Is Hell Separation from God?

When I explain the gospel to someone, and I get to the penalty for sin, I talk about death and separation.  I have long said that physical death is separation from the body, spiritual death is separation from God because of sin, and that eternal death is separation from God forever in Hell.  This week The Gospel Coalition posted an article written by theologian Michael Theologian entitled, "Hell Is Not Separation from God."  He says that instead Hell is horrible because "God is present."

For a long time, I don't know how long, I've considered the contradiction between "separation from God" and God's omnipresence.  If God is omnipresent, which He is, then how could He be separated from anything?  This is where I distinguish between the omnipresence of God, and the special presence of God.  Regarding God's omnipresence, and Hell, I think of Psalm 139:7-8:

Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.

On a few occasions, when evangelizing someone, I have made this distinctive, that in one sense nothing is separated from God, because He is omnipresent.  However, I believe eternal separation from God is taught, and Hell is the place of eternal separation from God.  Here are some reasons that come to my mind from scripture, not in any necessary order.

One, eternal separation from God is taught in Revelation 21-22, an appropriate place to talk about that.  Revelation 21:23-27 read:

23 And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. 24 And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it. 25 And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there. 26 And they shall bring the glory and honour of the nations into it. 27 And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life.

In the place described where God is and His glory is, some people would be there, but "there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth."  Only those in the Lamb's book of life would be there, which means that those not in the Lamb's book of life would not be there.

Then Revelation 22:14-15 say:

14 Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. 15 For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.

Here some are in the gates of the same city mentioned, and then "without" are others.  Revelation 22:19 continues:

And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city.

God takes away his part out of the holy city.  All three of these places combined teach separation from God.  It misses the point to say, "You're all going to be with me, but the others, they are going to be with me too!"  No, the others are not going to be with Him; they are going to be separated from Him.

Two, in John 14:2-3, Jesus taught His disciples:

2 In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.

Jesus said He would go to prepare a place for His own, that where He was, they would be also.  Jesus was distinguishing His unique relationship with His disciples as in Heaven being were they were and they being where He is.  It wouldn't be unique if He would be with them and everyone else too, who rejected Him.  Non-disciples would not be with Him -- Jesus, God -- hence, they would be separated from Him.

Three, a regular statement of the Lord Jesus, Who is God, toward those He sends to Hell is "depart from me," as seen in Matthew 7:23,

And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

Also Matthew 25:41,

Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.

Departing from God is to be separated from Him.

Four, God is light and the presence of God is light (1 John 1:5).  The Lord gives the light of the eternal state (Revelation 21:5).  And yet, someone in Hell is in outer darkness, "cast out into outer darkness" (Matthew 8:12).  If there is an outer, then there is an inter.  If someone is with God, Who is light, then He stays in that light.  He is a child of light (Lk 16:8, Jn 12:36, Eph 5:8, 1 Thess 5:5).  Outer darkness is separated from God, Who is light, which is why it is outer darkness, because God isn't present.

Five, speaking of the separation of the lost from God, Paul wrote in 2 Thessalonians 1:9:

Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power.

"From the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power" is very clear.  The everlasting destruction is not in this lifetime, but the next, so it is talking about someone who dies in his sin and goes to Hell.

Scripture can speak of someone being "absent from the Lord" (2 Cor 5:6).  Since God is omnipresent, then no man can escape that presence, but yet here's a verse that says he is absent from the Lord.  The two ideas can go together.  David prays to God in Psalm 51:11, "Cast me not away from thy presence."  Unless God can cast away someone from His presence, there is no need for someone to cry to God, cast me not away from it.

More could be said to make this argument, but Hell is separation from God.  It's not only separation from God, but it's at least separation from God.  To say Hell is eternal separation from God means that once someone has died physically, he has no more opportunity to be saved.  He remains separated from God because of His sin.

