Christians have tended to miss a fundamental point. God’s earth matters to God.
But miss it we do. Even when Creation is right there in the front of us in the Bible and all around us.
I had a good conversation recently with a middle-aged Christian. She shared something startling. Until she spent the last summer at the Au Sable Institute, she had not heard of the concept of Creation care.
How can that be?
How could a Christian spend years going to church and in fellowship with other Christians and not be aware of something so fundamental?
If Chrisitans aren’t hearing about it, is it any wonder that Christians are largely not engaged in actively stewarding God’s earth? Worse yet, is it any wonder that Christians accept Creation-harming activities that show neither love for God nor for neighbor?
In the last month or so, a number of new people have signed up to receive this blog by email. I am, of course, deighted. This, along with that conversation I mentioned, is prompting me to feel I need to address some fundamental topics in coming posts.
I will share the reasons why the concept of Creation care is either ignored or just plain hard for Christians.
Another post will explore a positive theme – how striving to be a good shepherd of God’s earth enriches a Christian’s walk in faith.
I will share, too, the story of a person who was called to lead a specific and challenging effort that is culturally changing how Christians interact with Creation. I believe you’ll appreciate how he’s blessed people and Creation even when he didn’t feel equipped to do so. You’ll see he’s been blessed in the process.
Some of what I share will, I hope, be inspiring. Some will likely be challenging. I feel the need to do both.
Please let me know how I can be of service to your own calling in this direction. Let’s learn together what it takes to live a whole Christian faith.
I’ve always been challenged by the story in Mark 5: 1-20 of the demons and the pigs.
I knew I needed to finally wrestle with it in earnest when I found a piece about the story by Pastor Andrew Wilson in the latest issue of Christianity Today. Like almost every other article, commentary, and sermon I’ve ever encountered, Wilson’s piece discounts the significance of the pigs.
This story, as you may remember, involves Jesus and a man possessed by demons who call themselves “Legion.” When confronted by Jesus, the demons expresses the desire to remain in the area and ask permission to go into a herd of 2,000 pigs. Jesus grants that permission. The pigs rush down the hill into the Sea of Galilee and die by drowning.
“Jesus and the Demoniac”- Woodcutting
It’s a puzzling story. Wilson shares a personal anecdote of an older pastor who recalled that one of the three most common questions about the Bible and the Christian faith he had received over the course of his long career had been, “And what’s the deal with the pigs?”
Wilson is a skilled writer and provides some valuable insights. However, he,like most other Bible interpreters (see this and this and this), seems to approach the story with the same two assumptions that have long shaped interpretations of the story: (1) the lives of the pigs do not matter and (2) the pigs are acted upon but are not able to choose to act themselves.
What happens if we read this story carefully and with an open mind? What happens if we apply what we know of pigs to the story? What if weave in other themes of Jesus’ life and of the Jewish roots of the Christian faith? What if we apply the whole faith principle that Creation matters to God and is part of God’s eternal plans?
If we interpret with all that in mind, this story comes to be even more wholly and richly provocative.
Below, I draw out that interpretation through a step-by-step, question-and-answer format. As you go forward, I encourage you to have an open mind while at the same time carefully scrutinizing each of my points of logic.
Did Jesus explain why he allowed the demons to go into the pigs and why the pigs rushed into the lake?
No. Like so many other examples of storytelling in the Bible, we are told of actions and statements but are left to figure out the connecting tissue of meaning and context ourselves. So we must be very careful about how we interpret the story. We will be tempted to project our own theories, prejudices, and ideas onto it.
What did the demons say their motivation was to move into the pigs?
To stay in the area. In other words, it seems they wanted to remain a source of torment and danger. This makes it illogical that the demons would want their hosts (the pigs) to die while they, the demons, were still possessing them. If this is kept in mind, it appears that the demons’ desire was ultimately thwarted.
Is there any Biblical basis for expecting that animals, especially higher order animals, might have a clearer and more virtuous perspective on the spiritual reality they are dealing with than humans?
