R.C. Sproul's Blog, page 22

Jesus Became a Curse for Us

One image, one aspect, of the atonement has receded in our day almost into obscurity. We have been made aware of present-day attempts to preach a more gentle and kind gospel. In our effort to communicate the work of Christ more kindly we flee from any mention of a curse inflicted by God upon his Son. We shrink in horror from the words of the prophet Isaiah (chap. 53) that describe the ministry of the suffering servant of Israel and tells us that it pleased the Lord to bruise him. Can you take that in? Somehow the Father took pleasure in bruising the Son when he set before him that awful cup of divine wrath. How could the Father be pleased by bruising his Son were it not for his eternal purpose through that bruising to restore us as his children?

But there is the curse motif that seems utterly foreign to us, particularly in this time in history. When we speak today of the idea of curse, what do we think of? We think perhaps of a voodoo witch doctor that places pins in a doll made to replicate his enemy. We think of an occultist who is involved in witchcraft, putting spells and hexes upon people. The very word curse in our culture suggests some kind of superstition, but in biblical categories there is nothing superstitious about it.

The Hebrew Benediction

If you really want to understand what it meant to a Jew to be cursed, I think the simplest way is to look at the famous Hebrew benediction in the Old Testament, one which clergy often use as the concluding benediction in a church service:

The Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;
the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.
(Num. 6:24–26)

The structure of that famous benediction follows a common Hebrew poetic form known as parallelism. There are various types of parallelism in Hebrew literature. There's antithetical parallelism in which ideas are set in contrast one to another. There is synthetic parallelism, which contains a building crescendo of ideas. But one of the most common forms of parallelism is synonymous parallelism, and, as the words suggest, this type restates something with different words. There is no clearer example of synonymous parallelism anywhere in Scripture than in the benediction in Numbers 6, where exactly the same thing is said in three different ways. If you don't understand one line of it, then look to the next one, and maybe it will reveal to you the meaning.

We see in the benediction three stanzas with two elements in each one: "bless" and "keep"; "face shine" and "be gracious"; and "lift up the light of his countenance" and "give you peace." For the Jew, to be blessed by God was to be bathed in the refulgent glory that emanates from his face. "The Lord bless you" means "the Lord make his face to shine upon you." Is this not what Moses begged for on the mountain when he asked to see God? Yet God told him that no man can see him and live. So God carved out a niche in the rock and placed Moses in the cleft of it, and God allowed Moses to see a glimpse of his backward parts but not of his face. After Moses had gotten that brief glance of the back side of God, his face shone for an extended period of time. But what the Jew longed for was to see God's face, just once.

The Jews' ultimate hope was the same hope that is given to us in the New Testament, the final eschatological hope of the beatific vision: "Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is" (1 John 3:2). Don't you want to see him? The hardest thing about being a Christian is serving a God you have never seen, which is why the Jew asked for that.

The Supreme Malediction

But my purpose here is not to explain the blessing of God but its polar opposite, its antithesis, which again can be seen in vivid contrast to the benediction. The supreme malediction would read something like this:

"May the Lord curse you and abandon you. May the Lord keep you in darkness and give you only judgment without grace. May the Lord turn his back upon you and remove his peace from you forever."

When on the cross, not only was the Father's justice satisfied by the atoning work of the Son, but in bearing our sins the Lamb of God removed our sins from us as far as the east is from the west. He did it by being cursed. "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, 'Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree'" (Gal. 3:13). He who is the incarnation of the glory of God became the very incarnation of the divine curse.

Excerpt taken from "The Curse Motif of the Cross" by R.C. Sproul in Proclaiming a Cross Centered Theology. Used by permission of Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, Wheaton, Il 60187.

$5 Friday (And More): The Doctrine of Atonement, the Work of Christ, & the Meaning of the Cross

It’s time for our weekly $5 Friday sale. This week’s resources include such topics as the doctrine of atonement, the work of Christ, the meaning of the cross, the Gospel, and more.

Plus, several bonus resources are also available for more than $5. These have been significantly discounted from their original price. This week’s bonus resources include:

The Atonement of Jesus with R.C. Sproul, Digital Download $31 $10 New Life in Christ by Steven Lawson, Paperback $16 $10 Understanding the Gospel by R.C. Sproul, Digital download $31 $10 Reason to Believe by R.C. Sproul, Digital download $15 $10 The Work of Christ by R.C. Sproul Hardcover $20 $12And More

Sale runs through 12:01 a.m.–11:59 p.m. Friday ET.

