The Light of Life

The exact date of Jesus’s birth is not known, and occurred somewhere around 5 BC. It is believed that after the Roman emperor Aurelian made December 25 into a celebration of the “Invincible Sun” to mark the winter solstice (AD 274), the Church chose that date to celebrate Christ’s birthday to appropriate that festival time. Certainly the solstice would be an appropriate time to mark the arrival of the Light of the world into the darkest day of the year.

There are about 80 references to light in the New Testament. Many of those refer directly to Jesus.

“In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it… The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world” (John 1:4-5, 9).

“The light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil” (John 3:19).

“I am the light of the world. Whoever follows Me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12).

“The people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned” (Matt. 4:16).

God’s first act in creation was to speak light into existence: “God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light” (Gen. 1:3). When Jesus died on the cross, “the sun’s light failed” (Luke 22:45). Then of the new earth to come, we are told, “The city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb” (Rev. 21:23).

Scripture also refers to our responsibility to live in the light:

“For at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light” (Eph. 5:8).

“But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).

“In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 5:16).

One of the reasons we decorate with lights at Christmas is to remember the arrival of the Light of the world. Jesus came to expose our sin, redeem us from eternal death and darkness, and enable us to share His light with the world. Let there be light!

“For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6).

---

© 2023 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

What Does the Future Hold?

This is a post that may raise more questions than it answers, because the Bible doesn’t present clear explanation. Here’s where I’m coming from: I’ve been doing a lot of reading recently in the area of autism and neurodiversity, some written by Christians and some from non-Christians. One common feature between the two is that much of the world has a very limited and limiting view of “normal.” The “medical model” of disability attempts to define normalcy based on statistical prevalence, and then focuses on curing or normalizing the individual who doesn’t quite fit the mold. On the other hand, the “social model” of disability views disability as a difference that can be accommodated by how society interacts with the individual’s unique traits. (Other models have been proposed by some, but I’ll stick with these two for now.)

We could discuss biblical views of personhood, the image of God, the reason for suffering, and how the church should seek to love and serve “the least of these” (Matt. 24:31-46). Those are all worthy topics. However, I want to zero in on just one aspect of so-called disabilities: what is eternal life in the Kingdom of God going to look like for those who are considered disabled in this life? We aren’t given a lot of details in Scripture, but here are a few things we do know:

“So [Jesus] fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought Him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, those having seizures, and paralytics, and He healed them” (Matt. 4:24).

“But someone will ask ‘How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?’ …what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other gain. But God gives it a body as He has chosen, and to each seed its own body… For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality” (1 Cor. 15:35-38, 53).

“On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’ When He had said this, He showed them His hands and His side… Then He said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here, and see My hands; and put out your hand, and place it in My side. Do not disbelieve, but believe” (John 20:19-20, 27).

“He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. And He who was seated on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new’” (Rev. 21:4-5a).

There are illnesses and handicaps that God will completely remove. Those things that cause us pain and tears will be changed. However, Jesus’ resurrection body still bore the marks of His crucifixion. What might that imply for our new bodies? Perhaps, following the grain/plant metaphor, our new bodies will be so radically different that there’s no comparison. However, it seems to me that the fact of a bodily resurrection indicates some continuity between the bodies we have now and those we will have.

What about genetic traits that have radically shaped our experience? Some researches and parents have noted that people with Down Syndrome tend to be happier on average than other people. Will God recreate all of us with the “correct” number and type of chromosomes? Or will some retain an extra chromosome but no longer have any detrimental effects from it? Will those born with dwarfism then be six feet tall?

What about the traits that cause a person on the autism spectrum to notice the tiny details of some object, or the savant that has trouble communicating but creates beautiful music? Why would God remove anything that points out or contributes to the glory of His creation? Wouldn’t those traits be retained, but probably without the difficulties in communication or tendency toward meltdowns when overstimulated?

How about personality traits? I don’t think introverts will become extroverts or vice versa, but perhaps we’ll all become ambiverts—able to respond in the appropriate way in every situation. I see no reason why the diversity of God’s people should become muted and monotone. If anything, I think we’ll see how truly creative God has been in making us each unique. We can retain our own interests, abilities, and gifts, but without any of the sinful tendencies that may be associated with them.

