Integrated Design by Chuck Missler

The Bible is not merely a collection of writings by scattered desert nomads who combined the worship of two different gods named El and Yahweh into one God, who scratched their faith together from a mishmash of Canaanite beliefs. Every book of the Bible, every place name and strange detail work together to describe the God of the Universe and His passion for mankind. The whole package hangs together. It’s an integrated message system from outside our time domain.

In its entirety, the collected books of the Bible work together to describe our need for a Savior. Together, they prophesy about that Savior and give us the fulfillment of those prophecies. They promise us a future where He rules and reigns over all the earth. The entire dramatic narrative is told from Genesis to Revelation, from the promise in the Garden that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the Serpent¹ to the destruction of the Dragon, the old Serpent in Revelation.² There’s nothing accidental about it; the Bible’s 66 books tell one complete story.

Terms

The word “Bible” is derived through Latin from the Greek word biblia, which is a diminutive of biblios, the word for “book” or any kind of written document. Originally it connoted something written on papyrus, but today the word “book” has become the name for the Book, the ultimate Document of all time.

The word “testament” - whether we speak of the Old Testament or the New Testament - comes from the Latin testamentum, which hails from the Greek term, diatheke, indicating a legal arrangement.³ When Jesus says in Matthew 26:28, “For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins,” he does not mean “testament” the way we think of a testimony today. Language changes over time, and the word we might choose today would be “compact” or “covenant.” While the Jews had lived for centuries under the Law, Jesus’ blood offered a new legal setup, one in which grace triumphed over legalism. Following the meaning of Jesus’ words, we might be better off today using the terms Old Contract and New Contract.

The Jews of Christ’s day considered the Old Testament to be Scripture, but Peter makes a novel step and calls Paul’s New Testament writings “scripture” as well. (Another 3:16 verse!)

…[E]ven as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you; As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures, unto their own destruction.

2 Peter 3:15-16

When we read the first sixteen verses of 2 Peter 3, it’s clear that Peter regards Paul’s writing as equivalent to the Hebrew Law and the Prophets. In those days, most Jews read the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Old Testament. Peter recognized Paul’s writings as of equal authority, and Paul cites Luke 10:7 alongside Deuteronomy 25:4 as Scripture, quoting them together in 1 Timothy 5:18. The writers of the New Testament books declare they are ministers of God, whom God uses to bring His Word.⁴

This is not out of line on their part, for Jesus preapproved their ministry through the Holy Spirit in the upper room discourse:

“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.”

John 14:26

The Writers

How did these documents actually come about? The writers were chosen and prepared for their writing of these documents.

Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.

Jeremiah 1:5

The authors of the books of the Bible wrote exactly what God wanted to communicate through them to the world, which has been confirmed through subtleties in the coding structures. As we examine the text even more carefully, we have found that there are a wide variety of messages that disappear if we change one letter. God spoke to Moses face to face,⁵ and as we carefully study the books of Moses, it appears that the Torah was given to Moses letter by letter, whether he realized it or not. The prophets claimed to be speaking the very words of God. “The word of the LORD came to…” As we continue our study, we will review some examples of those details.

Infallibility and Inerrancy

The Doctrine of Infallibility is the subjective consequence of divine inspiration; that is, we trust that the Bible is reliable to all who turn to it in search of God’s truth, because it provides us with information that God gave us through human pens.

The Doctrine of Inerrancy states that the Bible contains neither errors of fact (material errors) nor internal contradictions (formal errors). Inerrancy is generally attributed only to the original autographs and not to the translations or copies, because we recognize the potential imperfections inherent in the transmission of Scripture, whether by copying error, inadequacies in translations, et al. There are also cultural, historical and rhetorical gaps between the writer and the reader, which can lead to confusion. When humankind gets into the act, it messes things up, but we affirm that the original documents penned by the original writers were fully reliable.

While there are always skeptics, it is important to appreciate that less than one percent of the Scriptures are under competent dispute. And fortunately, no doctrine of the Scriptures depends on any of the disputed passages. There are questions about certain verses and there are issues that scholars ponder, but they don’t impact any critical doctrine. We find that we have in the Bible an integrated package that God superintended and watched over in every detail.

If we accept any of it, it all ties together. There’s no excuse to buy part of it and not the others. If we want to reject any of the Bible, then we should reject the whole thing, but if we accept any of it, we must accept the total package because it has integrity - it works together as a whole.

