...and does it matter? Part 1 of a new mini-series on Creationism.

Editorial introduction: We are delighted to publish the first in a three-part series on scientific evidence for a Creator, written by researcher, author and lecturer Paul Garner. The relationship between science and faith is an important spiritual battle-ground in the modern world, so it behoves us all to know what we believe about Genesis.

Whether you subscribe to a ‘young Earth’ or an ‘old Earth’, a seven-day Creation or a ‘millions of years’ evolutionary model, we hope that Paul’s in-depth research and writing will provoke you to think seriously about what you believe and why – for the sake of the Gospel.

In this first part of the series, Paul lays out different possible theories about the origins of human life and asks what kind of theology each requires.

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The debate about origins – the origin of the universe, of life and of human beings – rages as fiercely today as it did at the time of Charles Darwin. A central question in the debate concerns common ancestry. Are all organisms related by descent from a single, common ancestor (as evolutionary theory proposes) or were many kinds separately created in the beginning (as creation theory proposes)?

Another question concerns the age of the Earth. Is the Earth 4.6 billion years old (as conventional science suggests) or is it about 6,000 years old (as a straightforward reading of the Bible suggests)? Although these two questions are rather different, they are connected. For example, if it could be shown that the world was young, common descent would in effect be disproved.

Christians today tend to fall into one of three ‘camps’. Theistic evolutionists (sometimes referred to as ‘evolutionary creationists’) embrace common descent and an old Earth. Young-Earth creationists reject common descent and an old Earth. Many Christians seek a middle way between these positions by rejecting common descent but embracing an old Earth.

It is often difficult for ordinary Christians to navigate their way through this maze of different opinions. The issues, both theological and scientific, can seem formidably complex and many believers feel ill-equipped to evaluate them.

The debate about the origin of the universe, of life and of human beings rages as fiercely today as it did at the time of Charles Darwin.

But I think there is a way to assess these ideas that most Christians can grasp, and that is to compare the relative sequence of events given in Genesis with the relative sequence of events according to the old-Earth, evolutionary model of origins. For contrary to common opinion, it is actually the age question that has the greater theological implications (rather than the ancestry question), and that is why I am making it the focus of this short series.

In this article, I begin with an overview of Earth’s history according to an ‘old Earth’ model, and then present three ways in which this conflicts with the sequence of events described in Genesis, with more to come next week.

History According to the Old-Earth Model

The conventional scientific view is that the Earth is about 4.6 billion years old and that its geological development has been immensely long and gradual. The multi-million-year dates assigned to Earth history come from the application of radiometric dating, a set of methods that uses the decay of naturally occurring radioactive isotopes as a kind of ‘clock’ to date the rocks and minerals of the Earth’s crust. The rock layers, with their enclosed fossils, are thus said to document the history of life over long eras of time.

Figure 1: The standard geological column representing the history of life on Earth according to the old-Earth model. Fossil organisms typical of each geological era are shown (‘my’ stands for ‘millions of years ago’). After Garner, P, 2009. The New Creationism: Building Scientific Theories on a Biblical Foundation. Evangelical Press, Darlington, p195.

This understanding of Earth history can be summarised as follows (Figure 1).

• Precambrian rocks are considered to be the oldest rocks on Earth, deposited between 4,000 million and 541 million years ago. Most Precambrian fossils are micro-organisms resembling today’s bacteria and blue-green algae. Dome-shaped structures called stromatolites, thought to have formed when sediment became trapped by sticky algal mats, are abundant in Precambrian sediments. Towards the end of the Precambrian Eon, the first multi-celled organisms are thought to have appeared – represented by some strange segmented and frond-like creatures first discovered in the Ediacara Hills of South Australia.
  
• Palaeozoic (‘early life’) rocks follow the Precambrian and are said to have been deposited between 541 and 252 million years ago. The beginning of the Palaeozoic Era was marked by the sudden appearance of many hard-bodied animals including sponges, brachiopods (‘lamp shells’) and trilobites. By the middle of the Palaeozoic Era, fish had become numerous in the oceans, and plants and animals had begun to populate the land. By the end of the era, the first large reptiles and modern plants (conifers) had appeared.

Something we can all do is compare the relative sequence of events given in Genesis with the relative sequence of events according to the old-Earth, evolutionary model.

• Mesozoic (‘middle life’) rocks are thought to have been deposited between 252 and 66 million years ago. This was the ‘age of the reptiles’. Life on the land was dominated by the dinosaurs, in the skies by flying reptiles called pterosaurs, and in the oceans by aquatic reptiles such as ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs and mosasaurs. Ammonites (squid-like creatures in coiled shells) were also common in the warm, shallow seas. The mammals, birds and flowering plants (angiosperms) also made their first appearance during this time.
  
• Cenozoic (‘recent life’) rocks are said to have been deposited between 66 million years ago and the present day. During the Cenozoic, the flowering plants are represented by a great array of trees, shrubs and vines. This was also the era in which most of the modern groups of birds and mammals appeared, as well as the first humans.

Many Christians suppose that there are few, if any, theological consequences of embracing this standard account of Earth history, with its time-scale of hundreds of millions of years.

But in fact there are massive theological difficulties, some of which I am going to highlight in what follows. I will do this by asking the question: what theology would we have to accept as true if we did embrace the old-Earth time-scale?

1. Agony, Death and Bloodshed Before Sin

First, we would have to accept that physical agony, death and bloodshed have been around for hundreds of millions of years, long before humans appeared or sin entered the world.

It hardly needs saying that fossils are the remains of dead things and therefore provide prima facie evidence of physical death. Conventional dating places the first appearance of animals in the fossil record at least as far back as 541 million years ago, probably earlier.¹ But even if we restrict our considerations to sentient beings capable of experiencing pain, evidence of agony and death goes back a long way.

Consider mosasaurs, a group of large marine reptiles, now extinct, preserved in the Upper Cretaceous deposits of North America and Europe. Conventionally, these fossils are 92-66 million years old and long pre-date the first appearance of modern humans (Homo sapiens) around 300,000-200,000 years ago. Many mosasaur skeletons show evidence of physical trauma, including bite wounds² and bone fractures.^3,4 These injuries would have been extremely painful when they were inflicted.

What theology would we have to accept as true if we did embrace the old-Earth time-scale?