Yes. Read the story of Balaam and his donkey carefully in Numbers 22: 21-35. In this provocative story, Balaam’s donkey sees an angel prepared to strike Balaam (a Moabite prophet) down three times, but each time Balaam’s donkey turns aside to prevent its master from being killed. Balaam, who has not perceived the angel, proceeds to beat the donkey each time, thinking that the donkey is being capriciously rebellious. God opens the donkey’s mouth, enabling it to speak its thoughts and feelings. The donkey reproaches Balaam and poignantly asks, “Am I not your own donkey, which you have always ridden to this day? Have I been in the habit of doing this to you?” Then God enables Balaam to see the angel with its sword drawn and to realize what the true situation was. The angel tells Balaam, “If it (the donkey) had not turned away, I would certainly have killed you by now, but I would have spared it.”
In other words, the donkey sees the spiritual reality Balaam is facing but does not see himself. And not only that. The donkey also acts to prevent Balaam’s death from that spiritual reality, even after it becomes clear that Balaam does not appreciate what the donkey is doing for him.
What do we know of pigs?
They, of course, are considered an unclean animal in Hebrew law. We also know they are highly intelligence animals, as smart as or even smarter than dogs. They have complex social relationships with each other and with humans when allowed. They have saved people from harm. I’ve even read that it is hard to find funding to research their intelligence because, in part, it raises painful questions about the ethics of how they are raised for food today in factory farms and how they are slaughtered. (A great book to read about all of this is Pig Tales: An Omnivore’s Quest for Sustainable Meat.)
It’s also significant that pigs can swim. So just running into the lake should not have caused their death by drowning.
In The Food Revolution by John Robbins, one reads the story of a pig who showed protective instincts while swimming. Robbins shares an experience of a farmer who had had a pet pig when he was young to which he was very attached. He would even sleep together with the pig in the cool barn on hot summer nights. He also enjoyed swimming in the farm’s pond. One of the farm dogs, however, would always swim out and then crawl on top of him, unintentionally scratching the boy with his claws. This was about to cause the boy to give up on swimming when the pig intervened:
“Evidently the pig could swim, for she would plop herself into the water, swim out where the dog was bothering the boy, and insert herself between them. She’d stay between the dog and the boy, and keep the dog at bay. She was, as best I could make out, functioning in the situation something like a lifeguard, on in this case, perhaps more of a life-pig.”
Is there any other explanation for what the pigs did and their demise?
Yes. The assumption in most commentaries is that the demons caused the pigs, directly or indirectly, to rush down the hill and into the water where they drowned. In othe words, the demons either directed the pigs to run into the lake and die or the pigs’ instinctive, non-rational reaction to their possession by the demons was to rush blindly and without thinking into the water.
Another way to read the story begins with assuming the pigs had their own volition. This leads to the idea that the pigs decided it was better to die than live with the demons in them. So they decided to not only rush into the water but also not to swim and keep themselves alive. In other words, they committed suicide with a sacrificial purpose. They committed suicide to thwart the demons’ desire to remain in the area.
In what ways does this alternative reading make sense?
Here are the ways I believe it does make sense:
1. The last story we read before the story of the demons and the pigs is of Jesus calming the storm. The disciples wonder in the last verse of chapter 4, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!” A reading of this story that gives the pigs some will of their own enables this story to show that Jesus is both more powerful than the evil forces of the universe and, again, lord of the universe itself. He is able to use Creation to thwart the purposes of the demons. In this case, though, Jesus uses the sentience and intelligence of creatures within Creation.
2. We have seen in the story of Balaam’s donkey an animal that sees aspects of the spiritual world that people, including Balaam, cannot see and reacts out of good motives to preserve the life of Balaam. Why can’t pigs, who are as intelligent as donkeys and potentially more so, also act with their own will in a situation where they are confronted with the spiritual world intervening in the material world? This is so unexpected, of course, that our minds recoil at the idea. But perhaps the unexpected is part of what Jesus meant when he said earlier in Mark, “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” The kingdom of God upends all that seems normal in the world!