The Bible as a Hologram

If you’re a communications engineer and you’re designing a message system that you anticipate will be subject to hostile jamming by an adversary, one of the things you do is you take your message and spread it across the available bandwidth. That’s exactly what the Bible has done. It’s what Isaiah mentions in Isaiah 28:10 “I have established my truth, line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little, there a little.” It’s deliberately spread out that way, so that pages can be torn out of the Bible without destroying any of the vital doctrines. We may lose clarity on some issue, but the whole design has been integrated.

From a communications engineer perspective, the Bible is fascinating. I’ve even written a book called Cosmic Codes: Hidden Messages from the Edge of Eternity to explore these things from an information technology point of view, because when taken all together, we see that the Bible had to have been written by one Author who sees things from outside of time.

In fact, as we begin to understand the Bible from an information science point of view, we discover the integrity of the total package manifests a strategy to avoid hostile jamming. It’s interesting to note that we can’t say, “Where’s the chapter in the Bible on baptism? Where’s the chapter on salvation?” There is no critical subject in the Bible that is found in only one passage. Every major issue is explained or portrayed repeatedly by a wide variety of authors in a multitude of passages.

One of the things we find throughout the Scriptures is what would be called in the computer field a “macrocode.” The Bible contains a multitude of “anticipatory macrocodes” that demonstrate a message originating from outside our time domain. As we study the Hebrew Scriptures, we discover again and again that there are elements introduced early on, elements that make no sense except in the context of an event that occurs a thousand years later. There is a story with a multitude of small parts, a story that is detailed in advance and only brought together at the end. In other words, certain ideas or concepts came from Someone who knew what was going to happen well in advance, Someone who “knows the end from the beginning.”⁶

The Brazen Serpent

For example, in Numbers 21 Moses is told to hold up a bronze serpent in the wilderness. Deadly serpents covered the desert camp of the Israelites, and people were being bitten and killed. Moses went to the LORD for help, and the LORD told him to raise up a brazen serpent on a pole so that everyone who looked to it would be healed. Moses did as the LORD instructed, and the people who obeyed were spared from death.

Why a serpent? What in the Jewish understanding could have connected a serpent with anything good?

It’s a challenge to read the Old Testament and find an explanation for that serpent on a pole. It makes no sense. Why would God use a snake of all things? From a Levitical viewpoint, a serpent is a symbol for sin, and bronze is a symbol for judgment. Everybody who looked to a snake symbol on the pole was healed? Why? If we go through the whole Old Testament, we find no explanation for this serpent-held-high imagery. In fact, many centuries later, that bronze serpent was still around and the Israelites had started worshipping it. King Hezekiah had to have it destroyed because it was becoming an idol (2 Kgs 18:1-4).

Then, Jesus Himself explains the imagery in John 3 during His meeting with the Pharisee Nicodemus, who came to Him one night. Jesus describes the serpent as a symbol anticipating the cross of Christ. As Moses raised the serpent in the wilderness, so would the Son of Man be raised up. Suddenly, the fog lifts and we realize that the serpent in the wilderness was a Messianic anticipation of Jesus Christ: He was held up; He became sin for us and bore our transgressions; and through His death we are healed.

We find dozens of these types placed all through the Scripture like woven threads that bind the entire design together. If we reject any part, then we should reject the whole thing, because it is all tied together. If we accept it, we need to accept the entire package. The important question is not whether we like any particular part of the Bible, but whether it is true.

The New Testament is in the Old Testament concealed, the Old Testament is in the New Testament revealed. It is one book, it has an integrated design, and once you discover that for yourself it will change your entire perspective on every passage in the Bible.

The Old and New Testaments

The books that we find in our Old Testament today are in a different order than we find in the Hebrew Bible. The Jews divided the Hebrew Scriptures into three sections:

The Torah is the “Law” of Moses, made up of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. These five books are also called “the Pentateuch,” and they are the Jews’ most venerated portion of the Scripture.

The Nevi’im is the “Prophets.” It includes both the Former Prophets - Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings - and the Latter Prophets: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the Twelve Minor Prophets. These 12 books are called “minor” because they’re smaller in size and not smaller in importance. They are often grouped together into The Book of the Twelve Prophets.

The Ketuvim is the “Writings” portion of the Scriptures. This includes the Psalms, Proverbs, Job, The Five Scrolls of the Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and Esther, and finally, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles.

