Why Hell?

God created us perfect. We were made immortal beings, without pain or misery or death. We were pure and perfect in every way.

Then God set us in the Garden of Eden, to work the garden and to cultivate it. And He gave us free rein over every tree and plant in the garden except one: The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

Genesis 2:16–17 (ESV)

16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

That is, the LORD God gave us free will: we could choose to eat from the tree or not eat from it. We must ask "Why?" Because love must be freely given. Love cannot be coerced, it cannot be demanded, it cannot be forced, even by God, because love that is forced is not love. And love is the greatest possible good.

But we rebelled: we chose to go our own way, rather than to exist in the perfect world that God created for us. And in our rebellion, we separated ourselves from Him. Through our first rebellion, the original sin, sin and death and misery entered the world. These things are NOT the natural order. This is NOT what God intended for us.

And so God immediately sets about making it right. I'm skipping over thousands of details here, some of which are quite profound, but we don't have time to look at all of them. The important thing is this: Jesus Christ, God incarnate, was born of a virgin, died on a cross, and rose from the grave to make a way for us to be reconciled with the God against whom we continue in rebellion, even to this day.

We all have a choice, you see. Each one of us must decide for ourselves to follow God or to follow something else. And God loves us so very much that He respects our decisions. If we want Him, we get Him. If we don't want Him, we get not Him.

That is, God loves us so very much that He will not force us into His presence against our will. Because love cannot be coerced. It must be given freely, or it is not love.

So those of us who choose to follow Him must do as He says. That sounds oppressive, but it's not; it's liberating. I can explain that if you like, but it's a similarly long explanation, and I'm trying to keep this simple.

But for those who choose not to follow Him, He will not force them into His presence. The thing is, God is the one who gives all things consistency: He is the one who holds all things together, right down to the very atomic structure of the universe: Everything we've ever seen, touched, tasted, heard, or smelt is maintained, every instant, by His power. Those who fail to see it are like fish denying the existence of the very water they swim in.

So what is hell? Hell is being outside the presence of God. Hell is wherever God does not hold things together... it is a place of absolute chaos.

The devil and his angels rejected God a long time ago, and they can never be forgiven for that sin, because they rejected what they knew to be true: they saw Him, they understood Him, and with full knowledge of Him, they rejected Him.

We can be forgiven because we do not have such knowledge. But He has given us scripture, and revelation, and prophets, and teachers, and witnesses to teach us about Him. And what is far, far more, He has given us the Holy Spirit, His Own Divine Presence, which ministers to us and calls to us, inviting us every minute of every day, to turn to Him. The Spirit sends us flowers and cards and rainbows and sunshine and music and children and light and love and life, each of these things calling us to see something greater than we are. And if we go our whole lives rejecting that call, He will not force us to spend eternity with Him.

Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Him.

Peace of Christ to you.

Why do Bad Things Happen to Us?

 What we're talking about is called "Theodicy."  It's the question of why bad things happen to good people.  And I'm afraid there may not be any satisfying answers for people in the midst of grief.  

There are answers that make sense, but in the midst of grief, we don't want "sense."  We want to know why this horrible thing happened to us, to our loved ones, or why these things have to happen at all.  

There is this wonderful quote said by someone I've never heard of which helps, I think, open a door to understanding on this issue, though.  It is this:

“If God would concede me His omnipotence for 24 hours, you would see how many changes I would make in the world. But if He gave me His wisdom too, I would leave things as they are.”

― J.M.L. Monsabre

We want to say "I would change things, I would make things better, I would fix what is broken and end the suffering."  

Atheists often say this as a refutation of the idea of God.

But we know that there is nothing God does not see.  There is nothing God does not know.  

When my son was a newborn, we took him to the Hospital for his vaccinations.  It broke my heart to hold him still while the nurse jammed a needle into his heel over and over again, giving him various shots.  I cried as much as he did.  He felt the pain, and I couldn't make the pain stop.  It crushed me.

But what my son couldn't see, that I could, was that the vaccinations would make his life better.  This pain in his foot that he didn't understand would protect him from polio, scoliosis, or several other things.

In the same way, I think, we go through pain here.  We cannot understand why we do.  We have no idea how this pain could bring about goodness.  It doesn't make sense to us.  

