Last month I discussed some of the things in the Bible that I don’t know. This month we shall consider more (continuing with the numbering system started last month).
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What will happen tomorrow:
“Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth” (Prov. 27:1).
“Now listen, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.’ Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes” (James 4:13,14).
Far from knowing the day or the hour, the time or the season, when Christ will return [see Editorial, last month]… I don’t even know “what will happen tomorrow”, even in the most mundane matters — even in those matters with which I am personally concerned. Such is the extent of what I don’t know.
But the fact that I don’t know these things (if I will but admit it to myself) teaches me something extraordinarily important. It teaches me to avoid the proud, presumptuous attitudes of the Israelites described by Isaiah. The prophet pictures them calling to one another:
“Come… let me get wine! Let us drink our fill of beer! And tomorrow will be like today, or even far better” (Isa. 56:12).
They are the same sort of which the apostle Peter writes, the last-days scoffers who say:
“Where is the ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation” (2 Pet. 3:4)
implying they can count on everything continuing on the same, day after day, and year after year. What folly!
What may I learn from “what I don’t know”? I may learn:
(a) to avoid setting dates as though I have some “private line” to God’s inner counsel;
(b) to refrain from planning out my life to the last detail, thus leaving room for God to give me guidance and direction (by whatever method He might use);
(c) to hold with a light grasp all material “things”, which are temporary and passing away (1 Cor. 7:30,31; 1 John 2:17), and to cling more fiercely to all spiritual things, which even if unseen are eternal (2 Cor. 4:18); and
(d) to value life, each day, as a gift from God, and an irreplaceable opportunity — rather than simply one more day to “build bigger barns” (Luke 12:16-21) in preparation for a “tomorrow” that may never come!
I do know something much more profound than exactly what will happen tomorrow, or the day after. I know that — whatever happens — “the Lord’s will” will be done:
“Instead, you ought to say, ‘If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that’ ” (James 4:15)!
I do not know what tomorrow holds, but I do know Who holds tomorrow! I think that’s a fair trade-off.
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How the “seed” planted by the farmer grows in the earth:
Firstly, there is the natural wonder of the planted seed, and its growth:
“A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how” (Mark 4:26,27).
Secondly, since the sowing of seed is the basis of Christ’s parable, neither can I know how the “seed” of God’s word, once planted in human “soil”, grows to produce faith and righteousness, to His honor and glory. Like the farmer, even if we plant the seed and water it diligently, it is not within our power to determine whether it sprouts and produces fruit. No matter who plants or waters, or how they do it, God alone gives the increase as He chooses (1 Cor. 3:6). And he does so in His own time and in His own way.
And, thirdly — such a wonder is the parable of the “seed” in the Bible! — God intends this transformation and growth of the planted seed to give us one more picture. Dimly though we might perceive it, the process describes how the natural body, dead and buried, becomes — in God’s own time — the spiritual body, revived and immortalized!
“What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body” (1 Cor. 15:36-38).
How simple it sounds! But still we can scarcely comprehend its meaning.
So, while I do not know how the seed germinates and multiplies, one thing I do know: it is not by my wisdom or effort — nor even by the wisdom of the greatest botanist or geneticist — that it is accomplished. It is only by the power of God.
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What I ought to pray for
“The Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express” (Rom. 8:26).
First of all, let’s have a bit of explanation. Instead of “the Spirit itself” (KJV), most modern versions render “the Spirit himself” (the NIV, cited above, as well as the RV, RSV, and NEB). There seems to be no textual reason why the newer rendering should not be allowed. The only problem in this translation would be a presumed support for the personality of the Holy Spirit, and the belief in a three-person ‘Trinity’. But if we understand that “the Spirit” may refer to Christ, then the “himself” is perfectly natural.
May Christ be referred to as “the Spirit himself”?
(a) Christ is called “Spirit” in other New Testament passages, such as 1 Corinthians 15:45 (“The last Adam [became] a life-giving spirit”). It is to this verse John Thomas refers when he writes of Christ, who “as the Quickening Spirit, makes intercession for (believers) according to the Divine Will — Rom. 8:26,27” (Eureka, 2, p. 356).
(b) That this view was held by at least some of the other pioneer Christadelphians is shown by the first verse of one of Bro. David Brown’s hymns (Number 174 in the new book):
“We come, O God, to bow
Before Thy throne;
To pay our solemn vow
Through Thy dear Son.
He is our High Priest there
To incense faithful prayer;
Hear, gracious Father, hear
His spirit’s groan” —
which is of course a further reference to Romans 8:26.
(c) In the letters to the seven ecclesias in Asia Minor (e.g., Rev. 2:7,11,17, etc.), Christ refers to himself repeatedly as “the Spirit”.
(d) Romans 8:26, in which “the Spirit” intercedes for believers, is parallel to verses 27 and 34, where Christ is undoubtedly the intercessor. The Holy Spirit, as a separate entity, can no more be the intercessor for believers than can the mythical Virgin, “Mary, Mother of God”!
(e) The “sighs of compassion” (Rom. 8:26) are a reflection of Christ’s humanity and intense fellow-feeling with us. Related Greek words elsewhere describe such feelings: “Then some people brought to him a man who was deaf and could hardly talk… Then he spit, and touched the man’s tongue. He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him… ‘Be opened’ ” (Mark 7:32-34). “The Pharisees came and began to question Jesus. To test him, they asked him for a sign from heaven. He sighed ..” (Mark 8:11,12).
We have good reason, then, to see Jesus Christ as the one who “helps” or “sympathizes with” us in our weaknesses (cp. Heb. 2:18; 4:15; 5:2), as well as our only mediator and intercessor (1 Tim. 2:5; 1 Cor. 8:6; Gal. 3:19,20; Heb. 7:25; 8:6; 9:15; 12:24). So there is good reason also to see him as “the Spirit” in Romans 8:26.
Continuing, then, with Paul’s words:
“We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us.”
This brings us to the “thing I don’t know”. I don’t (always? ever?) know exactly for what I should pray. For example, should I — in an intense trial — pray for that trial to be removed, or should I pray for greater faith and strength to withstand it? Should I pray for recovery for the sister who is grievously ill, or for her peaceful departure in “sleep”? How can I know for certain which is the will of God? It may be either. In such uncertainties, must I always guess rightly before my God will hear my prayer? Or must I never articulate any particular prayer, for fear it will be against God’s will? Must I always pray, simply and without embellishment, “Dear Father, may all things be according to Your will…”?
Here, I believe, “what I don’t know” is offset by “what I do know” — that Christ — “the Quickening Spirit” in Dr. Thomas’ words — will himself intercede for me. He will do this with “groans that words cannot express” (NIV), “with sighs too deep for words” (RSV), or perhaps “in sighs of compassion that I cannot hear.” My feeble attempts to pray may well be inadequate to express all that I know, or all that I wish, or all that I hope for. But when that is the case, then he — my Savior, my intercessor, my friend — will, like the priest that he is, take the offering of my prayer, imperfect as it is, and prepare it properly to be placed on his Father’s “altar”… so that it will be an acceptable gift to Him. This I believe.
“As the priest arranged upon the altar the sacrifices of men, so our Lord rearranges our feeble utterances so that they are in accordance with the will of God — if in faith we pray through him” (Cyril Tennant, Prayer: Studies in Principle and Practice, pp. 93,94).
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One