The Bible tells us about the beginning of history by giving an account of the creation of the world (Gen. 1–2). It tells us about the goal of history by telling us about the new heaven and the new earth to come (Rev. 21:1–22:5). We ourselves, and all the things and events around us, dwell in the time in between. The events in the in-between times have significance. That significance comes from God. Events unfold from an origin shaped by God. And they all have purposes, because they lead forward to a goal shaped by God. Each event happens in accord with God’s plan (Isa. 46:9–10; Lam. 3:37–38; Eph. 1:11). Each event is known by God from all eternity, because it is planned by him.

Is there a distinctively Christian approach to history? And if so, what does it look like in practice? How should we think about history? How should we write about history? How should we read critically the historical accounts of the past? How should each of us think about his own personal history and the history of relatives and friends?
Everyone participates in a single large historical stream of events, traveling from past to future. So does it make any difference what one believes about the events? As we read the Bible, we find that there are several ways in which God guides us to think in a distinct way about history.
Meaning
Our beliefs about history make a difference because everyone wants to find meaning in history. If there is no God, if each of us is just atoms in motion, there is no overall meaning. All of it is “sound and fury, signifying nothing.”1[1] Out of his own mind, each person can still try to invent his own personal meaning for himself and for his surroundings. But deep down he is aware that it is his invention. It signifies nothing, ultimately, because in the end we are all dead. Such a picture is bleak.
By contrast, the Bible indicates that events have meaning, given by God. We ourselves are human beings created in the image of God (Gen. 1:26–27). We have significance as persons. God is personal, and he has created us as persons. We are to live in fellowship with him.
The Bible tells us about the beginning of history by giving an account of the creation of the world (Gen. 1–2). It tells us about the goal of history by telling us about the new heaven and the new earth to come (Rev. 21:1–22:5). We ourselves, and all the things and events around us, dwell in the time in between. The events in the in-between times have significance. That significance comes from God. Events unfold from an origin shaped by God. And they all have purposes, because they lead forward to a goal shaped by God. Each event happens in accord with God’s plan (Isa. 46:9–10; Lam. 3:37–38; Eph. 1:11). Each event is known by God from all eternity, because it is planned by him.
In sum, we can have meaning in our lives because God gives meaning. Christians, unlike many other people with different views, believe in a God of meaning. This is important even when we cannot presently discern the meaning.
God’s Control
One primary principle is that God is in charge of events, both big and small.
[God] removes kings and sets up kings.—Dan. 2:21
Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered.—Matt. 10:29–30
His rule is comprehensive:
Who has spoken and it came to pass,unless the Lord has commanded it?Is it not from the mouth of the Most Highthat good and bad come?—Lam. 3:37–38
As a result, Christians have a source of security. The universe is under the control of our loving Father. His control is thorough and meticulous. We need to acknowledge his sovereignty and to give him thanks: “give thanks in all circumstances” (1 Thess. 5:18).
History involves events, persons, and the meanings that belong to them. All three—the events, the persons, and the meaning—come from God. All fit together into a coherent whole, because there is only one God who rules over all (Ps. 103:19).
God’s Purposes
If God is involved in everyone’s life, in all circumstances, what are the implications? The first implication is to acknowledge his presence and to be aware of his presence. But how? There are two extremes to avoid.
Overconfidence about Purposes
One extreme is to be overconfident that we can know and discern God’s purposes in the details of events. The Bible tells us about God’s overall goal and his overall purpose, to “unite all things in him [Christ], things in heaven and things on earth” (Eph. 1:10). It also indicates that a prime means for moving toward that goal is the spread of the gospel: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations. . . . ”(Matt. 28:19). But what about the particulars? People sometimes make confident pronouncements. For example, Job’s friends—Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar—thought that they knew the reason for the disasters that befell Job. They said that the disasters showed that God was punishing Job for some particular sins for which he needed to repent. But the book of Job as a whole shows that they were wrong in their supposition. Likewise, when the disciples inquired in John 9:2 about the man born blind, they supposed that either he or his parents had sinned and that the calamity was the result of the sin. But Jesus answered that it was “that the works of God might be displayed in him” (Job 9:3).
God’s purposes are deep. We are not God. We need to recognize that, although God always has his purposes, many of those purposes in their details are hidden from us.
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Written by Nicholas K. Meriwether |
Monday, March 13, 2023
The ethical teachings of the Christian faith are the basis for morality in the West. Of this there can be little doubt. In which other civilization was there a war to end slavery, rather than the far more typical wars to enslave another people? Where else have women been emancipated in any way close to the status of women in the West? Where else is racism seen as a great evil, and not common sense? I would submit that these achievements would have been impossible without the ethical influence of the Christian religion.

