Easter and the Death of Death: Our Hope Springs Eternal

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Bluejay perched on a gravestone. by Michelle Frechette is licensed under CC-CC0 1.0


“But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.”

1 Corinthians 15:20–26

Storytelling is at the heart of Christianity. God is a storyteller. We are either enraptured by and absorbed into this story, or we reckon it repugnant and run from the “Once upon a time”. Adam and Eve ate the fruit, bringing death into the world. Yet, in the primordial darkness, the first note of a grand symphony rang: Eve’s offspring would crush the serpent’s head. And two millennia before our time, a baby was born in Bethlehem. He would die and rise again, and in rising, as Paul notes in the passage above, He would secure our resurrection from the dead. In Christ was the death of death and the guarantee of life after death. For this reason, as the hymn says, “our hope springs eternal”. In this article, I seek to focus on one part of this story, namely our eternal hope.

We will begin our brief journey by contemplating what heaven is. It is where God “will wipe away every tear from [his people’s] eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4). Heaven is a great city with “no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb.” (Revelation 21:9-23). “By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, its gates shall never be shut by day”, and “there will be no night there” (Revelation 21:24-26). There shall be a “river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb” and the “tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month.” (Revelation 21:1-2). We shall behold “[God’s] face” and “reign forever and ever” (Revelation 22:4-5).

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The Cross, Conversion Therapy, and the Countries Down Under

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“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked…”

Ephesians 2:1-2A

Introduction

Recently, Australian news sources have been abuzz with plans for a bill outlawing conversion therapy to be passed in New South Wales. Though I do not think that we have any direct access to what the Australian bill contains, looking at our (New Zealand’s) conversion therapy act passed in 2022 will surely do some good.1 I will briefly provide an overview of the bill in this section, list two objections against our bill in the second section, and then address a deeper issue, namely the fundamental conflict of the Christian Gospel and conversion therapy bills.2

The explicit aim of the New Zealand conversion therapy bill is twofold: to “recognise and prevent harm caused by conversion practices” and to “promote respectful and open discussions regarding sexuality and gender.” A conversion practice is defined as a “practice, sustained effort, or treatment” that “is directed towards an individual because of the individual’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression” and which is performed “with the intention of changing or suppressing the individual’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.”

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Abortion and Peter Singer: Singing out of Tune

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“For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.”

Psalm 139:13

It is not a controversial fact that life begins at fertilization.1 For instance, a Princeton University webpage lists fifteen academic sources that support this point. One of the quoted sources clearly states that “fertilization is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human organism is thereby formed”.2 An article from PubMed states that “Biologists from 1,058 academic institutions… assessed survey items on when a human’s life begins and, overall, 96% (5337 out of 5577) affirmed the fertilization view [human life begins at fertilization]”.3 I could go on.

So, the abortion debate is now centred on philosophical considerations. One case study will do. Peter Singer, Emeritus Professor of Bioethics at Princeton, answers whether he would save a mouse or human being from a fire: in “almost all cases [he] would save the human being”. Interestingly, the reason for this saving is “not because the human being is human” but because “it matters whether a being is the kind of being who can see that he or she actually has a life — that is, can see that he or she is the same being who exists now, who existed in the past, and who will exist in the future”. Singer’s criteria for something that is worth saving involves some kind of temporal awareness. To explicitly connect this answer to abortion, “no newborn baby is a person” because newborn babies do not have “a sense of the future”.4

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Fragments from Narnia – Part 13: On the Fear of Doors

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“I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel.'”

-Genesis 3:15

“I—I opened a door and just found myself here, your Majesty,” said Edmund.
“Ha!” said the Queen, speaking more to herself than to him. “A door. A door from the world of men! I have heard of such things. This may wreck all. But he is only one, and he is easily dealt with.”

-C. S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Articles in this Series

See the first article for the list.

On the Fear of Doors

As I mentioned in the last article, the White Witch is “taller than any woman Edmund had ever seen”, with a “proud and cold and stern” face. To the reader, she seems frightening and invincible. But, before the passage I quoted above, she inquires whether Edmund is a “Son of Adam” or “human”. Upon Edmund’s confirmation, she remarks that there is “A door from the world of men” which “may wreck all”. The first chink in the Witch’s armour and the first weakness that readers should detect is a fear of doors. But why is that the case? The answer is that she knew the ancient rhyme, recounted by Mr Beaver: “When Adam’s flesh and Adam’s bone / Sits at Cair Paravel in throne, / The evil time will be over and done.” When Adam’s children are enthroned in Cair Paravel, the Witch’s reign will be shattered. In this article, I want to examine our immediate passage in light of Christ’s incarnation. Yes, Christmas has recently passed, but reflection on the incarnation should not to be restricted to Advent or Christmas. In later articles, we will surely be able to look at different nuances of this theme of enthronement.

