Is there another Winston Churchill in our midst? Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was interviewed on Headline News Nov. 17, 2006. Mr. Netanyahu said:
“Iran is Nazi Germany, and this is 1938 – which was one year before World War II. We are dangerously close to World War III. “Iran is the king of Middle East terrorists. The dangerous Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, will provide terrorists with nuclear weapons – it’s only a matter of when. Here are Ahmadinejad’s religious beliefs: Israel is just the first weigh station en route to you, America. So there is this fundamental fanaticism that is there. It’s a messianic cult. It’s a religious messianic cult that believes in the Apocalypse, and they believe they have to expedite the Apocalypse to bring the collapse of the West. If the lunatics escape from the asylum, that’s one thing. But if they can get their hands on a nuclear weapon, that’s another. And this is that kind of a cult. It’s the cult of the Mahdi, a holy man that disappeared a thousand years ago. And the president of Iran believes that he’s supposed to, that he was put here on Earth to bring this holy man back in a great religious war between the true Muslim believers and the infidels. And millions will die in this Apocalypse, and the Muslim believers will go to heaven. That’s dangerous, if they have nuclear weapons to realize this fantasy. And that is where the world is coming to. “Now, people said that of Hitler in the 1930s. They said this man has a mad ideology, very fanatic, very dangerous, and if he gets his hands on a military power, he would use it. Hitler did use it; but Hitler tried to develop atomic weapons only after embarking on the world conflict. “Ahmadinejad is first trying to develop nuclear weapons and then going about his mad fantasy of global conflict. So he has to be stopped. I think when you have something as fanatic and as dangerous as this, the question now is not whether he should be stopped, but how’s the best way to stop him. “Someone must stop Iran or this number-one sponsor of terrorism is going to put nuclear weapons into the hands of terrorists. And America is their primary target. “No current nuclear power in the world is suicidal, but the Iranian leaders are. That is why you can’t stop their terrorism unless you stop their “messianic cult of death” – which would probably mean destroying Iran. I think the most important thing to understand is that, you know the best sign of how dangerous things are? That the president of Iran is not even trying to fake it. You know, normally, if he wasn’t as fanatic as he is, he’d say, ‘Well, you know, yes, I think we could recognize Israel if it made the right concessions to the Palestinians.’ He’d play along; he’d play the game. He’d say, ‘We’re not really developing nuclear weapons. We just want nuclear energy for peace.’ You know, he’d say all that. “But that’s not what he’s saying. Listen to him carefully. He’s saying, ‘We’re going to wipe Israel off the map. The Holocaust didn’t happen. America’s the great Satan. Iran will have the power to reshape history.’ Now a normal person would not say that. An insane person says that. “In the 1930s an insane person wrote in a book called Mein Kampf, ‘My Struggle’, and that was Adolf Hitler. He said exactly what he would do. He was stark raving mad, but he communicated. If you asked for a sign, that was a sign – 300 pages of signs, OK? Ahmadinejad every day is writing a page. He’s saying what he’s going to do. That’s the best sign. That tells you that there’s a fanaticism at work here which is not even calculating. He’s just going to do it. And let’s not enable him to do it. Let’s stop him. A Holocaust survivor was asked what lesson she learned from that experience. Her answer was, when a powerful leader says he is going to annihilate you, believe him! “Ahmadinejad is in the process of doing exactly what he says he will do, but few people believe him – perhaps some are even laughing. That laughter could soon be silenced, just as the scoffing at Hitler stopped before and during World War II. Winston Churchill was a strong leader who stood up and led the West in conquering Hitler. But the British were almost beaten before they voted Churchill into office. That is because almost all the journalists, educators, politicians and religious leaders rejected Churchill’s warning in the 1930s. “Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a strong dictator, much like Hitler. He is moving events along at a dizzy pace in the Middle East. Oil profits have made his country incredibly wealthy. He is going to cause a global crisis in only a few years – perhaps even months. He has virtually taken over Lebanon as the world does nothing. Iran’s efforts have helped Assad of Syria turn his nation more toward terrorism. “Before World War II, Churchill tried to rouse Britain from ‘its sloth and trance.’ But it took what he termed ‘a series of horrible shocks’ to awaken the British people.”