Torah	Nevi’im	Ketuvim
Genesis	Joshua	Psalms
Exodus	Judges	Proverbs
Leviticus	Samuel	Job
Numbers	Kings	Song of Songs
Deuteronomy	Isaiah	Ruth
	Jeremiah	Lamentations
	Ezekiel	Ecclesiastes
	The Twelve	Esther
		Daniel
		Ezra / Nehemiah
		Chronicles

Together, the Torah, Nevi’im, and Ketuvim make up what we consider the Old Testament. The Jews call this collection of books by the acronym, Tenach - from (T)orah, (N)evi’im and (Ch)ethuvim. As we can see, the Tenach has a slightly different order for the books of the Hebrew Bible than we find in the King James, and we Christians have split the books of Samuel, Kings and Chronicles into two books each, but this is essentially the same Old Testament that we read.

The New Testament is also divided into sections, the Gospels and Acts, the Pauline Epistles, the General Epistles, and Revelation. Hebrews is often placed with the Pauline epistles, since there is evidence that Hebrews was written by Paul.

Gospels(+)	Pauline Epistles	General Epistles	Revelation
Matthew	Romans	Hebrews	Revelation
Mark	1 & 2 Corinthians	James
Luke	Galatians	1 & 2 Peter
John	Ephesians	1, 2, & 3 John
Acts (Luke II)	Philippians	Jude
	Colossian
	1 & 2 Thessalonians
	1 & 2 Timothy
	Titus
	Philemon

The Gospels and Acts tell us about Jesus, His ministry, death and resurrection, as well as the history of the early Church. The Pauline Epistles are the letters written by Paul to the various communities of early Christians he had visited. These early church groups needed instruction, encouragement and admonishment. The General Epistles add additional instruction and answer questions the early Christians struggled over. Finally, Revelation is dedicated to the prophetic visions that Christ gave John regarding the spiritual end of times.

The Inspired Canon

The word “canon” comes from the Greek κανών which means a “ruler” or a “standard of measurement.” The canon of the Bible is the specific set of books considered God-breathed, the very Word of God. There are many other useful books from those early centuries, and scholars can study them for their historical and literary and cultural value, but they are not God-breathed. They can be valued as sources of information, as lenses for clearer insight into the beliefs and teachings of the people who lived in Biblical times, but they should not be considered as more than human works. The canon is a unique list of books which the early Church fathers recognized as birthed by the Holy Spirit, by God Himself.

This all began with the Torah. The five Books of Moses were placed in the Ark of the Covenant along with the two tablets of the Ten Commandments (Exodus 34:7ff; Deut. 31:24-26). That was the beginning of the veneration of the narrative and the text. The whole idea of the canon is based on two convictions: the words of Scripture are God’s own words; and men simply transmitted what they received from the LORD Himself.

Men, therefore, may have influenced the form of the Scriptures, but God determined the content. That’s the distinction. God’s own words were penned by human writers. The Old Testament includes a large number of passages described as God’s actual speech dictated to the prophets (e.g. Kings 22, Nehemiah 8, and most of Jeremiah). Clearly, the intent was that these were literally God’s own words to whomever He was speaking.

The Old Testament is a story of a nation that was brought forth to present the Messiah, and the New Testament tells about the arrival of that Messiah. Jesus Christ is not an afterthought. For thousands of years the Scriptures had foretold His coming. Every book of the Old Testament offers types and foreshadows and direct prophecies of His suffering and death and victory and future reign. The Messiah was validated by all the details that were anticipated centuries before He was born. The Old Testament establishes Christ’s identity in advance, and He in turn authenticates the whole package. Jesus Christ fulfills all the specifications beyond competent dispute, demonstrating the supernatural origin of the Hebrew Scriptures.

This is important. The books of the Bible are not merely a scattered collection of Jewish writings describing the history of a messy group of people who traveled about the Middle East. The books of the Bible are parts of a whole. As we study the Bible, we are able to establish the integrity of the design. We discover that these 66 books, penned by 40 different individuals over several thousands of years, are an integrated message and every detail is there by deliberate design. Once we understand this amazing reality, we find we can understand the full story of Jesus Christ from beginning to end. We know who Jesus Christ was and is as we read about Him in every book.

Mel Gibson’s movie “The Passion” is an excellent portrayal of Christ and a remarkable piece of work. On the other hand, it doesn’t go far enough. It does not emphasize that Jesus is the Son of God. Nor does it mention that God’s plan for salvation had been planned before the foundation of the world - that Jesus faithfully went through the process for the benefit of each one of us. We need to understand it was an achievement, not a tragedy.