There are at least two ways (and these ways are not mutually exclusive) in which we can theologically understand the prophecy recounted by Mr Beaver. The first option is that when Christ, who took on flesh in the incarnation, sits enthroned at the Father’s right hand, then Satan’s dominion will be shattered. The ascension follows after Jesus’ incarnation, life, death, and resurrection, and the result of all these actions in His ministry is Satan’s defeat. The second option is that when the children of God are “seated… in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:6), Satan’s rule is defeated. It is this strange idea that is echoed in passages like the Spirit’s words to the church in Thyatira: “The one who conquers and who keeps my works until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron, as when earthen pots are broken in pieces, even as I myself have received authority from my Father.” (Rev. 2:26-27). Note that the first option is causal. Namely, the cause of the Witch’s defeat is Christ, the God-man, enthroned at Cair Paravel. The second option is indicative of a cause. Namely, the enthronement and reign of God’s people is not the cause of Satan’s defeat but indicative of what causes this defeat, namely the person and work of Jesus Christ, which enabled this enthronement in the first place. This article will focus on the first option.

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On Christmas: Reflections on Homelessness

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Audio reading of the following article

“These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seem them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.”

Hebrews 11:13

“In speaking of this desire for our own faroff country, which we find in ourselves even now, I feel a certain shyness. I am almost committing an indecency. I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you…”

C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

Homelessness

Home is a valued thing. Think about it. We all know John Denver’s Take Me Home, Country Roads, where he sings: “Country roads, take me home / To the place I belong”. In nostalgic homesickness, the narrator1 describes West Virginia, where “Life is old there, older than the trees / Younger than the mountains, growing like a breeze”. He is constantly reminded of this home: “The radio reminds of a home far away / Driving down the road, I get a feeling / That I should have been home yesterday…”. Even the Bible speaks of home, for in Psalm 137, the Psalmist says: “By the waters of Babylon, / there we sat down and wept / when we remembered Zion.” When the Israelite’s captors demanded that they sing, their reply was: “How shall we sing the LORD’s song in a foreign land?” They were not home. They could not sing.

Or, ignoring the blasphemy and the terrible lyrics, observe how Home by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes casts home in a romantic light: “Home is wherever I’m with you”. Loving You’s Like Coming Home by Don Williams echoes this sentiment: “It’s a lonesome and endless highway I’ve been searching for so long / After all the miles I’ve travelled loving you’s like coming home”. Moving to Augustine’s Confessions, the African bishop describes his friendship with a childhood friend, “sweet to me above all the sweetness of that my life”. The friend was close to death and was baptised when unconscious. When he regained consciousness, Augustine attempted to joke with his friend about the baptism, but “he shuddered at me, as if I were his enemy”. The melancholic punchline hits: “A few days after, during my absence, he had a return of the fever, and died”. The friend died without reconciliation. Augustine’s world was rocked: “My native country was a torture to me, and my father’s house a wondrous unhappiness; and whatsoever I had participated in with him, wanting him, turned into a frightful torture.”2

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Fragments from Narnia – Part 12: The Ambiguity of Evil

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“…for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.”

2 Corinthians 11:14

“On the sledge, driving the reindeer, sat a fat dwarf who would have been about three feet high if he had been standing. He was dressed in polar bear’s fur and on his head he wore a red hood with a long gold tassel hanging down from its point; his huge beard covered his knees and served him instead of a rug. But behind him, on a much higher seat in the middle of the sledge sat a very different person—a great lady, taller than any woman that Edmund had ever seen. She also was covered in white fur up to her throat and held a long straight golden wand in her right hand and wore a golden crown on her head. Her face was white—not merely pale, but white like snow or paper or icing sugar, except for her very red mouth. It was a beautiful face in other respects, but proud and cold and stern.”

C. S. Lewis, The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe

Articles in this Series

See the first article for the list.

The Ambiguity of Evil

In this passage, Lewis describes the first appearance of the White Witch. She will be this book’s main antagonist and will reappear in later books (later in publication order, not in chronological order). His description is striking because he describes her face as “beautiful”. She is “great”, “taller than any woman that Edmund had ever seen”, adorned with “white fur”, a “golden wand”, and a “golden crown”. Her face was “white like… icing sugar”, and her mouth was “very red”. This description is almost positive. The first encounter that the readers have with the White Witch is ambiguous. If Lewis had not said she was also “proud and cold and stern”, we might be tempted to consider the Witch a benign queen or a kind benefactor. Or, anyhow, her beauty may entrance us into diminishing her pride, coldness, and sternness. She could not be that bad, after all.

