Defending the Resurrection

Introduction

A. Has anyone ever heard the term “apologetics”? Apologetics is not apologizing for your faith. Apologetics is the discipline defending the faith. The Scriptures command us to do apologetics.

1. 1 Peter 3:15 HCSB “Always be ready to give a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you. However, do this with gentleness and respect.”

B. In this verse, the Greek word for “defense” is “apologia,” which is a compound of “apo,” meaning “away,” and “logos,” meaning “word” or “speech.” It means an answer back and carries the idea of legal defense. Here, Peter instructs Christians to be continually prepared to provide a verbal defense for why they have hope in Christ and do so with gentleness and respect. Today, we are going to focus on defending the resurrection. Imagine you have a neighbor who is an atheist, and she asks, “Why do you believe that Jesus rose from the dead?” The Bible regards Christianity as something that is testable.

1. 1 Corinthians 15:17-19 “and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.”

C. The resurrection of Jesus is the foundation of Christianity, establishing Jesus as the Son of God, the Savior of sinful humanity, and the Lord of life and death. If Jesus was not raised, then Christianity is false. If Jesus was raised, it has radical implications for every person. This morning, we will survey three minimal facts about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, then sift through three popular natural explanations of the facts, and conclude with what I think is the best explanation.

I. Three Minimal Facts

The minimal facts approach only takes into consideration strongly evidenced data that has warranted the acceptance of virtually all scholars, even atheistic and agnostic ones. We do not have to debate the inspiration of the Bible or alleged discrepancies in the Gospels to glean strong data.

1. Jesus died by crucifixion.

a. This is significantly substantiated by ancient non-Christian writings outside the Bible. I will examine two.

i. Josephus was a Jewish historian and completed his works around 93 AD. In his “Antiquities,” he writes:

1. About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man. For he was one who wrought surprising feats and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. When Pilate, upon hearing him accused by men of the highest standing amongst us, had condemned him to be crucified, those who had in the first place come to love him did not give up their affection for him. And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared. (Antiquities 20.9.1)

2. Josephus shows that Jesus was known for his wisdom and teaching. He was recognized as carrying out remarkable deeds. He had many followers. He was executed by crucifixion under the order of Pontius Pilate due to accusations brought by Jewish leaders and, even after his death, his followers continued as Christians.

ii. Tacitus was a Roman historian and started his work “Annals of Imperial Rome” around 115 AD. The passage pertaining to Jesus begins by detailing the fire that burnt down much of Rome during Emperor Nero’s reign in 64 AD. Tacitus asserts that it was the emperor himself who arranged for the city to burn. The plan backfired on Nero when many citizens of Rome began suspecting that he was responsible for burning down their homes. To avoid blame, Nero blamed the incident on Christians: 

1. Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. (Annals 15.44) 

2. Although Jesus is not explicitly named in this record, it is his description. He was called Christ. He was crucified, “the extreme penalty,” under the order of Pontius Pilate during the reign of Tiberius. According to Tacitus, the crucifixion did not stop the movement; instead, it expanded all the way from Judea to Rome. The “abominations” is probably a reference to the Eucharist since the Romans mistakenly believed that the Christians were literally eating the broken body and shed blood of Christ during their gatherings. The “superstition” that would have most agitated the Romans was Jesus being proclaimed as Lord.

2. A group of Jesus’ disciples sincerely believed that he was raised and appeared to them. 

a. The Apostle Paul supplies very strong evidence for the disciples’ sincere belief. In 1 Corinthians 15:3-5, Paul states:

i. “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.”

b. The vast majority of critical scholars are convinced that Paul is copying a very early oral tradition. There are several strong pieces of evidence for this being an oral tradition. 

i. The words “delivered” and “received” are Jewish terms for passing on oral traditions. 

ii. The passage also contains several non-Pauline terms. Except for Galatians 1:4, Paul never used the phrase “for our sins;” instead, he used “sin” in the singular. Paul never uses the phrase “according to the scriptures.” When Paul referenced the Scriptures, he used the phrase “it is written.” Paul never used the phrase “on the third day.” When he referred to “the Twelve,” he used the phrase “the Apostles.” 

iii. The passage is also stylized, containing parallelisms, and the repetition of the word “that” (hoti) at the head of each line constitutes a four-line formula. 

c. To put this in perspective, Jesus’ crucifixion happened sometime around 30 AD, and Paul’s conversion occurred sometime between 31-33 AD. According to Galatians 1:18-19, Paul went away for three years and then visited Peter and James in Jerusalem, where presumably he received the oral tradition at that time. The other option is that he received it three years earlier in Damascus right after his conversion. Either way, he probably received it within one to six years of Jesus’ crucifixion, which places the origin of the oral tradition even earlier from someone whom Paul as an Apostle deemed to be a trustworthy source. As Michael Licona states, As Michael Licona states, “We have what amounts to a certifiably official teaching of the disciples on the resurrection of Jesus.”

3. Paul sincerely believed that Jesus was raised and appeared to him.

a. Paul was a member of a Jewish group known as the Pharisees and believed that it was God's will to persecute Christians; however, something caused him to become one of Christianity’s greatest missionaries. 

In summary, the three minimal facts are: (1) Jesus died by crucifixion. (2) A group of Jesus’ disciples sincerely believed that he was raised and appeared to them. (3) Paul sincerely believed that Jesus was raised and appeared to him.

II. Naturalistic Explanations of the Facts

Having surveyed the minimal facts, we will now sift through several popular explanations of those facts. In trying to explain what probably happened in history, scholars suggest theories to fit the available facts. Once all the theories have been weighed against the minimal facts, we can have confidence in the explanation that outweighs the rest. 