Another dramatic example is the mass-death assemblage of horses, camels and rhinos at Ashfall Fossil Beds in Nebraska, USA, conventionally dated to about 12 million years ago. Bone lesions in these animals show that they died slow and agonizing deaths by asphyxiation as the result of inhaling volcanic dust in the aftermath of an eruption.⁵

Ashfall Fossil Beds: a Teleoceras female and her calf.But such evidence of agony and death long before there were humans runs counter to the biblical claim that death and bloodshed came into the world as a consequence of Adam’s sin (Gen 3:19; Rom 5:12; 1 Cor 15:21-22). When Adam fell, God told him he would return to the dust from which he had been taken (Gen 3:19), the ground was cursed (Gen 3:17) and Creation itself was subjected to corruption (Rom 8:20-22). And it is this causal connection between sin and physical death that explains why it was necessary for Christ to suffer and die physically to pay sin’s penalty (Matt 16:21; Mark 8:31; Luke 24:46).

As for the animals, they were caught up in the Fall because they were part of Adam’s dominion (Gen 1:28). When he fell, he dragged the rest of Creation down with him. The original diet of both humans and animals was vegetarian (Gen 1:29-30; cf. Isa 11:6-8, 65:25), and carnivory (meat-eating) is explicitly mentioned only after the Flood (Gen 9:3).

Indeed, the account of the Flood highlights the unnaturalness of animal violence, for we are told that the destruction of “all flesh” included the animals as well as the humans (Gen 7:15-16, 21), because both were corrupt and violent (Gen 6:11-13).

2. Disease and Sickness Before Sin

Second, we would have to accept that disease and sickness have been around for hundreds of millions of years, long before humans appeared or sin entered the world.

Clear evidence of pathology can be seen in the fossil record of many organisms, as we have already seen in the case of the animals that died of lung damage in Nebraska. In fact, the study of ancient disease is a discipline in its own right, known as palaeopathology.

Consider mosasaurs again. Many fossil specimens have pathological features of the skeleton, such as fused vertebrae,⁶ and some of these animals even show evidence of decompression sickness associated with diving.^7,8

An old-Earth model requires us to accept that pain, death, bloodshed and disease were around long before humans appeared or sin entered the world.

Bone abnormalities are common in certain types of dinosaurs, with one specimen displaying no fewer than eight maladies of its forelimb, including a permanently deformed third finger.⁹ Painful conditions such as malignant tumours, ripped tendons, broken teeth and arthritis are also known to have afflicted dinosaurs.^10,11,12 But such evidence of sickness and disease long before there were humans runs counter to the biblical claim that in the beginning God made a “very good” world that was later spoilt by Adam’s sin.

During Creation Week, God expressed his satisfaction with the things he had made by stating six times that they were “good” (Gen 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25). Upon completing his work, he crowned it all with a seventh, even stronger declaration – that the finished creation was “very good” (Gen 1:31). Sorrow, suffering and death were not part of this “very good” world but came about as a consequence of Adam’s sin.

It was Christ, the last Adam (1 Cor 15:45), who came to undo what Adam did. Christ’s healing ministry (Matt 8:16-17; cf. Isa 53:5, Ps 103:2-3), culminating in his atoning death on the Cross, points forward to the day when God will wipe away every tear, and sorrow, pain and death will be no more (Rev 21:4, 22:2).

3. Natural Disasters Before Sin

Third, we would have to accept that natural disasters, such as famines, floods, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes, have been around for hundreds of millions of years, long before humans appeared or sin entered the world.

Indeed, the fossil record is largely the product of such natural disasters, more being accomplished geologically during short-lived catastrophic events than in many years of quiescence.¹³ Some of these ancient natural disasters are known to have dwarfed any experienced in the present day.

The Chile earthquake of 1960 was the most powerful ever recorded on a seismograph.¹⁴ But much larger earthquakes would have accompanied the formation of large asteroid impact craters, such as the ones at Popigai in Siberia (conventionally formed 35 million years ago) or Sudbury in Ontario (conventionally formed 1.8 billion years ago).¹⁵

The most violent volcanic eruption in recent human history took place at Taupo, New Zealand, in about AD 186, and it left behind a pumice layer up to 1.8m thick with a volume of about 24 cubic kilometres.¹⁶ But much larger volcanic eruptions are known from the geological record, evidenced by deposits tens to hundreds of metres thick and with volumes exceeding 1,000 cubic kilometres.¹⁷

During Creation Week, God stated six times that what he had made was “good” and crowned it all with a seventh, even stronger declaration – that the finished creation was “very good”.

A popular Christian apologetic is to say that natural disasters such as these are a consequence of the Fall of man, and that they were not part of the world that God originally created. For example, here is what Tim Keller says in his book, The Reason for God:

Human beings are so integral to the fabric of things that when human beings turned from God the entire warp and woof of the world unravelled. Disease, genetic disorders, famine, natural disasters, ageing and death itself are as much the result of sin as are oppression, war, crime and violence.¹⁸ (my emphasis)

But this apologetic is baseless if such natural disasters were occurring long before the origin of humans or of human sin. In such a scenario, we could not say that natural disasters are consequences of living in a fallen world.¹⁹ Instead, we would have to acknowledge them as a normal part of how the world functions and that it had been this way from the beginning. This also seems to run counter to the biblical claim that the world as originally created was “very good” (Gen 1:31).

Next week: Three more theological problems presented by an ‘old-Earth’ model.

Author bio: Paul Garner is a full-time researcher and lecturer for the Biblical Creation Trust (www.biblicalcreationtrust.org). He has an MSc in Geoscience from University College London, where he specialised in palaeobiology, and is a Fellow of the Geological Society of London. He has taken part in research funded by the Institute for Creation Research and has written numerous papers, popular articles and a book.

References

1 dos Reis, M, Thawornwattana, Y, Angelis, K, Telford, MJ, Donoghue, PCJ and Yang, Z, 2015. Uncertainty in the timing of origin of animals and the limits of precision in molecular timescales. Current Biology, 25:2939-2950.

2 Everhart, MJ, 2008. A bitten skull of Tylosaurus kansasensis (Squamata: Mosasauridae) and a review of mosasaur-on-mosasaur pathology in the fossil record. Transactions of the Kansas Academy of Science, 111:251-262.

3 Schulp, AS, Walenkamp, GHIM, Hofman, PAM, Rothschild, BM and JWM Jagt, 2004. Rib fracture in Prognathodon saturator (Mosasauridae, Late Cretaceous). Netherlands Journal of Geosciences / Geologie en Mijnbouw, 83:251-254.

4 Lingham-Soliar, T, 2004. Palaeopathology and injury in extinct mosasaurs (Lepidosauromorpha, Squamata) and implications for modern reptiles. Lethaia, 37:255-262.

