to answer Daniel at an instant speed even before Daniel could finish his prayer (Dan. 9:20-23)? How does God do that? Can God and angels travel faster than the speed of light? Is there a visible reality and another invisible reality? Comes quantum physics, the ultimate science of reality at the most basic level. Scientists are now able to study the atom at its minutest subatomic level with modern instrumentation in today’s laboratories. But the deeper man goes into the atom, the deeper are the mysteries that he encounters. Because the atom, which is the most simple particle of all living and non-living things, quantum physicists have found out, is not simple at all. The components of an atom the electron, proton and neutron have their own smaller components (photons, quarks and neutrinos) and they suspect that those smaller components have also their still smaller components far beyond the grasp of human perception. And what puzzles scientists, is not only the nature of these subatomic particles but also the way they behave. It defies logic and empirical observation. Scientists call this “quantum weirdness.” Niels Bohr, one of the pioneers of quantum physics says, “Anyone who is not shocked by quantum physics, has not understood it.”


PHOTONS TRAVEL FASTER THAN THE SPEED OF LIGHT


In the famous double-slit experiment which was repeated and demonstrated again and again in many laboratories, quantum scientists found out that photons, the smallest subatomic observable components of light can travel faster than the speed of light. When scientists shot photons into one hole, they were also present in the second separate hole at the same time. After observing this phenomenon, physics professor, Timothy Ferris, writes: “It is as if the quantum world had never heard of space – as if in some strange way, it thinks of itself as being in one place at a time.” Can anything or anyone be in different places at the same time? Impossible according to empirical science, but demonstrated my modern quantum physics repeatedly in laboratories.


Before, we had to take what the Scripture said about God’s omnipresence totally by faith. We had to take Jesus’ promise by faith when He said that when He comes again all eyes shall see Him even if an object as immensely big as the sun cannot even be seen by everyone worldwide at the same time. Today, God has given us a glimpse of His omnipresent power, of being able to be there for us and for everyone in the universe instantly everywhere at the same time through His footprints in quantum physics. Through the minutest observable entity of the atom, God shows us a trace of His awesome power like a wake of a boat in the water. What is impossible with man, is possible with God. God can be in all places at the same time, and the photons tell us that it’s true. The photons can do it, their Maker can.


Non-believers are at a loss about this phenomenon in quantum physics, it’s beyond their comprehension. Physicist Roland Omnes writes of quantum physics: “This theory penetrates reality to a depth our senses cannot take us. Its laws are universal, and they rule over the world of objects so familiar to us. We who inhabit the world, cannot make our own vision prevail over the arrogant laws, whose concepts seem to flow from an order higher than the one inspired by the things we can touch, see, and say with ordinary words.” In other words, modern empirical science cannot explain the most basic reality of man’s own existence. There is too much wisdom embedded in the quantum world – the most basic unit of our existence that’s beyond man’s ability to comprehend because it is the insuperable wisdom of God that designed it.


When scientists studied two groups of photons and put them in two different holes, they found out that the photons in the second hole “knew” what was going on in the first hole, that is, when the other photons in the first hole were spinning clockwise, the other photons in the second hole started to spin counter-clockwise. If scaled to life size, it’s like a ball in Australia starting to spin counterclockwise because a ball in Europe started to spin clockwise. And not only that, they found out that photons were “conscious” when they were being observed and that it changed its nature when being observed. When scientists put detectors in two holes and shot photons into them, they behaved like particles, when the detectors were removed, they behaved like waves, that is, invisible energy like radio waves. When scientists put one detector in the first closed hole and no detectors in the second closed hole, the moment scientists opened the first hole that had the detectors, the second hole that was closed and had no detectors still behaved like the photons in the first hole that was being observed, they also collapsed or changed into particles. The moment detectors were removed from both holes, the photons behaved back like waves, like the invisible radio waves. Somehow the photons in the second hole were “conscious” that the first hole was being opened and that the photons in there were being observed and so they reacted the same way as the photons that were being observed, they turned into particles. Talk about weirdness and bizarre behavior. We have this minutest entity of light or of atom, that can assume two different natures, 100 percent invisible radio wave and 100 percent visible particle, at the same time. Two natures that are mutually exclusive yet found in one entity, the photon.


The Scripture also tells us of the two natures of God: His transcendence and His immanence. He is too Holy in His eternal majesty for mortals to see, thus He is invisible, yet through His amazing love and grace, He became One of us that we might see Him face to face. Christ was both 100 percent invisible God and 100 percent visible Man in one person. The photons tell us that an entity can be both visible and invisible. The photons can do it, their Maker can do it too.