“Well, the rules of the road have been lodged, it’s only people’s games you got to dodge.” —Bob Dylan, “It’s Alright Ma”
The ethical teachings of the Christian faith are the basis for morality in the West. Of this there can be little doubt. In which other civilization was there a war to end slavery, rather than the far more typical wars to enslave another people? Where else have women been emancipated in any way close to the status of women in the West? Where else is racism seen as a great evil, and not common sense? I would submit that these achievements would have been impossible without the ethical influence of the Christian religion.
So when Christians are asked, “Do you have a moral theory? If so, what is it?” they are likely to be confused. After all, we have the Bible, God’s Word, we have an incredibly rich tradition of ethical reflection going back centuries, as well as many contemporary theologians who regularly opine on ethical topics. We can also draw from thinkers outside the Christian tradition whose moral convictions seem to align closely with Christian morality, such as the commentator Ben Shapiro or the Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson. Why do we need to understand ethics “theoretically” if these resources enable us to answer basic ethical questions?
Perhaps we should start with the question, What is a theory, and secondly, what is a moral theory? A theory is simply an account of the nature of a thing or practice, although this question can be asked at different levels. Richard Weaver describes three levels of abstraction. The first level is practical: How can I find out what time it is? Or perhaps, How do I fix this broken clock? The second level is more of the nature of time in relation to society and culture: Does our understanding of time change over centuries, or across cultures? The third level—the highest (or perhaps deepest) level of abstraction is the level of philosophical and religious reflection: What exactly is time? Is it real? Or is it just a subjective way of understanding our experience? And how does time relate to the nature of God—Is he beyond it, or somehow within it?
So a theory of morality asks the practical question: What should I (or we) do or not do? An easy and quick, and mostly accurate definition of morality is that it has to do with what we are obligated to do or not do, not merely what we want or don’t want to do. The second level explains whether or how morality seems to change over time and across cultures, and perhaps how views of morality play out in, say, public policy or in electoral politics. Historians and social scientists are often extremely good at describing the second level. And the third level asks what morality is, and if you are a Christian, how morality relates to the nature of God.
So a moral theory provides an account at all three levels. The practical, what we should and shouldn’t do, the Do’s and Don’ts—which is what most people think of when they think of ethics. The second level is to understand why it is that morality seems to change. For example, I began above with the observation that if it weren’t for the Christian religion, slavery would likely be seen as a natural feature of social life, as Plato and Aristotle did. This is very much a second level kind of observation: The morality of the West was deeply impacted by the influence of the teachings of Christ and the Apostles. The third level is, of course, how morality relates to the nature and being of God, and to human nature, what we might think of as the metaphysics of morality.
One thing should become readily apparent, however: The three levels can’t ultimately be separated. They interact with and affect one another constantly. For example, a freshman takes a class in cultural anthropology. Strictly speaking, the student should only be learning about level 2: How morality is viewed across time and culture. However, his professor can’t help making comments such as, “So as we can see, morality really isn’t fixed or ‘absolute.’” Well, this is a level 3 observation. The professor is making a false inference from the fact of diversity at level 2 to the very nature of morality itself, one he presumably wouldn’t make if he were talking about, say, the theory of evolution, which many peoples and cultures reject. But because the student wasn’t prepared for level 2 diversity, he thinks that the absolutes he was raised with really aren’t absolutes at all. His level 3 view of morality is affected by a level 2 observation.
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The Holy Spirit of God, who first hovered over the waters of creation, spoke through prophets and Apostles, and was poured out at Pentecost as a witness to Christ’s promise of another Paraclete (comforter, sustainer, equipper, counselor). Jesus continues His ministry to His disciples by means of the Spirit as His personal, representative agent. The Spirit’s work, at all times, is to draw attention to Christ.

Creation
The ancient hymn Veni Creator Spiritus, composed in the eighth century and part of the Roman breviary of Vespers, is a hymn extolling the Holy Spirit. John Dryden’s magnificent translation renders the opening lines this way: “Creator Spirit, by whose aid the world’s foundations first were laid.”
The activity of the Holy Spirit as Creator finds expression in the second verse of the Bible! Describing the undeveloped creation as “without form and void” and in “darkness,” the author describes the Spirit of God as “hovering over the face of the waters” (Gen. 1:2). Forming a bookend at the close of this opening chapter of Scripture comes the pronouncement of the creation of man: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Gen. 1:26). The use of the pronoun “our” is a reference to the triune Godhead, which includes the Holy Spirit. From the very beginning, the Holy Spirit has been the executive of the creative activity of God. In the creation of the world, as well as the creation of man in particular, the Holy Spirit was the divine agent.
Pentecost
At the dawning of the new covenant era, Pentecost would be demonstrative of a similar work of creation, or, better, re-creation. Fallen humanity is to be transformed by the Spirit to a degree unknown under the old covenant.
In an action that was meant to be symbolic of Pentecost, Jesus, in an incident that followed His resurrection, illustrated Pentecost’s significance by breathing on His disciples and saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22). The action is a reminder of the opening sequence of Genesis: the Holy Spirit, the “breath of God,” is the agent of the “breath of life” (Gen 2:7; John 20:22). As God breathed life into Adam, so Jesus, “the last Adam,” breathes new life into His people. Jesus becomes, in Paul’s language, “a life-giving spirit” (1 Cor. 15:45). Pentecost was an epochal event, signifying the dawning of a new era.
Midway between creation and re-creation, Pentecost is the point after which it can be said, “the end of the ages has dawned” (1 Cor. 10:11). Historically, at nine o’clock in the morning, the Spirit gave the disciples a clear understanding of Jesus’ role in redemption and consummation, equipping them with extraordinary boldness in making Jesus known. The gift of tongues that accompanied the outpouring of the Spirit enabled folk from different countries to hear the gospel in their own languages. In an instant, the curse of Babel was arrested (Gen. 11:7–9). Spirit empowered disciples were thus motivated and enabled to take the message of reconciliation to the nations of the world in the certainty that God would accomplish that which He promised (Luke 24:48; Acts 1:4). What appears to be a blessing for the gentiles proves to be a judgment upon Israel. The very sound of the gospel in languages other than their own confirmed the covenantal threat of God issued in Isaiah: “For by people of strange lips and with a foreign tongue the Lord will speak to this people” (Isa. 28:11).
What was to be a blessing for the nations proved to be the very instrument of hardening to Israel, until the “fullness” of the gentiles is brought in (Rom. 11:25).
With this interpretation of Pentecost, repetition cannot be envisioned. Though history records many “outpourings” of the Spirit in extraordinary displays of revival, none of these, strictly speaking, is a repetition of Pentecost. Pentecost marked the major turning point from old to new covenantal administrations. The days of type and shadow were replaced by days of fulfillment and reality.
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