If we look back to Genesis 1-2, God created Adam and Eve, put them in Eden, and gave them meaningful work in tending the garden. We tend to forget that fact when we read Revelation and its descriptions of the New Jerusalem. I know I’ve read that and thought “I don’t want to live in a city forever.” I think we can be assured that the “new heavens and new earth in which righteousness dwells” (2 Pet. 3:13) will be far better than anything we can currently imagine, like our favorite vacation spot enjoyed not only with our favorite people but with our Creator and Redeemer—the One who chose us before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:4), knitted us together in our mother’s womb (Ps. 139:13), and knows us each by name (John 10:3). Since we know that, we can trust Him with all the details of our future bodies, homes, and the universe.

“To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God” (Rev. 2:7b).

***

A few resources I’ve found interesting:

“Wheelchairs in Heaven” -Joni Eareckson Tada

“God’s Power in Disability” -Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission

“Is Disability Normal?” -The Gospel Coalition

 

© 2022 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images are copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Replacing Darwin

This post is for my science-minded friends, though I think others may enjoy it as well. I just finished reading Replacing Darwin: The New Origin of Species, by Nathaniel T. Jeanson. (It almost makes me wish I’d continued my biology studies after college, but God had other plans.) Jeanson shares a lot of research that has been done in the years since Darwin wrote On the Origin of Species (1859), and his conclusions point strongly to a young earth model that aligns with Scripture. The following are just a few quotes to illustrate his argument.

“Like the 18th century, the scope of species diversity in Darwin’s day was a fraction of today’s variety. In 1859, the scientific community had no knowledge of the majority of species we have now documented… Since 1859, we’ve had time to reevaluate his picture—much more time than he had to propose and appraise it… Furthermore, the Internet makes information sharing faster than ever before” (ch. 1).

In 1865, “Gregor Mendel… solved the paradox of family trees… One of the first discoveries that Mendel made was the discrete nature of genetic information… Mendel’s experiments demonstrated the fact of particulate inheritance rather than blended inheritance… Together, the discovery of unit factors, of dominant and recessive traits, and of the segregation of genetic information began to define clear rules for the ways in which traits behave each generation… For reasons unknown, Darwin appears to have been unaware of Mendel’s work. Conversely, for equally unknown reasons, when Mendel died in 1884, his discoveries died with him, not to be resurrected until the turn of the century” (ch. 2).

“Prior to the 1950s, Mendel’s unit factors had been renamed genes… The origin of traits now seemed to be just a matter of understanding the origin of genes... By the late 1960s and 1970s, the first complete DNA sequences—the genomes—from various species were trickling in… In the 1960s, DNA was detected elsewhere—in a different sub-cellular compartment termed the mitochondria… When Darwin wrote On the Origin of Species, he had no knowledge of the genetic processes… No one had any idea how many DNA differences divided species. In fact, the DNA sequence of our own species wasn’t solved until 2001” (ch. 3).

“If Darwin had no knowledge of genetics, how could he write a book on the origin of species? …Fossils don’t directly record genealogical relationships… Similarly, geography doesn’t directly record inheritance… Finally, anatomy and physiology have a nonlinear relationship with DNA sequences… The problem with inductive reasoning is that there may be multiple explanations for an observation” (ch. 4).

“Over the last few years, one of the most critical genetic observations came from analysis of DNA sequences, not between species, but within species… In the parent-offspring pairs... the offspring contained DNA sequences that could not be traced to either parent… [They] didn’t just document the fact of mutation. They also measured the rate. Since the reported units of measurement from these studies were mutations per generation, these experiments naturally had implications for the timescale over which DNA differences arose… The mtDNA [mitochondrial DNA] findings contained in this chapter called into question the entire foundation of the evolutionary timescale… [The] millions-of-years paradigm rests on the assumption that rates of change have been largely constant. Yet, in the field of genetics, the assumption of constant rates of change… yields a 6,000-year timescale, not an ancient one” (ch. 7).