Authentication

We know Jesus is the Messiah because He fulfills the Law and the Prophets. The first thing He did after His resurrection was give two disciples a seven-mile Bible study starting with Moses, pointing out all the references to Himself.

Epistemology is the study of knowledge, its scope and limits. It answers the question “How can we know?” How do we know that Jesus Christ was the Messiah? Our answer is that He fulfilled a multitude of prophecies - not just one or two specific, individual verses, but the Hebrew Scriptures as an integrated whole. Our epistemological approach recognizes the incredible power of fulfilled prophecy.

According J. Barton Payne’s Encyclopedia of Biblical Prophecy, at least 8000 predictive verses forecast the future in 1800 different predictions on more than 700 different matters. This is just one catalog, but it makes the point that the Bible is prophetic. It’s not just a quaint collection of tribal history over the centuries. It is far more than that. It is supernatural in its origin, and it demonstrates its authenticity by manifesting an origin from outside the dimensionality of time altogether.⁷

There are more than 300 prophecies of Christ’s First Coming, and we could take several books to carefully examine them one after another. For our purposes here, we don’t need to look at all of them. Nine will do, nine prophecies given centuries before their fulfillment:

• The Messiah would be born in Bethlehem (Mic 5:2; Mat 2:1,5).
• He would present Himself as King riding a donkey (Zec 9:9; Mat 21:1-9; John 12:12-16).
• He would be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver (Zec 11:12; Mat 26:15,27:3-5).
• The “blood money” transaction would occur in the temple and the money would end up finally in the potter’s hands (Zech 11:13; Mat 27:6-10).
• He would have wounds in His hands (Zech 13:6; John 20:24-28).
• He would make no defense even though He’s innocent (Isa 53:7; Mar 15:3-5).
• He would die with the wicked yet be buried with the rich (Isa 53:9; Mar 15:27; Mat 27:57-60).
• He would be crucified (Psa 22:16, Zech 12:10; John 19:16ff).
• He would rise again (Psa 16:10; Isa 53:12; Mat 12:40; Mat 28:6,7).

These are just nine prophecies, and by analyzing the circumstances surrounding each one, we come up with an a priori likelihood of each taking place. When we do this, the statistical calculation of a single person fulfilling all nine gives a ridiculously improbable number. There may have been several people born in Bethlehem and crucified during the years Rome ruled the world, but few would have been buried with the rich even though they died with the wicked, after having been betrayed for 30 pieces of silver, after having ridden into town on a donkey and hailed as King. Jesus didn’t just ride into town on a donkey; the people crowded Him to lay down palm branches and welcome Him, calling “Hosanna” and celebrating Him as the Son of David - the Messiah, the King (Mark 11:1-10; John 12:12-16). Then, above all else, He rose again from the dead! Remember, these are just nine verses. There are more than 300 to take into consideration.

The main point is that these prophecies establish Jesus’ identity with more certainty than probably any other person on the face of the earth. I’m more certain that Jesus Christ is the Messiah of Israel that I am of my own name, and I can demonstrate that mathematically.

Those nine prophecies are the easy ones. The Old Testament lays out in great detail in Genesis 22, Psalm 22 and in Isaiah 53 narratives that are just astonishing in their precision. Psalm 22 reads as if it were dictated by Jesus in first person singular while He hung on the cross. It opens and closes with His first and last statements, and it describes what He sees as He hangs on the cross. Crucifixion was not around until the Persians devised it, yet David describes the Messiah’s death and suffering 1000 years before Jesus Christ was born.

Isaiah 53 explains the purpose of the cross and its achievement with more detail than all of Paul’s epistles put together.

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Isaiah 53:5-6

The Old Testament is filled with types and foreshadows of the purpose and identity of the Messiah, but it also describes certain aspects of His coming in exquisitely precise detail. In Daniel 9:24-26, Gabriel tells Daniel the exact day the Messiah would present Himself as King to Jerusalem, and Jesus held the “teachers of the Law” accountable to do the math and expect His coming. Their failure to recognize that day is the reason, according to Jesus in Luke 19:42-44, that Jerusalem was destroyed in A.D. 70. The precision and the accountability is all there and clearly laid out in the Scriptures.