Naturalists maintain that nature or the physical universe is all that exists and that there is nothing outside of nature or supernatural, meaning there is no spiritual realm or God. Therefore, they preclude, not conclude, that God could not raise Jesus.

1. The Conspiracy Theory

a. They would not have used the testimony of women.

i. Josephus described the rules for admissible testimony concerning women: “let not the testimony of women on account of the levity and boldness of their sex.” (Antiquities 4.8.15) If early Christians wanted to fabricate Jesus’ resurrection, they would have come up with witnesses that were men who had religious and political influence in their community. Since they reported that women were the witnesses, their intent must have been that they wanted to report the events accurately.

b. They would have described the resurrection.

c. People won’t die for a known lie.

i. All of the disciples suffered for their belief that Jesus was raised from the dead and appeared to them. Modern martyrs suffer based on their belief in what others within a religion have taught them. However, the disciples were founders of Christianity. This means they suffered for what they knew to be either true or false. While people will suffer for what they believe to be true even though it may be false, people do not suffer for what they know is a lie.

d. How do you convert Paul with a stolen body?

2. The Apparent Death Theory

a. This theory maintains that Jesus did not completely die on the cross. He revived when he was laid in the coolness of the tomb, came out of the tomb, and appeared to his disciples. 

i. Roman executioners could be relied upon to ensure that the victims were dead.

ii. Massively disconfirmed by medical facts, Jesus could not have endured being scourged and crucified. Jesus could not have rolled away the stone and walked on pierced feet.

iii. A half-dead man, desperately in need of medical attention, could not incite the disciples to believe that he was the risen Lord nor inspire their robust theology of resurrection.

iv. Does Paul not just re-crucify him?

3. The Hallucination Theory

a. This theory maintains that due to great distress the disciples hallucinated Jesus’ appearances to them. 

i. It says nothing at all about the empty tomb.

ii. Even if the bereaved can experience tangible hallucinations, it does not follow to conclude that the deceased has been resurrected.

iii. Psychologically, group hallucinations are impossible, and it is much more common to experience a hallucination in a single mode (seeing, hearing, or touching) than multi-mode. 

iv. There is no evidence to suggest that Paul struggled with any guilt complex for persecuting Christians. 

1. In Philippians, Paul himself writes about his pre-conversion persecutions against Christians, “as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.” This does not seem like a man who struggled with a guilt complex for persecuting Christians. 

III. Supernatural Explanation of the Facts 

The best explanation of the facts is the resurrection. It explains that Jesus did indeed die by crucifixion, a group of Jesus’ disciples did sincerely believe that he was raised and appeared to them, and Paul did as well.

The resurrection hypothesis is the most plausible of all the hypotheses when we take into consideration Jesus’ incomparable life and radical personal claims, and evidence for the existence of God. 

1. More than 100 prophecies found in the Old Testament were fulfilled in Jesus. 

a. Statistician Peter Stoner reports that the probability of just eight of these prophecies being fulfilled by one person is 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000. 

2. Jesus claimed to be the Messiah. 

a. He claimed to be eternal, equal to God, and the Savior of sinful humanity who would die for the forgiveness of our sins and would rise from the dead on the third day. 

3. The resurrection sheds the most light on other matters under dispute. 

a. Judaism maintains a general resurrection of the dead at the end of time, yet they claimed a singular resurrection occurred before the end of time. 

b. Judaism maintains their worship of Jesus as blasphemy.

4. If we include arguments from natural theology for the existence of God, the explanation that God raised Jesus from the dead is not unlikely at all. 

a. The resurrection requires only one supposition: that God exists. For the person who is unprejudiced against the supernatural or is already a theist, the resurrection hypothesis does not introduce a supposition.

b. To be open to the possibility of the resurrection of Jesus, one must be open to the possibility that God exists, created the universe, and sustains the laws of nature. When one considers this, the concept of divine intervention such as in the instance of the resurrection of Jesus is not strange at all.

Conclusion

1 Corinthians 15:20 “But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep.”

1 Corinthians 15:55-58 “’O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.”

Bibliography

Craig, William Lane. Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics. 3rd ed. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2008

Crossan, John Dominic, and Jonathan L. Reed. Excavating Jesus: Beneath the Stones, Behind the Texts. New York: HarperCollins, 2003.

Ehrman, Bart D. Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth. New York: HarperOne, 2012.

Habermas, Gary R., and J. P. Moreland. Beyond Death: Exploring the Evidence for Immortality. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1998.

Habermas, Gary R., and Michael Licona. The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2004.

Josephus, Flavius. The Works of Flavius Josephus. trans. William Whiston. Philadelphia: D. McKay, 1936.

Licona, Michael. The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2010.

Stoner, Peter W., and Robert C. Newman. Science Speaks: Scientific Proof of the Accuracy of Prophecy and the Bible. Chicago: Moody, 1969.

Tacitus, Cornelius. The Complete Works of Tacitus. trans. Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb. Ed. Moses Hadas. New York: Random House, 1942.

Yamauchi, Edwin. “Jesus Outside the New Testament: What Is the Evidence?” in Jesus Under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents the Historical Jesus. ed. Michael J. Wilkins and J. P. Moreland. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995.

The Genesis Debate by J. Ligon Duncan, et al.

Over the last century, the debate over the interpretation of Genesis 1 has intensified within the evangelical community. The chief question of Christians committed to the veracity of Scripture is: what does the Scripture say about the days in Genesis 1. Three theories have emerged as the primary views within the evangelical community. The 24-hour view holds that the days refer to literal successive 24-hour periods. The day-age view argues that the days in Genesis 1 are indefinite periods of time. The framework view holds that the author of Genesis never intended to describe how God created the world nor reveal the duration or sequence of creation.

