Ask a Pastor Ep. 64 - Perfect Creations Going Against God, Heaven, Grace
This episode our Senior Pastor, Dr. Kurt Bjorklund, talks with Middle School Ministry Leader, Evan Brem, about how perfect creation could reject God, why we should look forward to Heaven, and how to get, keep, or lose God's grace.
Podcast Resources
Heaven by Randy Alcorn - https://amzn.to/2MsFDde
Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem (pgs. 490-514) - https://amzn.to/2VzOOfY
Systematic Theology Vol. 3 by Norman Giesler (pgs. 80-99) - https://amzn.to/2VyqTNS
Christian Theology by Millard Erickson (pgs. 580-601) - https://amzn.to/2M9Xirf
Transcript
Kurt Bjorklund: Hi, welcome. Today on Ask a Pastor, I'm joined by Evan Brem. Evan leads our Middle School Ministry, part of our student ministry staff in our Wexford campus. Welcome Evan.
Evan Brem: Thank you.
Kurt Bjorklund: And today we are going to jump into some questions. As always, if you have questions, feel free to send them along to askapastor@orchardhillchurch.com. We'd love to address those in a coming episode. Also, if you found this content helpful, please just take a moment and either follow the content, like the content, leave a review wherever you're getting this content on social media. Or if you're listening on the radio, just simply enjoy. So, Evan, here's the first question.
Evan Brem: All right.
Kurt Bjorklund: It says, "I have a question that I've asked in the past of other followers of Christ with no answer." So the setup is, I've asked the question, no one's answered it well. And so we're going to put you on the spot and see if you can answer it well.
Evan Brem: All right. We're going to give it a shot.
Kurt Bjorklund: "If God's creation were made perfect before the fall, where or how did Adam and Eve, I guess it would go even before that to Satan as such, even get the desire to go against God's will." And then, here's the real kicker, because the question is basically if God created everything perfect, then where at all did this idea come from?
Evan Brem: Right.
Kurt Bjorklund: And then they said, "I guess I'm looking for a deeper answer than just glossing over the typical freewill answer." So, what the person's saying is, "I expect that you're going to say, 'Well God gave people choice, and in giving people choice, that's where sin came from.'" And this person is saying, "I want to understand something more than just that quick answer that God gave people choice and therefore they sin." So, what would you say?
Evan Brem: Yeah. And the reason I would imagine that this person hasn't gotten an answer that satisfied them before is because there isn't just a clear verse you can go to on this that says, "Well, this is what it says in Genesis and that's why sin came into the world." But I think, biblically, a good place to start is there are definitely two things, at least two things, that we can't say about this situation that are clear in scripture. So the first thing I would say that we can't say is that in some way in sin being brought into the world, did God sin or is God to blame for that sin? Because God, as we know Him, is perfect, is completely just, completely right.
Evan Brem: I got a couple of verses for this. Deuteronomy 32:4 says, "He is the rock, His works are perfect, and all His ways are just, a faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is He." And then Job 34:10 says, "So listen to me, you men, of understanding far be it from God to do evil from the almighty to do wrong."
Evan Brem: So, part of my foundational, I believe, a biblical foundational belief of God is that He can do no wrong. That He is completely just in his ways. And so, I think something we can't say is that God sinned by bringing sin into the world.
Kurt Bjorklund: So that's your first thing. What's your second?
Evan Brem: The second thing I think that we can't say is also that God wasn't surprised when sin was brought into the world, and He wasn't overpowered. It wasn't like, "Oh, whoa, Satan really got the best of me on that one and snuck that into the garden there." Because also another verse, Ephesians 1:11. There's plenty of verses that we can go to when talking about the supremacy in the power of God. But Ephesians 1:11, I liked it. The second half of it says this, talking about God, "Him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of His will."
Evan Brem: Just a really simple but extremely true and extremely impactful statement that if God works out everything in the purpose of His will, then sin and its presence in our world did have to be ordained by Him. And I think the tricky part is we have to get at what is the difference between causing and doing and ordaining or allowing.
Kurt Bjorklund: Okay. So, let me just... I appreciate those two points. I hear where you're coming from. Agree, basically, with what you just said. But for the sake of conversation here, and probably what's behind even this question is, okay, so what you've just said is God didn't cause it, but God caused it. He ordained it, he let it go. He knew what was happening. And if God's perfect, God had to let it, had to know it was coming, had to allow it. So somehow, even though you say God didn't cause sin, I look at the world that's messed up, all the brokenness, all the things that are wrong, and say God knew at a minimum, when He created, this is what He would have created.