Form and Content

What was the human role in all of this? From the standpoint of form, the human writers contributed much to the writing of Scripture. They did historical research (like Luke), gave theological meditation, and used their own linguistic styles, favorite vocabulary, and so on. The writers each had their own writing styles, and over 200 different kinds of rhetorical devices or figures of speech are used in the Scripture. The majesty of Isaiah’s book, the pragmatic pastoral rhetoric of Amos, the quick movie-script like descriptions of Mark, demonstrate the personalities of the writers. Their role shows up in the form but not in the content, and that is an important distinction.

Theologically, from the standpoint of content, the Bible regards the human writers as having contributed little. They are the conduits that God has used to give us His words. These concepts are what make the Bible distinctive, and a study on the inspiration of the Scriptures could alone fill volumes. It is a topic that Bible readers should research seriously.

1 Genesis 3:15.

2 Revelation 20.

3 Cf. Jeremiah 31:31 vs Exodus 24:7f; Hebrew 8:13.

4 1 Corinthians 4:1; 2 Corinthians 5:20; 1 Thessalonians 2:13; Revelation 1:1-3; 22:9-10, 18.

5 Numbers 12:6-8.

6 Isaiah 46:10

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Question: "What is predestination? Is predestination biblical?"

 Question: "What is predestination? Is predestination biblical?"

Answer

Romans 8:29-30 tells us, “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.” Ephesians 1:5 and 11 declare, “He predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will…In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will.” Many people have a strong hostility to the doctrine of predestination. However, predestination is a biblical doctrine. The key is understanding what predestination means, biblically.

The words translated “predestined” in the Scriptures referenced above are from the Greek word proorizo, which carries the meaning of “determining beforehand,” “ordaining,” “deciding ahead of time.” So, predestination is God determining certain things to occur ahead of time. What did God determine ahead of time? According to Romans 8:29-30, God predetermined that certain individuals would be conformed to the likeness of His Son, be called, justified, and glorified. Essentially, God predetermines that certain individuals will be saved. Numerous scriptures refer to believers in Christ being chosen (Matthew 24:22, 31; Mark 13:20, 27; Romans 8:33, 9:11, 11:5-7, 28; Ephesians 1:11; Colossians 3:12; 1 Thessalonians 1:4; 1 Timothy 5:21; 2 Timothy 2:10; Titus 1:1; 1 Peter 1:1-2, 2:9; 2 Peter 1:10). Predestination is the biblical doctrine that God in His sovereignty chooses certain individuals to be saved.

The most common objection to the doctrine of predestination is that it is unfair. Why would God choose certain individuals and not others? The important thing to remember is that no one deserves to be saved. We have all sinned (Romans 3:23) and are all worthy of eternal punishment (Romans 6:23). As a result, God would be perfectly just in allowing all of us to spend eternity in hell. However, God chooses to save some of us. He is not being unfair to those who are not chosen, because they are receiving what they deserve. God’s choosing to be gracious to some is not unfair to the others. No one deserves anything from God; therefore, no one can object if he does not receive anything from God. An illustration would be a man randomly handing out money to five people in a crowd of twenty. Would the fifteen people who did not receive money be upset? Probably so. Do they have a right to be upset? No, they do not. Why? Because the man did not owe anyone money. He simply decided to be gracious to some.

If God is choosing who is saved, doesn’t that undermine our free will to choose and believe in Christ? The Bible says that we have the choice—all who believe in Jesus Christ will be saved (John 3:16; Romans 10:9-10). The Bible never describes God rejecting anyone who believes in Him or turning away anyone who is seeking Him (Deuteronomy 4:29). Somehow, in the mystery of God, predestination works hand-in-hand with a person being drawn by God (John 6:44) and believing unto salvation (Romans 1:16). God predestines who will be saved, and we must choose Christ in order to be saved. Both facts are equally true. Romans 11:33 proclaims, “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!”

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Rome and America – Comparing to the Ancient Roman Empire

Kerby Anderson looks at the comparisons between modern America and ancient Rome, i.e. the Roman Empire.  Do Americans have a worldview more like ancient Romans than the biblical worldview spelled out in the Bible?  In some ways, yes, and in other ways, not so much.

The philosopher George Santayana once said: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” To which I might add that those who remember Santayana’s maxim also seem condemned to repeat the phrase.

Ask anyone if they see similarities between Rome and America, and they are likely to respond with a resounding, “Yes!” But I have also found that people who see similarities between Rome and America see different similarities. Some see similarities in our moral decay. Others see similarities in pride, arrogance, and hubris. But all seem to agree that we are repeating the mistakes of the past and need to change our ways.