5 Tucker, ST, Otto, RE, Joeckel, RM and Voorhies, MR, 2014. The geology and paleontology of Ashfall Fossil Beds, a late Miocene (Clarendonian) mass-death assemblage, Antelope County and adjacent Knox County, Nebraska, USA, pp1-22 in Korus, JT (ed), Geologic Field Trips along the Boundary between the Central Lowlands and Great Plains: 2014 Meeting of the GSA North-Central Section. Geological Society of America Field Guide 36.

6 Martin, JE and Bell, Jr, GL, 1995. Abnormal caudal vertebrae of Mosasauridae from Late Cretaceous marine deposits of South Dakota. Proceedings of the South Dakota Academy of Science, 74:23-27.

7 Rothschild, BM and Martin, L, 1987. Avascular necrosis: occurrence in diving Cretaceous mosasaurs. Science, 236:75-77.

8 Martin, LD and BM Rothschild, 1989. Paleopathology and diving mosasaurs. American Scientist, 77:460-467.

9 Senter, P and Juengst, SL, 2016. Record-breaking pain: the largest number and variety of forelimb bone maladies in a theropod dinosaur. PLoS ONE, 11(2):e0149140.

10 Rothschild, BM, Tanke, D, Hershkovitz, I and Schultz, M, 1998. Mesozoic neoplasia: origins of hemangioma in the Jurassic. Lancet, 351:1862.

11 Rothschild, BM, Witzke, BJ and Hershkovitz, I, 1999. Metastatic cancer in the Jurassic. Lancet, 354:398.

12 Rothschild, BM, 1997. Dinosaurian paleopathology, pp426-448 in Farlow, JO and Brett-Surman, MK (eds), The Complete Dinosaur. Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis.

13 Ager, D, 1993. The New Catastrophism: The Importance of the Rare Event in Geological History. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

14 Kanamori, H, 1977. The energy release of great earthquakes. Journal of Geophysical Research, 82:2981-2987.

15 Clube, SVM and Napier, WM, 1982. The role of episodic bombardment in geophysics. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 57:251-262.

16 Walker, GPL, 1980. The Taupo pumice: product of the most powerful known (ultraplinian) eruption? Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research, 8:69-94.

17 Heiken, G, 1979. Pyroclastic flow deposits. American Scientist, 67:564-571.

18 Keller, T, 2008. The Reason for God. Hodder and Stoughton, London, p170.

19 One author, understanding the force of this objection to the old-Earth chronology, has sought to explain the hundreds of millions of years of death, suffering and other ‘natural evils’ before there were humans as the effects of the curse applied retroactively! See Dembski, WA, 2009. The End of Christianity. Broadman and Holman, Nashville, Tennessee.

Paul Luckraft reviews ‘A New Heaven and a New Earth’ by J Richard Middleton (Baker Academic, 2014).

In writing this book, the author has performed a great service for scholars, clergy and lay people alike, by providing a comprehensive analysis of what the Bible teaches on the final destiny of the redeemed.  

Middleton’s contention is that the traditional view that we ‘die and go to heaven’ does not have its origin in the biblical texts rather it comes from the Greek thinking that permeated Christian doctrine from the 2^nd Century onwards. His aim is to replace this error with the more Hebraic understanding of how God’s plan to redeem the whole of Creation culminates in a new heaven and a new earth.

Accessible Theology

After a preface and an excellent opening chapter which serves as an introduction, the book divides into five parts containing a further 11 chapters. The book concludes with a substantial appendix entitled ‘Whatever happened to the new earth?’ in which the author attempts a historical review of how the biblical teaching of a redeemed cosmos had to battle against other views which emerged during the course of Christian history, views which promoted an eternal bodiless existence in an ethereal realm.

Finally, the book is well indexed both in terms of subjects and scriptures.

The first part, ‘From Creation to Eschaton’, sets up the plot of the biblical story, and is followed by a sections on ‘Holistic Salvation in the Old Testament’ and ‘The New Testament’s Vision of Cosmic Renewal’. Don’t be put off by these rather theological titles. There is nothing stuffy or overly academic in the way he writes.

Middleton’s contention is that the traditional view that we ‘die and go to heaven’ does not have its origin in the biblical texts.

Part 4 examines ‘Problem Texts for Holistic Eschatology’ before in the final part, ‘The Ethics of the Kingdom’, the author basically asks ‘So what?’ How does this make a difference to the individual Christian life and the way the Church should operate in the world today?

Separating Truth from Myth

The author is a lecturer and professor of theology, but his writing style suggests he is more than capable of putting things across in a way that is accessible to anyone keen to listen and learn.

He tells in an amusing way how he frequently offers a monetary reward to anyone in his classes who can “find even one passage in the New Testament that clearly said Christians would live in heaven forever or that heaven was the final home of the righteous” (p14). He is happy to report that he still has all his money. “No one has ever produced such a text, because there simply are none in the Bible” (p14).

For the author the key question is, “Where, then, did the idea of ‘going to heaven’ come from? And how did this otherworldly destiny displace the biblical teaching of the renewal of the earth and end up dominating popular Christian eschatology?” (p30).

The answer, he suggests, lies in the innovative teaching of Plato in the late 5^th and early 4^th Centuries BC. This Gnostic emphasis on ‘physical bad, spiritual good’ laid the foundation for redemption being simply an escape policy from a material existence into an other-worldly ‘heaven’.

One eye-opening section of the book makes us realise how our Christian songs (hymns, carols and modern choruses) have, perhaps unwittingly, endorsed this. Wesley’s Love Divine, All Loves Excelling tells us we will be “Changed from glory into glory, Till in heaven we take our place”. In one of our favourite carols, Away in a Manger, we sing “And fit us for Heaven, to live with Thee there”.

It was Plato who laid the foundation for redemption being simply an escape policy from a material existence into an other-worldly ‘heaven’.

What Happens When We Die?

The author does take seriously the question of whether we go to heaven temporarily once we die. He asserts that the hope of a period of blessedness while awaiting our new bodies does not contradict the final hope of being part of a restored cosmos.

He also tackles the thorny question of the rapture, cutting through the speculation and confusion of more recent times and providing a simple explanation of what it meant in biblical times.

Overall there is much in this book to commend. It promotes a view of God who is committed to his original plan and its full restoration. It shows how eternity in a new body, in a new heaven and a new earth, is a better hope to live for, a better future to move toward, and a better Gospel to proclaim.

The author’s exegesis of Biblical passages is sound and compelling. The result of his considerable labours is a resource that will inform, inspire and correct. Highly commended.

A New Heaven and a New Earth: Reclaiming Biblical Eschatology (332 pages, paperback) is available on Amazon for £11.42. Also on Kindle.

A new mini-series on the spiritual significance of music.