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What Was God's Purpose in the Cross?

The doctrine of limited atonement (also known as "definite atonement" or "particular redemption") says that the atonement of Christ was limited (in its scope and aim) to the elect; Jesus did not atone for the sins of everybody in the world. In my denomination, we examine young men going into the ministry, and invariably somebody will ask a student, "Do you believe in limited atonement?" The student will respond by saying, "Yes, I believe that the atonement of Christ is sufficient for all and efficient for some," meaning the value of Christ's death on the cross was great enough to cover all of the sins of every person that ever lived, but that it applies only to those who put their faith in Christ. However, that statement doesn't get at the real heart of the controversy, which has to do with God's purpose in the cross.

There are basically two ways in which to understand God's eternal plan. One understanding is that, from all eternity, God had a desire to save as many people as possible out of the fallen human race, so He conceived a plan of redemption by which He would send His Son into the world as the sin-bearer for fallen people. Jesus would go to the cross and die for all who would at some point put their trust in him. So the plan was provisional—God provided atonement for all who take advantage of it, for all who believe. The idea is that Jesus died potentially for everybody, but that it is theoretically possible that the whole thing was in vain because every last person in the world might reject the work of Jesus and choose to remain dead in their trespasses and sins. Thus, God's plan could be frustrated because nobody might take advantage of it. This is the prevailing view in the church today—that Jesus died for everybody provisionally. In the final analysis, whether salvation happens depends on each individual person.

The Reformed view understands God's plan differently. It says that God, from all eternity, devised a plan that was not provisional. It was a plan "A" with no plan "B" to follow if it didn't work. Under this plan, God decreed that He would save a certain number of people out of fallen humanity, people whom the Bible calls the elect. In order for that plan of election to work out in history, He sent His Son into the world with the specific aim and design to accomplish redemption for the elect. This was accomplished perfectly, without a drop of the blood of Christ being wasted. Everyone whom the Father chose for salvation will be saved through the atonement.

The implication of the non-Reformed view is that God doesn't know in advance who is going to be saved. For this reason, there are theologians today saying, "God saves as many people as He possibly can." How many people can God save? How many people does He have the power to save? If He is really God, He has the power to save all of them. How many people does He have the authority to save? Cannot God intervene in anyone's life, just as He did in Moses' life, Abraham's life, or the apostle Paul's life, to bring them into a saving relationship with Him? He certainly has the right to do that.

We cannot deny that the Bible speaks about Jesus dying for "the world." John 3:16 is the premier example of a verse that uses this language. But there is a counterbalancing perspective in the New Testament, including John's Gospel, that tells us Jesus laid down His life not for everyone but for His sheep. Here in John's Gospel, Jesus speaks about His sheep as those whom the Father has given Him.

In John 6, we see that Jesus said, "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him" (v. 44a), and the word translated as "draws" properly means "compels." Jesus also said in that chapter, "All that the Father gives Me will come to Me" (v. 37a). His point was that everyone whom the Father designed to come to His Son would come, and no one else. Thus, your salvation, from start to finish, rests on the sovereign decree of God, who decided, in His grace, to have mercy on you, not because of anything He saw in you that demanded it, but for the love of the Son. The only reason I can give under heaven why I'm a Christian is because I'm a gift of the Father to the Son, not because of anything I've ever done or could do.

This excerpt is taken from R.C. Sproul's commentary on John.

Resurrection and Justification

How is the resurrection of Christ linked to the idea of justification in the New Testament? To answer this question, we must first explore the use and meaning of the term justification in the New Testament. Confusion about this has provoked some of the fiercest controversies in the history of the church. The Protestant Reformation itself was fought over the issue of justification. In all its complications, the unreconciled and unreconcilable difference in the debate came down to the question of whether our justification before God is grounded in the infusion of Christ's righteousness into us, by which we become inherently righteous, or in the imputation, or reckoning, of Christ's righteousness to us while we are still sinners. The difference between these views makes all the difference in our understanding of the Gospel and of how we are saved.