In his book Are We Rome?, Cullen Murphy argues that there are many similarities between the Roman Empire and America.{1} But he also believes that the American national character couldn’t be more different from Rome. He believes those differences can help us avoid Rome’s fate.

Let’s begin by looking at some of the political, geographical, and demographic similarities.{2}

1. Dominant powers: “Rome and America are the most powerful actors in their world, by many orders of magnitude. Their power includes both military might and the ‘soft power’ of language, culture, commerce, technology, and ideas.”

2. Approximately equal in size: “Rome and America are comparable in physical size—the Roman Empire and its Mediterranean lake would fit inside the three million square miles of the Lower Forty-eight states, though without a lot to spare.”

3. Global influence: “Both Rome and America created global structures—administrative, economic, military, cultural—that the rest of the world and their own citizens came to take for granted, as gravity and photosynthesis are taken for granted.”

4. Open society: “Both are societies made up of many peoples—open to newcomers, willing to absorb the genes and lifestyles and gods of everyone else, and to grant citizenship to incoming tribes from all corners of the earth.”

5. Culturally similar: “Romans and Americans can’t get enough of laws and lawyers and lawsuits. . . . They relish the ritual humiliation of public figures: Americans through comedy and satire, talk radio and Court TV; the Romans through vicious satire, to be sure, but also, during the republic, by means of the censorial nota, the public airing, name by name, of everything great men of the time should be ashamed of.”

6. Chosen people: “Both see themselves as chosen people, and both see their national character as exceptional.”

While there are many similarities, there are also profound differences between Rome and America. Before we look at the six major parallels that Murphy talks about, we need to remind ourselves that there are many distinct differences between Rome and America.

It is no real surprise that people from different political and religious perspectives see similarities between Rome and America. While some see similarities in moral decay, others see it in military might or political corruption. Although there are many similarities between Rome and America, there are some notable differences.

Cullen Murphy points out these significant differences.{3}

1. Technological advancement: “Rome in all its long history never left the Iron Age, whereas America in its short history has already leapt through the Industrial Age to the Information Age and the Biotech Age.”

2. Abundance: “Wealthy as it was, Rome lived close to the edge; many regions were one dry spell away from famine. America enjoys an economy of abundance, ever surfeit; it must beware the diseases of overindulgence.”

3. Slavery: “Rome was always a slaveholding polity with the profound moral and social retardation that this implies; America started out as a slaveholding polity and decisively cast slavery aside.”

4. Government: “Rome emerged out of a city-state and took centuries to let go of a city-state’s method of governance; America from early on began to administer itself as a continental power.”

5. Social classes: “Rome had no middle class as we understand the term, whereas for America the middle class is the core social fact.”

6. Democracy: “Rome had a powerful but tiny aristocracy and entrenched ideas about the social pecking order; even at its most democratic, Rome was not remotely as democratic as America at its least democratic, under a British monarch.”

7. Entrepreneurship: “Romans looked down upon entrepreneurship, which Americans hold in the highest esteem.”

8. Economic dynamism: “Rome was economically static; America is economically transformative.”

9. Technological development: “For all it engineering skills, Rome generated few original ideas in science and technology; America is a hothouse of innovation and creativity.”

10. Social equality: “On basic matters such as gender roles and the equality of all people, Romans and Americans would behold one another with disbelief and distaste.”

While it is true that Rome and America have a vast number of similarities, we can also see there are significant differences between the two. We therefore need a nuanced view of the parallels between the two civilizations and recognize that these differences may be an important key in understanding the future of the United States.

Murphy sees many parallels between the Roman Empire and America in addition to the above.{4} The following are larger, more extensive, parallels.

The first parallel is perspective. It actually involves “the way Americans see America; and more to the point, the way the tiny, elite subset of Americans who live in the nation’s capital see America—and see Washington itself.”

Like the Romans, Americans tend to see themselves as more important than they are. They tend to have an exaggerated sense of their own presence in the world and its ability to act alone.

A second parallel involves military power. Although there are differences, some similarities stand out. Both Rome and America start to run short of people to sustain their militaries and began to find recruits through outside sources. This is not a good long-run solution.

A third parallel can be lumped under the term privatization. “Rome had trouble maintaining a distinction between public and private responsibilities.” America is currently in the midst of privatizing functions that used to be public tasks.