On 18 February, in the immediate aftermath of the Florida school shooting that took 17 lives, Hawaiian Calvary Chapel pastor JD Farag bravely drew people’s attention to the two common denominators in mass shootings committed by teenagers in the USA: drugs and satanic music.¹

The unbelieving world is quick to scoff when connections are made between video games and real-world violence – and it’s the same with music. Of course, direct causal connections are difficult to establish; no mass murderer could plausibly get away with pleading ‘The music made me do it!’ in a court of law.

But on the other hand, this doesn’t mean that the emotional, psychological and spiritual power of music should just be ignored. Music has an extraordinary capacity to affect people, which can be turned for good or for evil.

Musical by Design

While tastes obviously vary and not everyone is gifted with the genius of Mozart or Beethoven, we are all created with an innate capacity to enjoy music. Our brains and bodies are designed to appreciate it and respond to it – whether by humming, singing, dancing or playing an instrument.²

Science affirms that music has an extraordinary capacity to affect our minds, emotions and spirits, whether to uplift or soothe, to express grief or joy. Studies have shown that the right music at the right time can increase creativity and learning ability, reduce stress, lift one’s mood, help both emotional and physical healing and better one’s interpersonal skills.

“Music is the universal language of mankind.” ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Medics, psychologists and therapists will tell you that music can literally work miracles – helping in therapy for the disabled, in treatment for mental illness, and in ‘waking up’ parts of the brain in dementia patients that were previously thought to be defunct.³

Scientifically speaking, our brains, hearts and bodies are designed to sync in with the music we hear and respond accordingly. That’s why up-beat music boosts our energy levels, while down-beat music soothes and relaxes. We tune into what we hear and it affects us – whether we notice it or not. This applies to the mind and the body – and also to the soul.

Gifted Music

We shouldn’t be surprised at this, for the Bible shows us that music is a divine and innately spiritual gift: a heavenly gift given to humankind by God as an expression of His creativity, with intention that it be used for His glory and our blessing.

The Songs of Joy, by James Jacques Joseph TissotMusic is recorded in Scripture as being a blessed part of family and community life, helping give expression to both merry-making and mourning (e.g. Isa 16:10; Luke 15:25; Matt 9:23). The symbolic and evocative power of music was designed for communal good, accompanying important ceremonies such as coronations, feasts and dedications (e.g. 1 Kings 1:40; Matt 26:30; Neh 12:27; Ezra 3).

Music has also proven a powerful weapon in warfare (e.g. 1 Cor 14:8; Neh 4:20), helping to win important biblical victories (e.g. Josh 6; Jud 7:16-22).

After victory, spontaneous songs were often poured out in celebration (e.g. Ex 15; Jud 5, 11:34; 1 Sam 18), which draws our attention to the most important purpose for music: to help express worship of God (e.g. 1 Chron 6:31-32, 25:6-7; Psalms; Eph 5:19; James 5:13; Col 3:16) and commemorate His faithfulness (e.g. Deut 32; Ps 90). The Lord is even recorded in Scripture as giving us songs to sing (Ps 40:3; Job 35:10).

“Music is an outburst of the soul.” ~ Frederick Delius

It is no wonder, given all this, that Christianity has for centuries been known as ‘the singing faith’. God clearly loves music – and has designed us to enjoy musical expression as part of our adoration and praise, and as a way of articulating and strengthening our hope.

Turned to Idolatry

However, just like all of God’s good gifts, music can also be turned for ungodly ends. Both Amos and Isaiah recorded the complacent, self-satisfied use of music by the rich and powerful in Israel (e.g. Amos 6:1-7; Isa 5:12). The Prophet Daniel wrote of how the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar used all manner of musical instruments to call the people to idolatry (Dan 3:5-7).

Through the ages, music has been used to torture as well as to entertain, to depress as well as to uplift, to ignite rebellion as well as to soothe. It has become the soundtrack to pagan ritual, being employed by mediums to enter trances, by shamans to enter the spirit realm, and by new age practitioners to facilitate meditation. It has almost always accompanied drunken revelry and sexual seduction, and has featured strongly in genocidal dictatorships (e.g. Hitler’s Third Reich, Stalin’s Russia, Communist China).

Sadly, this corruption of such a wonderful, Godly gift was only to be expected. satan himself has a close association with music (some assert that he used to be chief worship leader in Heaven, citing Ezekiel 28:12-15) and, as the prince of the power of the air (Eph 2:2), has temporary dominion over all the unbelieving world – including its musical activity. Desiring the worship of all, of course he will be looking to use the power of music in order to garner it.

Power, Spirituality, Community

The upshot of this is that music has, from one end of time to the other, been a key battleground for the heart and soul of mankind.

This is partly because the composing, performing and imbibing of music are all potentially powerful acts – not just physically and psychologically, but also spiritually. Music springs forth from and sinks deep into the soul, and so, knowingly or not, it is an expression of worship. At each stage those involved can choose to commit their activity to God, or to idols. 

It is also because music is, for the most part, a communal phenomenon. Whether musicians playing with and learning from one another, fans enjoying concerts, or dancers taking to the dance-floor, music is often a shared experience.

This gains power the more people are involved – think of the stirring anthems of the Last Night of the Proms, or the weighty hymns of football crowds, or of thousands at the Olympics joining in with the national anthem. At these times, music is a deeply moving – and often positive - expression of community togetherness.

Because music is a communal endeavour, it helps to define and express culture (this is even more the case today with mass media and the internet exporting ‘pop’ music to millions every second). And because music is deeply powerful and spiritual, popular music trends always reflect the spirit of the age.

“Who hears music, feels his solitude peopled at once.” ~ Robert Browning

In other words, shared trends in music say something about the spiritual health and direction of a society. They form the collective cry of souls – whether glorifying God, searching for meaning, indulging in degeneracy, or pursuing a satanic agenda.

Next week, we will see to how this applies to the field of Western popular music.

References

1 Click here to watch Pastor Farag's full sermon.

2 Music is one of the only activities that is processed using every single part of the brain, and the auditory nervous system is incredibly well-connected to the rest of the body. Playing an instrument requires muscle movements and nervous control that are unique to humankind - no other species is so equipped.

3 E.g. read more here.

What underlies the BBC's efforts to re-shape British culture?

Last week we commented on the BBC’s deliberate promotion of the transgender element of the LGBT agenda. This week, Dr Clifford Hill offers a biblical-sociological framework for understanding just why the BBC is trying to reshape society to fit these values.

*****

The Apostle Paul was way ahead of his time in teaching principles that are in accord with the modern discipline of Sociology, whose founding fathers (such as Durkheim and Weber) were early 20^th Century scholars. Paul perceptively outlined a five-stage theory of social change in his letter to the Romans, written from prison in Caesarea, around the year AD 60.