But we must remember that God is a loving parent for those of us who are His and that He is still in control.  That's what the quote is about: if God were to give us His power for a day, we would change the world.  But if He also gave us His wisdom, we would understand why these things are.  God, in His wisdom, understands why these things are, and leaves them as they are.

It is helpful, I think, to spend time in the story of Joseph, in the last 12 or so chapters of Genesis.  Joseph is one of two major characters in the whole Bible about which nothing bad is ever said.  But Joseph suffered his whole life.  He was sold into slavery, he was thrown in prison, he was forgotten there, and even when he was made a major ruler in Egypt, he was still not free to go home to be with his family.  Even in his luxury, Joseph suffered.

But in the end, God used Joseph's position to save not only Joseph but all of Israel.  70 people went to Egypt to be saved under Joseph's rule, and two million people came out of Egypt 430 years later.  Israel not only survived but flourished because of Joseph's suffering.  And in one line, Joseph sums it all up:  

Genesis 50:20 (ESV)

20 As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.

In the same way, I think, we suffer pain and evil here, but God means all of this for His Glory.  And His Glory is the highest calling to which any created being can attain: when we bring God glory, we fulfill our greatest purpose.  This is not to say that God causes our suffering to make Himself feel better; not at all.  We cause our own suffering when we sin, and every one of us is guilty of it.  Our sin, Paul says, corrupts the entire universe... we're broken people living in a broken reality.  But in that brokenness, we continue to praise Him, and our light shines before the world: "Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father which is in Heaven."

And as I said, in the midst of suffering, that answer is not satisfying.  It's not the answer we want, because all we can see is our suffering.  But here's the other part of it: remember when I said I was crying with my son when he was getting his shots?  

Our Father weeps with us also.  God loves us so much that He sent His Only Son to save us... and when Jesus stood at the tomb of Lazarus, He also wept.  God mourns with us; just because something brings about our good doesn't mean it doesn't hurt us, and it is right to mourn in that pain.  Consider these words of St. Paul, and do not lose heart:

2 Corinthians 4:16–18 (ESV)

16 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. 17 For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, 18 as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

The Gospels as a game of Telephone?

 We are often told that the transmission of Scripture was like the Telephone game... you know, the game where we line up kids and whisper a complex sentence into the ear of the first kid, who whispers it to the second, and so on, until the last kid in the line tries to say the sentence out loud and we all laugh at the distortion of it.

I was a Boy Scout in the 80s and the early 90s.  And we were at a campout event. We had ten boys (including myself) in our patrol, and when we lined up, I was the first boy.  The camp counselor whipsered the following sentence into my ear:

"The somewhat slick sassafras stick slides super smoothly through the super slimy snake snot."

No doubt the alliteration was meant to be a mnemonic, to help us remember.  But the tenth boy in the line said "stick... snot."

The first sentence was 14 words.  The result was two words.  

If the Scriptures were actually transmitted in this way, the differences wouldn't be how many women appeared at the tomb or the color of Jesus' robe at the trial... the corruption in the gospels would be massive and irreconcilable.  

It is not.  

In his zeal to discredit the Gospels, Dr. Bart Ehrman has given me a very good argument FOR their preservation.  Thanks, Doc.

 I don't talk about hell very much.  I'm convinced we don't understand it.  

I'm certain I don't understand it. I do believe in it, but I don't understand it.

Mark 9:42 “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea. 43 And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. 45 And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell. 47 And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, 48 ‘where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.’

If I were going to teach on an eternal existence in hell, this is where I would go.  Jesus is here saying something typically Hebrew: He's using hyperbole to show the whole.  Not even a worm dies there.  Everything, including people, remains forever, and the fire is never, ever quenched.  

BUT

I think we think of hell as "punishment."  And I think that's wrong.  I don't think hell is punishment for our sins.  Why?  

Because Christ bore our sins on the Cross. And God would be unjust to punish anyone for them, since that punishment has been paid. 

And God is not unjust.  

So if Hell is not punishment, what is it?

A couple of theories.  

