Tag Archives: Peter

The Day Evil Became Visible

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Photo by Wilfredo Lazaro of the Memorial Lights on 2011

Photo by Wilfredo Lazaro of the Memorial Lights on 2011 with the new World Trade Center building in red, white and blue colors under construction

What does this day mean to you at this point eleven years later? Each year I look back at what Deborah and I were doing on this day in wonder and amazement, remembering details I would never remember on any ordinary day. Every year I look for photos I took on that day of us watching the news hour after hour from Philadelphia, PA where our motorhome was parked, and every year I am amazed that I didn’t take one single photo. Not only did I not take a single photo that day, but I didn’t take another photo until we landed in the Cayman Islands on October 1st a few weeks later. I had been a photographer for almost 10 years at that point, taking thousands upon thousands of photos, and yet on this one day, and for weeks to come all I could do was watch things unfolded on the news. Now, we see photos of two beams of light shooting into the night sky where buildings use to be.

This was the day I presume for many that evil became visible. Even though the fall of man took place long ago, for many of us who often choose to ignore the evil in the world, this day it was impossible to ignore. For me and my friends growing up in the 80′s and 90′s we knew nothing of this type of evil in the world. We were past the great wars of Nazi Germany and Pearl Harbor, and beyond Vietnam. Sure I remember Bush senior sending some planes over to Iraq, but that seemed to be over quickly, and besides, we seemed to have won. We knew nothing of the true existence of pure evil that comes from Satan out of hatred for others.

That reality changed of course on September 11, 2001. Now more than a decade later I can still turn on the news and see the events unfold exactly as they did when I was watching them years ago since networks rerun the coverage over and over again, thinking somehow those who were old enough to remember will have forgotten.

Today we think of pure evil and Satan as being those terrorist who flew planes into our buildings and killed “innocent” people, but we all posses the evil of every sin ever known to man. To Jesus and the Apostles the evil of Satan was much closer than some unknown terrorist, the evil was from not looking to God for everything. Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man” (Matthew 16:23).

I don’t know what this day means for you at this point, for me it is still a day of remembering those who died, and that yes, evil does exist, and it is ever-present, and closer than we would ever care to think, only squelched by turning our hearts to God. If you look closely there are some amazing stories of people who turned to God during those horrific days, and some day I really hope to visit the memorials in Washington and New York.

[An interesting site for research and photos of that day is the 911 digital archive.]

What’s More Useful to the Glory of God Than 95% of All We Do?

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Amos 9:5-6

I’m guessing you didn’t think poetry was the answer to the question in the title, but it is. Poetic language and the language of prose put together in a sentence is sort of a misnomer, since they basically mean the opposite, but such is my relationship with metric and non-metrical language. Over the years I have tried to study poetry here and there, written some, read some, and every once in a while, appreciated some. I seem to have this back and forth argument with myself on the importance of poetry. In one respect, I find it useless, confusing, hard to understand, and not worth the time to learn. On the other, I do find it speaks to all aspects of life, and could be more important in affecting change than much of what we do in our every day lives. A post on Desiring God called Piper and the Role of Poetry in the Christian Life says it like this:

Poetry is not the answer, but it is a greater part of the answer than 95% of what we do with our time. Woe to me if I think souls are saved by me or them becoming poetic. But few are damned by it. And of the thousand things we fill our days with, this could be more useful to the glory of God than what we do most of the time.

So according to Piper, and some may disagree, poetry is more useful to the glory of God (the very purpose of our existence says 1 Peter 4:11), than of large majority of our other endeavors in life, or put differently how we spend our time. This is actually a pretty bold statement if taken at face value with no context. To understand this statement, it’s important to look at what else we do with our time, and how if at all, those things are more or less useful to the glory of God than poetry. I suspect many would say that statement is absurd, and dismiss it altogether, but God himself doesn’t do that.

Of course a great deal of Scripture is poetry. So that tells me right there that God finds poetry important, regardless of what I think. Some of the greatest poets in history were writers of Scripture. Of course being inspired I would say they had a little help, otherwise how in the world could any individual mind come up with and make Psalm 119 work other than God? If you have never attempted to create a perfectly metered acrostic (forget one the size of Psalm 119), try it, you will quickly see it isn’t all that easy.