A friend recently said to me, “I’m beginning to understand this grace thing that they preach about here at Grace Church. But what does it mean to really accept grace? If I literally take God at His word, if I believe it’s really all about Him, and that Jesus has already done what I can never do for myself, then it seems to me I have no motivation to do well in my life. If I take grace seriously, it seems that I’m just going to be a mediocre, goof-off of a Christian.”
My friend isn’t the only one with questions about the implications of God’s grace. His question is important – are those who live by and in God’s grace spiritual slackers? Does grace mean that we will be content to sit in the grandstand watching God do all the work? Does grace mean that we will lack motivation to succeed and thus settle for less than our spiritual potential? Did Jesus die on His cross, paying a debt He did not owe, a debt we could not pay, so that we might live like so many spoiled spiritual brats – God’s rich kids who have no incentive to do anything? Is that the implication of grace for our lives?
I suggest that we base the implications of God’s grace on the Bible – specifically the book of 1 Corinthians. Let’s consider passages in three well-known chapters of this book: 1) chapter 12, which teaches us about spiritual gifts that God gives to each of us and how each of us fulfills a role in the body of Christ, 2) chapter 13, the love chapter, where Paul grounds our faith in the practical and visible outworking of God, His love that He produces in our lives, and 3) chapter 15, the resurrection chapter, a chapter of hope that gives us a glimpse into the eternity that God give us.
The last few verses of chapter 12 are the bridge to chapter 13, and there Paul reiterates that while each of us has an important role in the body of Christ, we may not see that assignment as exciting or rewarding as that of others. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. Paul reminds us that whatever God calls us to, we should “eagerly desire the greater gifts” (12:31). Then just before the powerful and beautiful description of the greatest gift of all, the love of God given to us by His grace, Paul writes ten critically important words.
“And now I will show you THE MOST EXCELLENT WAY” (12:31, my emphasis). This is the all important set up to what we so often call the love chapter. This love chapter is “THE MOST EXCELLENT WAY.” Then Paul says this: If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and I have faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor, and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
Let’s really think about what Paul said. Thought I study my Bible, though I pray without ceasing, though I volunteer to host a study and prayer group in my home, though I go out of my way to help those in need, though I give generously to God’s work, though I read and maybe even write Christian books and articles, though I serve and work and volunteer… I’ve accomplished nothing if love is not the foundation of my life.
Paul is calling us to THE MOST EXCELLENT WAY, but he insists that the only excellence that counts is excellence in love. Paul is grounding his call for Christian excellence in the love of God through the indwelling Son, Jesus Christ. He certainly is not telling us that Christian life is filled with hum-drum mediocrity, but neither is he calling us to excel simply in order to excel. Paul is not teaching some positive thinking, pull yourself up by your own bootstraps seminar. This teaching is not the excellence defined by material, corporate, social or political success, or the excellence of riches, fame and/or beauty.
Let’s combine this insight with the message we see in 1 Corinthians 15. At the end of this magnificent resurrection chapter Paul explains the victorious resurrection of Jesus and what it means for us: But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain (15:57-58).
We are in the flesh, and therefore incapable of achieving lasting victory in this life. We are incapable to achieving the lofty heights of perfection. If our flesh represents our best resource for success, then we will only go so far, but no farther. God’s love – the most excellent way – is the only way of eternal excellence. Everything you and I accomplish, apart from the power of Jesus Christ the risen Lord who lives His life in those who believe in and trust in Him, will one day be “left behind”. You may be in excellent health. You may exercise and you may eat a careful, balanced and healthy diet. I hope you do. But one day, your earthly body (and mine), will decay and die. You may have worked your way up the corporate ladder. You may have worked hard in your chosen profession. That’s great – but one day you will leave all of that behind.