Evan Brem: Yeah.
Kurt Bjorklund: So, how then do we not turn around and say, "God is responsible for evil?" How do you do that sidestep? Because if you play that back, at some point you have to say, "If God really is all powerful, all knowing, all everything, even if He didn't cause it, even if I grant you that, He knew, He allowed it, and in that somehow there's some culpability."
Evan Brem: Yeah. Yeah. And I think one of the verses, I can't get the exact verse off the top my head, but Paul writes in Romans, he says who is, I'm paraphrasing, I'm not quoting exactly, but who is the clay, basically, to say to the potter, what have you done with me? What have you made me into? And that's relating more to the issue of election. But I think it still relates to that, who are we to say to God and to try to understand His plan of how, God, you did this wrong, you really messed something up here. Because His ways are so much higher than ours. And I think that being able to take that sidestep definitely takes a great amount of faith and a great amount of trust in Him. But I think it's a necessary sidestep in that, "Okay, I trust God and His sovereignty and His perfect nature and his perfectly just and loving nature that this is something that is happening for His glory."
Evan Brem: And we get to talk about it in the next question, about the new heaven and the new earth, and that it's just part of the process towards that. This is a really broken down analogy here, but I'm sure that there, being the pastor of such a big church, there's people who would tell you how to do your job. Some of them are... All suggestions are good suggestions, but-
Kurt Bjorklund: Not really. But, yeah.
Evan Brem: I don't want to open up a Pandora's box here. But even if someone thinks the suggestion is coming from a place from them where they're like, "I can't believe Kurt did it this way, or this would be a really good thing for the church." No matter what, they're not going to be sitting in your seat and doing all the things that you're doing and know all of the different angles that you know. And ultimately, we trust you to make the decision knowing all of those angles. And so, it's just to the nth degree, to an infinite times that with God, that the seat He sits in, the perspective from which He sees everything, and we're down here like, "Man, God, why'd you do it this way?" But His perspective is so vastly more perfect than ours.
Kurt Bjorklund: Right. Yeah. I think that's a good analogy. Ultimately, you have to go to somehow creating the world as it is, brought God more glory than creating a world in which there wouldn't be center brokenness. And how that is, I don't have a good answer for. But I have to go there in order to account for a world that has brokenness in it. And because I do think that, in a sense, the questioner has a point. And that is if you just claim free will, you still haven't really avoided the idea that God knew how this would play out and created it anyway. Meaning He said, "This is a greater good than creating a world that doesn't have it." And where did the desire come from? Again, I think they're saying, ultimately, it isn't just free choice. God had to have created people in such a way that that desire existed and had the exercise of it.
Evan Brem: Yeah.
Kurt Bjorklund: And an analogy I've heard that I've probably used, but I think is somewhat helpful, is it would be like a prince who decided he fell in love with a woman who wasn't part, in an ancient culture, that he could go and command her to love him. But he would never know in the exact scenario if she loved him or just responded because he was rich and had the crown and could punish her if she didn't. And so, the prince takes on a commoner's kind of life, wins the lady's love, then reveals he's a prince. In a way, that's what God has done by creating a world and letting it be broken and then saying, "And I'm sending my Son into the world." In a way that it's not so obvious to everybody that He gets to know whether we love Him or not, but we get to know whether we love Him or not. I don't know that that's helpful, but it's another way to frame that, just to think about that.
Kurt Bjorklund: Well, I'm not sure that answered the question any better. The person who answered may say, "I still have had no good answer." So my suggestion would be to say, if that's you, that we can probably point you to some works that are pretty academic that go after that. And we'll see if we can put those in our show notes.
Kurt Bjorklund: So, here's a question. How is the biblical idea of heaven or the kingdom of heaven different from the representation in modern western culture? Specifically contrasting the narrative of the ethereal cloud realm with our disembodied souls waiting at the pearly gates to the biblical promas, it says, of the new creation. I'm not sure if that was a misspeak, but the biblical idea of a new creation, new heaven, a new earth.
Evan Brem: Yeah. And so, before talking about the new heaven and the new earth, because that is something that is to come that has not been developed yet by God. I think it's just important to touch on because they do touch on the disembodied souls waiting at the pearly gates. But there is some, at least the way I interpret a verse, some scriptural truth to our souls leaving our bodies for a time when we die, before the new heavens and the new earth have been creation, to be with God in heaven.