Peculiarly and similarly, the Scriptures also describe what I will call the ambiguity of evil. Evil, of course, is not morally ambiguous. Evil is morally bad, and that is that. But evil is aesthetically ambiguous insofar as it can sometimes allure and other times repulse. Note this aesthetic ambiguity in Proverbs 5, where the immediate focus is on adultery or sexual temptation. Solomon says that the “lips of a forbidden woman drip honey” and that “her speech is smoother than oil” (Prov. 5:3). That is one side of the ambiguity. “[B]ut in the end she is bitter as wormwood, / sharp as a two-edged sword. / Her feet go down to death; / her steps follow the path to Sheol; / and she does not ponder the path of life; / her ways wander, and she does not know it” (Prov. 5:4-6). That is the other side of the ambiguity. Although the forbidden woman superficially possesses sweetness and smoothness, in reality, she is bitter, sharp, and destined to damnation.

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Fragments from Narnia – Part 11: Just Like a Girl

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“You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!”

James 2:19

“She’s angry about all the things I’ve been saying lately,” thought Edmund. And though he did not like to admit that he had been wrong, he also did not much like being alone in this strange, cold, quiet place; so he shouted again.
“I say, Lu! I’m sorry I didn’t believe you. I see now you were right all along. Do come out. Make it Pax.”
Still there was no answer. “Just like a girl,” said Edmund to himself, “sulking somewhere, and won’t accept an apology.”

C. S. Lewis, The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe

Articles in this Series

See the first article for the list.

Just Like a Girl

This article will examine Edmund’s disingenuous repentance and the lessons we can learn from his false repentance. In a previous article1, I already detailed some things that we can learn about forgiveness from Narnia. Here, I will detail more. One of Lewis’ brilliancies was his insight into the human condition. Just read his The Screwtape Letters2 to see what I mean. The man understood things, especially people, and could express this understanding in a simple yet deep manner. He said, “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen, not only because I see it but because by it, I see everything else.”3, and he was not lying. He saw “everything else” sharper than most Christian writers do.

The clearest indication of Edmund’s disingenuous repentance is his statement, “Just like a girl”. When Lucy gives no response to Edmund’s apology, his immediate reaction is to insult her and assume that she is “sulking somewhere, and won’t accept an apology.” Contrast Edmund’s plea with Tumnus’ genuine repentance when the Faun asks Lucy, “can you ever forgive me for what I meant to do?”. While Tumnus recognised that Lucy may be so angry that she did not want to extend forgiveness, Edmund thinks he is owed forgiveness. Of course, Lucy would be required to forgive Edmund, for the Scriptures adjure us into “forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you” (Eph. 4:32). But when we ask for forgiveness, we should not use this requirement as leverage. We should not say, “Well, I may or may not be genuinely sorry, but I guess you have to forgive me anyways. It is Biblically mandated.” As if that would work.

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Fragments from Narnia – Part Ten: Truth and Spite

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“For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.”

2 Peter 1:16

“For the next few days [Lucy] was very miserable. She could have made it up with the others quite easily at any moment if she could have brought herself to say that the whole thing was only a story made up for fun. But Lucy was a very truthful girl and she knew that she was really in the right; and she could not bring herself to say this. The others who thought she was telling a lie, and a silly lie too, made her very unhappy. The two elder ones did this without meaning to do it, but Edmund could be spiteful, and on this occasion he was spiteful. He sneered and jeered at Lucy and kept on asking her if she’d found any other new countries in other cupboards all over the house.”

C. S. Lewis, The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe

Articles in this Series

See the first article for the list.

Truth and Spite

There are two lessons I want to draw from Lewis’ brief description here. The first lesson is that an uncompromising devotion to truth, and indeed the Truth (Jn. 14:6), must characterise Christians. The second lesson concerns rotten fruit and a “pour lemon juice” mentality exemplified by Edmund. I will focus primarily on the first point, particularly relating it to apologetics and cultural interaction. Let me preface this article by reiterating what I have stated in previous articles. Lewis, through simple stories, communicates practical truths. Stories incarnate virtue. This incarnation is not only important for children to understand but for adults too. Even if what I discuss here is simple, and it is, that does not mean it is simplistic.

