Is He Really That Big? (“Ahistorical,” “Ascientific”—and Here’s Why)

The Bible is surprisingly practical.

Among other things, the book is a guide to transformation. The ultimate transformation, in fact—how we move from death to life, how we move out of the finite and futile state of settling for sparks of comfort, to know instead the eternal state of living and resting in joy. The eternal can be touched right here. And in many ways, the steps the Bible offers for making this contact and achieving this transformation are plainly and remarkably clear.

Take the question, for example, of how to know whether the Holy Spirit leads you, or whether you have been waylaid by some other spirit instead. We cannot know this by ourselves—not for sure. Our hearts are deceived (Jeremiah 17:9), while enemies masquerade as angels (2 Corinthians 11:14). Yet the Bible says there are nine clues, and the clues are quite specific. They are:

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

These are the fruits of the Holy Spirit, according to Galatians 5:22-23. A heart that is growing out of the Holy Spirit should manifest this fruit.

Another such litmus test that is even more strikingly clear is found in a passage from the First Letter of John. This passage also indicates something of the very reason why God engineered the world’s salvation in the way that he did.

John writes:

Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. —1 John 4:2-3

The matter is apparently that simple. That is, when we try to measure whether we ourselves are of God—whether we are still proceeding in a way that is consistent with surrender to God’s loving will ... or whether instead we have given into whim, ego, convenience, obsession, or even something darker—whenever this is the question, the letter of John offers this basic test.

To state that test another way: Are we growing in our confidence that God has come in the flesh?

Perhaps not. We might find that we are (once again) dubious and constrained, snared within a thicket of doubt, uncomfortable with professing the relevance and reality of this truth. Recognizing that this is the case is valuable. Belief is the way to life.

Roman 10:9 states as much. We are to say Jesus is Lord, and we are to believe in our hearts he rose from the dead. Belief is the only route to this truth because logic alone can’t reach it. Nothing like the death and resurrection of God himself has ever happened before or since. Therefore, neither science nor history alone—both of which are built on precedent—can account for this occurrence. At the pinnacle of God’s plan, at the turning point of creation, is this ascienctific and ahistorical event.

That’s not to say the event is anti-scientific. Like a forensic examiner, the doubter Thomas was allowed to examine body (the risen body) in front of witnesses (John 20:27).

Nor was the event anti-historical. The historical record is marked by the impact of the event.

But the event was the assertion of God, in this case entering the world from beyond history and outside of science. That this God was born human by means of a virgin conception makes this very point. Here was a different sort of human being—a man transcending science by having no biological paternity, and transcending history by having no literal paternal ancestry. The skeptic says that nothing about the laws of science or the events of history can provide any basis for such an event. And the believer says: Amen.

Consider the distinction. We are to love God. If it is truly God we love, then the one we love is greater than the world. That same First Letter of John also says, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15).

Our temptation is to see the world as all there is, the world and nothing more—worshiping the world to the exclusion of the Father. But the resurrection of the Son brings this very matter into focus. To believe that science’s laws and history’s assumptions are inviolable even to God is to say that God is smaller than these things, and that God is not truly greater than the world.

Is God really greater? Is he really in moment-by-moment control? Can he really transcend science and history?

Without the resurrection, all we can say is, “In theory, yes.” The answer doesn’t lift or challenge. There is no consequence to this conception of God. It doesn’t change hearts.

The way of Jesus Christ says, “Can God really transcend science and history? Answer: Yes he can—because he did!”

Thus does the event of the resurrection provide a focus for our faith. God came into the world—the world that surrounds and defines us, the overwhelming world—and he left his teachings and his blood upon it. He died here. And he rose.

And in rising, he gave us something to touch that is nearly as tangible as the body that Thomas felt. He gave us a concrete reality and a discernable history that clarifies our faith. At the same time, he gave a direction for our hearts to go. He ascended, and our hearts took flight along with him.

Carry Your Mat

Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.”
—John 5:8

There is a danger in being blessed too completely.

When Jesus healed an invalid at the pool, he did not just tell the man to rise and walk. He told him to rise, carry his mat, and walk.