A fourth parallel concerns the way Rome and America view the outside world. In a sense, this is merely the flip side of the first parallel. If you believe your country is exceptional, you tend to devalue others. And more importantly, you tend to underestimate another nation’s capabilities. Rome learned this in A.D. 9 when three legions were ambushed by a smaller German force and annihilated.{5} The repercussions were significant.

The question of borders is a fifth parallel. The boundary of Rome “was less a fence and more a threshold—not so much a firm line fortified with ‘Keep Out’ signs as a permeable zone of continual interaction.” Compare that description to our border with Mexico, and so can see many similarities.

A final parallel has to do with size and complexity. The Roman Empire got too big physically and too complex to manage effectively. The larger a country or civilization, the more “it touches, and the more susceptible it is to forces beyond its control.” To use a phrase by Murphy: “Bureaucracy is the new geography.”{6}

Cullen Murphy concludes his book by calling for greater citizen engagement and for us to promote a sense of community and mutual obligation. The Roman historian Livy wrote, “An empire remains powerful so long as its subjects rejoice in it.” America is not beyond repair, but it needs to learn the lessons from the Roman Empire.

What about the moral decline of Rome? Do we see parallels in America? I have addressed this in previous articles such as “The Decline of a Nation” and “When Nations Die.”{7} Let’s focus on the area of sexuality, marriage, and family.

In his 1934 book, Sex and Culture, British anthropologist Joseph Daniel Unwin chronicled the historical decline of numerous cultures, including the Roman Empire. He found that cultures that held to a strong sexual ethic thrived and were more productive than cultures that were “sexually free.”{8}

In his book Our Dance Has Turned to Death, Carl Wilson identifies the common pattern of family decline in civilizations like the Roman Empire.{9} It is significant how these seven stages parallel what is happening in America.

In the first stage, men ceased to lead their families in worship. Spiritual and moral development became secondary. Their view of God became naturalistic, mathematical, and mechanical.

In the second stage, men selfishly neglected care of their wives and children to pursue material wealth, political and military power, and cultural development. Material values began to dominate thought.

The third stage involved a change in men’s sexual values. Men who were preoccupied with business or war either neglected their wives sexually or became involved with lower-class women or with homosexuality. Ultimately, a double standard of morality developed.

The fourth stage affected women. The role of women at home and with children lost value and status. Women were neglected and their roles devalued. Soon they revolted to gain access to material wealth and also freedom for sex outside marriage. Women also began to minimize having sex relations to conceive children, and the emphasis became sex for pleasure.

In the fifth stage, husbands and wives competed against each other for money, home leadership, and the affection of their children. This resulted in hostility and frustration and possible homosexuality in the children. Many marriages ended in separation and divorce.

In the sixth stage, selfish individualism grew and carried over into society, fragmenting it into smaller and smaller group loyalties. The nation was thus weakened by internal conflict. The decrease in the birthrate produced an older population that had less ability to defend itself and less will to do so, making the nation more vulnerable to its enemies.

Finally, unbelief in God became more complete, parental authority diminished, and ethical and moral principles disappeared, affecting the economy and government. Because of internal weakness and fragmentation, the society came apart.

We can see these stages play out in the decline of the Roman Empire. But we can also see them happening before our eyes in America.

What about the spiritual decline in Rome and America? We can actually read about the spiritual decline in Rome in Paul’s letter to the church in Rome. In the opening chapter he traces a progression of spiritual decline that was evident in the Hellenistic world of his time.

The first stage is when people turn from God to idolatry. Although God has revealed Himself in nature to all men so that they are without excuse, they nevertheless worship the creation instead of the Creator. This is idolatry. In the past, this took the form of actual idol worship. In our day, it takes the form of the worship of money or the worship of self. In either case, it is idolatry. A further example of this is a general lack of thankfulness. Although they were prospered by God, they were ungrateful. And when they are no longer looking to God for wisdom and guidance, they become vain and futile and empty in their imaginations. They no longer honor God, so their foolish hearts become darkened. In professing to be wise, they have become fools.

The second stage is when men and women exchange their natural use of sex for unnatural uses. Here Paul says those four sobering words, “God gave them over.” In a society where lust-driven sensuality and sexual perversion dominate, God gives them over to their degrading passions and unnatural desires.

The third stage is anarchy. Once a society has rejected God’s revelation, it is on its own. Moral and social anarchy is the natural result. At this point God has given the sinners over to a depraved mind and so they do things which are not proper. This results in a society which is without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, and unmerciful.

