Terry Hightower
He lives! Not that men have not tried to bury Him. Is God really there or is He just a matter of wish fulfillment on our part? Remember Voltaire’s claim that “If God did not exist, we should have to invent him” was superseded by his fellow Frenchman Proudhon’s insistence that “The first duty of free and intelligent man is to chase the idea of God out of his conscience incessantly.” Balunin would add, “If God did exist, we should have to abolish him.”
In the nineteenth century, Nietzsche’s madman in the Joyful Wisdom announced the death of God:
“Where is God gone?” he called out. “I mean to tell you! We have killed him,—you and I. We are all his murderers! But how have we done it? How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the whole horizon? What did we do when we loosened this earth from its sun? Whither does it now move? Whither do we move? Away from all suns? Do we not dash on unceasingly? Backwards, sideways, forwards, in all directions? Is there still an above and below? Do we not stray, as through infinite nothingness? Does not empty space breathe upon us? Has it not become colder? Shall we not light lanterns in the morning? Do we not hear the noise of the grave diggers who are burying God? Do we not smell the divine putrefaction?—For even Gods putrefy! God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him!”
The widely accepted notion among so called intellectuals is that the God of the Judeo/Christian heritage is dead. But yet God has been a very lively corpse! He keeps creeping back into our consciousness because we suspect that professed “sure laws of science” simply cannot explain the human conscience (Rom. 2:14-19), the design of the human eye with color ability and “stereo” focusing, or that everything in the Cosmos has arrived from a non-purposive Big Bang of about 40 pounds of matter. One twentieth century jokester passed out this little card in retaliation toward “God-killers” of our day:
God is dead. (signed) Nietzsche.
Nietzsche is dead. (signed) God.
The God of the Bible is living and active. He is vitally involved in the affairs of this earth, despite our sometimes doubting such. Simon Peter answered and said, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven” (Mat. 16:16- 17).
To the Sadducees he cried out: “I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living” (Mat. 22:32). Christians are a “temple of the Holy Ghost” (1 Cor. 6:19). We must live in light of the fact that “The Lord shall judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Heb. 10:30-31)! Do not make the fatal mistake of writing God’s obituary.
Let us all with one voice strongly protest the wild rumor of God’s death, as did the preacher Lockridge:
God is dead? Who pronounced him dead? Who signed the death certificate? Who was the coroner? Who was well enough acquainted with the deceased to identify him? Why wasn’t I notified? I’m a member of the family!
Are you a son or daughter of God? “For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ” (Gal. 3:26-27). Let God add you to His family—His church/ kingdom upon this action (Acts 2:47). If you have been added to God’s household here on earth, the crucial question for you is this: “Are you truly living your whole life in strong belief that there is ‘beyond the azure blue a God concealed from human sight,’ or are you living as though he is dead or probably dead?”