One of the problems that led to confusion was the meaning of the word justification. Our English word justification is derived from the Latin justificare. The literal meaning of the Latin is "to make righteous." The Latin fathers of church history worked with the Latin text instead of the Greek text and were clearly influenced by it. By contrast, the Greek word for justification, dikaiosune, carries the meaning of "to count, reckon, or declare righteous."

But this variance between the Latin and the Greek is not enough to explain the debates over justification. Within the Greek text itself, there seem to be some problems. For example, Paul declares in Romans 3:28, "Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law." Then James, in his epistle, writes, "Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar" (2:21) and "You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only" (2:24).

On the surface, it appears that we have a clear contradiction between Paul and James. The problem is exacerbated when we realize that both use the same Greek word for justification and both use Abraham to prove their arguments.

This problem can be resolved when we see that the verb "to justify" and its noun form, "justification," have shades of meaning in Greek. One of the meanings of the verb is "to vindicate" or "to demonstrate."

Jesus once said, " 'Wisdom is justified by all her children' " (Luke 7:35). He did not mean that wisdom has its sins remitted or is counted righteous by God by having children, but that a wise decision may be vindicated by its consequences.

James and Paul were addressing different questions. James was answering the question: "What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him?" (2:14). He understood that anyone can profess to have faith, but true faith is demonstrated as authentic by its consequent works. The claim of faith is vindicated (justified) by works. Paul has Abraham justified in the theological sense in Genesis 15 before he does any works. James points to the vindication or demonstration of Abraham's faith in obedience in Genesis 22.

The Resurrection involves justification in both senses of the Greek term. First, the Resurrection justifies Christ Himself. Of course, He is not justified in the sense of having His sins remitted, because He had no sins, or in the sense of being declared righteous while still a sinner, or in the Latin sense of being "made righteous." Rather, the Resurrection serves as the vindication or demonstration of the truth of His claims about Himself.

In his encounter with the philosophers at Athens, Paul declared: " 'Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead' " (Acts 17:30-31).

Here Paul points to the Resurrection as an act by which the Father universally vindicates the authenticity of His Son. In this sense, Christ is justified before the whole world by His resurrection.

However, the New Testament also links Christ's resurrection to our justification. Paul writes, "It shall be imputed to us who believe in Him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification" (Rom. 4:24-25).

It is clear that in His atoning death Christ suffered on our behalf, or for us. Likewise, His resurrection is seen not only as a vindication of or surety of Himself, but as a surety of our justification. Here justification does not refer to our vindication, but to the evidence that the atonement He made was accepted by the Father. By vindicating Christ in His resurrection, the Father declared His acceptance of Jesus' work on our behalf. Our justification in this theological sense rests on the imputed righteousness of Christ, so the reality of that transaction is linked to Christ's resurrection. Had Christ not been raised, we would have a mediator whose redeeming work in our behalf was not acceptable to God.

However, Christ is risen indeed!

This post was originally published in Tabletalk magazine.

God Himself Will Provide the Lamb

Before Abraham could do the unthinkable, the Lord provided the sacrifice in place of Abraham’s son. In this classic clip, R.C. Sproul dramatically retells the story of Abraham and Isaac to teach us about the ultimate sacrifice God has provided in His Son.

Transcript

But that dog and I were inseparable from that day forth. I mean, when I would lecture, Hosanna would be by my feet. He would sleep at my side when I would lecture. If I would walk out of the room, he would walk out of the room. If I went to the woods, he went with me.

It was an incredible animal—gentle, loving, strong. When he was about two-and-a-half years old, he had a convulsion. And I took him to the vet, and I said, "He had this terrible convulsion," and the vet examined him and, didn't know what, gave him some medication. The next day, he had another convulsion. The next day, another convulsion. The day after that, two convulsions. And then he started having three, four, five, six convulsions in a day. And the vet tried every medicine that he knew of. He said, "R.C., the only thing I can think of is that we're getting a final reaction to the damage to the dog's brain from the original snakebite." And now, with the degree of medication required for this animal to be able to even function, it was so debilitating that he was in a pathetic state. And the vet said, "The only humane thing to do, to use the euphemism, is to put this dog to sleep." I brought him home. I said, "I have to talk to the kids. I have to talk to Vesta." We talked about it, and Vesta and I agreed that the dog had to be put to sleep.