The good news is that the love God gives to us by placing His Son, Jesus into us by a new birth is eternal. We will not leave God’s love behind. According to 1 Corinthians 13, love never fails. It never passes away. Spiritual perfection – the excellence of love that God gives us because of Jesus is eternal. Not only is it impossible for humans to attain perfection, as Christians we don’t have to. Perfection has been attained for us. Through the indwelling Christ, we are given the victory. We do not need to earn salvation or attempt to make God love us. We are given salvation, we are given God’s love, by His grace and because we are in union with Christ living in us.
What then? Christians don’t live slip-shod mediocre lives. IN and THROUGH and BECAUSE OF Christ joined to us we achieve our best. We don’t settle for second best. We don’t just sit back and watch God “do it all.” As Paul also says in Philippians, “…if anything is EXCELLENT or praiseworthy – think about such things” (Philippians 4:8, my emphasis).
Because the risen, victorious Lord lives His life in us we don’t just do enough to get by, but we boldly face our challenges and trials in faith – for we know that God, in some way, always gives us the victory. As Christ lives in us and fills us with His love, we live the most excellent way.
By God’s grace we know that there are only two things that really count in our lives: 1) our relationship with God through the indwelling Christ (our love for Him and His for us) and 2) the spreading of God’s love through our relationship with others. This is true, lasting, eternal excellence. And there is nothing mediocre about it.
I recently went to the V.A. hospital in St. Louis for my six-month checkup. You may hear horror stories about the care at V.A. hospitals but my experience there has been very positive. The doctors I have met have been very caring and personally interested in keeping me well. The accessory personnel that I have dealt with have been cordial and helpful.
On this last visit, I signed in and went to wait in the reception area. The seats in the main reception area were mostly taken so I sat down on a bench in the hall outside the area where I could still hear my name called. Near me on the same bench was a young, good looking blond man with his head down in apparent thought.
All of a sudden, without looking at me, he said, “I’m dying!”
Almost instantly, three words came out of my mouth, “So am I!” I hadn’t thought about it; I hadn’t planned on saying such a thing – I just said it.
The young man looked up at me and said, “You are?”
I continued, “Yes. Here I am, seventy-five years old, and there you are, probably about thirty years old – and we’re both dying. The only difference is that you have more information about “when” than I do.”
He was quiet for a moment and then replied, “Yes, I guess you’re right.”
I surmised that this man was not taking his immanent death very well. I decided to talk about God to him. I have only done this with strangers a couple of times in my life – I tend toward an introvert personality.
I said, “What do you think about God?”
He replied, “I don’t know much.”
I said, “Have you ever looked around you at the beauty and complexity of nature and thought there must be a Creator?”
He said, “Yeah, I guess so.”
I continued, “Well, human beings are the height of God’s creation and God has made special provision for us to continue on in life after death. You may be unsure and even fearful of what happens at your death, but you don’t have to be!”
Wow! I couldn’t believe how I was speaking to a stranger!
I went boldly on, “God loves you and God loves me, no matter what in the world we have done. And because of that great love, He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, as a Savior for us to make payment by His death for all the wrong things we have done, you and I.”
The man said, “Yeah, I know about Christianity and, from what I’ve seen, there’s a lot of phoniness there.”
I said, “You are right! But that doesn’t make the true message of Jesus Christ wrong. He came as Savior so that we could live on in life after death in the presence of God. And it’s really simple.”
The man questioned, “What do you mean, simple?”
I said, “Because of Jesus, life after death with God is a free gift, given once and for all with no strings attached. You can’t earn it by the good things you do in your life, and the gift is still offered to you is spite of all the bad things you have done. The gift is free and unmerited.”
He said, “Aw, that sounds too good to be true. You must have to do something to please God.”