Paul had travelled widely across the Roman Empire and was a keen observer of human nature. He had lived for several years in the city of Ephesus with its fertility cults and sex symbols in full view of the public – the relics of which can still be seen by visitors today. He had experienced an incredible amount of hardship and suffering through pursuing his missionary zeal. He described some of his travel experiences:

I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea…I have laboured and toiled and often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. (2 Cor 11:23-27)

But whilst being an intrepid traveller, Paul was also no mean scholar who ably debated with the Greek philosophers in Athen’s famous Areopagus. Paul brought his vast resources of knowledge and experience to focus upon the forces of social change that he perceived to be at work in the Roman Empire, that would inevitably lead to the decline and fall of that great empire.

He wrote about this in the opening chapter of his weighty theological treatise to the Christians in Rome. Luther, when a professor in the University of Wittenberg, declared Romans to be the greatest book in the Bible. It sets out Paul’s mature thinking about the current condition of humanity in the context of God’s eternal purposes.

Romans 1 sets out Paul’s mature thinking about the condition of humanity in the context of God’s eternal purposes.

Paul’s Analysis of the Forces of Social Change (Romans 1:18-32)

Stage 1 (verses 18-21): Paul begins with a statement that human beings in rebellion against God deliberately become involved in the leading of society astray from fundamental truth rooted in God’s principles and good design. Paul says that when people suppress the truth about Creation, they are at beginning of a slippery slope towards the degradation of hearts and minds. In other words, once you deny the central truth of the existence of the God of Creation (which can be understood clearly by all human beings), you open the way to the whole gamut of forces of social and moral corruption. Every true perspective on life becomes warped. Paul’s teaching is that once you reject the truth you automatically come under the sway of the forces of darkness.

Stage 2 (verses 22-23, 25): The second stage in the degradation of society comes when human beings pass from the denial of the God of Creation into idolatry. Paul recognises that all human beings have an innate tendency to worship something or someone. Once the basic truths of Creation are denied, people seek alternatives and find them in bits of wood and stone or anything created by human hands – which they worship.

Modern forms of this idolatry include worship of wealth and property (just consider the preponderance of TV programmes about finding the perfect house – e.g. seeking A Place in the Sun or Location, Location, Location - plus our worship of cars which we fondly clean and polish, the jewellery we wear, the fashions we parade and the wealth we own). They also include worship of people – including celebrity cults or the adoration of self. In our era, the individual is now god.

Stage 3 (verse 24): The third stage in this social change is the relaxation of personal and corporate morality, when we begin to cheat on our partners. In Romans 1 the emphasis is on sexual desire, but cheating can extend to every area of life (e.g. finances, relationships, legal responsibilities). We abandon standards of truth and integrity and we worship our bodies and our “sinful desires”.

Stage 4 (verses 26-27): The fourth stage is where human beings are no longer content with simply indulging their God-given sexual desires but “[exchange] natural relations for unnatural ones”. Paul describes this delicately: “men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another”.

Stage 5 (verses 28-32): The fifth and final stage in the corruption of society, Paul says, is God giving people over to “a depraved mind”. This is a vital stage and a tipping point – a point at which society has deliberately refused and rejected God’s efforts to rescue them to such an extent that God gives them over to their chosen course of rebellion, allowing them to become completely enslaved and deceived by it. He does not necessarily abandon them to this forever – but it is by far the more painful road for humans to walk, and many can be lost forever as a result.

Human beings in rebellion against God deliberately become involved in the leading of society astray from fundamental truth.

Brainwashing and Reversal of Truth

In national terms, this means the whole mindset of society becoming warped through being brainwashed with false teaching. This includes the deliberate injection of false values into our children – the calculated, strategic changing of society by social engineering to make everyone conform to a false ideology. This is what happened in Germany in the 1930s, when the majority of the population accepted the Nazis’ ideology of a super race, and acquiesced to the murder of 6 million Jews.

Social engineering produces human minds so corrupted that they completely abandon the whole concept of ‘truth’– in fact they reverse truth. In the words of the Prophet Isaiah:

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. (Isa 5:20)

Paul says that at this stage in the corruption of society, the mindset of humanity is so degraded that people can no longer recognise the truth and are no longer aware of the forces of evil that are driving them towards destruction. He says:

They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice…They invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless.

Paul sees this as the final degradation of humanity leading to what we would describe today as a ‘dysfunctional society’ – or the end of civilisation.

Paul’s analysis is sociologically sound, though written c.2000 years ago. It is a timeless way of understanding any society – no matter what culture, geographical location or place in history. It would be interesting to take a poll of a cross-section of the population in Britain today asking which stage in this framework of social change we have reached.

What is your assessment?

Author: Dr Clifford Hill

Photo Credits: Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 2.0

In the week where scientists reported discovery of gravitational waves (previously predicted by Einstein in his General Theory of Relativity), we start a new series of Bible studies with the timely reminder that God is Creator and wants to be worshipped as such.

How important is it to God that we know him as Creator and Sustainer of the Universe? It is the first thing that we read in the Bible and it is a recurring theme through every part of Scripture. Every person in the entire world can know, through the evidence all around, that there is a Creator - and this can be the beginning of reaching out to him and knowing him in other ways. Ultimately, it puts us on a path of discovery which leads us to understand that the entire Creation came through Jesus the Messiah. We will also discover that those who deny that God is Creator put themselves on a road that leads to greater and greater depths of sin.

The First Statement in the Bible

It may seem an outrageous claim, but the only reliable account of the world's beginning in all the books in all the libraries in the entire world is in the first chapter of Genesis! Because it is the first thing we read in the Bible we can assume that it is of foundational importance. Thereafter, like for all main biblical themes, a thread weaves its way through all Scripture. If we follow the thread verse by verse through all the books, we gain a sense of its importance and we come to the conclusion that it is important to God that we know him as Creator.

It is important to God that we know him as Creator. Ultimately, this puts us on a path to knowing Jesus the Messiah.

"Bereshit Bara Elohim..."

Turning to a little Hebrew, the first three Hebrew words of the Bible are "Bereshit Bara Elohim", translated "In the beginning, God created". The first name given for God is Elohim. When a Hebrew word ends in im it is usually plural - yet we know that God is one. The Hebrew word Echad is used in Deuteronomy 6:4 to express this oneness of God, and means a unity with many parts, many facets and many expressions.

Do we see this principle of oneness in a plural form in the verses of the Bible, when we consider the Creation? The Holy Spirit "hovered over the face of the waters" (Gen 1:2). Jesus was there in his pre-incarnate form (John 1:1-3). God the Father, through his Son, by the power of his Spirit, spoke - making himself known as Creator.

