To Love God Or Fear Him

Biblegems #294

Question: The Bible says that we are to love God (Dt. 6:5), but also says in the very same chapter that we are to fear Him (Dt. 6:13), even though 1 John 4:18 claims there is no fear in love. I’m confused…

Let’s begin with the passage in First John:

         1 John 4:18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

Context is everything. From the beginning of chapter four John encourages his readers to love one another with the same love God shows them through His Son, Jesus Christ. Such love demonstrates they truly belong to God and have nothing to fear on the Day of Judgment:

         1 John 4:17 This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: n this world we are like Jesus.

For those who truly know the love of God through Jesus Christ and treat others with that same love, there is no fear of punishment or condemnation from God.

Deuteronomy 6:5, 13, on the other hand, specifically teach that we are to both love God and fear Him:

         Deut. 6:5  Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

Deut. 6:13  Fear the Lord your God, serve him only and take your oaths in his name.

Love and fear are not mutually exclusive. In this context, both have little to do with emotions or feelings. You cannot make anyone feel love just by telling them to do so, nor can you make somebody feel afraid just by telling them to do so. Both love and fear are intended to convey actions in this case, not feelings.

To love God with the whole heart, soul and strength is to devote your entire being to God. To fear God, in this context, is connected with serving Him and acting as His representative when making promises and commitments. Our lives are to be spent acting as God’s emissaries, His ambassadors. We are not our own masters. Consequently, everything we do and say carries consequences beyond their own immediate impact. Every person will have to give an account to God as to how well we acted on His behalf in this life.

         Rom. 14:12  So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God.

The Bible teaches, therefore, that God is King as well as Creator, and that every human being is designed to be completely devoted to Him, exercising that devotion in how we live, love, work and play. To do otherwise is to rebel against God, His Kingdom and His design for our lives. Just as an earthly ambassador represents his own country in a foreign land by everything he or she says and does, so too are we ambassadors of the Kingdom of God to a world in rebellion against God. Our behavior reflects God’s character; and we who claim to be His followers are especially accountable.

         Heb. 12:28  Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our “God is a consuming fire.”

   

Jesus And The Drowned Pigs

Question: What happened to the demons that were transferred to the pigs when they drowned? Demons don't drown, do they?

The Passage (NIV 2011):

Mark 5:11-13     A large herd of pigs was feeding on the nearby hillside. The demons begged Jesus, “Send us among the pigs; allow us to go into them.”          He gave them permission, and the impure spirits came out and went into the pigs. The herd, about two thousand in number, rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned. 

Demons, of course are evil, or “impure spirits” (Mk. 5:8), and therefore cannot be drowned. Rather, Jesus describes demons as spirits who are constantly in search of human bodies to inhabit like parasites:    

         Matt. 12:43-45  “When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first.”

This is why the “The demons begged Jesus, “Send us among the pigs; allow us to go into them” (Mk.5:12). A disembodied demon is like a creature desperately searching for water in the desert. The man Jesus encountered on the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee in “the region of the Garasenes” (Mk. 5:1)—a Gentile community where pig farming was common—had become the host body for numerous demons.

The demonic spirits immediately recognized Jesus as “the Son of the Most High God” (Mk. 5:7), and assumed He had come to send them to the Abyss (Lk. 8:31), a place of confinement for certain demonic spirits (fallen angels) until the Day of Judgment:

         Jude 6  And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their proper dwelling—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day.

Terrified of the Abyss, and equally terrified of having no host body to inhabit, the demons begged Jesus to use the pigs as hosts (Mk. 5:12). The pigs proved to be an incompatible host to the demonic spirits (which Jesus already knew to be the case). Normally, pigs can swim. But these poor creatures went completely berserk under the influence of the impure spirits and rushed mindlessly out of control down the cliff side into the Sea of Galilee to their deaths. Yet, by agreeing to the demons’ request, Jesus not only released the tormented man from thousands of demons, He also demonstrated His total authority over the natural and spiritual realms to the Gentile community.

In the end, the demons still found themselves disembodied, wandering in a spiritual wilderness looking for other potential hosts. The man Jesus had set free was restored to his family and community; and the man’s family community no longer lived in fear—all for the small price of a herd of pigs!

What Is The Third Heaven?

Bible Gems 279

Question: What is the third heaven mentioned by the apostle Paul?

