Month: July 2024

A Hard Proportion to Accept

I trust the Bible. That is different than saying that I like or want everything that it tells me. Life is predictably like that. It is often not the way I want. Specifically, the Bible shares that the proportion of humanity that will be saved will be small. This is especially tragic and confusing when you consider that the sacrifice that Jesus made for us is big enough to forgive any sin but one–blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.

When some people hear of this, they reject the idea, the Bible, and even God. “I am not going to believe in a god who would send people to Hell.” They act as if their rejection of a painful fact will make it go away. It won’t. Denial is not a good coping skill in this case (or in most cases).

What does the Bible say on this? This verse was just in our Sunday morning readings:

3 Then I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply.

Jeremiah 23:3 (ESV)

The word “remnant” is not encouraging. It is better than nothing, but it suggests a small portion of the whole. Here it applies to the Jewish nation, but the idea of only a small fraction being saved spreads across all of humanity. My least favorite verse in the Bible is this:

“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. 14 For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.”

Matthew 7:13-14 (ESV)

That is Jesus speaking, too. How can this be right? God is love. God is all powerful. God wants all people to be saved. All of this is true. But the poison of sin is in every human being from conception (Psalm 51:5). The solution to sin is a “narrow” list of one choice: Jesus.

6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

John 14:6 (ESV)

The Bible tells us that people will not naturally accept the story or promise of Jesus without help from the Holy Spirit.

 The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

1 Corinthians 2:14 (ESV)

Why can’t the Spirit get through to everyone? I don’t know. It doesn’t really say. I would guess that to do so would require the Spirit to violate the integrity of what makes us a human. It would just make us a robot. Maybe.

People who do believe and are saved have the burden to at least get the word of God’s plan and offer out there to everyone. I don’t think our failure to reach some people groups throughout history will necessarily preclude them. I base this hope on 1 Peter 4:6

For this is why the Gospel is preached to those who are dead, that though judged in the flesh the way people are, they might live in the spirit the way God does.

1 Peter 4:6(ESV)

But it not hard to see how the list of potential people inheriting eternal life gets whittled down very fast. All are sinful and damned, many reject Jesus as their Savior from the get-go, others fall away for multiple reasons. Soon you have a remnant or few.

How few is “few”? Percentage wise it is hard to guess. I would love for the answer to be 99% is few compared to the potential of 100%. I would even rejoice in 49.9% is few compared to 50.1%. I fear and even expect that it is less. Still the “few” are a great number of people.

9 After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, 10 and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”

Revelation 7:9-10 (ESV)

Not believing the Bible on this topic or any other should not be on the basis of not liking its contents or on feelings. It should be on the merits of how the text was preserved down through history, the reliability of the eyewitnesses of Jesus, and of Jesus himself. There is plenty of reason to believe it.

Here is a starting point to investigate the integrity of the Bible from my other blog Givingchrist.com.https://givingchrist.com/2022/02/01/can-you-trust-the-accuracy-of-the-bible/ After reading this you can find more by scrolling to the bottom and searching “Bible” or other key words.

You can use the search function here to find other related topics. It is a big deal. I hope that you are one of the “few”.

The Tree of Life and Abnormally Long Life in the Old Testament

Many people expect to live around 80-90 years, but the current maximum lifespan is 120 years. In the past, people lived longer, with biblical figures reaching nearly 1,000 years. Some seek to extend life through science or technology, but the true promise of eternal life lies in faith and connection with God.

How long do you expect to live in this life? Most would say 80 or 90 years. The average in the United States is 78. That seems young-ish to me. I have no aspirations to live to be 100. Perhaps that is because I visit many people who have significantly cognitively declined by then and I don’t wish to join that group.

The actual current maximum lifespan is 120 years, which sounds like a real burden to me. Life expectancy varies by gender, location and time. People in the not-so-distant past were lucky to make it to 50. Jesus is crucified at age 35 (I believe), a young man to us, but not so much for when He lived.

When you dig back into the Old Testament people were living enormously long lives: Enosh 905, Kenan 910, and the record holder Methuselah at 969. They were cranking out kids in their 100’s. It is clear that they were not elderly until much later. Is this a myth? I don’t think so. These people all lived before Noah’s flood, so some attribute the difference to the environment in some way, but I think it is a genetic change that God brought about.

 Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.”

Genesis 6:3 (ESV)

So we have been capped at 120 for a while. It is interesting that this limit seemed to phase in. The mechanisms that age us and result in our physical death didn’t come into full effect for a couple generations.

There is a branch of science today that seeks to undo the genetic cap on our lives. Others, clearly fearing death, seek immortality through capturing our consciousness as a computer code. The former might produce some lengthening of life for those who seek it. I am pretty skeptical about the later.

God limited human life, but when God created it, we were not built to die at all. Adam and Eve were immortals, physically and spiritually. God warned them to not eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil lest they die. Satan said they wouldn’t die. Immediately. Adam lived for 930 years and then he kicked the bucket, just as God said.

Adam and Eve also had the benefit of the Tree of Life. What wear and tear life produced in the body, eating from the tree could fix. I don’t think there was anything miraculous about it. It was designed to work that way. Similarly, I don’t think the impact of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was miraculous. It was a genetic modifier created, likely by Satan, to poison mankind and the world.

The Tree of Life was forbidden Adam and Eve by God after their encounter with evil. God did not want to leave them physically eternal and evil. Hence, our need to die. Sin is a part of the body not the spirit. Our soul, the interaction of body and spirit, is likewise corrupt.

The Tree of Life makes another appearance by name in the Bible– at the end. In Revelation 22 it says:

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

Revelation 22:1-2 (ESV)

As I have discussed in previous blogs, we will have a Heavenly body for Heaven, but we will also have a resurrected physical body for a New Earth. It will be a modified, superior version of what we have now. The Trees of Life described in the verse above have some role in the eternal preservation of that body. What exactly, I do not know.

I do not aspire to unnaturally prolong physical life as I am experiencing now, even though I am very blessed compared to many. I have confidence in the one who is my original Creator. I have confidence in His ability to deliver far superior and eternal life to me. All of it is because of things God has already done. Jesus has already successfully fulfilled God’s Law and paid the price for my evil. Already I am connected to Jesus and benefit from His work through being baptized in His name. It is a great, loving offer that is there for the taking. May God help you to receive it.

Here’s to truly long life.