The Falsely So-Called Science, Yet Popular Psychobabble: "Daddy Issues"

Part One

Falsely so-called science, and uniquely psychology, really psychobabble, proceeds from a requirement of meaninglessness.  When I write, meaninglessness, I know there is meaning, of course, but the pseudo-scientists need a blank canvass for their own lust.  They can assign their own meaning to any and every thing, like a rorschach ink blot, so that they are sovereign over existence.  A major component of this is "it's not my problem, I couldn't help it," because the convenient randomness leaves them only a victim.  This justifies past and predicts future bad behavior.  There are a multitude in number and in different varieties of maladies, ailments, syndromes, and disorders with a similar multitude in number and in different varieties of explanations and causes so that the sovereign individual can pick his own.  He becomes even a sympathetic figure because of the disorder, which becomes his new identity.

Scripture, on the other hand, speaks with authority about what is wrong and why.  The Bible sufficiently furnishes someone to every good work.  There is no temptation to sin for anyone about anything that God has not provided a way of escape.  Instead of turning to and listening to God, a person replaces God's authority with self-authority, and uses falsely so-called science to excuse a sin.  The "science" has become a higher pseudo-authority, quoted without a permission to challenge.  By replacing scripture, it replaces God and grants cover to the individual.  He gets a pass.

A syndrome, peer reviewed in a journal, absolves a victim of guilt.  When he does wrong, a debilitating malady explains it.  Victims are selective in their use of their infirmity like a child who isn't hungry until he's offered ice cream.  Greater expectations trigger a relapse.  Blame exacerbates the symptoms.  Another episode meets a suggestion of responsibility.  Victims are the perfect spokesmen for almost any issue because they can't be criticized.

I'm not saying there aren't challenges in this world because of the curse of sin on the creation and on people themselves.  I'm also not saying there aren't true victims.  Scripture says there is and everyone knows that by experience, which would be why Jesus taught to "count the cost," also represented by the tough experience of the sun beating down on a plant, which had no root in a rocky soil.

We have a state police officer in our church, and he's seen horrific fatal outcomes in car accidents.  He deals with regular, threatening confrontation and more.  I ask him how these experiences have left a mark on him and his thinking, especially with certain disorders that others claim from them.  He says they are not beyond the ability to face, because of his faith in Christ.  The greatest afflictions arise from drugs and alcohol a part of what they treat as self-medication.  The same state police officer said that in their classes on this subject matter, it was agreed that the measures used to mask the memories create bigger issues than the incidents that triggered them.

Special attention is paid to those who go through apparently traumatic events, when anyone living faces every day the trauma of the chaos of this world, arising from the detrimental effects of sin.  Everyone could claim any one of multiple causes for syndromes and disorder, and it's only getting worse.  Many varied events could be interpreted any number of ways to allow us to be victims:  rejection, failures, death, loneliness, isolation, disrespect, stress, castigation, fear, injustice, regret, boredom, illness, pain, hatred, sorrow, low metabolism, loss, and intolerance.  One could pick any one, several, or a unique mix of a few.

Jordan Peterson, a clinical pyschiatrist with thousands of hours, in his book, 12 Rules for Life, writes about what constitutes an "oppressed" or "disabled" people.  He asks (p. 316):

But who is disabled?  Is someone living with a parent with Alzheimer's disabled? If not, why not?

My wife and I are taking care of my parents, both type 2 diabetes and my father with advanced alzheimer's.  From the professional opinion of a PhD with decades of hours of clinical experience, I'm a victim to the level of a disabililty.  What do you think?

It's pathetic, but more than ever, especially millennials use status as a victim to gain attention.  They report the latest downturn and how they're attempting to cope.  They're having a hard time.  I'm not sure most people either believe them or care, but the strategy or technique multiplies.  It's an old scheme that God exposes in Ezekiel 18:1-4:

1 The word of the LORD came unto me again, saying, 2 What mean ye, that ye use this proverb concerning the land of Israel, saying,, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge? 3 As I live, saith the Lord GOD, ye shall not have occasion any more to use this proverb in Israel. 4 Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die.

The same reference is made in Jeremiah 31:29-30:

29 In those days they shall say no more, The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children's teeth are set on edge. 30 But every one shall die for his own iniquity: every man that eateth the sour grape, his teeth shall be set on edge.