To answer the question I posed in the title I think can only be answered by someone who has a great deal of knowledge about poetry, and can define its worth. For many of us, we just don’t have a strong enough understanding to say one way or another. Our time isn’t readily filled with words on a page in metric meter, it’s more filled with screens presenting video and media. This all got started from a quick read through Amos 9.5-6, which is an incredible short piece of inspired poetry.

Did Jesus Descend into Hell According to the Apostles’ Creed?

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It was just about this time last year that I wrote a post with a similar question, and answered it in a slightly generic non-scholarly sort of research answer (see Did Jesus Descend into Hell After He Died on the Cross?). I had no idea that in the time of about a year I would actually write a research paper on the “descent doctrine” to complete requirements for my seminary degree (MDiv). When I wrote the post last year, it was an apologetic questioning of how could Jesus have descended into Hell at the same time he told the thief on the cross that “today you will be with me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43)? This time, it was a more scholastic look at the doctrine through exegetical/systematic theology research.

Why Does the Descent into Hell Doctrine Matter?

When studying theology, especially systematic theology that attempts to “formulate an orderly, rational, and coherent account of the Christian faith,” I always try to understand why it matters, why is it important to study this particular doctrine. To me, in this particular case, it is for Joseph in the photo above that I took last October when I was in Uganda. His picture hasn’t necessarily haunted me, but I think of him often. When we visited this facility, which was two hours into the middle of Uganda, he had been there for two years, and had no idea how much longer he would be there. He was isolated, alone, and really had no outward hope.

Christ died for this man.  When Christ exclaimed “Τετέλεσται” on the cross (John 19:30), he told history’s past, present, and future, that his work was complete and fulfilled; payment for the sins of the world was paid in full at that very moment. There wasn’t anything else He had to do to make His work complete, at the very moment Christ “gave up His Spirit,” it was over. What this means for Joseph is hope in a coming Paradise, and there is nothing else he has to do, other than to believe in Christ. He doesn’t have to spend a certain amount of time in torment before he can arrive in the presence of God. There are many other “reasons” for studying this doctrine of course, but that is just what was on my mind as I went through this research.

Overview of the Descent into Hell Doctrine

I am not going to post my entire research, or even a large portion, since it will no doubt be long and boring to some. If you are interested in the details and how I came to the conclusions I did, please read An Overview of the Work of Christ: Did Jesus Descend into Hell After the Crucifixion, I would love to hear your comments or feedback if you are so inclined to read the paper.

Within the traditional wording of the Apostles Creed there is one statement, which has been recited by millions of believers for centuries, that says, “Jesus descended into Hell.”[1]  This one statement, which was not in the original version, and a few select expositions of Scripture, has become the basis for the relatively undeveloped doctrine “Jesus Descended into Hell.”[2]  This doctrine, which resides within the greater systematic theology of “The Work of Christ,” has been controversial for centuries, but yet is generally accepted by the lay faithful without much investigation into its credibility.[3]  The understanding of this doctrine comes from a handful of various Scripture references between the Old and New Testaments, five specific verses anchored on 1 Peter 3:18-20, and the long history of the Apostles’ Creed.  While the Apostles’ Creed has a history going back to the early church, “we must seek for a surer exposition of Christ’s descent to hell.”[4]  This paper will argue that the doctrine “Jesus Descended into Hell,” when viewed through a proper exegesis of Scripture, is not sufficient to confirm the belief that Jesus did spend three days in the torments of Hell.

The problem with using the Apostles’ Creed as the basis for developing this doctrine is that the line “descended into Hell” wasn’t added to the Apostles’ Creed until about the 8th Century A.D.  Outside of the Apostles’ Creed, no where in Scripture does it explicitly state that Christ descended into Hell after the crucifixion, but there are five specific Scriptures used to defend the descent doctrine, mainly Acts 2:27, Romans 10:6-7, Ephesians 4:8-10, 1 Peter 3:18-20, and 1 Peter 4:4-6. As shown in the research, all of these Scriptures, when taken through a proper exegetical view, taken in context, refute the descent into Hell doctrine. To read the paper in full, just click the link above or go to my writing section.

[1] Center for Reformed Theology and Apologetics, The Apostles’ Creed, http://www.reformed.org/documents/apostles_creed.html.

[2] R. C. Sproul, 1&2 Peter: St. Andrew’s Expositional Commentary (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2011), 125.

[3] Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology, 2nd Edition (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007), 791.

[4] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1st Edition, trans. Henry Beveridge (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2008), 2.16.10.