What is Kevin Harris Pondering?

KEVIN HARRIS: Bill, I was recently asked whether I ever had the opportunity to ask you some questions. After more than a decade of co-hosting and producing the Reasonable Faith podcast, I’m blessed to be in touch with so many great resources. I often consult the Defenders class or a Question of the Week or one of your books when I have a question on my mind. But someone is asking me that, and it has me thinking about what questions I'm currently ruminating on. I've narrowed it down to about four here just for brevity's sake. Most of the time, Bill, when I have lunch with you or something I'm asking you more pastoral questions simply because we cover so much of this on the podcast. Believe me, I have a lot more than these four questions, but if it's okay with you I'll throw out a few for discussion.

DR. CRAIG: Very good.

KEVIN HARRIS: The first question deals with the need for forgiveness in the life of a Christian. I've been taught that in the atonement all of our sins (past, present, and future) are paid for at the cross. Yet, 1 John, seemingly written to Christians, says if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So clarify for me if you would. Is there an aspect of the atonement that covers our sins (past, present, future) but another aspect in which we continue to take our sins to God for his forgiveness?

DR. CRAIG: I thought about this question, too, because I had been taught as a young Christian that at the cross all of our sins were forgiven (past, present, and future).  As a result of my work on the atonement, I've come to believe that that's false, in fact. The reason is that people in the future don't exist in any sense, and therefore they cannot have committed sins, and therefore they cannot be guilty of those sins. A person is not guilty of a sin if he hasn't committed it. So at the time Jesus died on the cross, you and I didn't even exist, much less were guilty of sins, and so those sins cannot have been forgiven and cleansed at the cross. Rather, I think that what happened at the cross is that there was a payment for human sin that was made to God that was sufficient to cover all of the sins of humanity that would ever be committed (past, present, or future) and that that potential redemption is then actualized historically in time as people come to exist, commit sins, turn to Christ for forgiveness, and receive a divine pardon and cleansing from God. So I would differentiate between the potentiality of redemption and forgiveness at the cross and its actualization which I think takes place historically over time.

KEVIN HARRIS: That clears up a lot there. Thank you. My second question. I realized a while back that I was thinking of the new heaven and the new earth that the Scriptures talk about as a place where we will always look back on this life. That our current earthly life is somehow the center of our afterlife and in heaven will reminisce about it for eternity. The way I hear people talk, lots of people think this way probably because the house we grew up in or the first part of our lives deeply informs the rest of our lives. I tend to do that. I look back to the neighborhood that I grew up in and the rest of my life I'm always kind of focusing on that, going back to that basis. I realize this is rather theologically myopic. You said on one podcast that even in our resurrected bodies in the new heaven and the new earth we're going to be finite and limited and after the passage of time we may well forget all the things we did in this life. So is there anything in this veil of decision-making here on Earth that will be central or perhaps serve as an eternal memorial?

DR. CRAIG: I don't remember ever having said that we may forget all the things that we ever did in this life. I think that God could bring those memories to mind, but I certainly think that they would pale into insignificance compared to the joys of heaven and knowing Christ. It would seem to me that that would be like recalling the days of poverty and wearing rags and filth compared to the wonders of heaven which would be so great it would overshadow what we went through in this earthly existence. But in answer to your question, surely one thing that would be of central importance would be our conversion – that moment when we came to Christ, embraced him as Savior and Lord, and came to be an heir of eternal life and a member of God's family. It seems to me that that would be an experience that we would treasure forever, even in heaven.

KEVIN HARRIS: My next question is related. A person recently told me that he thinks he may never see his loved ones again in heaven. He claims he can't find a passage in the Bible that says that we'll be with all our acquaintances in the new heaven and the new earth. He speculates that it will just be him and the Lord for all eternity. Now, it's telling that he's kind of a loner, so this may actually appeal to him. But I immediately took him to various verses like in 1 Thessalonians that the claim that we will forever be with the Lord and some things like that. Have you ever heard anything like that? Is there any scriptural support for something like that?

DR. CRAIG: I have never heard a view like this before. This is almost like salvific solipsism or something. It is absolutely bizarre. Salvation in the New Testament is surely a corporate notion that involves the family of God, the body of Christ, all the company of the redeemed. And, as you say, there are plenty of scriptural passages about the plurality of the people in heaven – the saints beneath the altar in the Book of Revelation saying “How long, oh Lord!”. Or in the book of Hebrews, the departed spirits of the dead in festal gathering in the new heavens and the new earth. Clearly it's going to be a joyous company of all of God's adopted children of all of the redeemed, and it will be far from just he and the Lord in eternity. We're going to be with our brothers and sisters.

KEVIN HARRIS: Final question I have today is about praying for healing. I was recently diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and I'm managing it well, doing my best with diet, lifestyle, exercise, lots of prayer.

DR. CRAIG: Good.

KEVIN HARRIS: Do you personally pray for healing, or do you pray that God would sustain you and give you grace whether he totally heals you now or not? You've talked publicly about your neuromuscular challenges.

DR. CRAIG: Yes. And I don't pray for that anymore. I'm sort of hypocritical, honestly, about this. I find when I pray for others (like folks in our Defenders class) that I will typically pray for them to have courage to bear this trial, that their faith will not fail, that they will look to the hope of our resurrection bodies and eternal life with God, and recognize that in this veil of decision-making in this earthly life with these finite material bodies we are going to be subject to illness and accidents and injury. God doesn't spare us from these things. So I generally pray for people in that way to get through these successfully with spiritual victory rather than pray for healing. However, when I'm sick myself, it's very, very tempting to not just pray, “Lord, get me through this. Help me to be strong,” but I pray, “God, get me better. Help me to be better.” As a Molinist, I can pray for that without imagining miraculous healing – that God would use the aspirin and the Sudafed and the other things to heal my body and help me get well. So I think we can pray for healing without necessarily presupposing that it has to be miraculous. A God endowed with middle knowledge can know that if we were to pray for someone's healing he would put them in situations where they would get the proper medical attention that would help them to get better. I think it's really important that, just as God has given us plumbers and electricians to deal with our finite material challenges, he's given us doctors as well to deal with these finite bodies when they get ill or injured. In the same way that we don't necessarily pray for electrical or plumbing miracles, we don't need to pray for medical miracles either, but we can trust a provident God to provide healing through the miracle of modern medicine when he sees fit. And if he doesn't see fit to do that then I think we should and can pray for endurance and strength and optimism as we go through these difficult times.

KEVIN HARRIS: Very good. Thank you, Bill. You saved me a lot of time and research on a bunch of questions. If I come up with some more questions maybe we'll do a future podcast on my next batch.

DR. CRAIG: I’ll look forward to it.^[1]