Evan Brem: And the one I would look to for that would be 2 Corinthians 5:8. Paul says, "We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord." So the way I see that one is, in the time from when people die to when the new heaven and new earth will be created, there is absolutely no biblical evidence for something like purgatory, where souls are waiting. There is, I believe, a promise that we are, immediately when we die, spending that time with God and not just in a prolonged sleep or something in our dead bodies, but that our soul does leave our human body to be with God. And then the people who are still alive when Jesus comes back and the people who have been with God, because they've died at some other point, when the new heaven and new earth are created will be brought together.
Kurt Bjorklund: Yep. No, that's well put. A lot of scholars would call that the intermediate state. So there is a time where the idea of people not being fully embodied makes some sense. But I think a lot of times, at least what it appears this question's asking, is people have this notion that heaven is eternal church service of people in disembodied states floating around in the clouds with harps and angels going, "Yay, God." And so, when you do get to the new heaven and new earth imagery in scripture, what does the imagery point to?
Evan Brem: Yeah. And a really common passage for this, just because I think it does walk through in just a couple of verses, is Revelation 21:1-4, in John's revelation. And John says, chapter 21:1, he says, "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and first earth had passed away and there was no longer any sea." That last part, "There's no longer any sea, I don't know how to explain that. Maybe there won't be an ocean. But verse two, I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God prepared as a bride, beautifully dressed for her husband. So already we see in the first two verses there, there will be a new heaven and a new earth that are anew or restored creation by God.
Evan Brem: Verse three, he says, "And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Look, God's dwelling place is now among the people, and He will dwell with them. They will be his people and God Himself will be with them and be their God.'" So, also in the new heaven and new earth, we know that we will be living with God. And I think something that's so encouraging about that is something that's promised to us now, because we can still be in communion with God, thanks to the Holy Spirit, in our life on earth here. And Psalm 16:11 says, "You make known to me the path of life. You will fill me with joy in your presence with eternal pleasures at your right hand."
Kurt Bjorklund: All right, so let me just bring you off that for a moment. So you work with middle school kids.
Evan Brem: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Kurt Bjorklund: So, what if a middle school kid says to you, "Heaven doesn't sound like much fun. Sounds like it's kind of a drag. You're talking about a new heaven, new earth, and God there. I barely like church." Why would somebody want that to be in their future?
Evan Brem: Yeah, and that's a good question. So, anything that we experience in this life that is even a hint of joy or goodness or fullness or satisfaction, believer or non-believer is a product of just common grace from God, just common favor from God in our world. And I believe that all of those things and a long list of more of those only can be felt and experienced in the presence of or because of God. And so, believing that the new heaven and the new earth and heaven in the intermediate state we were talking about will be a place where there is only the attributes of God and the presence and the fullness of God, and hell being a place where there is none, completely depleted of that. Anything that we get fulfillment, that we get satisfaction from, that we get joy from, those feelings, even if we're not trying to get them from God, those feelings were created by God and will be felt to their fullest extent.
Kurt Bjorklund: That's good. I said something in a message earlier this fall that if you're an unbeliever, the best moments that you experience here on earth are the closest you'll ever be to heaven.
Evan Brem: Yeah.
Kurt Bjorklund: And if you're a believer, the worst moments that you experience here on earth are the closest you'll ever be to hell.
Evan Brem: Yeah.
Kurt Bjorklund: And I think that's a helpful way to think about it, because, what you just said, and I think it's well put, is that whenever you have moments of incredible joy, incredible purpose, incredible community, those are all indications and tastes of what will be. And then, all of your moments of anguish and anxiety and distress and hurt and pain are indications of the potential eternal reality of hell. And so, although we can't totally understand all that heaven is and we can certainly look at things, another resource is the book Heaven by Randy Alcorn, which is a great book about heaven. It unpacks a lot of what it can be, that isn't the ethereal soul thing. But sometimes it's easier just to say, when you sit and watch a beautiful sunset somewhere, you're out on a boat somewhere on a beautiful day with friends and family, or you make love to your spouse or you watch a great movie. Those are all moments where your soul feels filled and you say, "You know what? That's good." And that's just a little taste of what heaven will be. And I think that's a helpful way to see it because otherwise it's this ethereal thing that's out there, and who knows what it is, but I can understand great moments and I can understand bad moments and that they're just a taste of where we're headed.
Kurt Bjorklund: Here's a question, and this is pretty open-ended. So I'm not exactly sure what would be the best approach. But how does one get grace? How do you keep grace? And what, if anything, can I do to lose grace?
