Where is God going with all of this?

In this paper, I want to address some important questions about what God is seeking to achieve with all of us.  I hope this will provide you with encouragement but also some resolution to a few difficult questions that we often face.  I have found that, when I’ve explained this to people, it has given them encouragement and resolved some things that have become real obstacles.  Hence why I’ve written it down.  More on that later. 

Firstly, I want to address an issue that may seem a little obscure but it’s important in the faith journey, as well as in understanding the ultimate point.

The principle of self-evidence

One of the things I love about the Bible is that God is clearly not scared of science.  While various people on both sides like to suggest that faith and science are incompatible, it doesn’t seem like the Lord agrees.  The seminal Biblical verse on this point is Romans 1:20:

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

Put another way, perhaps less delicately – it should be blindingly obvious to anyone with half a brain cell that creation didn’t make itself.  And because of this, God won’t accept your “I never knew…” excuses when judgement comes. 

This verse is used to justify a number of things, one of which is the importance of natural as well as Biblical revelation.  But what hit me powerfully when I first read this was that God is establishing a principle of self-evidence.  Some things should be evident because they’re obvious. 

Here’s another scripture making a similar point – Galatians 5:19-21

19 The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Paul is saying that the sins of the flesh are self-evident – you shouldn’t need them explaining to you.  You already know. 

Related to this is God’s desire to reason with us…

“Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: (Isa 1:18)

Again, God is not scared of reason, or science as a consequence – rather He wants us to use our brains, which He gave us.

I could go on.  But the point is that God expects us to use our brains to work things out, and that some things should be self-evident. If something presents itself as truth, then it should  be confirmed in some way through natural revelation.  This is a critical test for various lines of thinking.  Biblical revelation works in the natural.  Other revelation (where it is inconsistent with the Bible) does not.

Equally, if you have drawn a conclusion from the Bible that doesn’t seem to be true in real life, you have certainly come to the wrong conclusion.  Biblical truth and natural truth are consistent.

Some implications of the principle of self-evidence

This concept, that the two forms of truth justify each other is extremely helpful but it is also what leads to real difficulty for people, because it should.  A great example of this is why do bad things happen to good people?  It appears that God allows sinful things to happen to “good” people and the church ties itself in knots trying to both absolve God from sin and to explain away this problem in a politically acceptable way. 

Sometimes, the church will argue that “no-one is good” – which is true Biblically – and therefore bad things happening to good people isn’t a fair categorisation.  Hmm.  Unfortunately, this appears to fall foul of Romans 8:28 “God works all things for the good of those that love Him, according to His purposes”.  It does appear that God wants good things for us, right?

The fundamental problem here is many of us are confused because we have clear natural revelation but what is taught as Biblical truth doesn’t seem to fit.

In fact that Bible teaches some things that are a little inconvenient for the church.  God does not, in fact, distance Himself from sin.  Isaiah 45:7 says this

“I form the light and create darkness,

  I bring prosperity and create disaster;

  I, the Lord, do all these things.

Isaiah 10 does something similar where God raises up Assyria against Israel, and then commits to punish them.

The fundamental issue for believers that we need to understand is that God does not promise that “good things” will happen for the believer as a consequence of them believing.  In fact He promises the opposite, in a sense.  Isaiah 48:10 says this

See, I have refined you, though not as silver;

I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.

God promises that you will go through the furnace of affliction, and this will be for your good.  That means bad things will happen to you, that will be used by the Lord for your good.  You won’t necessarily understand why when it’s happening, but ultimately you will.  The picture in Isaiah 48 obviously conveys “heat”.  It’ll be painful (and it is). 

Those of us who have spent some years walking through the furnace of affliction can attest to the Biblical truth that it is for our good.  God had Ezekiel lie on his side with a weight upon him for a year.  God had Hosea marry a promiscuous woman and woo her back from the consequence of her promiscuity.  Are these good things?  It depends how you look at it.  Was it fun for Hosea to do this?  Doubtful.  Did it make him a better prophet in conveying God’s concern over Israel’s unfaithfulness?  Absolutely.  So was it good?  Ultimately, yes.  Just not fun. 

I am addressing this point for two reasons.  Firstly, to show the importance of consistency between natural revelation and what the Bible actually says, rather than what it teaches.  You don’t have to like the truth, but it is wise nonetheless to accept it.

Secondly, the specific question of why bad things happen to good people is relevant to the broader question of this – where is God going with all of this?

So where is He going with it – what’s the point?