The 24-Hour View

J. Ligon Duncan and David W. Hall defend the 24-hour view. Many who adhere to figurative views admit that the ordinary meaning of day is a 24-hour period. Duncan and Hall assert there are no good reasons to interpret the word in an extraordinary way. For example, opponents of the 24-hour view often point out that the sun and moon were not created until the fourth day of creation and use this as an argument in favor of a non-literal view. Another example, many proponents of a figurative reading of the days of creation appeal to the seventh day as indicative of the figurative meaning of “day” in Genesis 1. They do so in two ways. One they claim there is no end to the seventh day because the text omits the phrase “there was evening and there was morning.” Two, they claim that Psalm 95 and Hebrews 4 confirm a non-literal reading.

As with Genesis, the rest of the Pentateuch and the rest of Scripture affirm the creation in six 24-hour days. One of the strongest arguments in favor of the 24-hour period is the fact that God commanded Israel to imitate the pattern he sat down in Genesis 1 by working six days out of the week and resting on the seventh. Exodus 20:8-10 states, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God.” This passage does not suggest that the days are anything other than 24-hour periods. Both the original audience and history of interpreters before the 19th century understood the passage to refer to ordinary days.

When this passage is reiterated in Exodus 31:12-17, it takes on heightened importance because the finger of God inscribed the tablets of stone. According to verse 18, “and he gave to Moses, when he finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai, the two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone, written with the finger of God.” The divine inscription is clear. Verse 17 states, “it is a sign forever between me and the people of Israel that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed.”

Duncan and Hall go on to demonstrate that throughout Scripture God's supernatural work of creation is considered sudden. Each day God spoke and what he commanded was instantaneously so. The view that God brought creation about over long drawn-out periods of time fits no pattern in Scripture. Duncan and Hall repeatedly insist that the only justification for re-exegeting the text is extra-scriptural. The history of interpretation confirms that the church favored normal creation-days until the onslaught of certain scientific theories.

Duncan and Hall conclude by briefly responding to a couple of common objections. First, if the sun was not created until the fourth day, how could there be a literal evening and morning during the first three days? Duncan and Hall noted that the first thing that God did on day one was to create light. We are not told what the source of light was; however, it did allow for a pattern of morning and evening to begin and end each day. The exact same pattern occurred after the sun was created as a special source of light for the earth. In other words, light could well have emanated from non-solar sources that measured each day, and the source of light for the earth was modified on the fourth day. Therefore, there is nothing substantial in the argument that the sun was not created until the fourth day.

Second, how could all the activity described in Genesis 2:5–25 have taken place on the sixth day? On that one day, according to Genesis 2:19, God had Adam name every living creature. Many argue that this alone could not be done in a single day. However, Adam at this point had an unfallen mind. It is entirely possible that with such a mind that he would have been capable of performing mental functions at a faster speed than we are capable of in our fallen condition.

The Day-Age View

Hugh Ross and Gleason L. Archer defend the day-age view. Their view rests upon the conviction that God has revealed himself in both the words of the Bible and the works of creation. The day-age interpretation considers the days of creation as literal six sequential, long periods of time. Thus, the Genesis account can be integrated with scientific data. According to the day-age view, the seventh day of creation continues still, and it will continue until the final judgment. For now, God has ceased to miraculously intervene in preparing the planet for human habitation.

Ross and Archer address the creation-day controversy. While science should not determine our exegesis, we should not ignore science in our exegesis. If there are ways of interpreting Scripture that do not conflict with science, we should not be afraid to prefer them. The day-age view offers such a reconciliation of Genesis 1. Not only is there scriptural support, but there is also credibility for secularists.

Ross and Archer contend that the day-age view is a literal interpretation, and they support their sentiment with linguistic data. While the word “day” in Hebrew can refer to a 24-hour period, it also often refers to an age. An important example is in the Genesis account itself. After depicting the six days of creation, the author introduces a more detailed human orientation account of creation by stating, “In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens” (Genesis 2:4). It is apparent that the author is referring to a period of time. If “day” can refer to a period of time here, there is no good reason to insist that only a 24-hour interpretation is the literal meaning.

A chief issue hindering discussion of the creation-day controversy is death and extinction before Adam. It is sometimes argued that day-age adherents violate the doctrine that death entered the world through Adam's sin because death that must have been present millions of years before Adam. However, when the apostle Paul speaks of this doctrine in Romans 5 we read too much into the text to apply it to the entire animal kingdom. If we are going to read this far into the text, we could easily include all vegetation. Should we force the awkward conclusion that God designed all animals and humanity to eat nothing? The death that Paul refers to need not be a physical death, but spiritual death. Genesis 2 may imply this because God told Adam he would die on the day he ate from the tree (Genesis 2:17), yet Adam physically lived for a long time after his sin.

Ross and Archer give several other arguments that compel them to adopt the day-age view. On the sixth day of creation, God had Adam name the animals. The text suggests through this process of naming Adam discovered that none of the animals was an appropriate companion for him (Genesis 2:20). The process of naming the animals must have taken more than a day. It is more natural to conclude that the day of human creation referred to in Genesis 1 is not a 24-hour period.

Another argument is that Hebrews 4 teaches that we are still in the seventh day of creation on which God rested. Hebrews 4:4-11 suggests that God is still resting from his works on the previous six days. People can enter this rest if they do not resist God's will as the Israelites did in the Old Testament. What concerns the day-age view is the fact that the seventh day on which God rested apparently covers all of human history. Thus, we have good reason to conclude that the previous six days of creation were also long periods of time.