Why did he include the mat?

This had to be more than just embellishment. Jesus knew there would be consequences. The day was the Sabbath, when carrying a load was considered a violation of the law. The man was soon cited for this very offense (John 5:10). The value of carrying that mat was apparently great enough to be worth the price.

Jesus even gave the same command elsewhere. One time, the crowds were so thick around him that a paralytic was lowered to him from the roof. When this man was healed, the Lord did not tell him just to walk, but to carry his mat all the way home (Mark 2:11).

I think Jesus must have known something about these men. He knows the same thing about me. All of us, these men and I, have a problem with forgetting how much we have been blessed. For these men, Jesus provided a reminder.

They would not have chosen it. Both of the former invalids must have known these mats too well. They must have lain upon them so helplessly, and for so long, that the mats would have seemed like prison cells, or cages. They might well have reeked. Once the men were free to walk, they would have leapt from those old mats if they could. They would have run from them. But Jesus made use of the mats. As long as the men carried them, lugging the slight weight along, they would see just what they were doing. That is: They were walking. Rather than being subject to the mats, now the mats were subject to them.

Thus the mat is an additional gift. It is the blessing of holding our blessings in mind. The “mat,” in whatever form it takes in the life of one who has been healed, serves as ballast against our selfishness and pride. The first human beings quickly forgot—disregarding the blessings of the garden. And we are prone to forgetting just as quickly.

Your own mat might be a debt that still lingers out of a difficult time—a time that, otherwise, is blessedly finished now.

Or the mat might be some familiar dark emotion that you still encounter from time to time—the emotion that once had you almost completely surrounded, back when you were in the prison from which the Lord has set you free.

If you feel that you are incompletely healed because you still carry some hurt, temptation, or remnant out the time when you were afflicted—then consider what purpose the weight might serve. Consider who you might be if you did not have this reminder, this connection to where you have been.

If you were completely blessed, is it possible you would completely forget?

Give thanks for the mat. Carry it humbly.

Give thanks for the God who wants to keep you this close, who wants to keep your heart aware—aware, that is, of how far you have come ... and how great is the load that you don’t have to carry anymore.

Past My Own Heart

I pray past my own heart. I do it all the time.

I hope I can continue to keep concealed from you what gets inside my heart. I experience envy. The dislike of people who seem to have things easier than I do rises within my heart, and I resent them for—I don’t know—just existing where I can see them.

I also delight in the misfortune of others. I feel relief when misfortune befalls someone—a sort of happiness, somehow—because when that particular spell of bad news entered the world, it didn’t land on me.

These things are in my heart. Selfishness, fear. They are pruned down sometimes, but the root still remains. You would not believe what is in my heart, what ugly things routinely blossom there. But then, that’s a lie, because I am hoping you would believe it. I am hoping that the hints I have heard are true—that everyone else has infected hearts, too.

I pray past my own heart because I know I am to pray for others—not just the ones I feel fondly about, but also enemies (Matthew 5:44), and also ones about whom no particular feeling rises.

I know I am to do this, because I believe. In addition to envy, anger, selfishness, and fear, I also have allowed belief into my heart. I have given my heart to belief—even though it is a broken heart over which weeds still flourish. The belief to which I’ve given it is very specific. In my heart, there is no single secret that better explains the universe and my own place within it than the resurrection of Christ. And there is no document that better explains Christ than the anthology of scriptures we call the Bible.

So I try as best as I am able to feed upon the Bible’s teachings. And some of the Bible’s teachings prove to be personal prophecies that I see fulfilled—as I watch the fruits of faith ripen in my own life, the fruits that come of finally surrendering to God’s easy and loving will instead of continuing to be hard on myself.

I also pray. And in prayer, I feel how much of my heart is still blackened, is still stone or ash. I feel it most of all in my attitudes toward other people. So as I am praying for one or another of these people, I sometimes must say: “Lord, ignore what my heart is saying about this person right now. Ignore it. I pray that you will comfort him and give him blessings, and that he will hear the voice of your love in his life and he will draw closer to you.”