One is that hell is eternal separation from God.  That  God loves us so much that He gives us free will, and in His Sovereignty, He chooses to not violate our free will, even for our own benefit.  So imagine a guy who is pursuing you.  He sends you flowers and candy, he asks you out on dates, he writes you poetry, but you feel nothing for him.  Could such a person force you to love him?  No, they could not.  Because love cannot be forced. It must be freely given.  And so we chose to love God, or we chose to not love God.  That's the first and greatest commandment, after all... Love the LORD.  And if we chose to not Love Him, He gives us what we desire... eternity without Him.  But here's the rub: Since He is also the source of every good thing... life, light, love, truth, compassion, forgiveness, charity, faith, etc... we also cut ourselves off from those things which flow from Him.  And in such a situation, what else is there but torment?   One theologian put it this way:  "If we chose to die without God in our lives, then two angles rush to our deathbed and snatch away our soul.  They fly with it at top speed to a point in the universe so far away that not even the distant light of the stars can reach it, and there they leave us... in the dark, in the cold, in the lonely emptiness of space, without even the light of the stars to comfort us."  One of the man's students said "Is that all?"  and the theologian wisely said, "It is enough."

But I don't like the idea of eternal separation from God.  Honestly, I don't think it's Biblical.  Where can you go that an infinite God is not?  As David said in Psalm 139 "If I ascend to the Heavens, you are there with me.  If I make my bed in Sheol, even there your right hand will guide me."

So then I look to Isaiah chapter 6, beginning at v. 1

In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. 3 And one called to another and said: 

                  “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; 

                  the whole earth is full of his glory!” 

4 And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. 5 And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” 

6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.” 

8 And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.”

Isaiah the Prophet is confronted with the immediate presence of God, and looks upon His Throne.  Here, Isaiah describes the same throne room that John the Revelator does in the beginning of Revelation 4.  But Isaiah is tortured by what he sees.  He says "Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips dwelling among a people of unclean lips."  

And before God can call Isaiah to become the Prophet, the sin problem must be dealt with.  So God sends an angel to take a coal from under the altar of God and to sear Isaiah's lips with it, to deal with his sin by fire.  Only once that is done can Isaiah begin to speak to God in such immediacy.  

What does that mean?

Maybe, since you cannot get out of the presence of God, that God is in hell too.  Maybe we are exposed to God directly, with our own righteousness covering us.  And maybe we are eternal beings, made in the image of God, but without the righteousness of Christ, we are tormented forever and ever by our own sin.  Again, this is not about punishment... this is about the choice that we made to die without the righteousness of God covering us.  That idea is terrible to our current sensibilities... it's horrible, we don't want to think about it... but isn't that what hell is?  horrible?  

In the end, I don't know.  I don't want to know.  Maybe someday I will want to know and will spend more time intentionally researching it, but the longer I am a Christian, the more I see myself on the edge of a cliff.  My sin is pushing me off of it, and my God, how great is that sin!  I am utterly wicked, I am wretched and poor and weak, and the force of my sin is so powerful that it is pushing me to my eternal and everlasting, continuous death that never ends and this is no more than I deserve.  

But Jesus erects His cross near me.  He comes to where I am and He lashes me to it.  My sin buffets, my greed, my pride, my lust, my anger, my fear, my pride, my damnable pride, pushes and beats on me relentlessly, and I am helpless against them, but Jesus holds me in His arms.  He sets me upon the Rock that is Himself, and from there I cannot be moved.  

And I don't understand that either.  There's so much about that I don't get.  So many questions unanswered... but He is Enough.  He is real, He is holding me, and His Grace is sufficient, for His power is perfected in my weakness.

Behold, the virgin (?) shall conceive? Yes. Virgin.

 The questions are flying now about Isaiah 7:14, and the translation of the verse.  

The Hebrew word in question is

הָֽעַלְמָה֙

ha-almah

It appears 9 times in the Tanakh (Old Testament).  Twice it is used as a name, and therefore not translated those times (just like the word "Moses" means "drawn out of the water," but we just write "Moses" instead of translating it).    

It means "Young woman of marriageable age."  

The Lexham Research Lexicon of the Hebrew Bible defines it this way:

Noun Usage

    1.      young woman — a young woman, possibly of marriageable age, whether married or not. 

Brown-Driver-Briggs defines it this way:

עַלְמָה n.f. young woman (ripe sexually; maid or newly married); עַל־עֲלָמוֹת to (the voice of) young women, either lit., or of soprano or falsetto of boys.

And HALOT defines it this way:

עַלְמָה: pl. עֲלָמוֹת: girl (of marriageable age), young woman (until the birth of first child) Gn 24:43; Is 7:14; unexplained term in performance Ps 46:1; 1 C 15:20.