3. This reading fits, in a radical way, with the theme we see in the Gospels of the Gentile world sometimes recognizing Jesus and God’s ways more aptly than the Jewish world. The pigs are an extreme symbol of not only uncleanness but even of pagan and Roman culture, which were opposed and hostile to Jewish culture. What could be more radical than the kingdom of God leading pigs, the epitomy of all that seemed opposed to the Jewish understanding of God, to serve God’s purposes and eliminate evil from the world?
4. There is evidence that higher order animals can take action for good. There is also some potential evidence that higher order animals can commit suicide. A recent paper by David M. Pena-Guzman examines that possibility as does an article in Psychology Today.
5. If the pigs chose to take action for good by deliberating running into the lake and allowing themselves to be drowned (remember, pigs can swim), then this story actually picks up on the theme of sacrifice being needed to break the power of evil in the world. This is part of the fundamental story of Jesus dying on the cross. Jesus had the power to remove himself from the situation but chose not to in order to fulfill God’s purposes. The demons thought they had saved themselves by appealing to move into the pigs while evil thought it had triumphed over God by having Jesus killed. Both were wrong. And the pigs, which were likely used in sacrifices to pagan Gods, redeemed their goodness in Creation by being sacrifices for the removal of evil.
6. The theme of sacrifice that we see in the life and death of Jesus being paralleled here in this story actually enables us to feel better about Jesus allowing the demons to go into the pigs. Reading this story with the usual interpretations projects callousness onto Jesus. Why would Jesus allow demons to take their evil elsewhere in the world and cause the death of other members of Creation? Why wouldn’t he just have the demons leave the world forever? Why have compassion on the demons?
What if Jesus wasn’t having compassion on them at all but was taking advantage of their underestimation of the rest of Creation? What if Jesus was giving the pigs the opportunity to have a more noble purpose in their lives than they would normally have had – being slaughtered for food or sacrificed to a pagan god? Maybe their example of sacrifice to eliminate evil was a radical message from the least likely source? Maybe it was a profound sign?
7. This reading also fits with theme of Jesus having more knowledge and power in this world than demons. If one reads the exchange between Jesus and the demons, Jesus doesn’t actually assent to them staying in the area. He only assents to them moving into the pigs. Why couldn’t Jesus have known that pigs would be the agents of destruction of the demons?
8. And check out verses 16-17 – “Those who had seen it told the people what had happened to the demon-possessed man – and told about the pigs as well. Then the people began to plead with Jesus to leave their region.” Maybe what was so unsettling to the people of this region was not just Jesus’ ability to free the demon-possessed man of the demons but also the seeming suicide of the pigs. People there would have known that pigs could swim. Perhaps the idea that the pigs they ate and sacrificed on a regular basis could actually choose to do something good at the costs of their own lives would have been deeply unsettling?
9. In his article, Pastor Wilson picks up on the potential connection between the name of the demons being “Legion” and the Roman rule over the area. Doesn’t it add to the subversiveness of the story to think of pigs, a symbol of Roman culinary culture and their pagan religious culture, causing the demise of a legion?
In what ways is this alternative reading open to criticism of its own?
1. There is no commentary in the verses that provides clear basis for believing that the pigs had their own will in this situation or that Jesus expected the pigs to act on their own to resist the demons. You could just as easily read the verses to suggest that the demons either drove the pigs mad or drove them to run into the lake in some sort of purposefully destructive act. This story is a Rohrshach test of sorts. We project onto it what we bring to it. What’s more, there is no indication in the story whether the demons came back or not. So much is left unsaid!
2. There is no scientific consensus about whether animals can commit suicide. Here is an article that casts doubt on the whole idea.
3. You can make the argument that just as the demons caused the man to act irrationally, violently, and self-destructively the pigs would have lost control of themselves, even to the point of rushing into the water and losing the ability to swim.
4. It seems to our modern mindset to give too much agency and volition to the pigs in the story. These are the same intelligent animals we put into factory-like facilities that we call farms. Even worse, the culture of almost every church sees no problem with eating the flesh of these animals, even after the way they have been treated in life and death has been counter to every fruit of the spirit and the opposite of loving stewardship. Anything that suggests that pigs (and other animals under our control) have intelligence and can serve God’s will with some autonomy is deeply unsettling. We are not truly open to a Kingdom of God that upends and unsettles all of our expectations and assumptions.
