Written by Vern S. Poythress |
Thursday, July 28, 2022
Since every truth reveals God, we can be confident in talking about God to unbelievers. Frequently, they do not acknowledge God’s presence in their lives. But he is there. They rely on him. As Romans 1:21 reminds us, they “know” God, but they suppress that knowledge. They know God even in the process of saying anything that is true. The challenge for us is not to speak into a situation of complete ignorance, but to speak about God and his redemption in Christ. And then we pray that God may send the Holy Spirit to change their hearts. May he use our speech, our expressions of truths, in bringing unbelievers to faith. 

The Attributes of Truth
Let us consider a particular example of a truth: 2 + 2 = 4. This is true everywhere, throughout the universe. It is true at all times. Its truth does not change over time.1 So truth has three key attributes: omnipresence (everywhere present), everlastingness (through all times), and unchangeability (immutability). Unchangeability is actually stronger than the mere fact of no change. We are saying not only that truth does not change but that it could not change. These three features of truth are attributes of God. God is omnipresent, everlasting, and unchangeable.
Truth as Eternal
We can make a further, more refined point about everlastingness. God is not subject to time or captured by time. He is superior to time. So we may say that he is eternal.2 The new heavens and the new earth, together with those who are redeemed in Christ, exist in the future without end, which means that they are everlasting. But they are still subject to time. God is different: he is superior to time; he is eternal. In addition, the truth that 2 + 2 = 4 seems to be different. It is specified by God. As such, it is not subject to change with the passing of time.

Tensed Truths

In some ways, mathematical truths like 2 + 2 = 4 are special, because they do not need to specify any one moment in time. Suppose, then, that we consider a truth that does have a time frame: Jesus Christ suffered under Pontius Pilate.3 The name Pontius Pilate fixes the time frame as the first century. There is also an implicit geographical frame, namely the location of Jerusalem, where Pontius Pilate was ruling. The verb “suffered” accordingly is in the past tense, to indicate that the time at which the event occurred preceded the time in which we are now living. There is a sense in which we might say that the truth about Jesus Christ suffering is not an “eternal” truth, but a tensed truth, a truth about a particular event. But notice that the truth about the event can be distinguished from the event itself. The event itself happened in the first century in Jerusalem, and is never to be repeated. We cannot see it directly before our eyes. But we can talk about whether it happened. (It did.) The affirmation that it happened is an affirmation that continues to be true, through all future times.
What about past times? What about the times before Jesus Christ came into the world? At those earlier times, the event of Christ’s crucifixion had not yet happened. But it was planned by God already:
. . . you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you. (1 Pet. 1:18–20)
. . . who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began. (2 Tim. 1:9) .
. . . for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. (Acts 4:27–28)
Let us consider Acts 4:27–28 in more detail. The immediately preceding verses, Acts 4:25–26, cite Psalm 2, written a thousand years earlier, to confirm that the suffering and death of Christ were already planned by God.
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A few years ago, my friend and former Breakpoint co-host Eric Metaxas wrote a book called Seven Women. While researching for the book, Metaxas made a strategic decision: he would not write about women who were merely the first women to do something men had already done — even though these were the sorts of women people kept recommending he write about.
Instead, Metaxas wrote about women who improved the world because they were women, not in spite of that fact.
Since Seven Women was published in 2016, the rise of the transgender movement has further degraded our culture’s respect for femaleness. A few weeks ago, Twitter users began sharing stories of notable women in history and claiming, under the hashtag “TransAwarenessWeek2021,” that these women weren’t women at all.
“Queen Kristina of Sweden was born female, but wore male clothing,” one user wrote. “She did not marry and inherited the Swedish crown.” Thus, we are to believe, Kristina of Sweden was transgender.
The contrast between Metaxas’ celebration of women as women and the transgender movement’s aggressive decree that any woman who does something stereotypically male must therefore be a man is profound.
Until yesterday, culturally speaking, it was our bodies, not our minds or feelings — let alone what kind of clothes we wear — that determined a person’s sex. This should especially hold true for Christians, who know that God created His world good, and His image-bearers, very good. Transgender ideology tells lies, not only about the human body, but about the inherent goodness of sexual difference itself. That’s what was happening with this Twitter trend, too.
In the name of inclusivity, transgender ideology says there is a box inside which exists all the potential actions, attitudes, and appearances of a woman. Any woman, whether centuries ago or today, who does not fit neatly inside that box must be a man. This isn’t inclusivity. This is, in fact, the most exclusive possible vision of gender and sex.
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God commands Moses to lift up this symbol and if anyone would simply look to the symbol, then they would live. And this was not lost on Jesus. In John 3:14 and 15 (the setup to John 3:16), He says, “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” He understood that this was a shadow that was pointing to Himself.

He removed the high places and broke the pillars and cut down the Asherah. And he broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it (it was called Nehushtan).
2 Kings 18:4
Did you know that it’s easy to make idols. Really anything will do. Money, status, jobs, etc… God’s word tells us that presumption and covetousness are like idolatry (Col 3:5, 1 Sam 15:23), and that we should, “flee from idolatry” (1 Cor 10:4). God expressly forbids idolatry in all its forms in the Ten Commandments. The Heidelberg Catechism defines idolatry as “having or inventing something in which one trusts in place of or alongside of the only true God, who has revealed himself in the Word.” John Calvin said that our hearts are idol factories, and I can believe it. We are often tempted to push God to the side in order to trust and be satisfied in something else.
But something about the verse at the top of this page strikes me in a different way about idolatry. Something that might not be obvious at first glance. Idols can be overtly evil, but did you know that even good things can become idols? Did you know that even things that are meant to be pictures of Christ can be turned into idols? This is where Nehushtan comes in.
Nehushtan was the name that the people of Israel had given to the bronze serpent that Moses lifted up in the wilderness.
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