The proverb represents the methodology of victimhood:  children say their teeth are set on edge because their fathers have eaten a sour grape.  The one doesn't follow from the other.  Of course, what God says is that it isn't someone else's fault; it's your fault.  The soul that sins, however, shall die.  A child is still responsible for his sin.

Daddy Issues

For this series on psychobabble, I'm starting with "Daddy Issues."  I've read that the specific terminology mainly applies to a daughter with her father.  It's used both ways though -- also with the son, and that's where I'll focus for this series.

I had never heard of such a thing as daddy issues growing up, or maybe I could have made some mileage from it, when my dad required of me what he did when I was a child.  I could have used it when I received God-ordained physical discipline, claim that he went too hard on me or humiliated me, when he either yelled at me or forced me to work   hard.  He judged me.  He pushed me.  Very often, I didn't feel acceptance.  I'm sure I could cook up some victimization out of all that.  Maybe it's too late.  In fact, I never had any of those feelings.

"Daddy Issues" are also known as "Father Complex" and "Father Hunger."  My phone sent me a short clip of a speech Harrison Ford gave to Sean Connery for a lifetime achievement award, and Connery had played Ford's father.  Ford said, "Our fathers, we endure them, we're tested by them, and then as we grow older, we gain a whole new level of respect and admiration for them."  The "endure" and "tested by" seem like where the daddy issues come.

Generally, as I've read, the daddy issue for a son is when he blames his issues as an adult on his relationship with his dad.  Someone wrote:  "It is typically defined by an inability to accept [his] own faults by projecting that onto [his] father."  Today psychiatrists and psychologists will agree with this, affirm it as truth.  A lot can also put a strain between the relationship of a son with his father, pointing at dad:  divorce, drunk, drugged, absent, non-stop cruelty, or even total permissiveness.

Problems for adults do trace back to original problems with parents, which is why the parent-child relationship is so emphasized by God in scripture.  Even if the parents didn't do everything God wanted them to do, the Jeremiah and Ezekiel passages above remind the next generation that it will give a direct account to God.  The New Testament characterizes apostasy in two different places as "disobedient to parents," not "parental irresponsibility."  Daddy issues can be what someone else wrote:

While many boys idolize their fathers, that can change once the teenage years arrive. That's the stage during which a young male is attempting to form his own identity. Rebellion against authority—often one's parents—is common, and clash often ensues. This, however, often changes as the son matures and comes to realize that he didn't, in fact, know everything, and begins to realize his father was right about a lot more than he'd realized as an adolescent.

Everything between either a father and a son or a father and a daughter must be tested by scripture.  If a dad follows God's Word and encourages a son or daughter to do the same, the daddy issue lies with the adult child.  If a dad doesn't obey the Bible, then the daddy issue is with daddy.  A father-child relationship is not irredeemable, but the terms for reconciliation are what God says in scripture.

Issues between a father and his children have a biblical solution, but the father and the children have to want to solve it according to scripture.  Both sides have to care.  Instead, however, in many cases having daddy issues is a convenient issue, like Absalom with David (2 Sam 13-18), to embrace something other than what God says in scripture.  A daddy issue claims a victim status that excuses someone who wants to do what he wants to do, which is violating God's Word.

Goodbye Darwin: Three Prominent Scientists Bury Darwinism

Peter Robinson for the Hoover Institute interviews three scientists -- David Berlinski, David Gelernter, and Stephen Meyer -- and they talk about why Darwinism is false.  Berlinski and Meyer have both written books (here, here, here, and here) and Gelernter just announced his own departure in an article in the Claremont Review of Books (here), which you really need to read.  The Bible teaches creation and that's good enough, but it is heartening to hear from these men.  As a disclaimer, they keep mentioning millions and billions of years.  It seems like incrementalism coming from Meyer.  However, if someone admits design, than Whoever the Designer could do what we see and know, He can also get it done in whatever way He chooses.

As an aside Gelernter was one of the victims of the Unabomber in 1993, permanently disabling his right hand and right eye.