You, of course, should make your own judgments. Nevertheless, no matter how you read the story, it is worth mentioning that both the possessed man and the pigs are capable of being afflicted by the demons. That should give us pause as well.
We tend to emphasize our unique qualities as humans and to avoid thinking of the commonalities we have with our fellow created beings around us. But just as Jesus was both God and man, we are simultaneously both special image-bearers of God and plain members of Creation. This should give us humility and a sense of fellowship with the rest of Creation.
In two previous blogs (here and here), I’ve dived into the subtleties of John 3:16. This iconic verse, often used to convey the Gospel, has more nuance to it than is normally recognized. The words “believe” and “eternal life” and even “have” are translations that typically do not capture the full meaning. This epitomizes how easy it is simplify the Christian faith and lose its wholeness. And one of the ways Christians have been tempted to do so is by making Christianity only about individual people and their individual destinies beyond death.
It is with this in mind that I tackle one key word in John 3:16 – “world.” The argument I make is not conventionaI. But while I certainly don’t claim to be a theologian, I do believe we all should wrestle with what we read in the Bible and work to understand how it fits together as a whole. I encourage you to be the judge whether my reasoning is compelling or not.
What do most Christians understand to be the meaning of the word “world,” which is a translation of the Greek word “kosmos,”in John 3:16?
I’ve looked to answer that with an admittedly unscientific search online. And I’ve encountered what one often finds with Christian doctrine and key verses – a wide range of opinions with sometime fierce denunciations of others’ opinions.
Some of the dominant opinions one finds for answers to that question are
1. All of humanity
2. All of fallen humanity
Here’s John Piper’s take on the second understanding, which is representative of many other theologians I’ve come across:
That is the way John is using world here. It is the great mass of fallen humanity that needs salvation. It’s the countless number of perishing people from whom the “whoevers” come in the second part of the verse: “. . . that whoever believes in him should not perish.” The world is the great ocean of perishing sinners from whom the whoever comes.
3. The elect of God (of which there are a number of interpretations).
What I could not find was anyone asserting that world in this case actually meant the whole world of people, ants, trees, salmon, soil microbes, coyotes, and dung beetles.
Here are some reasons why I believe it makes sense to read “kosmos” as the whole earth:
The Gospel of John begins with the whole world: All too often we atomize the Bible, pulling together a set of verses plucked out of different books of the Bible to prove our case on a particular issue. In the process it is very easy to do violence to the wholeness of each book and to the complex wholeness of the Bible. When you begin at the beginning of the Gospel of John, you find John stating that Jesus was the Word and the Word was with God from the Beginning. And in John 1:3, John asserts that “Through him all things were made…” Would Jesus desire the spoiling and destruction of all the things made through Him?
The Bible itself begins with the whole world: In the beginning we see God creating earth mysteriously and through an orchestration of the creative capacities of the forces of nature. All of what God creates is good. When humanity is added in God’s image, the whole of Creation is judged to be very good. This is the context of the rest of the Bible.
The Bible ends with all of Creation: Gregory Stevenson, professor of New Testament at Rochester College, writes in this article:
Revelation presents God as the Creator for whom creation is a fundamental component of his identity and activity. He is both the divine benefactor who bestows creation upon us as a gift and the sovereign Lord who rules over that creation faithfully. As God will not abandon his people, he also will not abandon his creation. Furthermore, God’s vision for his creation is all-encompassing (from the alpha to the omega) and leading towards a predetermined goal – a goal which itself is all about creation.
Humanity is given a special and weighty responsibility: In the first chapter of Genesis, humanity is told to fill the earth and to subdue and rule over the living things of the world. How do we choose to read this? Christians have, unfortunately and tragically, tended to read Genesis 1: 26 in isolation and as license to kill, exploit, and tyrannize. This question needs more attention but consider these factors: (a) God has just said that all that God created is good, (b) look carefully at the original meanings of the Jewish words of subdue and rule in this blog, (c) in the very next verse humanity’s diet is defined to be plants, so what kind of rule is it when you are not given permission to eat animals?, (d) in Genesis 2, Adam is called on to keep and tend the Garden, (e) other verses and stories in the Bible make clear that all of Creation is of value to God, and (f) our model for ruling should be God’s rule over us which we see most fully realized in Jesus who showed anger at the misuse of power and who came and died out of sacrificial love.