The final stage is judgment. God’s judgment rightly falls upon those who practice idolatry and immorality. Certainly an eternal judgment awaits those who are guilty, but a social judgment occurs when God gives a nation over to its sinful practices.

Notice that this progression is not unique to the Hellenistic world the apostle Paul was living in. The progression from idolatry to sexual perversion to anarchy to judgment is found throughout history.

In the times of Noah and Lot, there was the idolatry of greed, there was sexual perversion and promiscuity, there was anarchy and violence, and finally there was judgment. Throughout the history of the nation of Israel there was idolatry, sexual perversion, anarchy (in which each person did what was right in his own eyes), and finally judgment.

Are there parallels between Rome and America? I have quoted from secular authors, Christian authors, and a writer of much of the New Testament. All seem to point to parallels between Rome and America.

Notes

1. Cullen Murphy, Are We Rome? The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2007).

2. Ibid., 14-15.
3. Ibid., 16-17.
4. Ibid., 18-20.
5. Ibid., 122.
6. Ibid., 135.
7. Kerby Anderson, “The Decline of a Nation,” Probe Ministries, 1991, and “When Nations Die,” 2002; both available on Probe’s Web site, www.probe.org.
8. J.D. Unwin, Sex and Culture (London: Oxford University, 1934).
9. Carl Wilson, Our Dance Has Turned to Death (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale, 1981), 84-85.

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Where Did God Come From?

augustinehippo1June 3, 2021Uncategorized

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by	Eric Lyons, M.Min.

 

Where did God come from? Most everyone knows the Christian’s response to this question: “God is eternal. He did not ‘come from’ anywhere.” Although atheists may think that this answer is unscientific and merely an attempt to avoid the question, in truth, observation and reason declare otherwise.

The question “Where did God come from?” (or “What caused God?”) assumes that God had a cause. However, by definition, an eternal spirit (“the everlasting God”) cannot logically have a cause. Asking about God’s cause (or origin) is as incoherent as asking “Why matter is eternal?” Matter is not eternal. Matter is no more an eternal essence without a cause than God is a physical being with a cause. Asking “where did God come from?” is like asking “when did eternity start?” By definition, eternity never began. Eternity, by definition, is without beginning and end. By definition, so is God.

Consider that in nature, matter and energy are neither created nor destroyed. Scientists refer to this observed fact as the First Law of Thermodynamics. Evolutionists allege that the Universe began with the explosion of a ball of matter 13 to 14 billion years ago, yet they never have provided a reasonable explanation for the cause of the “original” ball of matter. Evolutionist David Shiga made an attempt a few years ago in an issue of New Scientistmagazine in his cover story, “The Beginning: What Triggered the Big Bang.” Interestingly, in the last line of the article, Shiga admitted: “[T]he quest to understand the origin of the universe seems destined to continue until we can answer a deeper question: why is there anything at all instead of nothing?”1 The fact is, a logical, naturalistic explanation for the origin of the “original” ball of matter that supposedly led to the Universe does not exist. It cannot exist so long as the First Law of Thermodynamics is true (that matter and energy cannot create themselves).

Since the physical Universe exists, and yet it could not have created itself, then the Universe is either eternal, or else some thing or some One outside of the Universe must have created it. Relatively few scientists propose that the Universe is eternal. In fact, there would be no point in attempting to explain the “beginning” of the Universe (with a Big Bang, for example) if scientists believed it has always existed. What’s more, the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which states that matter and energy become less usable over time, has led scientists to conclude that the Universe has not always existed; that is, it is not eternal.2

So why don’t the laws of thermodynamics or the law of causality3 apply to God? Because these scientific laws, like all scientific laws, apply to what we find and study in nature. Again, by definition, God is not natural and thus logically is not subject to the laws of nature.

In short, if matter is not eternal, and it cannot create itself, then the only logical conclusion is that some thing or some One outside of nature (i.e., supernatural) caused the material Universe and everything in it. Christians call this Someone, “the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth” (Isaiah 40:28).

ENDNOTES

1 David Shiga (2007), “The Universe Before Ours,” New Scientist, 194[2601]:33, April 28.

2 For additional information on the Laws of Thermodynamics, see Jeff Miller (2013), “Evolution and the Laws of Science: The Laws of Thermodynamics,” http://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?article=2786. 

3 This law states that “every material effect must have an adequate antecedent or simultaneous cause.” For more information, see Jeff Miller (2011), Evolution and the Laws of Science: The Law of Causality,” http://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=9&article=3716.

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