When I was younger, I watched Star Trek.  That's not an endorsement.  With Star Trek, I remember all the various fictional aliens coming with different languages.  Some of these aliens were advanced beyond humans and had even more advanced languages that humanity could not understand.  People were fine with that idea.  There is a code, a language, very complex, that precedes every creature on earth.  We can see the complexity of it, and we can't interpret it.  It's beyond us as a language, but it is there.  God wrote that language.  That language at least tells us of a Designer who must be God.

Among many other observations, an intrigue toward the beginning, Gelernter calls Darwinism a "beautiful theory," so Robinson replies, "beauty is aesthetics, so there's something subjective about it."  When that came out of Robinson's mouth, I thought, no, beauty isn't subjective, and then Gelertner answered (at about 3:05), "Each year of my life, I am less convinced that there is anything at all that is subjective about beauty."  That fits with this worldview, perhaps the new worldview of Gelertner, but objective beauty fits with the existence of a Designer.  That was a wonderful moment, I thought.  This goes along with what I've written about art in the last week or so (here and here).

Baptist the Dog: A Christian Children's Story

My wife has written a number of childrens' stories.  While I am doubtless biased, I think they are good, and the children who have read them have enjoyed them.  I intend to post them on my website, Lord willing.  I have posted one called Baptist, about a doggie that comes to the Roberts' farm and who teaches the Roberts' children some spiritual lessons.  It is not a very long read (it is a story for kids, after all); perhaps you might find it a blessing, and perhaps your children, or children whom you know, may find it one as well.  You can read the story of Baptist the Dog by clicking here.  Please feel free to share any comments you have concerning the story below.  The PDF file includes the nice pictures included with the story.  Other edifying children's stories should also, Lord willing, be posted in time here.

-TDR

The Falsely So-Called Science, Yet Popular Psychobabble: Introduction

"Over half of psychology studies fail reproducibility test."  "Scientists replicated 100 psychology studies, and fewer than half got the same results."   "An ambitious effort to replicate 100 research findings in psychology ended last week — and the data look worrying. Results posted online on 24 April, which have not yet been peer-reviewed, suggest that key findings from only 39 of the published studies could be reproduced."  "The Stanford Prison Experiment was massively influential. We just learned it was a fraud."  The Independent, the British newspaper, characterized the above with the following headline:  "Study reveals that a lot of psychology research really is just 'psycho-babble'."

I'm telling you what the research on the research actually says, but I think in reality it's worse than reported.  A lot of what is repeated, and called science, especially in the field of psychology, is the opposite of the truth.  It isn't being said or quoted because it is the truth, but because of its personal usefulness either excusing past or justifying future sinful behavior.  There is no science behind a lot of what people say or do today.  There is no scientific proof for homosexuality, that a baby in the womb is not a person, and for the secular or naturalistic explanations for origins today.

If something is scientific, it should mean that it is true.  If it's a lie, that shouldn't be science.  Science should be about getting to the truth, but it has become about supporting a presupposed position, usually today something that is politically correct and more.

Notable evolutionist, Aldous Huxley, the grandson of Thomas Huxley, wrote Ends and Means and said (1937):

I had motives for not wanting the world to have a meaning; and consequently assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption. The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not concerned exclusively with a problem in pure metaphysics. He is also concerned to prove that there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to do. For myself, as no doubt for most of my friends, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom. The supporters of this system claimed that it embodied the meaning - the Christian meaning, they insisted - of the world. There was one admirably simple method of confuting these people and justifying ourselves in our erotic revolt: we would deny that the world had any meaning whatever.

Marxism is not an economic science.  The Patriarchy is not a social construct based upon tyranny.  Darwinism is not science, but "an instrument of liberation from a certain system of morality," especially that interferes with sexual freedom.

Enter 1 Timothy 6:20-21 from the King James Version:

O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called: Which some professing have erred concerning the faith. 

The last part of verse 20 reads literally, "the antithesis of the false so-called knowledge."  "Science" translates gnosis, found 29 times in the New Testament, and it is translated knowledge almost all of those times, but here it is translated "science," and it fits.  John MacArthur writes:

Over the course of human history, all kinds of speculative ideas have been falsely labeled “science” and mistakenly accepted as true and reliable knowledge by otherwise brilliant people. The now-discredited dogmas of older scientific theories are numerous—and in some cases laughable. They include alchemy (the medieval belief that other base metals could be transmuted into gold); phrenology (the Victorian belief that the shape of one’s skull reflects character traits and mental capacity); astrology (the pagan belief that human destiny is determined by the motions of celestial bodies); and abiogenesis (the long-standing belief that living organisms are spontaneously generated by decaying organic substances). All those false beliefs were deemed credible as “science” by the leading minds of their times.