The Hebrew word bara, which we translate as 'created', is a word that is only used in the Bible to express what God himself has done. It is not a word that is related to what others can do within Creation. As such, only God can know just what this word means - just what he did and how he did it. We can take something from God's Creation and re-model it to something else - wood from trees to build furniture, coloured pigments to paint pictures, clay and stone to build houses and so on. The Hebrew word for re-modelling, building within the Creation, is not bara: it is banah. Only God can create something from outside our universe. We can merely reform what comes to our hands.

Only God can create something from outside the created order – we can only remodel what already exists within it.

The word bara is associated with God's creation of the entire universe: the stars, the earth, the plants, the animals and mankind. That explosive moment when everything that we know in Creation came to be is beyond our imagination. From within the created order we can investigate what we find by observation and measurement, but we cannot get outside of it to find out how God did it. There is no human logic that applies to this.

What God wants us to know is in the Bible, within the limits he himself has set. We can ask questions but we may not get complete answers, so belief in God as Creator remains a matter of faith, faith that is ultimately a gift from him. This is an important matter as we follow the thread of revelation through all the scriptures.

Following the Thread

The thread of truth that God is Creator remains of fundamental and deepening importance right through the Bible. God watches over his Creation and intervenes in it. Consider:

• how he sustains his Creation and provides for his people according to his covenant with Noah (Gen 8:21-22)
• how he intervenes at times to send signs (e.g. the physical judgments on the earth, Amos 4)
• how he intervenes with miracles (e.g. the healing of a leper in 2 Kings 5, the lengthening of a day for Joshua (Josh 10:12-13) and Hezekiah (Isa 38), the many miracles which authenticated Jesus as Messiah (e.g. Matt 8, 14:13-21; John 4-5))

Furthermore, knowing God as Creator is a fundamental part of being in relationship with him:

• God first makes himself known to his people as the Creator (e.g. Gen 14:19-20)
• God will remind us of his greatness through his work of Creation when he calls us to repentance (Deut 32:6)
• When we consider God's Creation we should remember who we are, created beings, in contrast to who he is, the Creator (Isa 40)

Trusting in God as Creator: Job's Testimony

The account of Job shows that however much we know about God, there are aspects of both his character and our own characters that will always reach beyond our understanding. Job retained his faith through hard times, even though his suffering prompted questions that could not be answered through human logic. When God finally spoke, he reminded Job of who he is by first asking Job to consider the wonder of his creative deeds: "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me if you have understanding..." (Job 38-42).

This puts Job in his rightful place (and us in ours!). When we have faith in God as Creator we realise that we cannot answer many of the fundamental questions of life with human logic - including the matter of suffering - but faith, beginning with faith in him as Creator, leads to faith in him even in the most difficult of times.

Faith, beginning with faith in God as Creator, leads to faith in him even in the most difficult of times.

Meditating on God as Creator: Psalm 19

Meditating on God as Creator can lead us into amazing revelations about his character and our position before him. Psalm 19 is a wonderful psalm for meditation on the benefits of knowing God as Creator and it deserves a careful and prayerful study so that the Lord can speak to us in the same way that he did to the psalmist.

The psalm is in three main sections. The first section is a meditation on God's perfect creative power and his steadfastness, seen through the things he has made. The second part recognises that if God is so constant and trustworthy in his Creation then he is trustworthy in all his teaching.

The third part comes from a person who has confronted these immense truths and has come to terms with his or her own fragile character, whilst also recognising God's mighty hand over their life. So the psalm moves from wonder at the magnitude of Creation and its testimony of God's character - "the heavens declare the glory of God" (v1) - down to the confession of even hidden sins – "cleanse me from my secret faults" (v12). This is a Gospel message beginning with a meditation on God through his Creation.

Denying God as Creator: Romans 1:18-32

Romans 1 is to be contrasted with Psalm 19. Those who know God as Creator can be led to repentance, but those who deny him as Creator turn their backs on him - and finally he hands them over to the desire of their heart, which manifests itself in all manner of perversions, just as we see growing in the world today.

Horrendous sins can therefore accompany a turning away from the God of Creation. Vain imaginings based on the view that mankind developed by evolutionary accidents have their consequences. Some of these consequences are abortion of babies, tampering with genetics, relative morality, homosexuality, not knowing the difference between sin and holiness in all areas, and attributing wrongdoing to genetic make-up rather than to sin that must be cleansed. It is as serious as that in our day.

Those who accept God as Creator can be led to repentance, but those who deny him as Creator turn their back on him – which leads them into ever-increasing sin.

Other Important Passages

The first statement of faith in Hebrews 11 is in God the Creator. Before we come to the testimonies of faith in this chapter, the foundation is set in the first few verses – "by faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God". This echoes Psalm 19, showing that a close walk with God begins with knowing him as he wants to be known - as the Maker and Sustainer of all things.

John 1 should be the subject of a deep meditation as a consequence of this study. We realise that our Saviour was present before Creation and that Creation was made through and for him. He was united with the Father in the Elohim of Creation and then stooped down into it as the Son of Man who came to save us.

2 Peter 3:1-13 is a meditation on the end times. There will be those who rise up to mock the Creator, while those who are close to him will hold fast to fellowship with him. A severe judgment - not by water, as in the Great Flood, but by fire - will come on those men and women who have refused to come to God the Father through faith in Jesus.

Danger of coming under God's final judgment on this earth can begin by first denying God as the Creator of the universe. If we take lightly what God has done in Creation and dismiss it as a myth, not taking seriously the consequence of sin that led to the Great Flood at the time of Noah, we are likely to be unprepared for the last acts of God on this earth prior to Jesus' return.

If we take lightly what God has done in Creation, as well as the consequences of sin that led to the Great Flood, we are likely to be unprepared for God's last acts on earth prior to Jesus' return.

Conclusion

The Creator will demonstrate once more his creative power and how he has sustained and held his Creation in balance when he acts in a different way at the end of this order of things. At that time, it will be likened to rolling the created order up like a scroll, making way for the new Heaven and new Earth (Isa 34:1-4; Rev 6:12-17; Rev 21). When all things are restored, peace will come to God's creation as the lion lies down with the lamb – something that only God can bring about in his time and in his own way (Isa 65:25).

Surely, if we neglect what the Bible says about Creation and the Creator – what God himself wants us to know and believe - we are in danger of taking all else too lightly.

Interested readers may want to explore the new website of the Biblical Creation Trust, which works in partnership with local churches in Britain to establish Biblical Creation as mainstream in church theology and apologetics.

Our God is a covenant-keeping God. But what do all the covenants in Scripture mean for Christians today?