It appears in:

Genesis 24:43.  

JPS Translation: maiden

ESV Translation: virgin

Exodus 2:8

JPS Translation: maiden

ESV Translation: girl

Isaiah 7:14

JPS Translation: young woman

ESV Translation: virgin

Psalms 68:26

JPS Translation: damsels

ESV Translation: virgins

Proverbs 30:19

JPS Translation: young woman

ESV Translation: virgin

Song 1:3

JPS Translation: maidens

ESV Translation: virgins

Song 6:8

JPS Translation: maidens

ESV Translation: virgins

Now, given the JPS translation of "maiden" in 4 of these 7 cases, there is a very solid understanding of the word to mean a woman who has not yet known a man.  While it is certainly possible that Almah means a young woman newly married who has not yet conceived but is no longer a virgin, looking at the context of Isaiah 7:14 rules that out in this case.

How?

Isaiah 7:14 (ESV) 

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

Isaiah 7:14 (JPS)

Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign: behold, the young woman shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

Which one of these is a miracle?  Which of these two translations is a "sign" from the Lord?  That a young woman has a baby?  Or that a virgin has a baby?

My wife was 19 when she had her first baby... nobody thought it was miraculous.  Certainly it was a special thing, but there were dozens of other similarly aged women all on the same floor of the hospital doing exactly the same thing at exactly the same time... not a "sign" from the Lord.

But if a Virgin conceives and bears a son, that's different.  And before you object, no, a virgin cannot conceive. She ceases to be a virgin when she conceives.  But if she is a virgin when she bears the son, as Isaiah tells us, then that's something different.

Let's look also, for a moment, at Deuteronomy 22:20-21 (ESV):

 20 But if the thing is true, that evidence of virginity was not found in the young woman, 21 then they shall bring out the young woman to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death with stones, because she has done an outrageous thing in Israel by whoring in her father’s house. So you shall purge the evil from your midst. 

Please feel free to check the context of this for yourself and be sure I'm not misrepresenting it.    But Moses said that if a young woman (the Hebrew here is Na'ara, not Almah) is found in the marriage bed not to be a virgin, that is, was not a virgin before laying with her husband, she is to be stoned to death.

So if the "almah" in Isa.7:14 is NOT a virgin, then she should be stoned to death before any child is born from her.  But that would have the Lord violating His own Law to use someone deserving of capital punishment in a miraculous sign.  

Why the Cross of Christ?

God is infinite in His attributes.  He is infinitely powerful, for example.  Infinitely wise.  Infinitely good.  Infinitely loving.  Infinitely merciful.  infinitely just.  

Were He not so, He would not be God.  

Justice is an essential attribute of God.  

If at the end of eternity, any single sin is left unpunished, then God is not Just... that is, God lacks Justice.  

But how is sin punished?  Are we allowed to bring our crippled, our broken, our spotted lambs to the altar?  By no means!  This would be an insult to Him.  He commands spotless lambs, whole, with no defect.  God demands of us our best, not our broken.  

And I am broken.  I am crippled and lame.  I am spotted by sin, and my own death is insufficient to pay my debt.  This is the fundamental flaw in modern Judaism: God gave the Jews the Temple Sacrifice as a means of "covering" their sin, but for the last 1950 years, there has been no temple, and without the temple, there is no lawful sacrifice.  There is no provision, under Judaism at all, to forgive sin.  The Rabbis have said "your own death pays for your sin," but they do so in violation of Moses, who writes in Leviticus 19:2: "And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them, You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy."

God's standard is absolute holiness.  The last piece of shrimp you ate, the last lie you told, the last time you were angry with anyone unrighteously... these are a violation of God's commandment to be Holy like He is Holy.  These are rebellion against God.  

And God establishes, in Genesis 3 when He makes animal skins to cover the sinfulness of Adam and Eve, that there is no forgiveness of sin without the shedding of blood.  Most of the book of Leviticus is dedicated to this concept.  Again, without the Temple, there is no Lawful sacrifice and no forgiveness of sin under the Law of Moses.  

So God must be Just.  All sin must be punished, and that sin must be punished by the shedding of blood.  

But here's the rub: God must also be infinitely merciful.  Any sin that is repented of must be forgiven.  