I said, “As crazy as it may sound, you just have to BELIEVE that what I have told you is true. No, rather, you just have to WANT TO BELIEVE that what I said is true. I know you want to believe that you will have some kind of a good life after death. Well if you believe your Creator God, you can.”
The man looked me in the eyes with his own teary eyes and asked, “You’re not kidding me are you? Is it really that simple?”
I said, “Man, it is! In the Bible, a man came to Jesus and said, ‘I believe! Lord help my unbelief!’ That’s all it takes. Just close your eyes to keep out the distractions and say to God, ‘I want to believe that Jesus came as my Savior; I want to believe that I can trust Him to guide my life (whatever is left of it), and I want to believe that I can live after death in the presence of God. I receive it as a free gift because I sure didn’t earn it and don’t deserve it.’”
That man, so dejected before, raised himself up straight with a smile on his face. By all appearances, there was that day one more child of God in His Family.
I recently spent a cool evening at our old family place in the country. As I checked out the night sky, I was amazed to be able to see the Milky Way, a rare treat for this city person. As conversation ebbed and flowed we managed to identify the Big Dipper and the North Star which were the sum total of my companion’s knowledge about astronomy.
I am an amateur (very amateur) astronomer. I don’t even have a telescope – I just have a good set of binoculars. But over the years I have studied star charts and other astronomical literature and can find my way around the constellations pretty well.
Viewing that sparkling velvet canopy at night, I always feel very small, humbled by the vastness, yet at the same time, somehow very safe.
I once was invited to attend an astronomy party at a local college campus. Club enthusiasts had telescopes pointing skyward and trained on points of interest. We admired star clusters and the moons of Jupiter. Foreign-sounding names of stars and nebula rolled off their tongues. They knew their way around the heavens like I know my way around my home. As I stumbled back to my car in the dark, I was impressed with how much they knew and how much I didn’t. The contrast suddenly hit me. Id gone from awe and wonder to ignorance and inadequacy.
What had happened to my childhood sense of wonder? Could it be that children experience wonder because they don’t yet understand how their world works? I call this the “wow factor”. Waves on the seashore provide a fascinating playground until someone explains the rotation of the earth and the gravitational pull of the moon. Now I can predict when the tides go in and out and exactly how many hours I have to build a sandcastle. Handy information, but the wonder and adventure (the “wow”) have been jeopardized. Suddenly it makes seashore walks and sand art projects more calculating.
Ancient cultures worshipped the uncontrollable nature that existed around them – fire, wind, rain. We’re more sophisticated. We understand global weather patterns and can track severe weather, tornados and hurricanes. We don’t just admire birds in flight; we design and build jets that fly us coast to coast in a matter of hours. From the comfort of my couch I can tour the Earth and the heavens on an electronic screen. At the push of a button I can listen to a symphony orchestra or “read” a book while strolling along my park’s walking trail.
Progress? Undoubtedly. I’m thankful that we can improve and save lives via science and chemistry. But as we focus on details and reduce everything to its basic elements, I fear we too easily strip life of some of its mystery and wonder – the “wow factor”. How often do I allow myself to revel in the power of rain pounding on my home roof, to be enchanted by wind sculpting dancing motions in my trees or mesmerized by the flames of a late night campfire?
I never want to come to a point where I won’t see past scientific facts and figures and explanation to the astounding beauty that God has created all around me.
Now if you’ll excuse me, there’s a sunset out back that’s begging to be admired. I’m not going to think about the rotation of the earth, water droplets in the clouds and air-borne dust particles refracting light.
I’m just going to enjoy the spectacle and allow God to WOW ME!
“Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall SEE GOD!” Matthew 5:8
The whole purpose of life as a human being is to come to a knowledge of God in our own life and to be used by God to spread that knowledge to those around us. That is, our human existence is to “see God”.
Most people go through several stages of seeing God.
