Written by Reuben M. Bredenhof |
Saturday, August 20, 2022
Not long after John 11, Jesus will come out of his own grave in triumph over Satan and death. It is through the power of Christ’s resurrection that faith lives within us, together with hope, and love. And when we are made alive in Christ, death can no longer keep its hold on us. Believers still die, but now we’re joined to the One who is “the resurrection and the life.”

Death happens every day. Every day people die from cancer and drug overdoses and car crashes. Every day there are funerals at the local cemeteries. I read that about 160,000 people die each day, all around the world—that’s a lot of death.
And that’s just physical death. Think of the pandemic of spiritual death in this world, the many millions who are living without God and a knowledge of Christ. They are dead in trespasses and sins—just like we would be, apart from God’s grace.
So how wondrous is the good news in John 11:25, where Jesus announces with another of the seven “I am” declarations,
I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, though he may die, he shall live.
Not far in the background of Jesus’s saying is the raising of Lazarus back to life. Lazarus, together with his two sisters Mary and Martha, were good friends of the Lord Jesus. But Lazarus had become very sick and was fading fast. It seemed like Jesus had an opportunity to go and heal him, but He delayed his journey. Now, when Jesus is finally near Bethany, Lazarus has been dead for four days.
Martha has gone out to meet Jesus on his way. We suppose that she is broken with grief over losing her brother. But despite her sadness, she speaks of great confidence in the Lord. And Jesus responds: “Your brother will rise again” (v. 23). On this dark day, the gospel is beginning to shine. Death isn’t the end, not for Lazarus, nor for anyone who believes.
Now, Martha knows already that Jesus has power to do incredible wonders. But she can’t imagine how Jesus can do something about her dead brother, here and now. This is what she says: “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day” (v. 24). She’s probably thinking about the Old Testament promises of resurrection, like in Psalm 16, and she is sure that God will raise her loved one on the great day of the Lord.
In response, Jesus doesn’t say, “Nice try, Martha, but think again.” He doesn’t correct her, but He shifts the focus onto himself. He will transform God’s promise of resurrection. For Martha is speaking with the person who is the sure fulfillment of every ancient word. “In me,” He says, “the resurrection has already come!”
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We will forever be in God’s temple, the eternal place where God is known, served, worshipped, and present. Redeemed sinners, then sanctified, and glorified, will dwell forever with a Holy God because the Lamb who was slain ransomed them and ushers them into his presence forever in the perfect temple dwelling of God.

