Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves’ eyes. Song of Solomon 1:15

I hope you like the illustration from our art department (my 8 year old daughter plus the interns (my 5 year old twin boys)).

The Bible verse above is the only one I will mention today. It’s the first real post so I want to ease into this. The immediate context of the verse is a husband talking to his wife, and as the husband of my beautiful wife, I am a huge fan of this book. But I want to use doves’ eyes as a word picture to remind us of God’s love for His people. It’s a double metaphor. I’m not really talking about doves, and I’m not really talking about a particular woman! The Bible is full of gorgeous metaphors and poetry.

Anyway, I think God’s love for His people should be the theme that undergirds all of our discussions here. There are many things I feel the need to address on this blog, but I think it should all be in the context of God’s love for His people. I could cite many verses to justify my comparison of Christ’s relationship with his people to a husband’s relationship with his wife, but instead, I just want to chart the course today.

Have you ever heard that the gospel is the greatest love story ever told, but then felt underwhelmed when you heard the mechanics of it? Well, I will try to show you that the Biblical gospel is much more beautiful and powerful than what you have heard in the past. There are riches here. Gold, silver, dazzling rubies. Let me show you.

Keep in mind that although these ideas may be new to you, given what is commonly preached today, they are definitely not new. I am going to put in bold the parts that you probably have not heard before.

So here is what I believe. If you bear with me through these bullets, I will show you the payoff. Here we go:

• God exists in three persons, called the Trinity
  • One God
  • Three persons
  • Impossible to fully understand, and that’s OK
• God created Adam and Eve perfect in the garden
• They ate the forbidden fruit and died spiritually as a result
• This turned them, figuratively speaking, into intelligent, predatory animals in human form
• This state of depravity is passed on from Adam to the entire human race
• God, who dwells in light unapproachable, establishes eternal fire as the just punishment for sin
• Foreseeing the eating of the fruit, God also chose to save an innumerable people out of every nation, kindred, and tongue
  • These people are called the elect
  • They are chosen in spite of their abject, unmitigated depravity
  • They are not chosen because God foresaw they would choose God
• The payment for the sins of the elect was made by Jesus on the cross, not by the elect themselves
• All the elect will be given a new nature at some point in their lives
  • This is called being born again or regenerated
  • It occurs as the blowing of the wind, without any cooperation, consent or decision on the part of the person being born again
  • It can happen to someone who has never even heard of Jesus Christ
  • It causes someone to know God in the same way that a child in the womb knows his mother’s voice
    • The name isn’t known
    • The voice is known
  • It causes someone to have a basic desire to do good
  • Sin still dwells in the born again person and creates inner conflict
• This implies 4 important classifications of people
  • People who are pure evil and on their way to hell
  • People who are pure evil but belong to God and have not been regenerated yet
  • People who have been born again but are not Christians
  • Christians
• Groups b, c and d go to heaven
  • In the resurrection at the end of time, God will finish his work by regenerating the body
• Christ established the Christian church on earth
  • The Bible is God’s Word, divinely given and divinely preserved for the church
    • And I’m old school…I read the King James because that’s the one I think is divinely preserved, at least in English
  • Believing in Jesus Christ, getting baptized, joining the church, and living in a godly way are critically important things to do, but do not save us from hell
  • They DO save us from this untoward generation
  • Because godly living is so important, I read the Bible every day, I teach it to my children every day, and I teach a Bible class at church
  • I will probably also discuss, in later posts, situations in my life where I have done the right thing and seen God’s power displayed, and other situations in my life where I have done the wrong thing and paid dearly for it!

OK, you made it! Here is the payoff.

Why are some people unspeakably evil in a way that we cannot even wrap our minds around? Easy, groups a and b.

Why are some non-Christians such good people? Group c. That’s right, God gets the credit for their good works.

How can a stillborn baby go to heaven? Easy. God can regenerate anybody anywhere any time!

How can a mentally handicapped person go to heaven? Easy. God can regenerate anybody anywhere anytime!

How could someone who never heard the gospel, maybe someone in a remote mountain village, before the time of Christ, who never even heard of Israel, go to heaven? Easy. God can regenerate anybody anywhere anytime!

I know some of my Christian readers are saying “Slow down cowboy! Here are 50 verses that contradict your beliefs.” Thank you for reading my blog and thank you for reading your Bible, I really mean that. I love and respect you. I have spent my life pondering those verses you are talking about. I have prayed about them. I have listened to some preachers defend the outline above, and some preachers reject it. And in future posts, I am going to get into all the reasons I agree with the former group.

I am a math major. That means I LOVE digging into the details of something and laboring to construct an internally consistent set of ideas. Although the outline above does wonders for my soul/outlook/emotions, that is NOT the reason I believe it. I believe it because it harmonizes and respects the Bible like no other system I have ever seen. Besides, it still leaves some people going to hell, which is certainly unpleasant to contemplate. So this is not an emotion-driven belief system here.

And I know some of my non-Christian readers may be saying this is ridiculous! No one can agree on this. Why bother?? Well, I will get into that more as well, but I will just say for now: If you want gold, you have to dig.

Now one last thing which is so awesome I cannot leave it for the next post!! Remember when I said all His children get born again? Once that happens, the real you becomes holy, spotless and perfect. The real you is actually fit for heaven at that point. When you look in the mirror, you see the wrinkles, the warts, the sins. But when God looks at His people in the light of eternity, when he looks at you, he sees perfection, both physical and spiritual. He sees the dove.

So in the middle of all the crucially important hermeneutics we get into here, let’s not forget the poetry. Remember the doves’ eyes.