Having spent several weeks considering the separation of the Christian Church from its Jewish roots, we move on this week to look at the fruitfulness that becomes evident when we recover our rooting. In this study we consider the most important principle, handed down through the nation of Israel: the Covenant with the One True God.

One New Man

When it comes to connecting back into the true roots of our faith and bearing fruit as a consequence, where do we start? One of the starting points, as discussed in a previous study, has to be Romans 11 - the unifying metaphor of the olive tree wherein there is one body of believers - some grafted in, being unnatural branches. That's one starting point. Another is Ephesians 2:12-22:

...at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity.

And He came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near. For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father. Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.

In this brief passage of the Bible many themes intertwine. There is the principle of the one new man, which expresses the unity that God intends among the body of his people. Originally, that body was the nation Israel - called out from the world for God's purposes. Into that covenant body come Gentiles, by faith in Jesus.

This raises many new questions, especially where the passage talks about abolishing an enmity in the flesh of Jesus. What is that enmity? What was it that happened on the cross in order that there could be reconciliation within him of people from all nations? Did it take away the Old Testament and bring in the New? Did it take away teachings that had failed, in order to replace them with teachings that would succeed, or should we look more deeply behind the scenes of these challenging verses to see just what is happening?

Living Temple, United Body

God did not suddenly take away the scriptures of what we call the Old Testament - those precious scriptures that the Hebrew people call the Tanakh, the scriptures of the Covenant Nation even before Jesus came to this earth. He did not take them away but instead made them a foundation for what would follow. He did take away the division that was in the Temple whereby Gentiles could not enter in. He made himself the cornerstone of the new and living Temple – his people.

Jesus did not abolish the Old Testament scriptures but instead made them a foundation for what would follow.

The metaphors merge and interchange as we try to imagine the picture of a united body with Jesus at the centre, bringing in the New Covenant. We must understand what this means. Even though the word 'New' is used, it is still a part of one continuing plan of God. In fulfilment of all the covenant principles he is bringing together one family from all the nations – it is a family and a community. This is the one new man to whom he has given the Holy Spirit so that we might all come into that unity.

Identity Crisis

These are important principles for us to consider carefully, but which also shed light on an identity crisis in the Christian Church. Who are we? We must look beyond both the historical Jewish response and the historical Christian response to reassess this, whilst also restoring our understanding of the relationship between the Church and Israel. There is much to learn and relearn from the life and history of the Jewish people to be put into the context of our scriptures.

The 'New' Covenant is part of God's continuing plan to bring together one unified, Holy Spirit-filled family from all nations.

We are seeking an authentic, biblical response to who we are as the Covenant People of God – one that unites Jews who have accepted Yeshua as Messiah with believers from the Gentile world, into One New Man. Let us look for a biblical response for that unifying purpose of God in our day, and then we can begin perhaps to bear the fruit of which we are talking.

The Covenant Purpose of God

There are at least five main aspects of God's covenant purposes in Scripture. That may seem strange to those who think there is just an old covenant and a new covenant – a two-stage plan. That is a misconception. Indeed, the word covenant is not just used once or twice in Scripture - it is used over and over again. Just as God has many facets to his character, so different aspects of his covenant purposes were given at different times and with different emphases. Within these different emphases, there is one overriding purpose.

United Community

There is a sense in which the covenant purposes of God began before the creation of the world. God had covenant principles in his heart at the time of the creation of the universe, when he created people like you and me. Indeed, before Creation there was a family and a community of angels in heaven. The created order became an extension of God's kingdom, not an entity on its own.

We do not know all there is to know about angels and demons, nor do we know everything about the oneness of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. There was a fall of angels – we know that from Scripture. Satan leads a legion of fallen angels – we know that too and feel its impact in the world today. There are also worshipping angels - a community in Heaven. The scriptures begin with what seems to be a plural word for the One God (Elohim is a Hebraic plural). Father, Son and Holy Spirit existed together in community - the most united community possible - before creation.

God's covenant purposes began before the creation of the world – the created order became an extension of his kingdom, not a separate entity.

We see in this sense of united community the deep purpose of God that transcends even the created universe and the time that it will exist. There is a greater purpose here - a greater end God has had in view since before creation – than most of us have realised. It is greater than the 'Old' covenant with Moses and greater than anything that we have experienced on this earth.

Covenant Principle 1: Life and Provision Until the End of Days

The first easily identifiable covenant references in the Bible come at the time of Noah. At the time of Adam and Eve there was a fall but God did not intend this to be permanent. All mankind came into this fallen situation and, indeed, men and women went further and further from God until, at the time of Noah, came the judgment of God. A catastrophic flood shows us what the consequences of sin really are, but all was not lost - even then. God made a covenant with Noah which appears in Genesis 6:18 and 9:9:

But I will establish My covenant with you; and you shall go into the ark - you, your sons, your wife, and your sons' wives with you. 19 And of every living thing of all flesh you shall bring two of every sort into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female...

God promised that there would never be a flood of this proportion again. Mankind should have changed after Noah - we might have expected Noah to start a new generation who would no longer sin. That is not the case; the case is that mankind's sins have equaled those of people before the flood, but God had made a covenant promise. He had promised that never again would he wipe out mankind with a flood. So, despite sin, the covenant remains.

Since the flood, mankind's sins have equaled those of people before – but God's covenant promise to never flood the earth again remains.

Perhaps we can begin to feel the sad heart of God as we consider these things. Here is God who is absolutely pure and holy - a holiness we have never experienced in our own lives, absolutely clean and pure - nevertheless, promising that he will overlook sin to a certain degree, preserving the earth, and for a certain purpose, namely to complete the whole covenant plan.

Later he told Noah and his family that there would be seed time and harvest, winter, spring and summer - all the seasons will come and go, and there will be food on the earth for all generations - it will be a place in which you can live until the end of time. There will be an end, and there is coming a new heaven and a new earth, but in the meanwhile - that promise is part of God's overall covenant plan.

Covenant Principle 2: God's Unconditional, Costly Commitment to Us

The next easily identifiable focus on the covenant is at the time of Abraham. In Genesis 17 we read:

When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, "I am Almighty God; walk before Me and be blameless. And I will make My covenant between Me and you, and will multiply you exceedingly." Then Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him, saying: "As for Me, behold, My covenant is with you, and you shall be a father of many nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you a father of many nations.

As we study the covenant made with Abraham, we see cost. There is the cost of the animals - the covenant was cut and blood was shed. It was a great commitment done in a very dramatic way. God overshadowed Abraham who was in a deep sleep - it was an awesome time that we can picture from the description in the scriptures.