THE VISIBLE MADE OF THE INVISIBLE


First of all, we, including all the things around us are made of atoms. And if we scrutinize what we’re all made of to the minutest unit, we’re nothing but empty space. Just imagine an atom scaled to the size of the solar system, but not with nine or eight planets orbiting the sun, but only one planet (electron) orbiting the sun (nucleus), the rest is nothing but empty space. That’s what we’re made of at the minutest level – the atom. The electron orbits around the central nucleus of an atom which is about 1,800 times bigger than the electron, and yet the negative electrical charge that is generated by the orbiting electron is the same as the positive electrical charge that is generated by the proton that is inside the central nucleus. Without the balance in the electrical charge in the atoms around and inside of us, no life can exist. Why there is a balance in electrical charges between the electron and the proton (which is 1800 bigger in size than the electron of an atom) despite the big difference in size, nobody knows. And the electron that orbits around the nucleus and the nucleus itself that contains the proton, are all electromagnetic waves and not particles. In other words the most basic component of the physical visible universe including ourselves, is invisible. What is empirically visible, is according to quantum physics, is made of the invisible. Suddenly physics, the study of the physical, ends up being the study of the metaphysical. The only reason why we can see, touch, and feel things as solid is because of the varying force fields that different things possess.


For example we can’t go through a wooden door because the force field of the atoms of wood is stronger than the force field of the atoms in our body. A nail can penetrate a wood because the force field of the atoms of an iron is stronger than the force field of the atoms of wood. What if God somehow someday recreates us into immortal bodies and the force fields of our atoms become stronger than the force fields of nature around us? Is it possible then that we cannot be hurt when we fall, or we can walk through shut doors like what Jesus did after the resurrection? Just a thought, but quantum physics now gives us a clue about what’s seemingly impossible in the physical world, is possible in the quantum world. The things that can be seen in the universe are after all made of things that cannot be seen. Wait a minute, doesn’t this quantum phenomenon sound familiar in the Bible? Hebrew 11:3 says, “By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.” Wow! Is this quantum physics or what?

CONCLUSION


Indeed from the complex human being to the minutest one-celled organism, from the subatomic photons to the grandest island universe in space, they all declare the wonders and the glorious signature of God’s awesome power and majesty. But the most amazing of all is not God’s awesome power, not His power to create the limitless universe of stars and galaxies out of nothing, nor His power to hold all His vast Creation in place, but the most amazing of all is that this God who created and who controls and maintains the universe through His immense power, loved us so much that He came down to this one dark tiny dot in the universe called Earth, assumed our human nature, and suffered and died the eternal death condemnation that was ours. He assumed our sinfulness and our eternal death punishment, that we might have another chance and only chance at eternal life. Jesus, the transcendent, uncontainable, inscrutable, omnipotent God and Creator, is also our Savior, our Brother, our Friend and our fellow human. That my friends, is the most amazing thing in the whole universe, and it would continue to puzzle the whole of creation throughout eternity.

Because of Him it became possible for us to wing our flight throughout the realms and limitless frontiers of the universe that are outside the bounds of time and the speed of light.

I like the way how a third grade woman, described what awaits the saints; written at around the time when Darwin came out with his now proven fallacious book, Origin of the Species. E. G. White writes: “All the treasures of the universe will be open to the study of God’s redeemed. Unfettered by mortality, they wing their tireless flight to worlds afar…. With unutterable delight the children of earth enter into the joy and the wisdom of unfallen beings….With undimmed vision they gaze upon the glory of creation – suns and stars and systems, all in their appointed order circling the throne of Deity. And the years of eternity as they roll, will bring richer and still more glorious revelations of God and of Christ. As knowledge is progressive, so will love, reverence, and happiness increase” (The Great Controversy, pp. 677-678).


Doesn’t your innermost intuition, long for deliverance from this sick, miserable fleeting lifetime that is full of pain, filth, ugliness, greed, tragedy, destruction, uncertainty, fear, impermanence, death and evil? Doesn’t your heart seek for life’s eternal permanence, while knowledge, love, reverence and happiness continue to increase without end? Indeed what an amazing God we have who created us, who sustains us, who loves us with an everlasting love and who has secured for us our eternal salvation! Even so come our Creator-God, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!