Evan Brem: Yeah. And I love when I saw that question, because it's such a good answer. It's so foundational to who God is, and to what makes life with Him so unique, and so something that you can absolutely not get anywhere else or by your own means, is grace. And so, it's just such a good answer. So, the first question, how do you get grace? Jesus makes it very clear. We've just been walking through the gospel of John, and for, I don't know, the past five years, I think, in our services.
Kurt Bjorklund: Feels that way at times.
Evan Brem: But, over and over again, He just says, "Believe in me and you'll have eternal life." Over and over and over again. That it's belief in Him as Lord and savior that gets that grace, gets that eternal life. And grace being the forgiveness and washing clean of absolutely any blemish that sin has left on our life.
Kurt Bjorklund: Okay. So what about the question about losing grace?
Evan Brem: Yeah, losing it. And the reason it's such a great answer for that is because the way-
Kurt Bjorklund: Or how do you keep it and how, or if anything, can you lose it?
Evan Brem: Yeah, how do you hold onto it? The way that I look at scripture leaves it with you can't. Once you have it, you can not lose it. And I think, just to go to scripture for that, would be in John 10:27-29. I think Josiah just spoke on those a few weeks ago. But he says, "My sheep know my voice, and no one can snatch them out of my hand." And this is, we just talked a little bit about the power and the supremacy of God, and by the same token that He ordained and designed the world to have sin present in it and is powerful enough to do that and make it work for a good and greater purpose for His glory, it's that same God saying that, "Once I have someone, there's no one that can take them out of my hand." I would imagine no one includes the person themself.
Kurt Bjorklund: Well, and there's probably another layer to this. There's the reality of grace, which is, I think, what you're talking about. Get it through belief, isn't lost. But then there's also the experience of grace. And what I mean by that is if grace is getting something you don't deserve or having unmerited favor, whatever phrase you want to use, sometimes you may know it intellectually, but the experience is different. If I walk into a room that has electricity, the reality of electricity is there. But in order to experience it, I actually need to turn on a light, plug something in. And so sometimes we have the reality, but we may not be experiencing the reality, because we may feel unworthy, we may feel like we have to work for it. And, really, the competition for grace, at least as I've experienced it today with people, is generally not unworthiness.
Kurt Bjorklund: There used to be a time when people would say, "Oh, I don't feel worthy of God's grace." The culture that is emerging today, and I don't know if it's all the kids getting blue ribbons when they didn't win the race when they were kids or whatever today, but my generation and beyond, younger, is it's much more, sure, I'm worthy of grace, but now it's the work side of it. I've earned it. Of course I'm worthy of it. Of course I deserve it, because I'm a good person. I fight for justice. I clicked like on a social media post of somebody who was standing against something. I donated some money to a cause. You know what? I bought a good, and when they asked me if I wanted to round up to fight childhood hunger, I did. And so, of course I deserve grace.
Kurt Bjorklund: And the actual challenge, I think, that's bigger today is the experience of saying, "I actually don't deserve it because of my sin." And that's when I realized that, when I see what Jesus has done on my behalf that I'll actually live in the reality of it more fully. But as long as I almost interfere with that reality by feeling good about myself, then I won't actually experience grace. So even if it's apart from the reality, the experience sometimes is what's missing.
Kurt Bjorklund: And so, I think the real answer to this is ultimately rehearsing, remembering, rejoicing in the gospel message. It is always coming back to and saying, "This is what Jesus has done on my behalf." Because that is how we encounter and grow in our actual reality and experience with God. And so, that would be my hope. It is for me at least, because if I get away from that, then I start to say, "Oh... "
Evan Brem: Yeah, I'm doing enough.
Kurt Bjorklund: And the experience isn't there. Or maybe I'm not worthy. You can go to either side of it. You do something that... I've had my boys for a while. Sometimes kids bring out the worst in you, and sometimes you end up maybe yelling, and you know better, and you don't want to do it, and you just get frustrated, and you're like, "Ah." And then you feel lousy. And then another day you control it and you feel good. And either one takes you out of the experience of grace at the end of the day, unless you say, "I'm not worthy, but Jesus is, and He's done what I can't." And that gives us that.
Kurt Bjorklund: Well we need to leave it there. Thank you, Evan. Thank you for spending part of your day with us. If you have questions, send them to askapastor@orchardhillchurch.com. We'll be happy to address them in a coming episode. Have a great day.