How, then, can God be infinitely Just, demanding the payment in blood for all sin, and infinitely merciful, forgiving every sin which is repented of?

God, Himself must bear the burden.  Humanity cannot.  We are too small, too weak, too frail.  

God, Himself must take on human form and become the sacrifice.  In doing so, the debt of Sin is paid from an infinite account... Perfect and utter holiness, one who is pure and without sin, must pay the price.  The lamb must be spotless and unbroken.  But it must be more than a lamb, more than a man because the debt is so very great.  

So from His infinite power, His infinite wisdom, His infinite Glory, God takes on human flesh in the person of Jesus Christ and pays the debt for all of humanity.

In this way, and this way alone, can God be both infinitely Just and also infinitely Merciful.  

Does this seem foolishness to you?  Paul addresses your very concern in 1 Corinthians 1:20-30, which reads:

20 Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. 22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. 
26 For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. 30 And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31 so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” 

The Cross of Christ is the single most important event in all of human history.  This moment unifies, in one final breath, the extremes of God's Justice, Mercy, and Love for each of us.  We owed a debt we could not pay, so God paid a debt He did not owe.

Why?

Why would God do this?  

Because without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin.  And your own blood is already tainted by sin.  Mine too.  

And while God would have been perfectly justified in throwing our sinful carcasses into the flames, He loves us as a father loves his children. So He went to these EXTREME lengths for us to be reconciled to Him.

All scripture quotations: ESV

Does Jesus ever speak on Homosexuality?

If we actually believe 2 Tim 3:16, which says:

"16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work."


And if we actually believe that Jesus is God, then Yes, Jesus spoke about homosexuality in

Leviticus 18:22
"22 You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination."

If all scripture is God-breathed (the Greek word there at 2Tim3:16 is "θεόπνευστος"), and we believe in the Trinitarian understanding of the Godhead, then we must conclude that Jesus, in His Role as the Second Person of the Trinity, breathed out Leviticus 18:22.

Note that the 18th chapter is referred to as "The Pornea code," from the Greek word "πορνεία" meaning "fornication or unlawful sexual relations."

Now, for those who refuse to follow anything in the Old Testament (because you simply don't know any better), St. Paul, in the New Testament actually cites Leviticus 18:22 in 1 Corinthians 6:9, although he cites the Septuagint (LXX) translation, rather than the Hebrew.

The LXX uses the words
"ἄρσενος" and "κοίτην", meaning "a male" and "sexual intercourse" (respectively).

St. Paul simply combines these two words into one new word (much like we did with "homo" meaning "same" and "sexual" meaning... well, you know) and uses the word "ἀρσενοκοῖται". This word, as far as we know, originates with St. Paul but comes to common usage after Paul writes it, being found in other, later Greek texts, always meaning exactly what Paul uses it here to mean... homosexual activity.

So yes, Jesus does speak of homosexuality (in His role as part of the Trinity) in Leviticus 18, and St. Paul re-affirms this in 1 Corinthians 6.

I hope that helps.

Richard Dawkins and the Doctrine of Substitutionary Atonement

So... lets simply rephrase Dr. Dawkins' question, shall we?

Suppose someone raped and murdered your wife.  They mutilated her body and then burned your house down, with the body still inside.  Right?  They do some horrible, horrible thing.

And they get caught and convicted.  They are brought before the judge for sentencing, and the judge says "You know, you're going to get out of jail in 50 years anyway, there's no reason to send you to jail at all.  We will just dispense with the punishment and let you go home now."

Would that be justice?  Would you feel like the scales of justice were balanced here?  Would you have any positive feelings toward the judge?  Or would you think that the judge was also, to some degree, guilty of this evil man's crimes?

The wages of sin is death.  Not the reward of sin, not the door prize of sin, not even the partner of sin... the wages of sin.  All sin earns death, and any employer who withholds wages after the work is completed is a criminal.  God is no criminal. God pays His workers.  When you sin, you have earned death and that death must be paid.

The loophole here is that it doesn't have to be your death.  But it does have to be someone with no sin debt to pay.  That is, someone absolutely perfect could if they so chose, step up and pay your debt.  

Because otherwise, your sin earns you an eternal death in the fiery pit of hell.

And who is utterly sinless?  Whose righteousness could cover your wickedness?  Only that of the Son of God.  