“Unlike mtDNA, nuclear DNA has been much more difficult to compare across species… Too few results have been obtained to see a general pattern of what precise percentage of nuclear DNA differences are preexisting, and what percentage are due to mutation… [The] results that have been obtained thus far for the YEC [Young-Earth Creationist] model suggest that the majority—if not the vast majority—of nuclear DNA differences in species were preexisting [i.e. created at a point in time]” (ch. 8).

I’ll leave you to read the details for yourself if you’re interested. (I would recommend getting the physical book so his charts can be seen correctly.) You can also check out the Institute for Creation Research and Answers in Genesis. I’ll close by saying that his arguments have gone a long way in changing my own interpretation of our origins from a generally theistic evolutionary position to a more literal reading of the Creation narrative in Scripture. To use Jeanson’s analogy, we simply do not have all the pieces of the puzzle yet and we can easily misinterpret the picture from the pieces we do have.

“Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it... Wonderful are Your works; my soul knows it very well” (Psalm 139:6, 14b).

--

© 2019 Dawn Rutan. Cover photo courtesy of Amazon.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

National Conference on Christian Apologetics

Here are a few brief notes and links from some of the sessions I attended at the National Conference on Christian Apologetics. I chose several sessions related to biology because that is what my first degree was in and I still enjoy it. It was an encouraging and educational time.

1) God’s Crime Scene: Evidence for God’s Existence from the Fine-Tuning of the Universe- J. Warner Wallace (Cold Case Christianity)

Can the finely tuned systems of our universe be explained by something within the universe? No, there are far too many variables for chance to have created the universe as we know it. There had to have been an outside force that was both purposeful and powerful. The existence of morality implies that the force was also personal. The answer to our questions is not a “what” but a “Who.”

http://coldcasechristianity.com/

2) The Age of the Earth: A Charitable Approach- Eric Gustafson (Southern Evangelical Seminary)

Though there are many areas for disagreement, old earth and young earth Christians should be able to agree on these points:

a) Biblical interpretation- Creation passages are historical rather than metaphorical, though not scientifically precise.

b) Scriptural genealogies refer to real people in real history, but are not necessarily comprehensive (ie. generations may have been skipped). Genealogies are not intended to provide exact details but key people.

c) Death before the Fall- Only humans are endowed with a spiritual nature. No humans died before the Fall; however, animals were most likely mortal from creation.

d) Presuppositionalism- Can non-believers correctly interpret general revelation? God’s general revelation properly interpreted will never contradict His special revelation properly interpreted.

3) It’s Time to Do Biology as if Darwin Had Never Been Born- Randy Guliuzza (Institute for Creation Research)

Darwin essentially said that changes in environments cause changes in organisms, thereby making adaptation externalistic. He said that the changes in organisms were copious, small, undirected mutations over long periods of time. However, ongoing research disproves that theory. A single species without any changes in DNA can adapt different characteristics based on how it senses its own environment through Continuous Environmental Tracking. These changes can take place within a single generation and are predictable, not just genetic drift and survival of the fittest.

http://www.icr.org/article/stick-spider-adaptation

4) The God Who Wants Us to Test Him: Testing Genesis with the Latest Science- Hugh Ross (Reasons to Believe)

From an old earth perspective, scientific research continues to reveal that the order of events in nature corresponds with the order as outlined in the Bible in Genesis 1 and Job 37-39. Previously assumed disparities have been disproved. For example:

• Vegetation fossils have been found which prove that plants existed before animals.
• Fossils continue to show no transition species.
• Continents emerged more quickly than originally believed.
• Genetic diversity of closed populations increase faster than predicted, so we could have all come from two original humans.

The more we learn about science, the more reasons we have to believe the Bible.

https://www.reasons.org/explore/blogs/todays-new-reason-to-believe/read/todays-new-reason-to-believe/2018/06/11/rapid-landmass-emergence-affirms-creation-day-3

https://www.reasons.org/explore/blogs/todays-new-reason-to-believe/read/todays-new-reason-to-believe/2018/06/18/hazy-early-earth-more-affirmation-of-creation-day-4

© 2018 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated all images are copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

God Glorifies Himself

The Westminster Confession of Faith is not one I’ve studied in recent years, but a recent reference by Alistair Begg made me revisit it. Chapter 2 Article II states in part:

“God has all life, glory, goodness, blessedness, in and of Himself; and is alone in and unto Himself all-sufficient, not standing in need of any creatures which He has made, nor deriving any glory from them, but only manifesting His own glory in, by, unto, and upon them.”