I said, "We're going to have to take him to the vet." And she said, "Well, will you take him to the vet tomorrow?" I said, "Honey, I can't take that dog, my dog, and put him in my car and drive ten minutes to the veterinarian, knowing that I'm taking him to his death. If that dog looked at me from the side on the seat, I'd go drive right off the road. I can't do that.” I said, "Look, some day this week—don't tell me what day it is—have one of the students here at the study center when I least expect it—have the student take the dog, and tell me when it's done." And three days later, I came home and Vesta met me. She said, "Hosie's dead. I had a student take him to the vet." That was my dog. It wasn't my son. See, I couldn't take my dog, who was in misery, who was going to die anyway, in a car for 15 minutes to be mercifully killed. God asked Abraham to take his son, his only son, the son whom he loved, Isaac, and personally journey with him for three days while the child was robust, full of health, not in any life-suffering or -threatening disease, and by his own hand he was to kill him. Christians, think about that!

On the third day, Abraham raised his eyes and saw the place from a distance. And Abraham said to his young men, “You stay here with the donkey, and I and the boy will go yonder, and we will worship and return to you.”

So, the two of them walked on together, and there they came to the place which God had told him, and Abraham built the altar, arranged the wood, delaying to the last possible second giving away. Isaac's helping him build the altar. Isaac's still looking around for this lamb that's going to be supplied. Abraham's building the altar. Abraham's stacking the wood. I can see Isaac handing his father pieces of the wood to put up on the altar. And once he puts them up, then Abraham says, "Come here, Isaac." And he picks up his son and he puts him on the altar, and he takes out the cords and the ropes, and he binds him to the altar.

And just as Abraham is ready to bring the knife down into the chest of his son, we read that the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven had said, "Abraham, Abraham!" Abraham stops right there and says, "Here I am," like "Where have you been?" "Here I am." And the angel said, "Do not stretch out your hand against the lad. Do nothing to him. For now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me." And then Abraham raised his eyes and he looked, and behold, behind him a ram caught by its horns in the thicket. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered him up as a burnt offering unto the Lord. And Abraham called the name of that place, "The Lord Will Provide." Mount Moriah, where is it? According to current archaeology, Mount Moriah was a place in the south part of Palestine that later was changed, and its name was called Jerusalem or Mount Zion. The historic place where Abraham offered Isaac is now considered to be the site of the Dome of the Rock in the old city of Jerusalem. Two thousand years later on this same mountain, God took His Son, His only Son, the Son whom he loved: Jesus. And He took Him to that same mountain, and He fastened Him to a vertical altar of sacrifice. But this time, ladies and gentlemen, nobody hollered, "Stop!" God brought the knife into the heart of His only begotten Son, fulfilling, in blood, in time, and in space, the promise that was dramatized and symbolized by the test of Abraham's child of promise. God said, "Abraham, I will provide the sacrifice.”

A Question with Eternal Consequences: Saved from What?

Have you ever been asked by a stranger, “Are you saved?” Many Christians use this question as an opportunity to tell someone about Jesus. But a common response to that question might catch us off guard: “Saved from what?” Until this essential question can be answered, we won’t be able to make sense of Christ’s sacrifice or explain it to others.

In his book Saved from What?, new to paperback, Dr. R.C. Sproul reveals that the greatest danger we face is the holy wrath of God against our sin. But the glory of the gospel is that the One from whom we need to be saved is the very One who saves us. As we better understand the severity of our sin and the sufficiency of Christ’s atonement, the truth of God’s grace will deepen our worship and drive us to make His salvation known.

Taking readers right to the heart of the gospel, this book would make an excellent addition to your church resource table. Receive a special bulk discount when you order five or more copies to give to visitors or to equip growing Christians.

Available now from the Ligonier store. Read a sample chapter.

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Announcing Our Online Streaming Event: Here We Stand

Five hundred years ago, an Augustinian monk stood before an imperial council and was called to recant his teachings. With his conscience bound by the Word of God, Martin Luther refused to compromise. His stand fanned the flames of reformation as the Western church recovered the precious teachings that were long obscured by extrabiblical rules and traditions.