Several passages of Scripture expressly teach that God's days are not like our days. For example, the author of Psalm 90:4 states, “for 1,000 years in your sight are like yesterday when it is passed, or like a watch in the night.” A number of passages teach that the earth is very old. For example, Habakkuk 3:6 declares that the mountains are “ancient” and the hills are “age-old.”

Some argue that the word “yom” only can refer to an indefinite period of time if an ordinal does not precede it. Since Genesis 1 numbers the days, this entails that the author intended us to understand distinct 24-hour periods; however, this is not a grammatical rule of the Hebrew language. Hosea 6:2 proclaims, “After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him.” While the apostle Paul alludes to this as a typology of Christ’s resurrection, most commentators agree that Hosea was referring to epochs, not 24-hour periods. If so, this is a clear instance of a Hebrew author enumerating epochs. In addition, some argue that the author of Genesis 1 would have used the word of “olam” instead of “yom” if he wanted to refer to epochs. Post-biblical Hebrew used “olam” in this sense, but the term in the Old Testament has the connotation of something “forever” or “perpetual.” Since the author of Genesis is referring to temporary periods of time, it seems natural for him to use “yom.”

Finally, some argue that since the Sabbath day rest commanded in Exodus is 24-hours, the original Sabbath of God's rest and so the other days in Genesis 1 must have been 24-hour periods as well. However, what is important in Exodus is not the length of the Sabbath but the idea of the Sabbath. For instance, sometimes the Sabbath refers to a four-year (Leviticus 25:4). What is significant is a period of rest, not the length of rest.

The Framework View

Lee Irons with Meredith G. Kline defend the framework view. The framework view is that the biblical author was interested not in providing his audience with the literal chronology of how creation came about but in providing a literary framework within which the author could effectively express the Hebraic conviction that one God created the world. The author’s intent was thematic rather than chronological. Biblical authors frequently emphasize the thematic community over the historical. For example, it is a well-known fact that some gospel authors group Jesus sayings and deeds by theme rather than by the order in which they occurred historically. As a result, the order of events in the Gospels differs, just like the order of events in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 differ. This would be of concern only if the authors intended to provide an exact account of how things happened historically. If their concern was thematic, then the contradictions are inconsequential.

The first exegetical argument for the framework view begins with the observation that the days form a framework consisting of two parallel triads. The creation week is divided into two groups of three days with the seventh day acting as a capstone. Within each three-day grouping, four creative acts of God are identified by the phrase “Let there be…” Most significantly, the creative acts in the second group mirror the creative acts in the first group. That is: day four mirrors day one; day five mirrors day two; and day six mirrors day three. The first set of three days addresses the problems of darkness, the deep, and the formlessness of the earth. God addresses these problems by creating spaces within which things may exist. The second set of three addresses the void problem. God solves this problem by creating things to fill the spaces he created in the first three days.

Specifically, on day one God created light which address the darkness problem. On day two God created the heavens, which addresses the deep problem. On day three God created dry land and vegetation, which addresses the formlessness problem. Thus, by the end of day three, the first three problems have been addressed: darkness, the deep, and formlessness. The second set of three days addresses the lack of things to fill the spaces God has created. Day four fills the space created on day one; day five fills the space created on day two; and day six fills the space created on day three. Specifically, on day four God creates the lights to fill the skies that he created on day one. On day five God creates fish and birds to fill the water and the earth that he created on day two. In addition, on day six God creates animals and humans to fill the dry land that he created on day three.

The second argument in the exegetical case for the framework view takes its name from Meredith G. Kline's 1958 article, “Because It Had Not Rained.” In this article, Kline argues that Genesis 2:5-6 establishes the principle of continuity between the mode of providence during and after the creation. Both the 24-hour view and the day-age view have a difficult time explaining how plant life could survive for a day or an entire age without the sun. The framework view not only avoids this problem but also actually explains it.

One question still remains: what exactly is the nature of the day-frames? The answer to this question is provided by the third exegetical argument: two-register cosmology. The upper-register is the invisible dwelling place of God and his holy angels, which is heaven. The lower-register is called earth and includes the whole visible cosmos from the planet to the stars. We must remember that the upper-register is a part of creation too. The invisible realm is not co-eternal with God. The upper and lower registers relate to each other spatially, not as different locations, but as different dimensions of one cosmos. At each point in the creation narrative, the upper-register has been replicated in a lower-register analogue, imbuing the lower-register with meaning and imagery of the upper-register. The upper-register consists of heaven, spirit, fiats, divine counsel, and God's rest. Respectively, the lower-register consists of earth, the deep, fulfillments, man as image, and Sabbath ordinance. The contention is that the evenings and mornings are examples of lower-register language being used to metaphorically describe the upper-register. In other words, the temporal framework of the creation narrative does not belong to the lower-register but the upper-register, although it is linguistically clothed in the humble characteristics of the lower-register.

Decisively demonstrating the upper-register nature of the creation narrative is the upper-register nature of the beginning of the creation narrative. Proverbs 8:22-31 defines the beginning of Genesis 1:1 as the time prior to the progressive fashioning of the world described in the subsequent six days of creation. The point is that in the beginning cannot be a general time reference to the entire six-day creation, for Proverbs 8:22-30 explicitly places the events of the six days after the beginning. “In the beginning” refers to the absolute initial point that marks the interface between God's self-existent eternity prior to creation and the moment when the creation sprang into existence. Therefore, it cannot be interpreted as an ordinary, lower-register statement. “In the beginning” belongs to the upper-register. Just as the initial point of the creation narrative is a part of the upper-register, so is the conclusion of the creation narrative. The creation narrative concludes with an upper-register day of rest for God.