1.) SEEING GOD IN NATURE
In our unconverted days, God usually begins to deal with us by a recognition of Him in the beauties seen in the world of nature around us. I begin to see the beauty of the spiritual in the beauty of the physical - the flowers, the animals, the mountains and the meadows, etc. I come to an understanding that there had to be a Creator to account for the complexity and yet the simple interaction of all of the biological species. I see God in the rhythms of nature. I recognize that blind chance could not have produced our intricate material universe.
2.) SEEING GOD IN SIN JUDGMENT
The next step most take is seeing God as a judge for what I come to recognize as total lapses in my ability to live morally. The Holy Spirit of God deals with the soul of each person to recognize his immorality. I see that I just do not have it within myself to live as my conscience tells me I should. I try, but I fail! I hear about the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and I call out for a Savior. God applies the death of Christ as the penalty for my sins. I begin to see myself as a “converted” person who the Bible calls “born again”. I begin to see myself as a brand new person, forgiven and ready to build a whole new life-style. At this point, I know very little about HOW to be a “Christian”, but at least I know that I have made contact with my Creator and that He can “help” me.
3.) SEEING GOD IN MYSELF
At conversion and the new birth, Jesus Christ comes to dwell in my human spirit, right here within me. But I didn’t KNOW THAT, and most new converts don’t recognize this awesome happening. Through the Holy Spirit Teacher, now within my soul (intellect, emotions and will), I begin to see God IN MYSELF by a living union of the Spirit of Christ and my human spirit. I begin to see that I must TRUST Christ to direct my life in order to be successful. “Independent-I” does not have the power to live life by God’s standards. But as I come to the awareness of Christ’s ability living within me to direct my ways, I grow in the “Dependent-I” recognition of living. I can’t do it! But Christ in me can do it! Therefore “Christ-I” can do it!
4.) SEEING GOD IN OTHER PEOPLE
As I see Christ in myself as a Christian, then I begin to see God in other people. I begin to see every other Christian united to Christ and thus united to me in Christ. Christ is the Head of His Body, the Church. When I see other Christians not acting very Christ-like, I accept God is dealing with them and will turn their actions and attitudes for the good. I see in my own life that when I fall into independent thinking and sin, Jesus calls me back to the awareness of union with Him, probably even stronger than before. And I expect the same results of independent attitudes in my fellow Christians. Their sinful actions will be used by God to draw them closer to Him. No longer do I focus on the human weakness of my fellow believers for I see Christ’s strength made perfect in that weakness. When I see need in a brother, I confess supply - that God will manifest His Positive in apparent negative. No longer do I fret over my brother’s apparent “sins” and “worldly” tendencies, for this mentality is destructive and useless anyway (John 8:1-11). I rather focus on the Christ in my brother, and expect in faith to see Him manifested in God’s time, knowing that even his apparent slip into sin will have redemptive purposes in “growing him up into Christ”. Certainly this is what Paul meant when he stated that “henceforth, I will know no man after the flesh”, for rather than concentrating on the vessel, I point out it’s precious content.
And then, even further, I begin to see God in every human being, whether converted or not. Paul said in Acts 17:28 to a group of pagan Greeks at Athens: “For in Him (Christ), we live, and move, and have our being.” Rather than thinking negatively regarding a person’s awareness of the spiritual, I want to see everyone as God sees them - being dealt with by God on GOD’S OWN SCHEDULE! Jesus was the friend of sinners before He could be their Savior, and we must be the same. We have often driven away those whom we should be drawing close by our foolish and hypocritical condemnation of lifestyles and habits, for the Holy Spirit of God is already in the world convicting of sin (John 16:9). We beat a dog already dead by constantly pointing out sin in the lives of the lost, for we are solution people bringing hope to those who know that they have a problem (regardless of what they may say). No doubt, there will be times when, in compassion, we state what is true about sin to honest seekers, but our main mission will always be to announce to a thirsty world that “whosoever will, MAY COME AND DRINK”.