“Kosmos” can legitimately mean “earth”: Here is what the commentary in the Today’s New International Version of the Zondervan Bible says about this Greek word: “Another common word in John’s writings, the Greek noun for “world” is found 78 times in this Gospel and 24 times in his letters (only 47 times in all of Paul’s writings). It can mean the universe, the earth, the people on earth, most people, people opposed to God or the human system opposed to God’s purposes. John emphasizes the word by repetition and moves without explanation from one meaning to another.”
The context of the bronze snake: In John 3:14, Jesus creates a parallel between the necessity for him to be raised up on the cross and Moses raising up the bronze snake while the people of Israel were in the wilderness. This comes from Numbers 21 where we read of God using poisonous snakes to punish the people of Israel for murmuring against Moses, which is essentially the doubting and questioning of God. In agony and fear, the people ask for the snakes to be taken away. Instead, God has Moses make a bronze snake and hold it up high. People who looked on the snake would not die.
This creates an interesting context for John 3:16. Here are several elements of this context we should allow to seep into our hearts. First, God used snakes for his purposes, and they obeyed, unlike the people of Israel. Second, God did not send the snakes away (much less destroy them) as God had been asked to do, Third, God used an image of a snake as a method of saving the bitten people who looked on it. Fourth,in the context of how the Bible tells the story of how sin entered the world, perhaps God is making a point of redeeming the conception of snakes in the bronze snake. Perhaps the challenge, in part, for the Israelites to decide to look on the bronze snake with faith was that it was a snake. In short, the reference to the bronze snake is steeped in sinful people, in sinful behavior, consequences for sin, Creation as part of the story, Creation serving God, and an unexpected symbol requiring faith and confession that will then lead to saved life in this world which will inevitably lead to changed behavior in this world.
Moses and the Brazen Serpent – John Augustus 1898
The challenging logic of the structure of the verse: However one chooses to read John 3:16, there is an interesting question that one must answer when reading it. How does the first part of the verse relate to the second part of the verse? Specifically, the first part begins with God’s love for the world. Whether “world” refers to the whole earth or just to fallen humanity, why does the verse end with individual human beings having the opportunity to have eternal life? How can God care about the whole set encompassed by “world” and offer a solution that is seemingly only effectatious for a subset of individual human beings?
In other words, how does it make sense for God to love this larger entity if the benefit of those who believe is only for their individual souls beyond death?
It doesn’t.
As we’ve seen already, John is using the present continuous tense when referring to “have eternal life.” The proper way to read this is actually this – “go on having eternal life.” And what does go on having eternal life look like? I’d suggest that it looks like Jesus’ life, a life in deep synchronicity with God’s purposes right now and forever, before and after death.
When you and I go on believing and completely trusting in Jesus which leads us to go on having eternal life, we will begin to become the humans we were all meant to be. That will impact our relationship with God and with fellow human beings. We will share God’s love and the message of God’s love in Jesus. We will fight against the abuse of power.
It will also shape how we live out our mandate to be God’s image on this earth. When we become what we as humanity were intended to be, then Creation will also flourish as any subjects of a good king would flourish. This will bring God’s love for all of life to the earth.
So the puzzle of the structure of this verse is at least partly solved by the unspoken assumption it contains – an eternal, faith-filled life will be full of outward-focused love that prospers other people and God’s earth.
True eternal life leads to a rippling outward of God’s love to all that God has made.
I’m sharing below the content of an email I sent yesterday to the pastor of the church we often attend. This past Sunday he used the book of Jonah as the basis for a sermon urging us to move away from self-righteousness. It was a good sermon, but, as you’ll see below, I call attention to the fact that he omitted an important element of the story.
Looking back on what I wrote 24 hours later I recognize that I did get a bit preachy and ended up writing with more than a little ostentation. Nevertheless, I hope the pastor will look past those flaws and be open to the ideas I shared with him. I hope, too, he will reach out for further conversation.