Join us on April 13, 2021, beginning at 4:00 p.m. ET, for Here We Stand, a special online streaming event. Celebrating the five-hundredth anniversary of the Diet of Worms, this free event will explore the essential truths championed in the Protestant Reformation. As we consider the relevance of these truths for people of all ages around the world, we will be encouraged to stand with conviction on the Word of God today.

MESSAGES WILL INCLUDE

Here I Stand by Stephen NicholsHere We Stand on Scripture Alone by Burk ParsonsHere We Stand in Latin America by Sugel MichelénHere We Stand through Faith Alone by Derek ThomasHere We Stand in Europe by Michael ReevesHere We Stand in Christ Alone by Sinclair FergusonHere We Stand in Asia and the Middle East by Nathan W. BinghamHere We Stand by Grace Alone by W. Robert GodfreyHere We Stand in Africa by Ken MbuguaHere We Stand for the Glory of God Alone by Steven Lawson

This event will stream on Ligonier’s blog, YouTube channel, Facebook page, and Twitter account. Please share this online streaming event with your family and friends.

 

What Does It Mean for God to “Give People up” to Their Sin (Rom. 1:24)?

When someone is able to flaunt God’s law to his heart’s content, it may be a sign that he is under God’s wrath. From one of our Ask Ligonier events, Sinclair Ferguson explains that divine judgment often manifests itself in allowing sinners to reap the consequences of their own rebellion.

Just ask Ligonier to get clear and trustworthy answers to your biblical and theological questions.

Read the Transcript

 

The Design and Scope of the Atonement

In an age wherein the ground of theology has been saturated by the torrential downpour of existential thinking, it seems almost suicidal, like facing the open floodgates riding a raft made of balsa wood, to appeal to a seventeenth-century theologian to address a pressing theological issue. Nothing evokes more snorts from the snouts of anti-rational zealots than appeals to sages from the era of Protestant Scholasticism.

“Scholasticism” is the pejorative term applied by so-called “Neo-Orthodox” (better spelled without the “e” in Neo), or “progressive” Reformed thinkers who embrace the “Spirit” of the Reformation while eschewing its “letter” to the seventeenth-century Reformed thinkers who codified the insights of their sixteenth-century magisterial forebears. To the scoffers of this present age, Protestant Scholasticism is seen as a reification or calcification of the dynamic and liquid forms of earlier Reformed insight. It is viewed as a deformation from the lively, sanguine rediscovery of biblical thought to a deadly capitulation to the “Age of Reason,” whereby the vibrant truths of redemption were reduced to logical propositions and encrusted in dry theological tomes and arid creedal formulations such as the Westminster Confession of Faith.

The besetting sin of men like Francis Turretin and John Owen was their penchant for precision and clarity in doctrinal statements. As J. I. Packer observed in his introduction of John Owen’s classic work, The Death of Death in the Death of Christ:

“Those who see no need for doctrinal exactness and have no time for theological debates which show up divisions between so-called Evangelicals may well regret its reappearance … . Owen’s work is a constructive broad-based biblical analysis of the heart of the gospel, and must be taken seriously as such … . Nobody has the right to dismiss the doctrine of the limitedness of the atonement as a monstrosity of Calvinistic logic until he has refuted Owen’s proof that it is part of the uniform biblical presentation of redemption, clearly taught in plain text after plain text.”

The “monster” created by Calvinistic logic to which Packer refers is the doctrine of limited atonement. The so-called “Five points of Calvinism” (growing out of a dispute with Remonstrants (Arminians) in Holland in the early seventeenth century) have been popularized by the acrostic T-U-L-I-P, spelling out the finest flower in God’s garden:

T — Total Depravity
U — Unconditional Election
L — Limited Atonement
I — Irresistible Grace
P — Perseverance of the Saints.

Many who embrace a view of God’s sovereign grace in election are willing to embrace the Tulip if one of its five petals is lopped off. Those calling themselves “four-point Calvinists” desire to knock the “L” out of Tulip.

On the surface, it seems that of the “five points” of Tulip, the doctrine of limited atonement presents the most difficulties. Does not the Bible teach over and over that Jesus died for the whole world? Is not the scope of the atonement worldwide? The most basic affirmation the Evangelical recites is John 3:16: “For God so loved the world … .”