The psychological writings are the place of the greatest abuse of science today.  Like Paul was writing, it is pseudo-intellectualism, just trying to sound smart, but a true antithesis to actual knowledge, so that Paul calls it just "so-called," because it isn't.  It is made up.

Some might say that advocates approach their psychological speculations like religion -- since there is no proof, it is only matter of faith for them.  This actually is an even bigger problem.  Biblical faith does depend on evidence.  What has occurred over numbers of years is the bifurcation of the sacred and the secular, separating the Bible into a religious category inferior to science.  The Bible is science.  The Bible is true, but the psychological studies are false, which is why the Bible is science and the studies are only falsely so-called.  Now someone can immediately relegate something to speculation by calling it religious or faith.

Much of psychology has earned the derisive "psychobabble," because it isn't scientific or true.  Despite that, the psychological still brings an unmerited force to an argument, because of its unworthy elevation over the sacred, condoning whatever psychology promotes.  Like with Huxley above in his quote, the psychology is a useful tool for bad or sinful behavior.  It has also driven professing Christians from standing in the public square and led many to succumb to the prevailing cultural norms.

One of the evil lies of the so-called science of psychology is its ability to help or give aid and its superior compassion.  Someone doesn't really care about another person unless he offers a psychological solution to a problem.  He's not even credible, because he doesn't have a popular treatment to promote. In certain cases, psychology does give someone a kind of short term relief from symptoms, which are then offered as evidence of a solution.  They don't solve the actual problem, but along with the popularity of the psychological remedy, better feelings are a powerful defense.  Actual studies will show that it's only a placebo and doesn't really work.  It isn't even science, but it's acceptance by the culture is enough confirmation.  It really is a bias toward an antidote that matches a desire, interpreting information in a way that approves a preferred behavior.  I'm saying its driven by lust.

The person who relies on a lie of psychology enjoys the acceptance of the mass, often an entire association of people invested in its proliferation.  There are paid proponents with economic motivation even to perpetuate the myth, if not the problem.  Someone needs the existence of the problem to stay employed.  They depend on belief in the falsehoods.

For people who merely want to look like they care in order to receive that recognition, it doesn't matter if someone really gets help.  It is cheap promotion.  You don't need to study.  You don't need to know.  You just use the acceptance lingo for the consequential plaudits.  Few need to notice if it makes you feel good about yourself.  You don't have to help anyone.  You just have to look like you care, and while you do, you imagine that people are impressed, and then you feel good too.

Man's biggest problem is his sin, because of the sin itself and its offense to God, but also because of the consequences.  Sin causes short term problems with the mind, emotions, and body, but it also separates someone from God in this lifetime and then forever in Hell.  The world will support your advocacy of social issues and psychobabble, because it's most interested in how it feels in this temporal world, all that it has and can do.  It doesn't mean that God doesn't want to relieve and comfort you in this lifetime, but what's most important is preparing for eternity.  A true believer will not focus on the best life now, but on the one forever with God.  This is science.

This post introduces a short series on certain psychological science, falsely so-called, or psychobabble.  The goal will be to disabuse the readers from the lies they embrace to continue according to their own lust and excuse or justify that false way.

Art: What Changes?

Part One -- "Artists"

Our church doesn't use the following psalter, but it's available at Psalters Online.   I chose, The Book of Psalms in an English Metrical Version, founded on the basis of the Authorized Bible Translation and Compared with the Original Hebrew, by Richard Mant.  Here is Psalm 106:11-22 from this psalter, a versification of the Hebrew Masoretic text, the same text from which comes the King James Version, just like the title says.

11 Their foes returning claim,

And sweep them, one and all, from sight:

12 They saw, they felt, they bless'd his might,

And sang Jehovah's name.