Irons and Kline conclude their positive exegetical case by briefly responding to two objections. Some have argued that the theory undermines the motivation of the Sabbath commandment in Scripture. The command to rest on the seventh day presupposes the importance of the chronological, not simply logical, orders of days in Genesis 1. This precedent makes perfect sense; however, even though chronology is not the point in Genesis 1, God did rest when his work of bringing order out of chaos was complete. That is the point of both the Genesis and the Exodus passages. Some object to the framework view because there are no other examples in Hebraic literature of “day” being used as a structural theme. In all metaphors, words are employed to make a comparison between a literal referent and a metaphorical referent. For example, the work “fox” in the sentence, “Go and tell that fox…” (Luke 13:32), denotes a small carnivorous mammal of the dog family. In this context, “fox” is being used as a metaphor to describe something about Herod. In saying that Herod is a “fox,” Jesus is not saying that he is a small carnivorous mammal, but that he has a “fox” like, crafty nature. It is unnecessary and misleading to argue that this unique usage may be explained as an instance where the word “fox” has a different meaning. The metaphor succeeds in conveying meaning precisely by comparing Herod to a literal “fox.” To search for secondary meanings of the term “fox” is to miss the point of the comparison between Herod and the fox’s crafty nature. Likewise, in Genesis 1, if we were to argue that “yom” has a figurative meaning here denoting an indefinite period of time or some such meaning, the metaphorical element would be lost.

Hard Questions

You've known me for my whole life [basically], so you know I have GOT to be the one to ask the hard questions, so here I am to do just that: When god made Eve, he did so KNOWING she would introduce this sin and death into the world. If he did not know, then he isn't omnipotent, so I believe this man is simply stating that god could have stopped these bad things from entering the world and chose not to. Which seems to be true, he allowed eve to live knowing she would curse all of creation and he cursed ALL of creation for the actions of one.

I think it is a fair representation to reduce her paragraph to three questions. One, did God know Eve would sin and introduce death into the world? Two, why did God not stop the bad things from entering the world? Three, why did God curse all of creation for the actions of one?

One, did God know Eve would sin and introduce death into the world? 

Without debating the extent of God’s foreknowledge, I think it is safe to say that the vast majority of Christians understand the Bible to teach that God did know that Adam and Eve would sin and introduce death into the world. Let me give you a very small sampling of Scripture that supports this teaching.

Isaiah 46:8-11 ESV "Remember this and stand firm, recall it to mind, you transgressors,  9  remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me,  10  declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, 'My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,'  11  calling a bird of prey from the east, the man of my counsel from a far country. I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass; I have purposed, and I will do it.

Acts 2:23 ESV this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.

Ephesians 1:3-6 ESV Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.

A natural attribute of the God of the Bible is his knowledge of the future. I think these verses show that God certainly knew Adam and Eve would sin. It does not say that explicitly, but it is very easy to infer. These verses refer to the atoning death of Jesus as resolved by God before creation. This was not planned once Adam and Eve sinned. Therefore, if the atoning death of Jesus was resolved before creation, it entails that God knew Adam and Eve would sin. I do not write this lightly, but Jesus was as good as dead when God created humanity.

Two, why did God not stop the bad things from entering the world? 

This has to do with what I briefly mentioned in my original blog. “If God were to prevent children from getting cancer, God would be withdrawing our free choice and the steadfastness of His Word.”

The Bible repeatedly demonstrates that God holds humanity responsible for their choices. I think it is reasonable to say that there should be no responsibility where there is no real ability to choose for ourselves. The seriousness of our free choice to sin is demonstrated in the bad things God allowed to enter the world. These bad things reveal his righteous anger towards sin.

I think the question becomes why God couldn’t give people free choice and make them not able to sin. If he is all-powerful, he should be able to do it.

Alvin Plantinga thoroughly deals with this issue in his book God, Freedom, and Evil. Plantinga begins with a premise to the effect that God created humanity with free choice and the ability to sin for good reason, with no reason for creating us differently.

Plantinga first states what he means by free will. There are no preconditions or laws that determine a person will perform an action or that she will refrain from performing an action.

With that in mind, Plantinga now states his case. A world filled with humans who were truly free, meaning they freely could perform more good than evil, is more valuable than a world with no free creatures at all.

If God creates humans free, he is choosing not to cause or determine them to do only what is good. If he does, then they are not free after all because they do not do what is good freely. Therefore, to create humans capable of real moral good, God must create humans capable of real moral evil.

Then, it is also impossible for humans to be given freedom to perform evil and simultaneously be prevented from doing it. The fact that free humans do evil and literally suffer the consequences for it does not go against God’s goodness or His power. He could have prevented the occurrence of moral evil only by removing the possibility of moral good. God can do anything that is logically possible. This means that God can only create a world in which only one or the other is possible.

Three, why did God curse all of creation for the actions of one? 

The Apostle Paul addresses this question in Romans 5.

Romans 5:12-14 ESV Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned-- 13  for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. 14 Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.

The reason death entered the world is that all of humanity sinned in Adam’s sin. There are generally two ways of explaining our participation in Adam’s sin: “federal headship” or “natural headship.”

Federal headship views Adam as the representative of all of humanity. As our representative, Adam’s sin was recognized by God as the action of all of humanity, making death the penalty of everyone.