The death of Jesus Christ was the accomplishment of JUSTICE.  The death you deserved, He drank down like water.  Now your debt is paid.  

Now you have a decision.  

This is your moment of Truth. 

Evidence from the Qur'an that I am greater than Allah

Quran, Surah 3, Ayah 32 reads, as you can see in the graphic, "Say, "Obey Allah and the Messenger."  But if they turn away - then indeed, Allah does not like the disbelievers." 

As you can see in the image above, however, the Arabic word "eyu-HAYB-bu" means "love," not "like."  Three witnesses for this:

1: the Hebrew word "ahvah" means "love," and sounds very much like the Arabic word (once you realize that the Hebrew letter "bet" can make a B or a V sound, and Arabic does not have a V, so Arabic speakers would pronounce the Hebrew word as "Ahabah").

2:  The website at Quran.com itself, when you mouse over the word (as I did in the graphic) translates it as "love."

3:  A very large number of other English translations of the Qur'an translate this passage using the English word "love," including (but by no means limited to) the following translations:

Muhammad Asad, M. M. Pickthall, Yusuf Ali (Saudi Rev. 1985), Yusuf Ali (Orig. 1938), Shakir, Wahiduddin Khan, Dr. Laleh Bakhtiar, T.B.Irving, Safi Kaskas, The Study Quran

There can be no doubt, then, that a proper translation of the passage above would be "Allah does not love the unbelievers." 

Now, let me state plainly:  I do not believe in Allah.  I do not believe that Muhammad was a prophet.  I do not believe that the religion of Islam is true in any sense. 

I am an unbeliever, with regard to Islam. 

Allah does not love me, according to the Qur'an.

But let's suppose that one night I am listening to Yahya Snow or Zakir Naik or Yusuf Estes and something one of them says convinces me.  Let's say that I finally see the truth of Islam and bend my knee to the Ka'a'bah and recite the Shahaddah.  I do so with full intent to become a Muslim, and immediately after that I begin attending services at a mosque, I enjoin in the 5 prayers a day, I do everything that is required of me to be a Muslim.  And let's say, for this example, that I truly come to believe that there is no god but Allah.

Now that I am a believer, Allah loves me. 

Do not miss this.  I have changed.  I have gone from a state of disbelief to a state of belief.  I have gone from being an unbeliever to a believer. 

I have changed Allah's heart.  He used to not love me, and now he does love me. 

If I have the power to change Allah, then I am greater than he is. 

A.J. Akbar.

If the Cross is good, why should we not sin?

There is often, by both Messianics and Muslims alike, a tendency to suggest that a Christian who believes that they are saved by the Cross only does so because they desire to sin. That is, they put forth the idea that because I plan to, say, have an affair this weekend, that I am relying on the Cross to save me from this.


This is NOT the case.


Paul addresses this argument very clearly in Romans 6.  “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”

Anyone who makes a different argument is unscriptural.  The Cross is not license to sin, and heaven forbid it is ever viewed as such. 

More clearly than even this:  I do not take the Cross as license to sin.

And Paul very clearly addresses this only one chapter later:  “18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.”

That is, Paul recognizes that sin continues in his flesh.  That he, himself, continues to sin.  Does he do this because the Cross has given him license to do so? Of course not.  He does this because he is a sinful human being. So does Paul then argue that his sin is not sinful?  Again, no. He continues:

"21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin."

That is, realizing that sin continues to exist and to reign in his mortal body, Paul cries out “Wretched man that I am!  Who will deliver me from this body of death?”  Note, Paul does not say “Wretched man that I was,” but rather “that I am.”  Paul is building clearly on the premise he established in chapter 6 regarding sin in his mortal body.  And yet Paul follows this with a sentence which must be a top three contender for the most beautiful sentences in all of Holy Scripture:  “There is, therefore, now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”  Some manuscripts have a scribal error here, which the KJV picks up on and publishes, but Paul ended the sentence at “Jesus.”  How do I know?  Because the added text to the end of Romans 8:1 comes directly from Romans 8:4, verbatim.  It is, therefore, very likely a copyists’ error, and the bulk of the manuscript evidence bears this out.  That Paul, who finds sin continuing to reign in his body, can say with absolute certainty that “There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” is a statement of earth-shattering proportions.   Now, we can debate about what it means to be “in Christ Jesus,” but whatever it means, it cannot mean any of those things Paul has already eliminated in the previous chapters.  That is, we cannot argue that one who is “in Christ Jesus” would not continue to sin, because Paul himself has already addressed that argument. 

