Puny God

I have a favourite scene in the Marvel Avengers movie. It is in the battle for New York and the Hulk is dealing to Loki in Stark Tower. Loki says some annoying and demeaning things to the Hulk. Hulk then grabs Loke and uses him to beat up the building finally leaving him lying in a semi conscious state in a hole in the concrete floor (Loki is is immortal so this is routine stuff for him). Hulk stomps off muttering Puny God

 

I know you good Christian folk will think badly of me for watching this rubbish. However, this scene so defines the way many Christians view Jehovah Elohim. They limit God with their own small minded view of what he can do. I was at a bible study recently and found myself walking on egg shells because of the threat of disturbing the viewpoints of the people there. While discussing Genesis One and what would have happened if man had not fallen. It was mentioned that man might have gone onto colonize other worlds. We then came to the question of how many humans could the Earth sustain. I proposed as many as God wanted (infinite numbers), I touched on the huge beasts that the pre-flood Earth had sustained. Things went a little quiet.

 

We live in a mine field of Christian compromise. You know, Jehovah didn’t create the Earth in six days. He set things up to evolve over millions of years. There were no dinosaurs in pre-flood Earth because these Christians don’t believe in a flood nor in the inerrancy of the bible. We’ve only had modern science for five hundred years and most of the dating methods for less than a century but we talk a big game about an Earth that is beyond question 4.5 billion years old. Really? There are only two tests that bring out large figures interpreted as length of time that support millions of years. Potassium Argon and Radio Carbon. The rest lend support to much shorter time periods but are ignored by those endeavouring to portray Christianity as a crutch for people following a puny God.

 

There is also a tendency to describe God in non judgemental and overtly positive terms. For instance many Christians believe in the doctrine of predestination but don’t really understand it. Predestination is not so much about God selecting you as a believer. It is about you choosing God and because you chose him. He chose you. Jehovah is timeless and he sees his chosen ones across time and so he describes us a predestined. 

 

The Law of Moses says this when giving the command not to worship idols:

Exodus chapter 20: 5 You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, 6 but showing loving kindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.

 

Note what the Law says about those who choose not to follow God. He visits the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations. But on those who choose God he shows loving kindness to the thousands. 

 

Hosea brings the word of the Lord in these terms in chapter four verse six:

 

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.
Because you have rejected knowledge,
I also will reject you from being My priest.
Since you have forgotten the law of your God,
I also will forget your children.

 

To reject the wisdom and knowledge of Jehovah is therefore to choose not to follow God. So, if you reject God he then rejects you and your children. This speaks of the Jewish priesthood but is applied by Hosea to the priests and the nation of Israel. So it is not too great a stretch to apply this scripture to the Christian Church and the believers today. It may also be applied to the nations as a whole in our time. 

 

My take on predestination is that if you accept the wisdom of God and believe on his only Son. Then you will not perish but will inherit eternal life. If you choose God who has known you through eternity then he most definitely chooses you, and as it says in the Law in Exodus chapter twenty verse 6 but showing loving kindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments. This thinking underpins all of the scriptures on predestination in the New Testament. If you choose God He chooses you and if you reject God then you are rejected and the consequences are on the children of the father unto third and fourth generation. This is the tension or the balance between those who love Jehovah and those who hate Him. God is going to judge the world and we reject Him at our peril for He is not a puny god. 

 

Jehovah is the creator God and is not constrained by the thoughts of man or mankind. He is a universal God who creates universes and makes universal physical laws and alters and fine tunes them to bring about his purposes. We on the other hand are tiny little creatures living on a tiny little world circling a purpose built sun in an amazing solar system within an amazing Galaxy within an extraordinary Cosmos. We have no ability to function on a planetary scale, let alone a cosmic scale and yet we who live for an instant have opinions about Jehovah and His creation. Talk about delusions of grandeur? 

 

Yet God loves us and despite our inherent in-consequence he has looked upon us with the heart of a father. He created a universe and mankind are his crowning accomplishment in that creation because we are created in His own image. 

 

Genesis 1: 26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” We are in turn creators and seek to consider problems and create things as Jehovah has created things.

 

But inherent in this situation is the need for us to seek God and to love him and when he finds us doing that he loves us so much in return that to His mind we are predestined to be His in eternity.

 

Isaiah 55: 6 Seek the Lord while He may be found; Call upon Him while He is near. 

 

Ephesians 1: 7-12 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us. In all wisdom and insight He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth. In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will, to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory. 

 

Jehovah is not a puny God. He is the Almighty God, Creator of the Heavens and the Earth, the Lord of Lords, the King of Kings, Immanuel – God who is with us, Our risen Lord and Saviour – Jesus Christ -The first risen from the dead. That we might believe on Him and be resurrected in Him. The bible is the word of God and the Sword of the Holy Spirit. Thousands of years old it may be but is made relevant in the purposes and will of God the Father, though his only begotten Son – Jesus Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit. Inerrant and inexorable the perfect weapon against evil.

 

Friends I want you to know that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, that whosoever believes on him shall not perish but inherit eternal life. You need to understand that you are not alone in needing his forgiveness. Romans 3:10 “There is none righteous, not even one.” Romans 3:23 “For all have sinned and all fall short of the glory of God.” Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” So won’t you believe on him that your sins may be forgiven and that you may receive the free gift of God which is eternal life Christ Jesus our Lord?

 

Reference List

 

All Scriptures reproduced from http://www.biblegateway.com and http://www.biblehub.com from the NASB