Natural headship views all of humanity as physically in Adam. Let me give you a biblical example. In Hebrews 7:9-10, the author of Hebrews explains that Melchizedek gave his tithe to Levi even though he was still in the body of his ancestor Abraham. Just as Levi was present in Abraham, we were all present in Adam, so God recognizes all of humanity as participating in Adam’s sin, deserving of the penalty of death.

Ultimately, the issue is that you and I have such a spiritual relationship to Adam that God recognizes us as participating in Adam’s sin so that we all deserve death. You might reply that if you were Adam you surely would not have made such a decision, yet we ratify his decision every day when we choose to sin ourselves.

The fact of the matter is that the world that was created is exactly the kind of world that God desired to create. There is no need for anything to be created differently. The Bible repeatedly affirms that the world was created good. Humanity was created very good, and, even after sin, we are still considered fearfully and wonderfully made. The purpose of redeeming a sinful world and humanity is in accordance with God’s good pleasure. Let me leave you with this thought. God was under no compulsion to give up his Son. We could and should all be dead, but God freely gave up His Son to die for our sins. The real hard question is why God would do that.

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died--more than that, who was raised--who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, "For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered." No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:31-39 ESV

A Quick Response to Stephen Fry

At the moment, Stephen Fry is trending on Facebook. Why? Because He explained that he wouldn’t want to get into heaven, the home of “a capricious, mean-minded, stupid God.”

I don’t understand why so many people are surprised or shocked at his statement. In “Renovation of the Heart,” the late Dr. Dallas Willard writes: “Thus no one chooses in the abstract to go to hell or even to be the kind of person who belongs there. But their orientation toward self leads them to become the kind of person for whom away-from-God is the only place for which they are suited. It is a place they would, in the end, choose for themselves, rather than come to humble themselves before God and accept who he is. Whether or not God’s will is infinitely flexible, the human will is not. There are limits beyond which it cannot bend back, cannot turn or repent” (p. 57).

I think Stephen Fry would completely agree with this statement. Heaven is not attractive to him because his idea of God is not attractive to him. Why enter a place where there is a person you could not stand?

Now some people might concur with the preceding logic but question if any biblical evidence supports this assertion. Let me give three brief examples.

When God pours out judgment on the unrepentant, Revelation 16:9 states, “They were scorched by the fierce heat, and they cursed the name of God who had power over these plagues. They did not repent and give him glory.”

In Rabbinic thought, the prevalent biblical expression, “gnashing of teeth,” used to describe the reaction to the experience of hell entails anger not anguish (p. 159 of “The Fire That Consumes” by William Edward Fudge).

In Luke 16:19-21, Jesus told a story about a rich man in hell. He pleads for water to cool his tongue and for someone to warn his family. Jesus does not tell us that he pleaded for mercy on his soul. He desired relief, not repentance.

Lastly, please note that I wrote that heaven is not attractive to Stephen Fry because of his idea of God. He may have some evidence that demands his reason to reject God, but that evidence might also be misconstrued or misinterpreted. From a Christian worldview, there is a link between our idyllic desires and the disappointments in this world.

It begins with Adam’s sin. Genesis 2:16 states, “And the LORD God commanded the man, ‘You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.” Further Genesis 3:6 states, “When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.”

Consequently, Adam through sin brought death, disease, and natural disasters upon humanity. Genesis 3:17 states, “Then to Adam He said, ‘Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it;’ Cursed is the ground because of you; In toil you shall eat of it All the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; And you shall eat the plants of the field; By the sweat of your face You shall eat bread, Till you return to the ground, Because from it you were taken; For you are dust, And to dust you shall return.’”

Until this day, we continue to ratify Adam’s sin through our own decisions and all of humanity continues to experience the curse on creation, suffer, and die. If God were to prevent children from getting cancer, God would be withdrawing our free choice and the steadfastness of His Word. Seeing the horror of rebellion should cause Stephen Fry not to hate God but sin.

Public Service Announcement for Church Leaders and Attendees

This is a reminder for myself, fellow pastors, and those who we will be fortunate enough to preach to this coming weekend. Every word that we will sing and proclaim has already been said. I know that a lot of time, energy, and money have gone into producing something original, but the truth is, truth is as old as God Himself. I hope leaders are excited about the opportunity to present and attendees to enjoy what God has already done. Let’s just not make the mistake that it is our new thing. There is nothing new underneath the sun. So why do we preach? Why do we attend? Why do we ask others to come with us? Because what has afflicted humanity through the ages still afflicts us today, and Jesus is still the only cure. So let’s do nothing clever that will leave anyone reflecting on something other than Jesus still being the only cure. We can never top the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. It is the crown jewel of Scripture and history. It does not need to be made relevant; instead, we must help each other become aware that our most pressing need is irrelevant when compared to or its fulfillment is ultimately connected to the gospel. I have much hope for the church today, not because of “old-fashioned” or “latest,” “emotional” or “eloquent,” “big” or “small,” but because somewhere the gospel of Jesus Christ will be proclaimed and all the powers of hell cannot stand against it, including us.

A Couple Thoughts on Ryan Bell’s Journey

Ryan Bell was a Seventh-day Adventist pastor. He took the last year to explore the worldview of atheism. This exploration was not just an intellectual voyage through atheists' writings but a journey in which he did not pray, read the Bible, refer to God as the cause of things, or hope that God might intervene and change his own or someone else’s circumstances. After a year, he came to a place where he is no longer a believer. He notes that even after coming to this place that at his core he has not changed at all. He still desires justice in the world and works for an organization that assists the homeless. You can read more about him here. A dear friend asked for my thoughts about his journey. So, I reviewed some of the blogs he wrote while on his journey, and here are my thoughts.