The scriptural proof for that statement was taken from Job 22:2-3 (ESV): “Can a man be profitable to God? Surely he who is wise is profitable to himself. Is it any pleasure to the Almighty if you are in the right, or is it gain to Him if you make your ways blameless?”

If we accept this statement of the Confession as true (which some may argue), it should bring us to our knees in humility. Man cannot give anything to God, but is only a vessel through which God glorifies Himself. We can contribute nothing to our salvation, sanctification, service, or worship, except by means of God’s actions in and through us. When we remember that every breath we take, every beat of our hearts, and every impulse of our neurons is only possible because of God’s sustaining grace, we shouldn’t be surprised to realize that we can’t by our own efforts do anything for God.

It’s easy to fall into the habit of thinking incorrectly because we use imprecise terminology. We may say things like, “Let’s worship God together,” or “Glorify God in your work.” That’s not necessarily wrong to say, since Scripture uses such commands frequently. However, we need to remember that we can only obey those commands because God is at work in us to glorify Himself. In the words of the Apostle Paul, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure” (Philippians 2:12b-13). God initiates and we respond.

I realize this steps on the toes of man’s free will. These days I wonder if we are really so free as we think. It often seems more like an illusion to undergird our pride of self-sufficiency and independence. God’s sovereignty and man’s free will is certainly not something that I can explain, and far more learned theologians still debate it. I can only point to the truths of Scripture as God’s Word:

• “The Lord kills and brings to life; He brings down to Sheol and raises up. The Lord makes poor and makes rich; He brings low and He exalts. He raises up the poor from the dust; He lifts the needy from the ash heap to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor. For the pillars of the earth are the Lord’s, and on them He has set the world” (1 Samuel 2:6-8).
• “So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth” (1 Cor. 3:7).
• “For You are great and do wondrous things; You alone are God” (Psalm 86:10).
• “I know that You can do all things, and that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted” (Job 42:2).

Let us worship and serve the Creator because He has made us and has enabled us to do so by His grace and mercy!

© 2017 Dawn Rutan. 

Creation Celebrates

The other day I heard the song “Carol of the Fryers” for the first time this season. I was moved by it, and not just because I have a soft spot for animals. It made me think about the fact that barn animals may well have been the first witnesses to the birth of Jesus, and I see no reason to think that they would not worship their Creator. Years later at the Triumphal Entry, Jesus would say, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out” (Luke 19:37 ESV). All of creation is made to give glory to God. It is only mankind that has the choice of whether or not we will bow in worship to Him, though one day that too will change (Phil. 2:10). If the shepherds had not heeded the angelic message and the wise men had not followed the star, there would still have been worshipers to greet the King of kings. If the people were missing and the animals were silent, the very stones would have cried out.

Psalm 148 (ESV)

1 Praise the Lord!

Praise the Lord from the heavens;

praise Him in the heights!

2 Praise Him, all His angels;

praise Him, all His hosts!

3 Praise Him, sun and moon,

praise Him, all you shining stars!

4 Praise Him, you highest heavens,

and you waters above the heavens!

5 Let them praise the name of the Lord!

For He commanded and they were created.

6 And He established them forever and ever;

He gave a decree, and it shall not pass away.

7 Praise the Lord from the earth,

you great sea creatures and all deeps,

8 fire and hail, snow and mist,

stormy wind fulfilling His word!

9 Mountains and all hills,

fruit trees and all cedars!

10 Beasts and all livestock,

creeping things and flying birds!

11 Kings of the earth and all peoples,

princes and all rulers of the earth!

12 Young men and maidens together,

old men and children!

13 Let them praise the name of the Lord,

for His name alone is exalted;

His majesty is above earth and heaven.

14 He has raised up a horn for His people,

praise for all His saints,

for the people of Israel who are near to Him.

Praise the Lord!

Have a blessed Christmas celebrating the birth of the King of kings and Lord of lords, Prince of Peace, our Savior and our God!

© 2016 Dawn Rutan