On the other hand, it seems to me that the easiest of the five points to defend is limited atonement. But this facility must get under the surface to be manifested. The deepest penetration under that surface is the one provided by Owen in The Death of Death in the Death of Christ.

First, we ask if the atonement of Christ was a real atonement? Did Jesus really, or only potentially, satisfy the demands of God’s justice? If indeed Christ provided a propitiation and expiation for all human beings and for all their sins, then, clearly, all persons would be saved. Universal atonement, if it is actual, and not merely potential, means universal salvation.

However, the overwhelming majority of Christians who reject limited atonement also reject universal salvation. They are particularists, not universalists. They insist on the doctrine of justification by faith alone. That is, only believers are saved by the atonement of Christ.

If that is so, then the atonement, in some sense, must be limited, or restricted, to a definite group, namely believers. If Christ died for all of the sins of all people, that must include the sin of unbelief. If God’s justice is totally satisfied by Christ’s work on the cross, then it would follow that God would be unjust in punishing the unrepentant sinner for his unbelief and impenitence because those sins were already paid for by Christ.

People usually get around this by citing the axiom, “Christ’s atonement was sufficient for all, but efficient only for some. What does this mean? The Calvinist would interpret this axiom to mean that the value of Christ’s sacrifice is so high, His merit so extensive, that its worth is equal to cover all the sins of the human race. But the atonement’s benefits are only efficient for believers, the elect. The non-Calvinist interprets this axiom in slightly different terms: Christ’s atonement was good enough to save everyone — and was intended to make salvation possible for everyone. But that intent is realized only by believers. The atonement is efficient (or “works”) only for those who receive its benefits by faith.

As I said, this is still a form of “limited atonement.” Its efficacy is limited by human response. Sadly, this kind of limit puts a limit on the saving work of Christ far greater than any limit of the atonement viewed by Reformed theology.

The real issue was the design, or purpose, of God’s plan in laying upon His Son the burden of the Cross. Was it God’s purpose simply to make salvation possible for all but certain for none? Did God have to wait to see if any would respond to Christ to make His atonement efficient? Was it theoretically possible that Jesus would die “for all” yet never see the fruit of His travail and be satisfied?

Or was it God’s eternal purpose and design of the Cross to make salvation certain for His elect? Was there a special sense in which Christ died for His own, for the sheep the Father had given Him?

Here our understanding of the nature of God impacts strongly and decisively our understanding of the design and scope of the Atonement. To deal with every biblical text that bears on those questions, the best source I know of is John Owen’s The Death of Death in the Death of Christ.

This post was originally published in Tabletalk magazine.

The Search for Ultimate Reality

From the earliest centuries, humanity has sought to understand the meaning behind the world and everything in it. In this brief clip, R.C. Sproul engages these questions which find their ultimate fulfillment in God Himself.

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Transcript:

Now, that whole question of the one and the many, unity and diversity, was the question that this scientist in the sixth century BC, by the name of Thales, was passionately engaged in trying to resolve. What he was looking for is what we call “ultimate reality.” What does he mean, or what did the ancient thinkers mean by “ultimate reality?” Well, one of the technical terms that we learn in the study of philosophy is the word “metaphysics.” We’re all familiar with the term “physics,” because physics describes the natural world of forces and powers and things and how they interact. Metaphysics is the attempt by the philosopher to go above and beyond the seen world that we encounter with our five senses from day to day, to search for that which is above and beyond the physical realm, from which everything comes and by which everything gains its ultimate unity and harmony. Another concern that the ancient Greeks had was for the word that they called “telos.” We get the word “teleology” from this word “telos.” And the Greek word “telos” can be translated by the English words “end” or “goal” or “purpose.” And so, the question of Thales and of the ancient philosophers was not simply, “What is everything made of, and how did it come to pass?” but also the deeper question of “Why?” “Why are things the way that they are? Is there any purpose for birds? Is there a purpose for wind and for water, for stars and for the moon? Is there any purpose to human existence?” That was a serious teleological question. That is, they were asking for the goal or the end. This is a profoundly theological question for those of us who are Christians. In fact, the old Westminster Shorter Catechism begins with the first question, “What is man's chief end?” That is, it's asking, “What is the purpose, or the telos, of human existence?” Well, these were the kinds of questions that were being raised by the pre-Socratic philosophers.