Something new happened in the mystery of God's purposes and Abraham became the central father figure for the covenant from then on. This covenant was unconditional. God swore with an oath as he bound himself to the promise to Abraham that he would be the father of many nations - not just of one nation, Israel. He gave a promise to Israel, the physical offspring, including a land promise to them.

God bound himself by costly, unconditional oath to make Abraham father of many nations.

This parallels, to some extent, aspects of the covenant with Noah, where there was to be a practical provision from God – a land to live in. Israel, the physical nation, had God's special call until, later, the call went out to all nations to add to those from Israel who lived by faith, making up one Covenant community in fulfilment of the eternal promise to Abraham.

Covenant Principle 3: Our Response and its Consequences

The covenant with Abraham best summarises God's overall covenant purposes - an unconditional, personal commitment from God. The Abrahamic Covenant came before the time of Moses and was set in place before all those further lessons that God taught through him. What God brought through Moses, therefore, is in the context of what he had already promised to Abraham. In Exodus 34 we read:

And He said: "Behold, I make a covenant. Before all your people I will do marvels such as have not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation; and all the people among whom you are shall see the work of the Lord. For it is an awesome thing that I will do with you. Observe what I command you this day. Behold, I am driving out from before you the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite. Take heed to yourself, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land where you are going, lest it be a snare in your midst.

God was beginning to call for a response from his people. Already he had made an unconditional statement of what he would do, but now he was drawing forth a response from the Nation of Israel. He was to be their God, the one true God, and they were to have no other gods before him. The conditions of blessing and curse in the land of promise were also given. These conditions did not take away from the overall, unconditional promises of God given through Abraham, but there were now to be consequences for obedience and for disobedience for the nation.

The covenant God brought through Moses was in the context of that brought through Abraham. It did not take away from those unconditional promises, but added in consequences for obedience and disobedience.

We are all to learn from this, not just Israel. Through Israel we learn that we cannot achieve righteousness through our own efforts. That is why he called Israel – to be a representative nation, knowing God's righteous laws. Sin still needs a remedy. Laws will not be enough. Israel as a whole failed just as we would fail, but nevertheless, God has made Israel special and will not forsake them even though they failed.

Covenant Principle 4: Salvation from David's Line

A fourth stage in the outworking of the covenant plan comes at the time of David. Psalm 89 is a very relevant passage for this:

I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever; With my mouth will I make known Your faithfulness to all generations. For I have said, "Mercy shall be built up forever; Your faithfulness You shall establish in the very heavens. I have made a covenant with My chosen, I have sworn to My servant David: 'Your seed I will establish forever, And build up your throne to all generations'.

Here we see the relevance of covenant again, a covenant made with the line of David, promising a future king. We later understand that the seed is the Messiah, Jesus Christ, Yeshua Ha-Mashiach.

It is not the first time we see this prophecy. Jacob prophesied over Judah and foresaw the coming of the Messiah. Other Messianic promises are scattered through Scripture. In fact, as we read Scripture we see that it all ultimately points to Jesus. Nevertheless, here, in very clear detail, a covenant is made with David. There will be a king who will come from the nation of Israel, the tribe of Judah and from the line of David.

Covenant Principle 5: A Covenant by Faith

The need of mankind was shown through Israel's reaction to God's covenant through Moses. The heart of mankind was shown - the heart of fallen man, studied through the history of this small nation Israel. God's purposes are stated clearly through Moses in the laws and principles by which a people should live.

Another way had to be revealed, because even when they know right from wrong, people will fail because of their sinful nature. Therefore, with the covenant promise to Abraham in mind, a better provision was made. It was promised through Jeremiah - in Jeremiah 31:

Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah— not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord.

But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.

The term 'new covenant' is first written here, as a promise to Israel and Judah. The context of Ephesians 2 is Jeremiah 31. God centred the New Covenant on Israel, sealing his family as those who will live by faith in Jesus the Messiah. Those who came to faith from the Gentile world join an already-existing community of faith going back to Abraham. The word 'new' refers to a new way that God will make sure that he has a people according to the promise he made with Abraham and according to the provision for the ongoing lifespan of this earth he made through Noah.

The context of the 'New' Covenant is the fulfilment of the 'Old' Covenant: God is providing a new way to bring together his covenant people according to the promise made to Abraham.

One Overarching Plan

God is calling one people out. He did not give up on mankind when Adam and Eve were cast out of the garden, but kept going with what he purposed - and because he purposes it he sealed it with a covenant and an oath made most profoundly to Abraham, which then overarches all of history, so that all who will can be gathered into this one covenant family.

In our day we need to look at this and rediscover who we are as we look back to where we separated from our roots – and as we look forward to the repair work to be done, as well as to our witness to a world that needs to know who God's people are.

We do not join the covenant family through the rituals of Judaism, but by faith. Indeed, the rituals of religion in and of themselves do not ensure membership of the community of God. Nevertheless, the root of our faith was manifest first in the faithful of Israel and we receive their heritage when we join the one family. In Isaiah 66 we read:

I will set a sign among them; and those among them who escape I will send to the nations: to Tarshish and Pul and Lud, who draw the bow, and Tubal and Javan, to the coastlands afar off who have not heard My fame nor seen My glory. And they shall declare My glory among the Gentiles. Then they shall bring all your brethren for an offering to the Lord out of all nations, on horses and in chariots and in litters, on mules and on camels, to My holy mountain Jerusalem," says the Lord, "as the children of Israel bring an offering in a clean vessel into the house of the Lord. And I will also take some of them for priests and Levites," says the Lord.

Surely the sign referred to in this passage was the sign of Messiah's coming. After that came the gathering from all nations. Israel was still in the heart of God, central to the covenant community - without compromise to his principles - together with those from the nations who would come in by faith.

Every Tribe and Tongue

The final picture of the covenant is in Revelation 7 where we see some from every tribe and tongue - among them some from every tribe of Israel, and then some from all the tribes of the world. That is the end point of the covenant promise, when all are gathered into that one family.

All are gathered around the throne worshipping the Saviour, Jesus the Christ, Yeshua Ha-Mashiach. Through our studies we must understand that only in him is the unity that identifies who we are, the covenant people of God.

The final picture of covenant is the whole family of God, gathered around the throne worshipping the Saviour. Only in Jesus is true covenant unity to be found.

For Reflection and Comment

How is God's covenant with Abraham to be seen as one integrated whole into which Gentiles can also be called by faith?

How are we to see God's covenant with Israel in the light of his overarching covenant purposes that pre-date creation itself?

Next time: Torah Foundations

Series note: 'CIJ' (Christianity, Israel and the Jews) is a study series about the relationship between the Church and its Hebraic heritage.