Firstly, Lewis describes Lucy as a “very truthful girl”. Already, we see something that our culture frowns upon. Our culture does not appreciate describing people in objective categories. A Stuff article from 2009 describes a then 54-year-old man, an “overweight bloke, with a moustache, who drove a 4WD and was into heavy drinking”, who decided that he was a “woman trapped in a man’s body”. He then changed his identity to Rebeka and began to wear female clothes.1 Notice the separation of psychology and biology. One can fit into the category of “man” biologically, but this category is not so objective that it extends also to psychology. The category is flexible and subjective, subordinated to your feelings or thoughts. Another example of the cultural frowning upon objective categories is a lecturer in forensic psychology who I remember declaring that we should not call people “pedophiles” but instead say they have a “pedophilic disorder”. To categorise them as “pedophiles” would be stigmatising. We would not want to hurt their feelings, of course. But the Biblical view is that people are objectively and categorically one way or the other. You are either truthful or a liar. You are either a man or a woman. You are either dead in sin (Eph. 2:1) or alive in Christ (Eph. 2:4). You are either unrighteous or justified (1 Cor. 6:9-11). We would do well to talk in objective categories.

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On the New Year: Reflections on Eternity

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Audio reading of this post

“But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”

2 Peter 3:8

“The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.”

C. S. Lewis

On the New Year: Reflections on Eternity1

Human recollection is a fickle thing. We quickly lose memories. For an event that occurred recently, we can recall more. But for an event that was further away, our minds hold blurred memories; mere snapshots and vague remembrances of atmosphere. For instance, in my first year of high school, our class went on an overnight tramp to Waitawheta. I can now remember snapshots of verdure, glimpses of swift rivers, chiaroscuros cast by swaying trees, a starry multitude residing in the night sky, glowworms nestled in rocks, the excitement of playing tag outside the hut, and an inordinate amount of tomato sauce ordered at a fast food joint. I still remember small details, like an elderly stranger advising me to roll up my sleeping bag because it would damage the seams less. But most of my memories have been consumed by time. Think of similar examples for yourself. How much could you remember right after the event occurred, and how much can you remember now? Perhaps there is a nostalgic veil over the entire thing, and you cannot remember much more.

Though human memory swiftly evanesces like a firework, God is different. The Scriptures tell us in bewildering, fascinating, and terrifying fashion that “from everlasting to everlasting [He is] God” (Ps. 90:2). “[W]ith the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day (2 Pet. 3:8). God “inhabits eternity” (Isa. 57:15). Traditional Christianity has interpreted these passages, along with a multitude of other passages, as teaching the eternity of God. Geerhardus Vos, the great Reformed Dutch theologian, described the eternity of God as the “attribute of God whereby He is exalted above all limitations of time and all succession of time, and in a single indivisible present possesses the content of His life perfectly (and as such is the cause of time)”.2 What I want to centrally focus on here is the phrase “in a single indivisible present”. This concept, upon further reflection, is mind-boggling. Let me explain.

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Fragments from Narnia – Part Nine: Of Fauns and Forgiveness

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“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.”

Colossians 3:12-13

“Lucy looked very hard between the trees and could just see in the distance a patch of light that looked like daylight. ‘Yes,'”‘ she said, ‘I can see the wardrobe door.’
‘Then be off home as quick as you can,’ said the Faun, ‘and—c-can you ever forgive me for what I meant to do?’
‘Why, of course I can,’ said Lucy, shaking him heartily by the hand. ‘And I do hope you won’t get into dreadful trouble on my account.'”

C. S. Lewis, The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe

Articles in this Series

See the first article for the list.

Of Fauns and Forgiveness

In this article, I will discuss Tumnus’ plea for forgiveness and Lucy’s response. The material covered in this article will be rather basic, but that is not to say that it is unprofitable. When it is said (and I have no idea who originally said this) that the Scriptures are shallow enough for a child to wade in and deep enough for an elephant (or another suitably large animal) to drown in, this saying surely applies to the seemingly basic parts of Christianity, including something like the forgiveness of sins. I will focus primarily here on asking forgiveness of other humans.

We should note something that was not included in the above quote. Previously, Tumnus was highly distressed and cried, “And she’ll have my tail cut off, and my horns sawn off, and my beard plucked out, and she’ll wave her wand over my beautiful cloven hoofs and turn them into horrid solid hoofs like a wretched horse’s. And if she is extra and specially angry she’ll turn me into stone and I shall be only a statue of a Faun in her horrible house…”.1 But notice how Tumnus does not now use this fact to manipulate Lucy. He simply says: “Then be off home as quick as you can”. He could have said, “Well, get out of here. Just leave me here to suffer cruel torture. I will probably never see the light of day again, but you go live your life. Have sweet dreams, Lucy. I really have the short end of the stick.” The lesson here is that we ought not to make excuses when asking for forgiveness, appealing to the negative consequences of our sin or even the drawbacks of not committing an intended sin (which was Tumnus’ predicament) to lessen the significance of our sin. In other words, we ought not to give excuses, even sophisticated ones, and especially not to God.

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