I am also a realistic person. I realize that centuries of Christian theology and interpretation have a momentum all their own. I may have just taken the first steps towards being seen as a “special interest” Christian with his own personal agenda or even as a person who has left the tracks of orthodox Christian faith. We’ll see.
Dear Pastor M—:
Thanks for your sermon this past Sunday.
I appreciate how this series and the several before this have focused on practical topics in the Christian life. The church I was taken to as a child focused almost exclusively on abstract theological doctrines. Not surprisingly, if I’m not careful, I can easily fall back into associating church with esoteric matters and more than a little boredom. So I appreciate the fact that you and other speakers have been candidly tackling topics where the Christian faith intersects with life.
There are two other reasons I write.
The first is that I noticed in your sermon on self-righteousness that you omitted a small but significant dimension of Jonah’s interaction with God and Ninevah. Specifically, you omitted the animals of Ninevah.
When, to Jonah’s dismay, the king of Ninevah hears of Jonah’s judgment on the city and that at least some of the Ninevites were repenting, he uses his authority to make the repentance city-wide. His proclamation calls for the people and animals to neither eat nor drink. It also calls for the people and animals to be covered in sackcloth.
And in the final verses of the book, God speaks wisdom to Jonah who, as you suggested, is the iconic religious jerk. God leaves Jonah (and us) with a rhetorical question: shouldn’t God care about a city which has over 120,000 human residents and also many animals?
The fates of the people and animals of Ninevah are, in other words, intertwined, and God has compassion for them all.
Interestingly enough, in the many images you can find online of Jonah preaching to the Ninevites, it is hard to find any that also pay attention to the animals of Ninevah. This image by Caspar Luiken is an exception, although you have to look a bit carefully to find the livestock. Follow Jonah’s outstretched right hand.
I wish you would have called out the animal elements of the story even briefly.
One of the greatest examples of Christian self-righteousness is our belief that because we have been given dominion over God’s earth that the living things around us are of negligible value and are here only for our pleasure and utility. This, in turn, has led us to rule like tyrants over the earth as a whole and over the patches of Creation that we each have impact on as individuals.
This is not the kind of ruling that God models for us nor that God expects of us. Good rulers care about the health and wellbeing of those they have responsibility for. Good shepherds are examples of what good ruling is all about. And, as Jesus noted, good shepherds are even willing to lay down their lives for their sheep.
That Christians have been some of the most self-righteous in justifying humanity’s violence against God’s earth has communicated something falsely repugnant about the Christian faith. Ironically, a good number of non-Christians I know have an intuitive sense that this is an amazing world and that how a person treats the world reflects the state of that person’s heart. Perhaps they are the modern Ninevites? Perhaps we are the modern Jonahs in this regard?
And here’s the second reason I write. I’d like to encourage our church to make a concerted effort to be more mindful of God’s earth in what is preached, what is taught, and what is lived out as one element of a whole Christian life. How about starting with a sermon series on that topic?
As you can probably tell, this topic is close to my heart. If I can be of any service in that regard, I’d be eager to help.
I’d be happy to share, for example, how many of the most pioneering and influential sustainable livestock grazers in our country today are Christian. This is a story worth telling. By living out their faith in how they farm, they are making the world better and also offering powerful testimony to what being a Christian is all about.
Thanks very much for your unique gifts as a pastor and teacher and your commitment throughout your life to the Church.
In a previous post, I began to look more closely at John 3:16 as a way to wrestle with this question: how are you and I to think about how the Gospel in the New Testament relates to how we relate to God’s earth? This iconic verse that is everywhere is, I’ve found, rarely understood in its full meaning. In this post, we continue to look closely at John 3:16.
We’re so quick to jump to conclusions, aren’t we?
When we come to John 3:16, we rush through its rhythm and ideas, knowing that it ends happily with eternal life. And we rush, too, to the automatic assumption that “eternal life” is talking about life after death.
The grammar of the verse tells us otherwise. And I’ve never appreciated grammar more than when I first understood from David Pawson’s uneven book Is John 3:16 the Gospel? (and confirmed by other sources) that traditional translations of the verse typically get the verse subtly wrong because they don’t convey the subtleties of the grammar.