Something for Me to Consider

Ryan confesses that his non-theistic lifestyle was not practically different from his theistic lifestyle at all:

I was never a world-class pray-er. I was never successful at having an hour long ‘quiet time’ as I was taught to do. I did read my Bible and pray, sporadically, but I was never a consistent pray-er. For years I have struggled to understand the purpose of prayer. I am not ignorant of the various explanations of prayer’s purpose. It’s just that none of them ever made much sense to me.

At the beginning of his journey, he set out not to engage in theistic practices, and here he admits that before his journey he struggled with them. Then, I think he writes his most insightful piece:

As a pastor I read and studied my Bible as a professional commitment, to prepare sermons and Bible studies, but I rarely read the Bible devotionally and for my own inspiration, in part because so much of it isn’t inspiring at all. I haven’t attended a church consistently since March so not much changed in that department in the past month either. In short, my life has more or less continued as it has in the recent past. This is revealing for a couple of reasons.

First, it demonstrates something that I have suspected about myself and other Christians I know—many of us have for a long time been functional atheists. We may confess an intellectual assent to belief in a divine being and have a well thought out theology but very few of us live as though this God exists and is an active agent in the world.

Secondly, it demonstrates, at least to me, that the difference God makes is to a great degree, a kind of life insurance policy…a modern day form of Pascal’s wager in which believers hedge their bets against the possibility that there is a God who may send them to hell if they don’t believe.

Christian believers should evaluate their faith on at least those two points. Is there a practical difference between my life and someone who does not profess to believe what I believe? Although I believe being saved from future punishment through faith in Christ is true, it is not the sole burden of the Bible. The Christian message includes that we are saved from the darkness of skepticism, from weakness of will, and from sin, here and now. As a Christian, I believe God is with me always. Do I live differently because of that?

Something for Ryan and Non-Theists to Consider

Some Christians allege that Ryan and non-theists like him lack a moral compass. I disagree. Ryan and all non-theists are moral people. In fact, I think Ryan has done and will do more good than most Christians will ever intend to do. He seems to care deeply for those less fortunate and disenfranchised. He even shares his agitation with William Lane Craig’s response to how Ryan would survive his journey morally and ethically. Craig said:

I wonder what is Bell going to do? Is he going to also during this year quit working for peace and justice? Is he going to now no longer be concerned about the treatment of women – those issues that got him into trouble with his church? Just what does he think the consequences of atheism really are? Which ones is he going to try on? If he really comes to accept the view that atheism leads to the kind of moral nihilism that our other friend did, Bell is going to really have a disastrous year.

How ever Ryan perceived Craig’s response, Ryan and non-theists have something to consider. Having read Craig’s popular book, “Reasonable Faith,” he never argues that Ryan cannot be a moral person, but, given non-theism, morals are subjective, not objective. If morals are subjective, they are ultimately opinions, and relative, meaning they could change. If morals are objective, they are true and unchanging regardless of any person’s, nation’s, race’s, or age’s opinion. This is an important difference. One I would offer to Ryan’s question, “So now what difference does God make?”

If atheism is true, morality arose by man's evolutionary need for survival. Evolution has determined that co-operative and even sacrificial behavior to be advantageous in the struggle for survival. This entails that morality is not objective. As Michael Ruse writes:

The position of the modern evolutionist…is that humans have an awareness of morality…because such an awareness is of biological worth. Morality is a biological adaptation no less than are hands and feet and teeth…Considered as a rationally justifiable set of claims about an objective something, ethics is illusory. I appreciate that when somebody says "Love thy neighbor as thyself," they think they are referring above and beyond themselves…Nevertheless,...such reference is truly without foundation. Morality is just an aid to survival and reproduction,…and any deeper meaning is illusory.

Michael Ruse, “Evolutionary Theory and Christian Ethics,” in The Darwinian Paradigm (London: Routledge, 1989), 262, 268-289.

On this view, morality becomes ultimately meaningless. Murder, rape, racism, and slavery are nothing more than matters of opinion. There is no objective difference between Hitler and Mother Teresa. One followed a set of rules more preferable to the world than the other did. Maybe in another time and another place, history might regard it the opposite way. I do not think Ryan Bell believes this. I think Ryan Bell lives as if morals are objective. I believe each human being is created in the image of God. Each is a moral, spiritual being. Morals are objective and necessary expressions of God’s loving and just nature. We hate evil because He hates evil. We love because He first loved us.

In Ryan’s blog on January 5, 2014, he shared a quote from Friedrich Nietzsche:

These serious, excellent, upright, deeply sensitive people who are still Christian from the very heart: they owe it to themselves to try for once the experiment of living for some length of time without Christianity; they owe it to their faith in this way for once to sojourn ‘in the wilderness’ — if only to win for themselves the right to a voice on the question whether Christianity is necessary.

A year later, I would like to share another quote from Friedrich Nietzsche:

"God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him."

"How shall we comfort ourselves the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever is born after us-for the sake of this deed he will belong to a higher history than all history hitherto."

Here the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners; and they too were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, and it broke into pieces and went out. "I have come too early…"

Friedrich Nietzsche, "The Gay Science." In The Portable Nietzsche, edited and translated by W. Kaufmann, (New York: Viking, 1954), 95.