OUR MESSAGE IS NOT THAT IF SOMEONE BELIEVES, THEY WILL BE FORGIVEN. THE MESSAGE IS THAT THEY ARE FORGIVEN, NOW WILL THEY HAVE IT??!!
When I look back on my own life before conversion, I can see God dealing with and drawing me by trial and error to the knowledge of my need for a Savior. And I see that acceptance of a person where they are - which is love - is what wins people. God in His wisdom happened to reveal this to me before revealing it to someone else. So what? It is just a different human time schedule. Time means nothing to the eternity of God. Every unconverted person is being brought to the end of his rope. But we all have different lengths of rope. Some can hear God in their conscience and rather readily accept His message. Others must go through the school of “hard-knocks” before they will even BEGIN to listen. So we learn to “hate the sin but love the sinner!” And sin in nothing more than trying to live independently from self-effort - doing our own thing.
As long as we keep in the front of our mind that God is dealing with and drawing everyone to Him, to accept Him, to accept Christ’s sacrifice for sin, to see and understand the spiritual reality of the living union of Christ in our spirit, then our actions toward others will reflect that. We can deal with everyone on the level that GOD IS DEALING WITH THEM! And we can TRUST in God’s time schedule.
5.) SEEING GOD IN CIRCUMSTANCES, SITUATIONS AND TRIALS
As we grow in our spiritual awareness, we reach what I consider the pinnacle of SEEING GOD. We see God in everything that happens to us. I want to spend some time here considering God in our trials and sins. The knowledge that Christ is now living our lives totally and spontaneously is so liberating that we sometimes forget that there are “interruptions” in our liberation, occurrences which the Scriptures call “trials” and “temptations”. “Every man is tempted,” said James, and we who know Christ as Life are not excluded.
Of course, the matter is now seen in an entirely different light than when I labored under the illusion of separation and self-effort. I begin to realize that everything, even my sin, is used by God to draw me into greater awareness of my union with Christ. Therefore, I no longer fear temptation as if it were some “test” which I may or may not pass. I no longer fear a “problem” in my life as some “hurdle” which I may or may not jump over. I see temptations and trials as “negatives” which, through my faith and TRUST in Christ, bring forth the “positive” of the Living Christ.
But, as Paul said, “Therefore should I sin all the more so that God may be glorified? Absolutely not!” Even though we are drawn back to Christ and forgiven of our sin, there are lingering physical effects in our life: possible disease from sexual encounters; emotional problems from hatred, anger, pride, envy, etc., physical deterioration from alcohol and drugs. So we want to avoid sin, if for no other reason than to stay physically healthy.
There are many places where we want to see God, but also many places where we don’t. We want to see Him in all the good things, the beautiful things, the pleasant things, the “righteous” things. However, we don’t want to see Him in the bad things, the ugly things, the unpleasant things, and yes, the sinful things. BUT HE IS THERE. David said, “If I make my bed in hell, You are there” (Psa. 139 :8). Through Isaiah, God Himself said, “I am the Lord, I create evil” (Isa. 45:7). We are uncomfortable in the absurdity that a loving God could author suffering. We recoil at the idea that a beautiful God could produce ugliness. And we Christians totally reject the “sacrilege” that a holy and righteous God could “create evil”.
But He said it - and more than that, He showed it. Who nailed Jesus Christ to a cross of shame and death? Who committed the greatest crime ever perpetrated? Who sponsored the worst thing that ever happened in the universe? Roman soldiers? Yes. Jewish Pharisees? Yes. Satan? Yes - and one more guilty party. “Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of GOD, you ... have slain” (Acts 2:23). Can it possibly be that the worst thing that ever happened in the world, the greatest injustice, the most heinous crime, was perpetrated by God Himself?! Can it be? Did God kill His own Son?!