Pawson explains that the Greek language has more nuance in its tenses than in English. A crucial distinction is whether a verb indicates continuous action or action that occurs and is then over at a single point in time.
The “believe” in “everyone who believes in him” is actually in the present continuous tense. So that portion of the verse literally means “everyone who goes on believing in him.”
The “have” in “have eternal life” is also in the present continuous tense.
So the real translation of this portion of the verse would be… “everyone who goes on believing in him will go on having eternal life.”
Later in John 10:10 we come again to this idea of eternal, abundant life which we will go on having. Of the many ways there are to translate it, I like the New Century Version best. It reads: “A thief comes to steal and kill and destroy, but I came to give life — life in all its fullness.”
This idea of God offering a full and good life also hearkens back to Psalm 16:11: “You will make known to me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; In Your right hand there are pleasures forever.”
Things get even more interesting when you look at “eternal.” Pawson notes that scholars are debating exactly what “eternal” means in this context. Some believe it relates to quantity – in other words something infinite without end. But others believe it relates to quality – “..life of a quality that makes every moment worthwhile.” Pawson writes, “I think the answer is both quantity and quality of life.”
The implications from understanding these elements of the verse more fully are profound:
First, we need to go on believing in Jesus and through Jesus in the God who Jesus reveals and the framework for what Jesus is all about from the Bible. As we highlighted in the last blog on this topic, this believing in is not about an intellectual assent to an idea but it’s putting the full weight of how we live our lives and what commit our heart to. It’s not a once-and-done situation. It’s entirely possible for us to stop believing.
Second, when we go on believing, we will go on having eternal life. Eternal life does not begin when we die. It begins now and continues through and past our death.
Third, eternal life is not an escape from this world but a radical engagement with it and a radical enlivening of ourselves that begins to give us the true life we were meant to have.
What does that eternal life, the eternal that we can go on having now and forever by continuing to believe in Jesus, look like? Here is my take on that from what I’ve read, seen, and experienced:
Beginning to know the majesty and mystery of God.
Knowing each of us matter and that we are loved by God.
Knowing how much God hates evil in all its forms.
Knowing that our past sins are forgiven, that death and evil are not to be feared, and that God can give us the power to overcome our ongoing habits of sin.
Seeing the God-given value of people and all of Creation.
Finding purpose in using our unique talents and creativity to share God, mend the woundedness of people and Creation, fight evil, and create joy.
Sharing and giving.
Finding peace and strength.
Being filled with the fruits of the Spirit – love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
Becoming part of a larger whole – God’s kingdom and the Church – and knowing that the good we do is part of a large movement.
Being called to forgive and being able to do so.
Knowing what matters and what doesn’t.
Jesus came not just to avoid sinning and be the perfect sacrifice for our sin but to also model for us what this eternal life in God looks like and is to be lived. This is why we are called to make disciples of all people.
I can’t help but mention, and this may reveal my Norwegian-American Lutheran background, that there is little sense in the Bible that following God’s ways will automatically translate into perpetual happiness, at least not in the light and fluffy sense of the word. There will be suffering. We will be called to do hard things. Rosa Parks and Willliam Wilberforce are just two examples of people whose Christian faiths called them to difficult paths that did not translate into casual happiness.
In fact, if our lives are easy and comfortable all the time and we fit in perfectly with the general culture around us, then we’re probably not living a complete Christian life. We’re probably following a Gospel that doesn’t reflect the present continuous tense.
We see the whole context of what experiencing true and ongoing eternal life is all about at the beginning of Genesis and at the end of Revelation – God, people, and Creation together in the relationship they were meant to have.
In this sense, life in all its fullness that we begin to grow into through ongoing faith in Jesus cannot help but lead to a different relationship with God, people, and God’s earth.
Nathan believes that a whole Christian faith includes an imperative for us, individually and collectively, to actively show God’s earth mercy and compassion every day. For more than 15 years, he has worked for non-profit conservation groups that restore and protect natural habitats, change the relationship people have with nature, and promote sustainable farming. To learn more, click here.