Why Allah is NOT God

If Allah forgives sins just by saying "They are forgiven," then those sins are not punished.

That means that at the end of time, some sins will be unpunished.

Allah cannot, therefore, be infinite in his attribute of justice, because justice is not accomplished in those cases. Allah CAN be infinite in his attribute of mercy, but not justice.

If Allah is not infinite in some attribute, then he is finite in that attribute, and thereby less than perfect.

Further, Allah cannot punish Jews and Christians for those sins, because the Qur'an says "No bearer of burdens shall bear the burden for another." That is, no sinful person can bear another person's sins. Only a person who was completely sinless, like Jesus, could bear the sins of another. But you Muslims deny that He did.

The only reasonable conclusion is this: Allah is finite in at least one attribute, and thereby NOT God. The only person who COULD bear the guilt of your sins is the one person the Christians say DID bear the guilt of your sins.


Come home to Jesus. Turn from the idol worship of the black stone and come home to Jesus. He created you, He loves you, and He will forgive, because Justice has already been accomplished. Come home to Jesus.

When did Jesus change Saul's name to Paul?

The Holy NAME of God vs. the Qur'an

"אֱלֹהִים" (Elohim) is the generic word for "god." It is used of The God of Israel, and it is also used of the pagan gods of the surrounding regions.  We see this very clearly in Deuteronomy 6:13-15:

13 It is the LORD your God you shall fear. Him you shall serve and by his name you shall swear. 14 You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are around you— 15 for the LORD your God in your midst is a jealous God—lest the anger of the LORD your God be kindled against you, and he destroy you from off the face of the earth.

here's the passage in Hebrew:

13 אֶת־יְהוָ֧ה אֱלֹהֶ֛יךָ תִּירָ֖א וְאֹת֣וֹ תַעֲבֹ֑ד וּבִשְׁמ֖וֹ תִּשָּׁבֵֽעַ׃
14 לֹ֣א תֵֽלְכ֔וּן אַחֲרֵ֖י אֱלֹהִ֣ים אֲחֵרִ֑ים מֵאֱלֹהֵי֙ הָֽעַמִּ֔ים אֲשֶׁ֖ר סְבִיבוֹתֵיכֶֽם׃
15 כִּ֣י אֵ֥ל קַנָּ֛א יְהוָ֥ה אֱלֹהֶ֖יךָ בְּקִרְבֶּ֑ךָ פֶּן־יֶ֠חֱרֶה אַף־יְהוָ֤ה אֱלֹהֶ֙יךָ֙ בָּ֔ךְ וְהִשְׁמִ֣ידְךָ֔ מֵעַ֖ל פְּנֵ֥י הָאֲדָמָֽה׃

The words I've highlighted here are all forms of "Elohim" or "Eloah" or "El."

So clearly, the word "Elohim" can mean both the God of Israel and also the pagan gods of other nations.

 But the God of Israel also has a NAME, which He tells to Moses in Exodus 3:15:

 15 God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.

In our English translations, we write the word "יהוה" as "LORD," in all capital letters, to distinguish it from other words which mean "Lord" or "lord," such as "אָדוֹן," (adon) which is used of royalty.

That name is "יהוה," pronounced by some as "Yahweh" and others as "Yehovah."

That name is used 6827 times in the Hebrew Bible... more than all the other titles of God combined. It is clearly God's preferred form of address.

Yet in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, due to Roman political pressure, the Jews stopped speaking The NAME, because the Romans forbade it under penalty of death.

So by the 7th century, the Jews and Christians were using the term "LORD" or "God" in place of The NAME.

Muhammad never heard The NAME, because it wasn't being publicly spoken at his time, and so he never, even once, includes it in the Qur'an.

This goes to prove that the Roman ban on speaking the NAME kept it out of the Qur'an. This also proves that the Qur'an was NOT dictated by YHVH, but rather was the pure invention of Muhammad himself, making up some parts and copying others from the stories he heard people telling. But since they did not speak The NAME at that point, Muhammad never heard it. Muhammad didn't know the NAME of God, and instead used the Arabic generic word for "god."