Unwell

Yesterday at church, I had a brief but refreshing conversation with two precious Christian women about each of our experiences with panic attacks. I believe from the looks of their faces that it was a relief to know that each one was not alone. Recently, Ed Stetzer and LifeWay Research found that 66 percent of protestant clergy mention mental illness once a year or never, yet one in four Americans have suffered with mental illness. If you have experienced a panic attack specifically, it is extremely comforting to know others who have dealt with similar issues. Some of the people I admire and respect the most have went through similar trials. One of my mentors, Clayton King, warned about the dangers of burnout. One of my professors at Biola University, Dr. Scott Smith, has shared his story with anxiety. This is my story in brief. These are my answers to common questions I have received about my bout with panic attacks.

What precipitated your panic attacks?

Doubt

I am a minister of the gospel with an unrelenting questioning intellect. Dr. Gary Habermas describes my form of doubt as "frequently caused by the type of personality which enjoys problem solving…In other words, this type of uncertainty actually spurs some individuals to work out dilemmas which interest them, or to get to the root of practical applications with the intent of finding which solutions actually work." When one has serious questions about the Foundation and Fountain of his or her life, it can wreak havoc on one's peace of mind.

Bitterness

After being stirred by Clayton King's mentoring network and supported by my best friends, we lead a week of summer camp at our alma mater. We had over 100 students with 12 salvations. It was awesome. A month later, Mr. Smith emailed me. He asked if we could talk over the phone, and we talked the following day. He asked me about my plans since Clayton King's mentoring networked had completed. I shared with him details about the camp we lead, and he asked if I wanted to meet up with him after an engagement. I agreed. He said he would call me later with the details. Two months passed, and I never heard back from him. I found out later that the day we were supposed to meet he visited my alma mater. He had a good visit and a contract was written for him to bring a summer camp to the college. This was a wonderful opportunity for him. I do not own rights to my alma mater or the Lord's work. Simultaneously, I could not help feeling I had been taken advantage of since the purpose of his call was a relationship not a reference. It angered me that he was not open and transparent with me. If he believed it to be God's will, why not share it with me? I confronted him through several phone calls and emails, but there was never any reconciliation. My anger grew to bitterness.

Overload

In my intellectual pride, I foolishly took ten units my first graduate semester. This was an unhealthy class load given a full-time job and being recently married.

Predisposition

Before she passed away, my grandmother was one my stalwart prayer warriors. We confided in one another. She shared with me about her struggles with anxiety. My grandmother and I had many experiences in common. Consequently, I think these kind of mental conditions may run in my family. This does not mean that an individual is destined to develop such mental conditions.

How did you treat them?

First

I could only treat my panic attack once it was too late. I would take a Benadryl to become drowsy enough to take a nap. After taking a nap, it seemed like I would reset and could go about my day until the next stressor. This is a terrible way to live.

Second

The panic attacks became so controlling over my life that I actually was unable to preach one Sunday. I remain deeply appreciative of my wife, pastor, and family for their care. My pastor sent me home, suggested adjustments to my schedule and that I see a doctor, and preached on the fly in my stead.

Third

In ongoing consultation with my doctor, I was prescribed two medications for my panic attacks. Taking psychiatric medications is a controversial issue in the Christian community. Here is my philosophy in nontechnical terms. Your mind uses your brain much like a pianist uses a piano. One without the other cannot make music. There are varying skilled pianists and various conditions of pianos. Music from a piano can sound badly in two ways. One is from a pianist with very little skill. Two is from a piano in need of repairing or tuning. In the same way, your mind, decisions, and lifestyle can adversely affect your brain, and your brain impairments can adversely affect how your mind experiences the world around you and how you express yourself. There is a deep unity between them, but they are distinct. God has the power to heal both mind and brain. Simultaneously, we are responsible to steward to the best of our ability our minds and our brains. We must be spiritually disciplined, and I do not believe it is wrong to treat our brains medicinally, just like we would with any other part of our body, to help repair or tune them. It should be understood that medicine will not fix our spiritual condition, and we would be foolish to isolate any mental condition as just spiritual or just physical.

What will you do differently?

Trust God.

As described, my doubts actually spurred me to pursue a master's degree in Christian Apologetic at Biola University. Apologetics is therapy for the Christian intellect. Not only have I received answers for my serious questions, but also the skills to research for answers to my future questions. God exists. He created the universe. He sent His one and only Son, Jesus Christ, to die for our sins and raised Him from the dead as proof. He never leaves nor forsakes us. He pours out His Holy Spirit on all who believe to comfort and guide them. He will return for us soon, and we will rejoice in Him forever.

As I was coming out of my dark night of the soul, I wrote this:

I've got a billion questions in my mind

I want to believe, but do you really consider it a crime

To have my doubts as if you're disguised

Is it wrong or am I all right?

But I'm finding that my ways are not your ways

It's something I can't figure out in just a couple days

It takes a leap of faith

To leave this earth and fly into the heavenlies

It comes as a blow to my pride

To have considered your presence nothing more than a lie

But now my eyes are open and I see

You've been there all along loving on me

Forgive and give it to God.

A year ago, I sent an email to Mr. Smith. I informed him that I had been praying for him and that I had been bitter towards him. I told him that I loved him, even if he was unaware of his offence toward me, and I asked for his forgiveness. I erased all of our correspondence as to not harbor bitterness against him. To my understanding, he never admitted any wrong. Consequently, I have given the matter to God.

Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord." To the contrary, "if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head." Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Romans 12:17-21

Prioritize according to Jesus.

It was humbling for me to cut back on my class load, but I have to keep things in Kingdom perspective.

"Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. "Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

Matthew 6:25-34

Pray for healing.

It's become cliché, but truth is as old as God Himself.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:6-7

Today was my checkup with my doctor. Due to the progress my doctor has observed, I am now only on one medication to be taken only as needed. To God be the Glory.