Stephen
Terry, Director
Rebellion
in a Perfect Universe
Commentary
for the October 1, 2022, Sabbath School Lesson
"You
shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or
on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or
worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the
children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those
who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me
and keep my commandments." Exodus 20:4-6, NIV
It is ironic that in a world of
well over seven billion individuals so many complain of loneliness and an inability
to find a soul mate. Dating apps like Match.com and ChristianMingle.com prosper
from this widespread loneliness by holding out hope of finding that special
other who is also waiting to be found just as we are. Using programmed algorithms,
they attempt to match like to like, but based on my own anecdotal research many
years ago, flaws in that idea became quickly apparent. When people answer
questions about themselves, they lie. They may not see it as lying. They may
simply think they are helping the service find the type of person they are looking
for rather than a person who is like them. This means despite the promises of
computer aided profiling the hopeful aspirant may still need to "kiss a lot of artificially
generated toads before they find their prince or princess." The problem is
exacerbated when individuals use photos from ten or even twenty years ago in
their profiles, pictures that may represent how they see themselves but have
long ago lost foundation in reality.
But the problem does not end
there. Suppose through luck, we do meet mister or misses right. Their profile
seems to match their personality as you communicate, and their photo is accurate
and up to date. Have we hit pay dirt? Is our loneliness coming to an end?
Sadly, these services are populated with far too many people that I would call "players."
They have no interest in forming a lasting relationship with anyone else on the
service. Instead, they are more interested in pretending they are wanting a
relationship to block others attempts at coming together. For instance, in a
chat room female A and male B may be starting to develop a friendship. At that
point, female or male C will join the conversation in an attempt to steal away
one of the two with flattery and expressions of adoration. Once the couple is
broken up, the interloper leaves, leaving the two frustrated and alone,
wondering what just happened to their budding friendship. Meanwhile, individual
C chalks up another victory for making others miserable.
Faced with such disappointments,
more and more people seem to be turning to Artificial Intelligence applications
to find companionship from a robotic partner that will always be there for
them. These robots, projecting back at us what we want to hear and believe,
some even willing to act out our most questionable fantasies, seem like the
perfect answer to our loneliness free of the challenges of typical human
relationships. But if it is love we are searching for, is a robot capable of
loving us? It may present that illusion by endorsing everything we find
important. But being programmed to do so is different from choosing to do so. Real
love does not work like that. Real love does not eliminate disagreements. It
means remaining committed to one another despite conflict and working toward
resolution together. That only happens when both parties commit to the relationship
despite unforeseen challenges. Making that commitment can be risky. What if the
other person does not value the commitment and would rather walk away from a
relationship than save it? Should our desperation and fear of loneliness keep
us in a relationship without mutual commitment?
The Bible tells us that humanity
was created in the image of God.[i]
What does that mean? John, the Apostle told us that "God is love."[ii]
Therefore, we were created in love, to love. Perhaps this is why we are so miserable
when we are lonely. Our very being craves love, both to receive it and to give
it. To some small degree this may reveal to our own hearts the pain felt by God
when we refuse his attempts to have a similar loving connection with us. When
Adam and Eve chose to let another come in and damage their relationship with
God, one can almost hear the tears in his voice when God came into the garden
for his usual walk, and he cried out "Where are you?" for they were hiding from
him. The relationship was broken. They had chosen to go their own way. Rather
than recognize their error and seek reconciliation, they blamed others,
including God. Once everything fell apart and the interloper went on his way
with another successful temptation to add to his toll, Adam and Eve may have
been left wondering what happened just like our hapless couple in the dating
chat room.
How could such a thing happen?
Eden wasn't a dating chat room and the other party in this relationship was
God. Why didn't God just eliminate the interloper? For that matter, why didn't
he just eliminate humanity once they had defaced the love in the relationship
he had with them? Love doesn't work that way. If we go around killing everyone
who refuses to love us, we may find relationships with those who don't want to
die, but the relationships would be based on fear, not love. In all fairness,
there is unfortunately a lot of that in the Bible. Fear me or you will suffer
seems to be a repeated refrain in the Old Testament. But there may be good
reasons why that distorted picture is there. Imagine if we went through a
divorce and then our spouse got to write the history of everything that
happened in the relationship. Would we feel that in every respect, that account
was accurate and fair, or would we find ourselves disagreeing with how our
ex-spouse presented our character and actions? The Bible writers were really
struggling to see things from God's perspective and at times did not agree
about what God initiated and what he didn't. For example, when King David ordered
a census of Israel, one writer says that God incited David to do the crime.[iii]
Another later writer says that Satan was the instigator.[iv]
Who is this instigator? He is a
created being, a beautiful covering angel who became enamored of himself and
like Narcissus of mythology, turned his love from God to loving himself.
Eventually, he challenged the Creator who made him and found himself cast from
heaven to the earth.[v] Astonishingly, he managed
to convince a third of the heavenly host to join him in his attempt to
overthrow God and seize control of heaven. However, when we consider that he
invented the lie,[vi] and the inhabitants of
heaven had never heard a lie before, it is not hard to see how he could have
misled them into following him, even at the cost of their own lives thinking
they were on the side of truth. We have recently seen how easy it is for a lie
to become truth to the point of inciting rebellion even in the United States, a
stronghold of democracy. It is mind boggling that a third of the angels could
be misled by a lie, yet we seem to feel ourselves immune from deception and,
like those angels, are willing in significant numbers to go to war believing we
are defending the truth.
The Bible tells us a time will
come when all the subterfuge will end, and all will acknowledge the love of
God.[vii]
However, for some it will be too late. Like a divorce where the erring spouse
finally sees the light, but their ex has remarried, and life has moved on. They
admit their error, but they cannot re-establish the relationship. They have irretrievably
lost something precious. For Satan, that moment came when his rebellion failed,
and he and his angels were cast from heaven. There were no take backs. Ever
since, in ire, he has sought to move as many others as he could beyond that
point of no return. He has been repeatedly frustrated by God's unfailing love,
but like in heaven with the angels, he has found many still willing to follow a
lie if they think they can gain by it. Unfortunately, technology has strongly
aided his efforts. As the saying goes, a lie can circle the globe before the truth
even has a chance to get its shoes on. Little wonder that we are constantly
putting out fires all over the world, fires of rebellion and lust for power just
like the fire Satan sought to ignite in heaven. Maybe it is time we turn from
the lie, choose to believe that God is love, and validate that relationship by
loving according to the image he gave us at creation.