Of course, we know the answer is yes. But we also know the flip side of the story. We who have believed know that the worst thing that ever happened is also the best thing, for “without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin”. We know that apart from Christ’s death, there could be no life for us. And so we see through the appearance of evil and are absurd enough to call it the abounding love of God, the reason of our faith and hope. We who have believed have been silly enough to not live in the appearance that the cross was shame, and evil, and devilish. We have decided to see it as life, as beauty, and yes, as God, and we have experienced salvation for having done so.
Therefore, our faith sees through everything to God. No longer do we blame ourselves, others, or Satan for the situations and events in which we are involved. No, we “blame” God — in the form of praise and thanksgiving, that the One who “does all things well” is at work through human and even devilish agencies.
We say that WE ARE SEEING GOD - in nature, in sin judgment, in ourselves, in other persons and even in everything that happens to us. And we find ourselves at perfect peace because we have said it, and wonder of wonders, we begin to see that what we have said comes forth in open manifestation. We see that our temptation to believe that this or that is the devil, or the flesh, or the world, is really our wake-up call to SEE THAT GOD REALLY IS (AND HAS BEEN) ON THE SCENE NO MATTER WHAT THE APPEARANCE.
The key of simply SEEING GOD is in our hands, and when we learn to use it, all of life becomes a seeing of the “glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ”. Perhaps the world will tell us that “no good thing comes out of Nazareth” (John 1:46), but we know Joseph’s secret, that, “YOU THOUGHT EVIL AGAINST ME, BUT GOD MEANT IT FOR GOOD” (Gen. 50: 20).
Before we talk about the nature of the animal world around us, let’s get it straight in our minds about the composition of humanity.
The Bible states that man is composed of three parts: spirit, soul and body (1 Thessalonians 5:23). The human spirit is the “image of God” mentioned in Genesis One. It is our connection with the spirit dimension of God. It contains our very nature of who and what we are. The human soul is located in the human brain and is the control panel of the intellect, the emotions and the will. And the body, of course, is the material part of us which relates to the material world around us and is controlled by the decisions made in the soul.
I like to say that I AM a spirit, I HAVE a soul and I LIVE IN a body.
Now where do animals fit in to this scheme of spirit, soul and body? Let’s start with the body – that is the simplest. All animals have material bodies, duh! No problem there!
Contrary to the American Indians and some Eastern religions, the Bible nowhere states that animals have spirits. Animals are not connected with the spirit dimension with the “image of God” as humans are.
This brings us to the “soul”. There has been much debating over the centuries over the meaning of soul and spirit. But they are different! Hebrews 4:12 says that the word of God (the Bible) is capable of showing us the division of soul and spirit. Do animals have “souls”? My interpretation of Genesis One is that some do have souls and some don’t have souls. I believe it all has to do with how God’s creatures around us relate to human beings.
There are the domesticated animals which can establish a relationship with man and HAVE A SOUL of intellect, emotion and will. These have been called “soulish animals”. They consist basically of mammals and a few kinds of birds such as the parrot and macaw. These soulish animals are called in Genesis 1:24 as “cattle” in some translations and as “livestock” in other translations. We especially see these soul characteristics in our pets – our dogs and cats.
Then there are all the other kinds of creatures we see around us which DO NOT HAVE SOULS. They have no personal relationship with man. They are called in Genesis 1:24 as “creeping things” or “creatures that move along the ground” (insects such as ants, mosquitoes, lizards, etc.). There are also what are called “wild animals” or “beasts” which have no soul and no personal relationship with man. All of these creatures without souls are governed by an implanted “instinct” in their brains. They are programmed by God to do exactly what they were made for and nothing more.
I make this distinction between animals with souls and those without souls in great part because of the Hebrew word “nephesh” which is most often translated “soul” in the Old Testament. This word “nephesh” is used four times in Genesis One for lower life forms before it is ever used for man. This indicates to me that at least some animals have “souls”.
