Wombs and Tombs

Have you noticed how many women are barren in the Bible? In the Old Testament, it can seem like every other woman you encounter is suffering in some way with infertility. But, in the New Testament, there is only one, Elizabeth. Why is this? Why is there no teaching in the New Testament letters about present-day infertility? Why are no women healed from barrenness in the Gospels or Acts?

Many women (and men) still suffer from infertility and endure the painful loss of miscarriage. The Bible invites us to see ourselves in how these women suffered and were often mocked and seen as somehow forgotten by God. Yet, God mercifully heals each of them and they all bear sons who provide a type of salvation for God’s people.

• Sarah, at age 91, gives birth to Isaac, the child of promise who offers his life as a sacrifice but is spared at the last moment when God provides a ram. As the father of Israel, Isaac’s death would eliminate the possibility of any future Israelites.

• Rachel gives birth to Joseph, who is sold by his brothers, to Ishmaelites. God raised him from slave to Egyptian leader by working through him to interpret Pharaoh's dream and save Israel from famine. 

• Manoah’s wife gives birth to Samson, who fights against the Philistines, a neighboring powerhouse that suppressed the people of Israel. He lost all of his strength when Delilah had his head shaved but God remembered him and gave him strength for one final act of vengeance on the Philistines, dying with them as defeated enemies of Israel.

• Ruth gives birth to Obed, who doesn’t work salvation in his life but he is identified as David’s grandfather, a warrior king who saves Israel repeatedly from surrounding enemies, bringing peace to the land. 

• Hannah gives birth to Samuel, whom she gives back to God to serve as priest and prophet. Samuel gathers the people of Israel and as he confesses sin on their behalf and offers a lamb sacrifice to the Lord, the Philistines gather near to fight them. But God thunders against the Philistines throwing them into a panic and saving the people of Israel, once again.

• Elizabeth gives birth to John the Baptist, the final prophet of the old covenant who calls the people of Israel to repent from sins and prepare for the coming Messiah and his salvation. People flock to the wilderness to be baptized by him, including Jesus.

These once barren mothers resemble Mary in having miraculous birth stories. And their sons resemble Jesus in working to save the people of Israel. But Hannah’s prayer in response to the birth of her son, Samuel, leads us to think there is more to consider. Hannah prays, 

---

“The LORD kills and brings to life;
He brings down to Sheol and raises up.”

1 Samuel 2:6

---

This is resurrection language. God healed Hannah from infertility and she praises Him for raising the dead. Jesus is the one God brings down to Sheol, the place of darkness where the dead go, and He is resurrected on the third day. Not only did God heal these women to show that He is the God of fertility or even to foreshadow Jesus’ miraculous birth, but also to show that God raises the dead. These are early rumblings of God pointing forward to Christ. All of these women had tomb-like fertility, they would try to get pregnant but they could not. Then God healed them and made their wombs resemble life-giving tombs that bring forth new life.

Jesus himself uses the mystery of birth as a metaphor for salvation. It confuses Nicodemus, causing him to ask how he can return to his mother’s womb, but it is the perfect illustration. In Jesus' ministry, we don’t see him healing barrenness, rather we see him raise a little girl from the dead and call Lazarus out of the tomb.  

The New Testament is free from fertility healings not because God has ceased to heal barren women, on the contrary, he is making all things new. And no matter what your circumstance, God has not forgotten you. His love extends to all pain because Christ was held in loss and darkness.

Yet there is something greater than fertility healings, something the Bible is trying to tell us with its movement from a lesser thing to a greater thing. And that is: Jesus died on the cross for our sins, was brought down to Sheol, and then rose again. In his sacrificial act of love, he burst forth from the barren-womb-like-tomb so that we also may have new life with him.

“Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Corinthians 15:57)

ALETHA WACHTER / GUEST CONTRIBUTOR

A Best Friend like No Other

As the pandemic continues, as the winter continues, as the restrictions on all kinds of gatherings continue, we are feeling lonely. We are feeling disconnected. We’re feeling distant from our friends and our church family.

Not only are we lonely right now, unable to be physically with family, friends, and our church community, in many ways we are also experiencing seasons of rejection. Even if we fully understand and agree with others that we need to keep our distance, most of all of us are FEELING rejection, FEELING like our friends are shrinking back from us, FEELING like others don’t want to be around us.

On top of what we’re experiencing, which is taking its toll on all of us, we’re also tempted to project this onto our Savior. Maybe Jesus also doesn’t want to be around me. Maybe Jesus also rejects me, shrinks back from me, and doesn’t want to be around me. But nothing could be further from the truth! Whether we feel it or not, whether we fully believe it or not, Jesus will never abandon his friends.