13 But of his works with impious haste

Forgetful, in the lonely waste

They spurn’d his sage controul;

14 Till, challeng’d by their base distrust,

15 He gave them meat to sate their lust,

With leanness in their soul.

16 'Gainst Moses meek their envy burn’d,

And Aaron, saint of God, they spurn'd :

17 Till earth asunder flew,

And Dathan’s factious band devour’d ;

18 And vollied flames, on Korah shower’d,

His godless followers slew.

19 At Horeb's rock a calf they made,

With gold the sculptur'd form o'erlaid,

And low in worship bow’d:

20 Thus impious they their glory chang'd

To semblance of a beast that rang'd

The grassy field for food;

21 And Him, the living God, forgot,

Their Saviour, who for them had wrought

Great deeds on Egypt’s hosts;

22 Great things and of surpassing might

In Ham, and things of fearful sight

All on the Red-sea coasts.

This amount of text usually scares away the modern reader, but I provide it mainly for a reference, so that you can keep looking up at the section, while reading the post.

In the flow of the story, I want to point out the apostasy that occurs in Israel and then relate it to art.  In the first three verses, upon experiencing want after deliverance from Egypt, Israel forgets the goodness of God and "They spurn’d his sage controul," says verse 13.  This reminds of 2 Peter 2:1 and following, they deny the Lord that bought them.  God's will isn't fitting into their desires, so they spurn God's wise control of their lives.  Justification would come from their immediate want.

Read it all, but pay attention at this moment at verse 19.  Israel made something.  "At Horeb's rock a calf they made, With gold the sculptur'd form o'erlaid."  At Sinai, God gave them the plan for something beautiful, portraying or depicting Himself, but instead they made a golden calf, which was fitting with a god formed in their own imagination.  This is the objective versus the subjective.

The creation of the golden calf by the people of Israel shaped god according to their own lust.  Egypt and other ungodly nations influenced their minds and hearts.  They weren't neutral.  Their creation was their own expression of their own imagination, not a depiction based upon the revelation of God in His Word.  This is the difference between the objective, the heavenly tabernacle and worship fitting a pattern ordained by God, and the subjective, the inordinate manifestation from within themselves.

Now look at verse 20.  "Thus impious they their glory chang'd To semblance of a beast that rang'd The grassy field for food."  John Gill writes concerning the first part of this verse:

God, who is glorious in all the perfections of his nature, and is glory itself, and was the glory of these people; it was their greatest honour that they had knowledge of him, nearness to him, the true worship of him among them, and that they were worshippers of him; and who, though he is unchangeable in himself, may be said to be changed when another is substituted and worshipped in his room, or worshipped besides him; which was what the Heathen did, and in which the Israelites exceeded them, (Romans 1:23, Romans 1:25) (Jeremiah 2:11) , the Targum is, ``they changed the glory of their Lord.''

Instead of worshiping the Lord in the beauty of His holiness, giving unto the Lord the glory due His name (1 Chron 16:29), "they their glory changed."  Something that was beautiful was now ugly, no longer reflecting the object of the worship, but the imaginations of their own hearts.

What was "their glory?"  There is some dispute here, but I believe it to be two things.  This relates back to what occurred in Exodus 32:2-3 and 33:5-6, when the people who made and worshiped a calf at Horeb changed their glory into a calf.  Their glory was actually the glory of the Lord -- that was the true glory of Israel, but in their minds and hearts.  God had been replaced.  The reference to “their glory” refers to the golden earrings that were molded into the calf.  Their glory should have been the Lord, but it wasn't and it had become their golden earrings and the like.

In verse 21, "And Him, the living God, forgot."  They could not depict what or who they had forgotten.  As the Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 1:23, they "changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things."

Some might answer, "But the golden calf wasn't art."  It wasn't art in the sense that art is objectively beautiful, and the calf was only in the eyes of the beholders.  It was an expression of their own imagination, God based on the perspective of the subject, hence subjective.  Paul calls their minds, "reprobate" (Rom 1:28), the Greek word adokimos, which is literally "fails to meet the test."  As a result, their portrayal of God, the "art," is distorted because it proceeds from their own depravity.

