The New Testament seems to contain a strange mixture of optimism and pessimism. On the optimistic side there is a heaven and so everything must work out all right in the end. But on the pessimistic side is some of the teaching of Jesus: ‘Countries will fight each other; kingdoms will attack one another. There will be terrible earthquakes, famines and plagues everywhere; there will be strange and terrifying things coming from the sky.’ So what are Christians - optimists or pessimists? Read more
The New Testament teaching about the future is not that we look forward to what we do not have at the moment. For the Christian, the present and the future are closely tied together. So before we look at how Christians should prepare for the future, we need to look at the way the present and the future affect each other. Read more
The theme of God’s judgement appears consistently throughout the Bible. Although judgement is an unpopular idea today, it is something we have to face up to. But how will God judge? What standards does he expect?
God’s standard
Some people say that they are reasonably good people - better than some - and that they have done the best they can. But even if that were true, is it enough? Read more
The central Christian view of race is that there is only one race: the human race! As the apostle Paul said to the Athenians, ‘God created every race of men of one stock to inhabit the whole earth’s surface.’ At the pivotal points where God dealt with humanity -when he created us, Read more
‘God created mankind in his own image: male and female he created them,’ says the writer of Genesis. In Greek legend Zeus first created a sexless being. Later, in a fit of divine anger, he split this into man and woman. The division of humankind into two sexes is thus understood to be an imperfect state, a weakening of mankind’s power, because the two sexes pull in different directions. Read more
Art has a lot to do with religion. Most of the ‘art-works’ unearthed by archaeologists link in with some religious practice or other. Until recent times the church was the most important patron of the arts. Contemporary artists regularly discuss their work in ’spiritual’ terms. Read more
We are ‘flesh‘, made of the ‘dust of the earth’. We are part of creation; we eat, excrete, procreate, suffer and die just like the other creatures. The very idea of ‘dust’ describes our creaturely status. No humanist could speak more definitely of our lowly origins. Far from making us too otherworldly, the Bible cuts us down to size: ‘You take away their breath, they die and return to the dust,’ says the Psalmist. But if the Bible writers are realistic, they are in no way negative. The Bible affirms life, and joyfully encourages us to enjoy life’s pleasures. It tells us that if God has seen fit to create us as physical beings there is nothing in our make-up or anatomy to be ashamed of. Read more
Humanity’s fall is not just a theological statement; human history and experience show us that the image has been defaced in us all. As Paul puts it, ‘We have all fallen short of God’s standard’. But does this mean that God’s image has never been seen in its fullness since the beginning? No, because Jesus Christ is the perfect image of God. That is the New Testament’s bold declaration. The task of his mission was to lead us back to God and to restore the image in us.
This is where the New Testament connects the study of Christ with the study of humankind. Because Jesus is both true likeness of God and perfect man, he is the promise of a renewed humanity. To be ‘in Christ‘ is to belong to a ‘new humanity‘, just as to be ‘in Adam’ is to belong to the old, sinful humanity. The apostle Paul wrote of the ‘new nature which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator’. As the ‘image of the invisible God‘, Jesus is the model of what men and women were created to be. Read more
In some ways we are no different from any other species on earth. We are creatures subject to the usual conditions of space and time. But we know that human beings ’stand out’ from other beings in several ways. Some of these are plain enough; they partly explain humankind’s superiority over other creatures: our creativity, our intellectual, linguistic and cultural achievements.
But the Bible adds a further and remarkable point. People stand out not by what they do but by what they are. This is expressed right at the beginning, in the creation story of Genesis 1. God said, ‘Let us make man in our image after our likeness.’ It is a theme taken up and developed in other parts of the Bible: we are not like the other creatures; we share God’s nature in a special way. Read more
One writer has confessed, the longer I live, the more faith I have in Providence, and the less faith I have in my interpretations of Providence.’
Providence is the care God takes of all existing things. So its range and depth are immense. The word itself is taken from
Abraham’s promise to his son Isaac on the way to sacrifice: ‘My Son, God will provide the lamb for the burnt offering.’ ‘There is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow,’ says Hamlet in Shakespeare’s play. This is God’s rule as moral governor over all the universe.
There is also God’s forgiveness of the sinner. God’s great acts of salvation are all part of God’s activity in providence: Read more