In his book Gentle and Lowly (my favorite book I’ve read this year, go buy it and read it) pastor and author Dane Ortlund writes:

“Here is the promise of the gospel and the message of the whole Bible: In Jesus Christ, we are given a friend who will always enjoy rather than refuse our presence. This is a companion whose embrace of us does not strengthen or weaken depending on how clean or unclean, how attractive or revolting, how faithful or fickle, we presently are.”

Christian, when you think of Jesus do you only think of him as Savior, King, or Lord? He is fully and totally all of those. But he is also your friend. The King who rules the cosmos, the Savior who is fully God, the Lord who rightly should receive all humanity’s allegiance, that Jesus is also your friend.

“This is my command: Love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this: to lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants anymore, because a servant doesn’t know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me, but I chose you…” -Jesus in John 15:12-16 (CSB)

Saint, you have been chosen by Christ himself. He wanted you. He loves you. He died for you. He has made you his friend. He doesn’t call you servant but he calls you friend. Did you know that? Do you believe that? When you think of Jesus do you only think of him as your Lord? Do you just think of him as your King? Do you only see yourself as his servant? If so, that’s just part of your identity. You are also his FRIEND.

And what kind of friend is Jesus? Is he like my current friends who’re cautious to come near me? Is he like my former “friends” who left me, gossiped about me, ignored me, and abandoned me? Unlike the world around us, Jesus will not abandon us if we mess up, fall apart, or even give up on life. Even when we have uncertainty in every area of our lives, there is one place we can have certainty, one place we can have confident hope, and that is in Christ's love and friendship.

Regardless on how this pandemic plays out and especially for you RIGHT NOW amidst social distancing, isolation, quarantines, and lockdowns, Jesus is a friend like you could never image or dare hope would ever exist. He’s here for you right now. He knows you completely and fully and still choses you. Brother and sister, even at your worst, your sin isn’t too much to keep Jesus away from you. Remember that Jesus was known for being a friend of the broken, the oppressed, the marginalized, the evil, and the scum. His opponents tried to use that against him: “He’s a friend of tax collectors and sinner!” (Matt. 11:19). In case you didn’t know, that accusation backfired on his opponents and even more people flocked to Jesus.

Let this truth move from the screen you’re reading and into not just your head but into your heart. Don’t just know that Jesus befriends you, believe it and feel it. When you feel alone, believe and feel that he’s happily and gloriously there with you. When you feel abandoned, believe and feel that Jesus will never abandon you. When you feel unloved or betrayed, feel and believe that Jesus will never stop loving you nor betray you. Christian, this is who we are. We’re friends with our King and Savior Jesus Christ.

“Christ’s heart for us means that he will be our never-failing friend no matter what friends we do or do not enjoy on earth. He offers us a friendship that gets underneath the pain of our loneliness. While that pain does not go away, its sting is made fully bearable by the far deeper friendship of Jesus. He walks with us through every moment. He knows the pain of being betrayed by a friend, but he will never betray us. He will not even so much as COOLY welcome us. That is not who he is. That is not his heart.” -Dane Ortlund in Gentle and Lowly

SPENCER PETERSON / COMMUNITY LIFE PASTOR

Answering Objections to the Resurrection

This past Sunday in nearly every country and culture across the globe people celebrated an event that seems impossible. Jesus of Nazareth was crucified on a Roman cross on Friday evening and then just a few days later, the tomb that held his body was empty.

For many people this sounds unbelievable. It simply cannot be true. So there must be another explanation. Yet this is what the Bible teaches and is what the Christian Church has believed for 2,000 years. The first resurrection claims written were in the letters of Paul and were written just some 15-20 years after Jesus’ death and even gave names of eye-witnesses who were still alive and could be asked about what they saw and experienced.

Not only does the Bible teach, declare, assume, describe, predict, and explain the resurrection but it even goes so far as to say that Jesus’ resurrection is the foundation of the whole faith.

If Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. -- 1 Corinthians 15:17 (CSB)

Conventional wisdom, our experiences, and common belief come into conflict with what the Bible teaches. So let’s look at the objections skeptics of the resurrection have had and examine how strong they are.

While many objections have been proposed to Jesus’ resurrection, these four have been the most common. (For additional objections and responses to them, see this Gospel Coalition article). Much more could be said in response to each object and in fact many books have been written on this subject. But for the sake of this blog, I’ll try and keep it short and succinct.