I am going to use a combination of “natural” revelation – or logic – with Biblical truth to make an argument that is akin to “reading between the lines” in the Bible.  I am personally convinced by the argument through prayer and my own walk with God, but that doesn’t mean you should be.  I simply suggest you pray through the argument and come to your own conclusions.

Quite a lot of emphasis in teaching within the church is around the question of being “saved”.  So much so that it is almost as if the church believes that being saved is the point.  At one level you could argue that for some people being saved is the most important thing in front of them.  But is God’s “point” that we are saved?  Or is the point something else, and being saved is a necessary step?

It should be fairly self-evident that, if God’s point was to create a whole bunch of people to save, then there are surely easier ways to do it.  It’s an extremely convoluted system if His intent is simply to save us.  If we therefore assume that God might have another intent, we can actually make quite a bit of progress.

What else do we know? We know that He wants us to be conformed to the image of Christ.

For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. (Rom 8;29)

He predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will (Eph 1:5)

So we know that God wants us to be conformed to the image of Christ, who is the first of many “brothers”.  I think this is important, because it is self-evident I will never be transformed into being actually “like” Jesus!  But I can be transformed into His image in the sense that I become a Son of God through adoption.  That is the promise God is making.  Being saved is a route to Sonship.

Is there anything else? Well, what do we know about what being a Son involves?  We know Jesus was given authority…

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. (Matt 28:18)

Also:

A voice came from the cloud, saying, “This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him.” (Luke 9:35)

This second verse from Luke would be recognised by the Jewish people hearing it as a normal “ceremony” where a father would take his son to the marketplace and say this – what he is conveying is that “whatever my son says, he says for me.  You can deal with him and know you are dealing with me”.  God is doing the same with Jesus and making clear that Jesus speaks for Him.  So as a son of God, we are also given authority to speak and act on behalf of the Father.  We are obviously empowered to do that through the Holy Spirit. 

There’s more.  Psalm 2 says this:

7 You are My Son;

today I have become Your Father.

8 Ask Me, and I will make the nations Your inheritance,

the ends of the earth Your possession.

9 You will break themd with an iron scepter;

You will shatter them like pottery.

God is saying “ask me for your inheritance and I will give it to you”.  Assuming God wants this for all His “sons” (which includes daughters I believe) then the same is available.  Even more than that…this is from Matthew:

Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? (Matt 26:53)

So Jesus as a Son of God can call on the Father to deploy spiritual resources to achieve what he wants?  Assuming we are talking about a Roman legion, this is somewhere between sixty and seventy thousand angels.  That’s a lot of resources. 

Note this type of resource is not automatically made available to anyone. From the book of Joshua:

Now when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went up to him and asked, “Are you for us or for our enemies?” “Neither,” he replied, “but as commander of the army of the LORD I have now come.” Then Joshua fell facedown to the ground in reverence, and asked him, “What message does my Lord have for his servant?”  (Josh 5:13-14).

So Joshua did not have authority to deploy the Lord’s armies, as he was not a son of God (that question too complicated for our purposes here), although God did send His armies to help.  But Jesus was a Son of God and did have the authority.  And given Sonship is promised to us, that authority is also potentially available to us.

 Pulling it all together

I appreciate there is a lot to take in here.  But the essence of my argument runs as follows.

I believe that the Bible teaches that God wants for us to become Sons of God, adopted into His family.   Jesus has shown us the way and is the first.  He has sent us the Holy Spirit to help us be transformed into Sons like him.

The process of becoming Sons will involve refining in the furnace of affliction.  So bad things will happen, but God will work all things for our good according to His purposes, and that “good” is to become His sons and daughters.  It should be self-evident that is good!

We need to be refined so that we are able to use the authority that comes with Sonship in a way that is both consistent with His will and responsible.  The point of this refinement should be obvious – be honest, at the point you were saved, were you ready to use God’s authority? 

The Bible teaches us much about what Jesus considers important about being a Son.  But appreciating this is where God is going with this is critical, as when difficult trials come your way, I would encourage you to see this as simply part of a process by which the Lord prepares you to become a Son that can use the authority He will give you. 

One final point – I believe this explains something else that should be self-evident.  As a church we can spend a lot of time worrying about problems in the world and praying for God to fix them.  But perhaps the reason God allows these problems is He wants His Sons to use the authority He will give them to transform the world.  Therefore, perhaps a better strategy would be to concentrate on learning to use that authority and follow His will.