Here is the reference:

2Cor. 12:2 I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know— God knows.

There are surprisingly several clues within the context of Paul’s mention of this “third heaven” that shed some light on the subject.

First, Paul uses the term without explanation, as if it were quite familiar to his contemporaries. This is because the “third heaven” was a familiar concept in Jewish circles, made popular by the book of 2 Enoch. While not Scripture, many of the concepts and terms were recognized as accurate and used by such New Testament authorities as Paul, Peter and Jude.

Second, “the third heaven” is experienced in this life through the portal of  “visions and revelations” (v. 1). “Visions and revelations” is a very general expression, and Paul does not specify which of the two was the vehicle for his own experience, and he may not have been sure himself. God reveals Himself in many ways, and “visions” are just one form of such revelations (Heb. 1:1). Twice in the book of Revelation, the apostle John described how his own experience sometimes seemed to engage his physical senses:

         Rev. 19:10  At this I fell at his feet to worship him.

         Rev. 22:8   I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I had heard and seen them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who had been showing them to me.

Third, the “third heaven” is identical to “paradise” (v. 4). “Paradise” is the biblical term describing where those who die in a righteous relationship with God enjoy life in His presence prior to their bodily resurrection at the Second Coming of Jesus Christ (1Thess. 4:14-17; 1Cor. 15:52). Jesus promised the thief on the cross next to Him who professed his faith in Jesus as the Son of God that he would wake up in Paradise (the “third heaven”) that very day and see Jesus there (Lk. 23:43).

The “third heaven” could be experienced in both the physical and spiritual realm, even though Paul was not certain whether his own experience was “in the body or out of the body.” The book of Revelation supports this:

         Rev. 2:7  Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.

Likewise, in Luke 16:19-31, Jesus describes Paradise as a beautiful place whose residents, like Lazarus, are fully conscious that they have entered God’s presence after death, and they are aware of those who await Judgment Day in Hades (not Hell, yet) after death. Lazarus and the crucified thief both represent those who Paul describes as having “fallen asleep in” Jesus (1Thes. 4:14, 15).

Identifying “the Spirits in Prison”

Biblegems #267

Question: Who are the “spirits in prison” mentioned in 1 Peter 3:18-19, and what was “preached” to them?

Here is the passage in both the KJV and the NIV (2011), with the most pertinent section underlined:

         1Pet. 3:18-19   For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison (KJV).      

1Pet. 3:18-19 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit. After being made alive, he went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits (NIV).

Interpretations of this passage have historically fallen into three general categories:

Interpretation #1       Between his crucifixion and resurrection, Jesus went to the realm of the dead in spiritual form and preached to Noah’s contemporaries. Some in this group believe Jesus offered salvation to the spirits of those who died in the Flood. Others in this group believe Jesus’ proclamation was to officially condemn the unbelievers of Noah’s time. A third view within this group is that Jesus preached good news to those of Noah’s day who had already been saved.

         Interpretation #2       Jesus, in His pre-existent, spiritual state, came from heaven to the sinful generation of Noah’s day and preached repentance, which they ignored.

         Interpretation #3       After His death on the cross and burial, Jesus went in the Spirit (either Holy Spirit, or in the spiritual realm) to the disobedient spirits (fallen angels) of Noah’s day, described in Genesis 6:1-4, and proclaimed his victory over sin and death.

The word “spirits” in Scripture can refer to humans, angels, God, or the demonic. Context generally determines what kind of spirit is in view. The context of 1Pet. 3:20 makes it clear that Jesus made His proclamation to spirits “who were disobedient long ago in the days of Noah….” Jude also refers to this same group of imprisoned spirits as “angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their proper dwelling—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day” (Jude 6).

The New Testament, then, points to a specific group of angels who are imprisoned by God until the Day of Judgment for their disobedience in the days of Noah. These spirits are not in hell (Gk. gehenna), which is currently empty (Rev. 20:10ff.), but in a special prison called Tartarus:

         2Pet. 2:4   For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell (Gk. tartarus), putting them in chains of darkness to be held for judgment…

The only such distinct group described in Scripture in Noah’s day would appear to be “the sons of God who went to the daughters of humans and had children by them” (Gen. 6:4). Following His crucifixion, Jesus was made alive in the Spirit and went to these imprisoned angels, proclaiming His victory over sin, Satan and death!