1. The Body was Stolen: Jesus did die and the reason the tomb was empty was because the disciples stole the body and claimed he had raised. This was the explanation given originally by the Jews.

Response: The guards in front of Jesus’ tomb would have all had to fall asleep at the same time or be overthrown by the disciples (and we all know how mighty the twelve were). If this did happen, it would’ve cost the guards their lives. So they were highly motivated to protect the body on the third day, the day Jesus said he would rise from the grave.

Even if the disciples were able to sneak past the soldiers, break the Roman seal on the stone, roll it away, and steal Jesus body, they would also need to somehow make hundreds of people think they seen the triumphant, victorious risen Jesus.

Finally, why would the disciples risk their lives for a lie and get nearly nothing out of it? The disciples didn’t live posh, healthy, comfortable, and wealthy lives. Their claim that Jesus was raised and that he was God cost them everything. They all spent their lives under persecution and serving the poor and marginalized and each one died a martyr’s death (except for John whom they tried to kill by boiling alive in oil).

2. The Swoon Theory: Jesus did not actually die on the cross but rather just swooned. He passed out on the cross, appeared dead, and was later revived by the cool tomb air.

Response: Author and theologian John Stott responds to this theory by asking if we are supposed to believe “that after the rigours and pains of trial, mockery, flogging, and crucifixion he could survive thirty-six hours in a stone sepulcher with neither warmth nor food nor medical care? That he could then rally sufficiently to perform the superhuman feat of shifting the boulder which secured the mouth of the tomb, and this without disturbing the Roman guard? That then, weak and sickly and hungry, he could appear to the disciples in such a way as to give them the impression that he had vanquished death?”

Also we need to remember that these Roman soldiers were professional executioners. They had performed countless crucifixions and were incredibly good at making criminals suffer and die. And if they took a prisoner down from the cross before they were dead, they would be executed. Not only that but it’s recorded that they also pierced Jesus’s side with a spear to confirm his death and water and blood poured out. If he was still alive before this, the pierced heart would have killed him.

3. A Twin (or look-alike) Died in Jesus’ Place: This objection has been suggested by some Muslim scholars (including a teaching in Quran 4:157). The objection proposes that someone who looked like Jesus (maybe a brother or twin) was the one actually crucified. So people really did see Jesus after the cross because Jesus was never crucified. Or a variation of this could be that Jesus did die on the cross but a look-alike was the one seen after the crucifixion, not Jesus.

Response: There isn’t any evidence that Jesus had a twin, a look alike, or a brother who was confused for him. Jesus’ mother was at Jesus’ crucifixion and wouldn’t have been fooled. Relatedly, it is very unlikely that the Jewish rulers who were pushing to have Jesus executed would have mistakenly crucified the wrong person.

We can’t forget that the scars/wounds from Jesus crucifixion were present on the resurrected Jesus. The disciples (many who were skeptical) touched the risen Christ, including his scars. Additionally this view doesn’t address the empty tomb or the burial clothes left behind.

4. Jesus’ Followers Hallucinated: Jesus did die yet his followers projected their desire for him to be raised from the grave and all hallucinated the supposed sightings of the resurrected Christ.

Response: While at face value this might sound like a good alternative to the supernatural resurrection of Jesus, when looked at closely it fails for many reasons. Hallucinations are not seen by groups of people but rather by individuals. The New Testament describes Jesus as talking to groups of people at the same time, including an instance of more than 500 people. Hallucinations are prone to certain types of people yet so many different types of people claimed to see the risen Jesus (and in many different locations) over 40 days and then all the appearances stopped.

Finally, hallucinations come from a preexisting thought or belief. The way Jesus was raised from the dead was a concept both the Jews and the Greeks would have never thought of. The Jews thought only of a resurrection at the end of time when all would be resurrected and death would cease to exist. William Lane Craig describes this for us. “Jewish belief always concerned a resurrection at the end of the world, not a resurrection in the middle of history…This traditional Jewish concept was the presupposition of Jesus’ own disciples (Mark 9:9-13, John 11:24).” The Greeks thought the physical body (and world) was a prison so the idea of being resurrected in a physical body would be undesirable.

While the resurrection might still seem unfathomable, it did happen. It is the best explanation of the evidence: the empty tomb, the accounts of hundreds of people seeing the risen Jesus, the disciples’ changed lives, and the birth of Christianity.

But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. - 1 Corinthians 15:20-21

SPENCER PETERSON/COMMUNITY LIFE PASTOR