| HIGHLIGHTS OF DAWN | April 2002 |
The Gift of God
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“The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” |
DURING THE TIME OF this present evil world, and the reign of sin and death, mankind has witnessed many tragic, large losses of life. Calamities such as hurricanes, typhoons, earthquakes, floods, the disasters of war, famine, and accidents have caused thousands to die at one time. Many people have reacted to these tragedies in sympathy, giving financial and physical aid, and voiced aloud to God in prayer why these events occurred. As life goes on, many of these incidents tend to be forgotten.
WHY DOES GOD PERMIT EVIL?
In the aftermath of the Twin Towers tragedy in New York City on September 11, the memory of the event does not seem to want to go away. Media articles continue to appear with reference to that event. One such article appeared in a popular Canadian journal, “McClean’s,” on December 17, 2001. The title was, “Death’s Gift to Life.” It was philosophical in nature, but prompted by trying to answer questions on tragedy and how to cope with it. We publish some excerpts from that article to see how some try to reason concerning such events. The article begins by calling attention to a tragedy in the life of Pierre Trudeau, a well-known and popular, former Canadian Prime Minister when he lost his youngest son in a mountaineering accident caused by an avalanche. We quote:
“In the last two years of his life, Pierre Trudeau suffered a crisis of faith. It was brought on, of course, by the sudden death of the former prime minister’s youngest son. ‘Why him?’ Trudeau would ask. ‘Why didn’t God take me instead? I’ve tried, but I just can’t find a reason.’ Every one of us has felt the same sense of bewilderment whenever we’ve lost a loved one to accident or illness. Many Canadians experienced it at the time of Trudeau’s own death. And North Americans en masse shared it for weeks following the tragic events of September 11.
“Indeed, death in such terrible numbers by so hateful and calculated a method was all the more incomprehensible—a shock made worse by the smashing of the belief that it could never happen here. Reason rarely helps. For one thing, grief is an emotional and physiological reaction. It releases itself in weeping, wailing, shivering, and a profound fatigue, none of which is conducive to rational thought. For another thing, no one on the planet—no pope, no rabbi, no imam, no guru—can explain why this person was taken and that person reprieved.
SEEKING GOD
“Faced with such random cruelty, many people have turned away from God out of despondency or disgust. And who can blame them, particularly when death comes, as it did at the World Trade Center, in God’s own name?
“In fact, God barely survived the Age of Reason in the West. Science and the philosophy of materialism proclaimed the omnipotent, omniscient Creator dead. ‘He’ became ‘She.’ ‘She’ dissolved into Nature. It morphed into Spirit. And Spirit is perhaps best exemplified these days by Harry Potter’s school headmaster, Professor Dumbledore: wise, benign, yet annoyingly absent when Harry most needs him.”
The writer of the article, Ron Graham, has written books on politics, history, and religion, including a book entitled “God’s Dominion,” for which he received an award. In this article we note how he decries reason, saying that in such tragedies, ‘reason rarely helps.’ He also mentions how the influential in the Age of Reason brought on the concept of God being dead. But what god were they talking about? Certainly the god of the Dark Ages is dead. And when he says that people have turned away from God, he also says that the perpetrators of the Twin Towers tragedy did it in the name of God.
We are reminded of the Apostle Paul’s words in I Corinthians, the eighth chapter, “Though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, (as there be gods many, and lords many,) But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him. Howbeit there is not in every man that knowledge.” (vss. 5-7) How wonderful it is to be privileged to know the great Supreme Creator of the universe, and that he is our Father (or lifegiver).
SEEKING SOLACE IN CHURCHES
The author’s experience with religion has been disappointing. At the time of the September 11 tragedy, he expected many people to seek solace in their churches, and if they should find it he says, “Who’s to say they shouldn’t?” In another article in this same issue of “McClean’s,” a quick survey made after September 11 indicated an increase in church attendance. The article, however, said, “Houses of worship have already started to witness some backsliding. Immediately after the attacks, people crowded into churches, synagogues, temples and mosques—many for the first time in years. Since then, attendance has been dropping, although not necessarily back to pre-September 11 levels.”
Ron Graham, the author of the first cited article, speaks of our own time as an age of uncertainty. In assessing churches as a place where solace can be found he says:
“Unfortunately, most North American churches are in the midst of their own uncertainty. Faced with declining attendance, aging congregations, and the indifference of the young, they are under pressure to transform themselves from places of worship and contemplation into homeless shelters, concert halls, tourist museums, welfare agencies, political forums or religious cabarets.