Very common then when God doesn't accept the "art," or as it occurs mostly that godly people reject it, the subjects oppose the leadership (verse 26) -- "'Gainst Moses meek their envy burn’d, And Aaron, saint of God, they spurn'd."  They can't get at God Himself, but they can tear into the human leaders, representing God.  It didn't turn out well for Dathan and Korah (verses 17 and 18).

The godly focuses on God, His own beauty, and the beauty of what He created, not the distortions.  The truth shapes the imagination.   He retains a true view of God and his behavior is also affected in a godly way.  On the other hand, someone forms his own imagery of God in his mind and expresses that with what he makes.  It not only changes His own view of God but it has a diminishing and destructive affect on others.

"Artists"

The word "artist" is like the word "culture" -- in common usage, its meaning has disappeared. People don't know what they mean, when they are saying it.  The knock-off entertainers sure aren't artists, no matter how many times someone says they are.

God is the prototypical Artist.  Art proceeds from the Bible in definition like everything that can be right and good, except the word in the King James Version isn't "art," but "craft," and the artist is a "craftsman."  The Hebrew word could be translated "artificer," which is someone skilled.  As late as 1828, Webster's defines:

The disposition or modification of things by human skill, to answer the purpose intended.

If you go back to the etymology of the word, it is "artifice," and the "artist" is an "ingenious workman."  The assumption of artifice from which comes "artificial" is that it is a copy, not the original, so something imitating something else.  Someone is able to make something very close to the original, so that it looks like the real thing.  The artist is imitating something, originally something of God, not inventing something new.

God, of course, is the Creator, and though we can't create ex nihilo like God, something out of nothing, we take the components of God's creation and orchestrate them into portrayals of God's handiwork, which is divinely defined reality.  Since beauty starts with God, it is objective, reflecting His nature.  The handiwork of God declares His glory (Psalm 19:1), that is, the perfections of His attributes.  Anything that clashes with the nature of God isn't beautiful or lovely, but is ugly.  This takes us to the objective nature of beauty and, therefore, art.

1 Chronicles 16:29 says,

Give unto the LORD the glory due unto his name: bring an offering, and come before him: worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness.

Beauty relates to the glory due unto God's name and His holiness.  Glory, God's name, and holiness are essentially the same.  They all relate to His attributes, their perfection.  This is a baseline for beauty.

The skill of art is the ability through both nature and nurture to represent the divine reality.  It is objective, because it focuses on the object, which is a proper object, one that is right and true and of the highest value.  The object is what makes the effort worth it.  The term "depiction" is a good word to associate with objective, because Someone (God) and something (His creation) is being depicted according to God's perspective.  This contrasts with the subjective or relativistic.

Modern art shifted from the objective to the subjective, like modernism, and even worse then, postmodernism.  Some today think that they are more "artistic," even and sadly professing Christians, because they are modernistic and postmodernistic.  They're imitating others, that is, being worldly.  They don't know what they are talking about.  They're just saying it and anything goes today.  Hardly anyone is going to judge, because hardly anyone judges anything, except whether someone's feelings are hurt.

The subject became "art" according to the "eye of the beholder," which is in reality to turn from God to man, man becoming the center of things.  This made autonomous imaginings of the "artist" the standard, which are his expressions.  He's expressing himself.  This philosophy of art in general is expression or expressionism, with lots of sub categories.

A biblical understanding, a Christian worldview, says that man is depraved, so the shift to the subject brings distortion.  The subject isn't neutral, even if he thinks he is.  He's affected by his own evil imaginations.  Today someone might say, "he's messed up."  Modern art allows the "artist" to create his own reality out of his own imagination, so that he shapes his own subjective reality and in so doing, becomes a god-like figure.  It is a subjective reality that leads people astray in modern culture as much as anything.  Sadly, some of you reading this don't even care, and you think it's a joke.  You'll find out before everything is over, but the earlier the better.

Professing Christianity has started buying into a false view of art, the modernist and postmodernist view, for awhile, even when judging children's finger paintings like they are something great.  They are without skill.  The child may not need an art lesson, to teach him how to "depict" what he sees, because it doesn't even matter.  Just keep "expressing yourself."  It's wrong.  Several very bad things also happen.

