Advertise on podcast: Born to Win Podcast - with Ronald L. Dart

If you had been the midwife who helped Mary deliver the baby Jesus, and if you had been able to hold him in your arms for a few minutes, would you have thought he was precious? One of the most common expressions I ever hear when someone picks up a baby, sees a new baby, or bends over to touch a baby is, Oh, isn’t she precious? Isn’t he precious? You would have thought so, probably would have said so, and I have no doubt that is what happened that night. Something occurred to me this year that had not really occurred to me in the same way before: In making himself completely vulnerable as an infant (I don’t know how you could be any more vulnerable than that), Jesus established the value of every child that comes into the world. For they are all precious—little boys and little girls—and are about the most precious thing that will ever enter your life as a mother or father. Now, thanks to medical science, we can actually see them in the womb—moving, kicking, sucking their thumb. It is the most astonishing thing to see those things and realize what I am looking at. Mary, of course, could not see that; she could not have know it; but she certainly knew the reality of the baby that she had in the womb. Know this (and it’s just as clear as anything could ever be on the pages of the Bible): From the time of conception, Jesus’ identity was established. Don’t we all know that? Is there a Christian on this planet who does not know that Jesus’ identity was established at conception? It’s impossible to think otherwise, and from the moment of conception he was precious. The same is true of the child that some women in this room may be carrying tonight and not even know it. It is already known. It is precious. That child is known to God and it is written in his book.

Many pastors and preachers see nothing wrong with the fact that today’s church doesn’t believe exactly the same thing as the primitive Christian church believed and taught. They place no small amount of weight upon what succeeding generations of theologians believed and taught. After all, those were learned men, and the primitive Christians were, well, primitive. They were fishermen, tax collectors, tent makers. What did they know about theology? The problem is, these fishermen, tax collectors, and tent makers are the people who have told us what Jesus taught them. A really interesting case in point is what the First Christians believed and taught about death and the afterlife.

If you have been blessed with a good Bible teacher, or some good books about the Bible, you already know that a lot has been said about the influence of Greek philosophy on the Christian faith. Some of it is even true. After all, the New Testament was written originally in the Greek language, and the language reflects a Greek worldview to that extent. That said, every author of every book appears to have been Jewish, and it is a Jewish worldview that is seen in the pages of the Greek text. There are, though, two Greeks whose ideas did have considerable influence among second and third generations of Christians. Their names are familiar: Socrates and Plato. Let’s contrast the deaths of Jesus and of Socrates (as well as the anticipation of their deaths) to help us better answer a fundamental question: What did the First Christians believe about death?

Many years ago, before I learned better about arguing religion, I was engaged in a discussion focused on people who never even heard the name of Jesus anytime in their lives. How could it be right for God to torture these people forever? Tell me he is just going to leave them dead and we have one picture. Tell me he has arranged for their eternal torment and we have another altogether. And then, there are the children. Are all these people, including countless children, who had never had a chance to be saved going to burn for all eternity? Perhaps you say, Well, I believe that God will make a way. Well, then you and I would be in agreement. But I think it would be strange indeed if in all the pages of the Bible, we couldn’t find so much as a hint as to what that way is.

I hesitate to tell you this, because when you find out what I want to talk about, you are liable to punch the button on your radio, click a button in your browser, and head off into other pursuits. I have given this a lot of thought and study, and I have come to the conclusion that, sooner or later, one way or another, we are all going to die. See, I knew you would want to buzz off, but stay with me a minute. I take my vitamins in hope of getting rid of some of the creaks, and I follow my doctor’s instructions. But every once in a while, I stop and laugh at myself because I know I am fighting a losing battle. The battle is worth fighting, because we have a lot of work to do, but I know, and you know, that in the end, we all die. A man known to us as the Apostle Paul faced up to the same questions of mortality and suffering for different reasons (He faced death in more ways than we ever will.) and he used an interesting metaphor for the human body: a tent.

There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the division of Abijah. His wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless. But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and they were both well advanced in years. So it was, that while he was serving as priest before God in the order of his division, according to the custom of the priesthood, his lot fell to burn incense when he went into the temple of the Lord. And the whole multitude of the people was praying outside at the hour of incense. Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing on the right side of the altar of incense. And when Zacharias saw him, he was troubled, and fear fell upon him. Luke 1:5–12 NKJV

It seems to me that we of the Christian faith have lost touch with our roots in some very important ways. We are so comfortable in the modern world, so at home in it, so “in touch”, that some of our old hymns really don’t mean much to us any longer. “On Jordan’s stormy banks I stand and cast a wistful eye, To Canaan’s fair and happy land where my possessions lie”, or “This world is not my home, I’m just a-passin’ through. If heaven’s not my home, O Lord what shall I do?” What do Jordan and Canaan have to do with the Christian faith? Christians of an earlier generation found much in the history and practice of Israel that they could identify with. One of the most fundamental Christian beliefs is that we are not at home here. We are strangers and pilgrims, and we look for a better world to come.

There seems to be a difference between a secret and a mystery. At the very least, the Bible seems to use the word mystery in more than once sense. For example, there might be something that can be known but has been deliberately kept secret. Then there can be something that, even though stated, is not understood. This is the only way I can understand what Paul is saying when he declares that the conversion of the Gentiles was a mystery—that it was not made known to the sons of men. We find this discussion in Ephesians, chapter 3.

40 years ago, there were over 400 different Christian denominations and sects. They could actually be cataloged and described. By now there are probably over 4,000 and I am not sure anyone cares enough to catalog them all. If you want to find a new niche in Christianity where no one has gone before, you are going to have a hard job. Every imaginable interpretation of the Bible has spawned every imaginable sect and cult. But there is something in man that leads him to want to move beyond the canned corporate worship of the church and find his own personal relationship with God. This, too, is not all bad—we were probably made that way. When Paul wrote his letter to the Ephesian church in the early 60s, he was confronting some of the same issues.

Unity is an abnormal state in the world at large. In fact, the only time there has ever been even a semblance of unity has been under force of arms. It is odd in a way, because there seems to be yearning in the human heart for unity. But we are destined to struggle with one another, and for what? Is it for power, for money, for control? Maybe. But there may be something more elemental at work. We have known for a very long time that one of the most basic drives in a human being is the desire to be free from external restraint. Down through time, the struggle between man’s desire for unity and man’s desire to be free has gone on. The reason I raise the question is because, in our study of Christian origins, we have come to the Book of Ephesians. The basic theme of Ephesians is unity. It is not hard to imagine how frustrated Paul was by now with the fractiousness of the church.