Temples do not have very positive connotations in the 21st Century. People often think of temples as being bound up with stuffy religious things like idols, icons, and the like. In the Bible, temple is an indispensable and foundational category for our understanding.
So we must ask ourselves: What is the Bible’s true vision for the temple? We need to ask questions like: What story does the Bible tell with all of its temple language? Where does the Bible’s story of temple begin? Where does it take us?
The Biblical story begins with humanity being banished from God’s presence. The big problem in the Bible from the beginning is this: We have been separated from God. God designed a garden paradise in which humanity was to dwell with him forever. But because of sin, he exiled us from the Garden and his presence. And so Genesis 4 all the way through to Revelation 22 sets out to answer the question: “How can sinful humanity dwell with God again?” Its answer is temple.
Creation’s Garden Temple
The temple theme begins in Genesis 1-3 where temple gets introduced as the meeting place between God and humanity. The temple mediates the presence of God to his people. The Garden of Eden functions very much in this way.
Jim Hamilton says:
“Shakespeare showed his genius in a theatre named the globe. It would be the place where he would display the stories of his creative mind and heart. The real world, where God shows his genius, is the archetype of the theatre where Shakespeare showed his. God built this stage to show his craft. The world is a theater for the display of God’s glory…It is the place where God is known, served, worshipped, and present.”[1]
Therefore, the world is God’s temple. Hamilton continues, “God built the earth as his temple, and in it he put his image and likeness. The realm that God has created is a cosmic temple; the image God put in the temple to represent himself is mankind.”[2] The world is God’s temple. Humanity is God’s image. The temple story begins on this foundation.
There is much evidence throughout Scripture that the Biblical authors view creation as a kind of temple structure. Genesis 3:8 says, “humanity heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.” The literal phrase there is “God walked to and fro.” This same phrase appears again when King David comes to God, wanting to build him a temple and the LORD said back to David, “Since the day I brought Israel up from Egypt, I have been moving about in a tent for my dwelling” (2 Sam 2:6-7). The language God uses for his moving about in the tabernacle picks up on the language God used for his moving to and fro in the garden.
In addition, the job description of the first temple dwellers, God’s first image-bearers, Adam and Eve, matches the job description of the first priests or temple-servants later on in the Bible. Adam and Eve also performed the first sacrifice in Scripture. We’re told, “The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden to work it and keep it” (Gen 2:15).
This language is only used elsewhere in the Bible to describe the Levitical priests. Numbers 3:5-7 says, “The LORD spoke to Moses saying, ‘Bring the tribe of Levi near… They shall keep guard over the whole congregation before the tent of meeting, as they work at the tabernacle.’”[3] In this sense, Adam and Eve, God’s temple images in the garden, were prototypes of what would one day become priests in the tabernacle.
Priests were those who offered sacrifices in the temple on behalf of their own sins and the sins of the people. And so too Adam would have his sins atoned for, and the sins of his wife, through a substitutionary sacrifice that would “cover” or atone for their sins (Gen 3:21).
The Wilderness Tabernacle
Eventually, Jacob, one of the patriarchs, a descendant of Adam, Noah, and Abraham, would have twelve sons, and their descendants wound up enslaved in Egypt (Ex 1:13). God heard the cries of his people, and raised up Moses to deliver Israel from their slavery (Ex 2:23-3:10). He delivered them through the Red Sea and into the wilderness (Ex 14).
Israel sojourned there for much longer than they would have hoped. God judged them by prolonging their wilderness wanderings for forty years because of their thankless and faithless grumbling and idolatry (Ex 16; 32). But as he did in the garden, God would not give up on dwelling with his people.
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Written by Joseph A. Kohm Jr. |
Friday, September 1, 2023
Lewis points out that in previous ages, wisdom and virtue led to conforming the soul to reality in pursuit of becoming truly human. Now, the conditioners discard humanity by subduing “reality to the wishes of men” (77). Lewis argues that reality is subdued by replacing conformity with technological solutions, which may include rewiring the circuitry of our cells, implanting chips in our brains, or providing teenagers with puberty blockers.

In May 2023, Elon Musk’s company Neuralink received approval from the Food and Drug Administration to begin clinical trials on humans. Neuralink develops brain-computer interface technology where an implant is placed onto the surface of the brain, facilitating a connection between the subject’s electrical brain activity and electronic devices.
The company had previously been using animals in trials, and several years ago they released a short video of a monkey, who had Neuralink’s technology implanted in his brain, controlling the cursors and paddles in video games merely by thinking of doing it.
In February 1943, C. S. Lewis gave a series of lectures on education, which were published as The Abolition of Man. When they were delivered over three successive nights 80 years ago for the University of Durham, there was no way he was thinking of monkeys playing video games. However, in his earlier work That Hideous Strength, he depicted a world in which such absurdities could have been imagined.
In a 1955 letter to his American friend Mary Willis Shelburne, Lewis bemoaned that The Abolition of Man, though it was one of his favorite books, had been “almost totally ignored by the public.” We’d do well not to ignore it today.
The Abolition of Man is a powerful work for our day because, in many ways, Lewis predicted the future. He foresaw the rise of trends we’re currently experiencing: ethical emotivism, the sometimes unquestioned authority of science, and the increasing use of technology by states to control their populations.
Subjective Poison
In the first lecture, “Men Without Chests,” Lewis deconstructs an educational model subtly imposed on children via a language arts textbook, which he renames to protect the authors. The unstated worldview behind The Green Book serves to inoculate young minds against objective values by identifying all values with feelings and emotions. For example, awe in response to a waterfall is simply a reflection of the person’s attitude, not the sublimity of the waterfall itself. 
Instead, Lewis argues that educators must teach students to detect and respond appropriately to objective reality. Teachers must plant “just sentiments” in the fertile minds of their students (14).
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