“Looking at religion in Canada, I found the Roman Catholics obsessed with sexual controversies and authority issues. The Anglicans seemed distracted by native lawsuits and property development. The synagogues were preoccupied with the survival of Israel, the mosques with the plight of the Palestinians, the gurdwaras with the creation of Khalistan. I gave up on the United Church after two Easter services. One featured the minister, dressed in a trench coat and holding a microphone, pretending to be a TV reporter covering the Crucifixion live from Calvary. The second starred a white, middle-aged, middle-class woman delivering the poignant Passion story as a rap number.”
FACING DEATH
The writer’s main focus was on the ability of people to accept death as inevitable. He was particularly impressed with the way some people facing death spoke on the cell phone from the hijacked aircraft and from the Twin Towers after the towers were struck by the aircraft. The gift that he says death gives to life, (a strange anomaly), is that when people accept the inevitability of death they die with dignity. He sums up his reasoning by saying:
“Yes, death is real, death is near, death is painful. We saw that. But we also saw that human beings have within themselves the capacity to die with a calm mind, a courageous spirit and a loving heart. The truth is, we are blessed with the priceless freedom to make wise use of our period on earth, not to gain some promised afterlife but to leave without cause for repentance or regret.
“It is neither morbid nor depressing, therefore, to be constantly aware that we will die. Such awareness is a marker against which we can keep setting our values. It makes precious the hours, the minutes, perhaps the seconds remaining to us. The world becomes even more beautiful, more wondrous, more fragile as soon as we truly grasp that it—and we—must end.”
‘Death,’ by definition, is the cessation of life. How can it, therefore, give any gift to life? What Ron Graham is observing is the sentence of death upon mankind because of father Adam’s disobedience, as God said to Adam that the penalty for disobedience was “Thou shalt surely die.” (Gen. 2:17) At least he does not believe Satan’s lie which he spoke to Mother Eve, “Ye shall not surely die” (Gen. 3:4), as many sincere people believe when they accept the doctrine of immortality of the soul taught in their churches.
The Apostle Paul correctly says in our theme text, ‘The wages of sin is death.’ Hence, as long as sin predominates in the world, death is inevitable. The Apostle did not stop there, but tells us that the ‘gift of God [the Father and giver of life] is eternal life [not the brief, uncertain span we now have] through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
DEATH IS AN ENEMY
Contrariwise to the picture painted in this article which looks upon the inevitability of death as a giver of gifts, the Bible tells us in no uncertain terms that death is an enemy (I Cor. 15:26), and that the only giver of good and perfect gifts is God. (James 1:17) How grateful we are to know that the first of these precious gifts that came from the Father of lights is that of his own beloved Son, our Lord Jesus. As the Scriptures plainly tell us, “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16) Someone could say, “Jesus came two thousand years ago, and the world of mankind is still dying.” True. But God’s plan is that all mankind should come to a “knowledge of the Truth” and “be saved.” (I Tim. 2:4-6) This part of his plan is almost ready to be set in motion.
The delay in doing so has been the selection of a ‘church class,’ those who will live and reign with Jesus. (Rev. 20:4) This work, described by the Apostle James as selecting a people for God’s name (Acts 15:14), is soon to be completed. These are those who are willing to lay down their lives in death to follow in the footsteps of their master and leader, Jesus Christ. The gift of God was, first, to provide a ransom sacrifice to redeem Adam’s family from death. His further gifts are to give a knowledge of the Truth to every man, woman, and child, so that they can make an intelligent choice and choose good instead of evil, and receive eternal life. As the Apostle Paul said, “the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
ETERNAL LIFE—GOD’S GIFT
How wonderful it will be when all those involved in the large tragic losses of life because of hurricanes, typhoons, earthquakes, floods, wars, and calamities of every type, come back from the grave and no longer face the possibility of death. This will be the case in God’s glorious kingdom which he has planned with his only begotten Son, and those associated with him as rulers, making this a reality. No one is to be excluded. As Paul says, “He [Jesus] must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.”—I Cor. 15:25,26
“All that are in the graves shall hear his [the Son of Man’s] voice, And shall come forth.” (John 5:28,29) This is the gift of God through his Son. What a joy it will be to everyone to know that their enemy, death, has been vanquished! All will be able to join the Apostle Paul in declaring what was prophesied aforehand in Isaiah 25:8 and Hosea 13:14, “Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?”—I Cor. 15:54,55