Objective reality, the depiction of God, is not separate from emotions.  Some of you reading might have been wondering about feelings, because you think or feel they're the essence of art.  They are not, but even so, scripture teaches rightly ordered emotions, what Jonathan Edwards called affections versus passions in his Treatise on the Religious Affections.  This also represents God, who is impassible, not subject to mood swings.

C. S. Lewis wrote about feelings or emotions in his book, The Abolition of Man, and this was a concern of his.  The two greatest commands of God are "Love God" and "Love your neighbor," and both of those are at risk without getting them right.  Someone can't obey God when he disobeys those two commands.  "Inordinate affection" is a sin (Colossians 3:5).  Lewis exhorts (pp. 28-29) of  "the ordinate condition of the affections in which every object is accorded that kind and degree of love which is appropriate to it,” asserting that “the aim of education is to make the pupil like and dislike what he ought.”  He continues (pp. 31-32):

[B]ecause our approvals and disapprovals are thus recognitions of objective value or responses to an objective order, therefore, emotional states can be in harmony with reason (when we feel liking for what ought to be approved) or out of harmony with reason. . . . The heart never takes the place of the head: but it can, and should, obey it.

Lewis wasn't promoting the expressions of someone's imagination, but the correct emotional response to the right or true thinking about what is of the greatest value.

People who still want to profess to be Christian are changing exegetical and historical Christianity by merging it with modernism or postmodernism under the guise of "freedom."  I read the language of "personal and creative liberation" that had been pent up by conservative Christianity, which put the "artist" in a "box."  The limitations held back the creative expression of the artist that now he can unleash.  This freedom is called "grace," so that now they're really experiencing grace like they haven't before, and that feeling flows through the art.  This isn't actual Christianity.  The attempt to conform Christianity to lust is just departing from Christianity.

Another term, that I often hear to describe a modern or postmodern emotional quality, is "authentic."  The "artist" is really "authentic."  Most often this term is associated with someone who isn't authentic, according to the dictionary definition of the term, but using it instead in a subjective fashion different than its objective meaning is apropos.  From the wrong usage, a postmodern variety, "authentic" is a highly subjective expression of someone's feelings, usually distorted and often corrupt.  That also makes it "true," true simply because the subject "feels it."  It is unlikely that the "artist" "truly" or "really" feels the way he is expressing, but that doesn't matter, because it's what he's expressing at the moment in an ironically inauthentic way, which is what does matter.  Instead of being "authentic," usually it's contrived, because it is entertainment, intended to "relate" with the audience (fool it), giving approval to the same feelings it might have, which very often are lust.

What motivated me to write this post was a recent promotion by someone of "country artists" out of Nashville.  I wasn't expecting art or artists, which it and they were not.  The expressions reduce art to the lost wanderings of fallen men, rebelling against God's created order, which brings chaos.  It perverts truth, goodness, beauty, and validates inordinate emotions.  It denies God as the true basis for all reality and conflicts with the truth of scripture.  It is not denying self, but expressing self with all the lack of constraint.  God is not and cannot be glorified and others are likewise influenced.

Rather than expressing imagination, true art, what Christians should solely accept and enjoy, shapes the moral imagination.   This is the true meaning of the world that God created.  The thinking and the emotions reflect God.  God is known in an accurate and better way.  The hearer can turn to God or grow closer to God, which is what a Christian wants.  He shouldn't be promoting either the world's twisted  perversion of art or artists or the depraved expressions of the ungodly culture from which they come.

Jessie Penn-Lewis: Her Inspired Writings (part 6 of 22)

The content of this post is now available in the study of:

1.) Evan Roberts

2.) The Welsh Revival of 1904-1905

3.) Jessie Penn-Lewis

on the faithsaves.net website. Please click on the people above to view the study.  On the FaithSaves website the PDF files may be easiest to read.

 

You are also encouraged to learn more about Keswick theology and its errors, as well as the Biblical doctrine of salvation, at the soteriology page at Faithsaves.