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HEAVEN'S LITTLE HELPERS #3

DO BIOLOGY RULES RULE?

You and I weren't around when it happened. But back in the year 1724, a scientific discovery was made which — according to some — meant that God was going to need a little bit of help.

Well, what was it? It was in that year, 275 years ago now, that medical science first discovered the existence of the female egg, the ovum. Before that time, it was thought that the woman was simply the "passive receptacle for the seed of the male." Now, in 1724, they finally knew better.

So, why does that mean God needs some help. In a new book just recently published, entitled Why Christianity Must Change or Die, liberal theologian John Shelby Spong informs us that, once the discovery of the female egg happened, that meant that the Virgin Birth was no longer a possibility. The year 1724 completely discredited that Bible story. Spong quotes the Bible as follows:

"‘He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.'"Then Rev. Spong adds this: "Certainly if that phrase is to be understood literally, it violates everything we know about biology."

And there you have it. As of the year 1724, we have a biological law in place. And according to that law, a virgin birth cannot be. Even God could not make the virgin birth a reality. And if there's going to be a Messiah born on this planet, then this tiny God who is straitjacketed by the laws of biology is going to need a little help.

Well, friend, forgive me — please forgive me — if the tiniest bit of sanctified sarcasm just showed up on this radio program. But you know, our title for the week is this: HEAVEN'S LITTLE HELPERS. And actually, Rev. Spong isn't the first person to decide that with these tough, unbreakable laws of biology all around, God was going to need a lot of help if He was ever going to fulfill the promises He had foolishly made to people.

We mentioned yesterday a solemn vow or covenant that God made with His servant Abraham.

"I will make you into a great nation," He said.

Over in chapter 15, Abraham, wondering how this was going to happen, said to God: "Well, look, why don't I consider my faithful servant Eliezar as a son? Maybe You can make me into a great nation through him." Already helping God, you see. And God scolds him a bit. Here's verse 4:

"‘This man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir.' He took him outside and said, ‘Look up at the heavens and count the stars — if indeed you can count them.' Then He said to him, ‘So shall your offspring be.'"

There was just one problem with this promise. Abraham and Sarah didn't know much about biology, but they knew enough to know that God was all wrong about this. They'd tried for years, and Sarah simply couldn't get pregnant. So, Abraham, who already showed his colors twice yesterday as God's little helper, now listens to his wife, who is of a similar mind. She tells him: "There's no way God can fulfill this promise through me. I've been barren all these years. Why don't you go ahead and have a baby for me through my servant girl, Hagar? I give you permission and everything."

Now, this is more surprising to us than it was back in that culture, because what Sarah was suggesting was actually rather common. In fact, there was in existence an ancient Mesopotamian code of Hammurabi which spelled out the legal ramifications of just such a family solution. For example:

"If later that female slave has claimed equality with her mistress because she bore children, her mistress may not sell her; she may mark her with the slave-mark and count her among the slaves."

So this was quite common, but it involved Abraham and Sarah putting the laws of biology ahead of the promises of God. And the proposal did produce a son named Ishmael, but God came along — this is in chapter 17 now — and told Abraham: "No, I'm going to give you and Sarah a son." And this old man, who had 99 candles on his last birthday cake, falls down in the dirt laughing. An old guy like him having a son? And Sarah 90? In fact, in the next chapter, when the Lord and two angels comes to visit Abraham, right before the Sodom and Gomorrah incident, He makes them a specific promise: Sarah will have a son within the next year. And she goes into the kitchen, hides behind the refrigerator and cracks up laughing too. At 90 years of age she's going to get pregnant?

These two people firmly believe the laws of biology are in charge of God, not the other way around. Verse 11 specifically states:

"Sarah was past the age of childbearing."

In fact, one more modern paraphrase version puts the biological barrier in plain English:
"Sarah had stopped having her monthly periods long ago."

And so, with these biology textbooks in their hands, and with what Abraham and Sarah knew about botany and the birds and the bees, they were sure that God needed some help from them. That's why they turned to Hagar. That's why, when it appeared that a nation of millions was beyond their reach — since the nursery scoreboard hadn't even reached one yet — they made their own plans. After all, even God can't beat biology, can He? Well, here's Genesis 21:1, 2:

"Now the Lord was gracious to Sarah as He had said, and the Lord did for Sarah what He had promised. Sarah" — not some substitute, not some surrogate, not some in-vitro, test-tube friend, but Sarah — "became pregnant and bore a son."

If you travel over to the New Testament, you find a similar story. God can take a woman who was sterile and old . . . and cause her to have a baby. He did it for Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, the cousin of Jesus. It is absolutely nothing at all for the God of the universe, who made everything there is out of nothing, to overrule one little law of biology — a law He made — and give someone a child if He chooses to.

So we have these well-meaning theologians who suggest that the Virgin Birth cannot and did not happen because of what we know about biology. Listen, I heard a Christian pastor once reverently suggest that God, if He wanted to, could not only cause the Virgin Mary to have a baby — He could have made it so Joseph had that baby!

But the lesson for us is this. When we're tempted to doubt the omnipotent power of God, and step in to "help God out," let's remember that miracle baby named Isaac. And that other one named John the Baptist. And a perfectly normal, human — and divine — baby boy named Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Who was born of a virgin.

Back now to the Old Testament, where, if you stay with this line of patriarchs — Abraham, Isaac, Jacob — there appears to be a long-running soap opera of "God's Little Helpers." When Isaac's wife Rebekah got pregnant, and found out it was going to be twins, God made her a promise that the younger one would receive heaven's blessing.

"The older will serve the younger."

That was God's prophecy and promise. And the younger one, Jacob, turned out, for this and other reasons, to be Mama's favorite son anyway. She wanted him to get the so-called birthright, or spiritual blessing that usually went to the oldest son. She was eager for God to come through with this promise.

Well, skip over to Genesis 27, and we see that poor, blind Isaac has other plans. He's about to give the ranch and the mantle of spiritual headship to Esau instead. But God promised! What's going on here? Rebekah goes into a panic, positive that God must be asleep at the switch, or that He's forgotten their little deal.

And what does Mom do? She launches into some of the wildest shenanigans you can imagine to "help" God out. Esau is supposed to bring his dad a nice meal, fresh from being caught in the field. She helps Jacob fake that part. Esau's a suntanned, hairy man; and she actually gives her second-born son some animal fur to drape over his arms and neck. That, plus the outdoor, goat-like smell the skin gives him, helps carry the day with Isaac, who's 90% blind. And so, by hook and by crook, she helps God do what she was sure He couldn't accomplish on His own. And in so doing, she ignited a feud which ran for the next 20 years.

Notice how the Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary for Genesis picks up on this theme:

"Feeling that God desperately needed her help," these scholars write, "Rebekah took matters into her own hands. She resorted to one wrong in the hope of righting another. . . . To refrain from action when it was in her power to remedy the situation, and simply trust God to work things out in His own good way and time, seemed impossible. By such a process of rationalization she sought to convince herself that any means to secure the desired end was justified. Was she not helping God to bring about His own clearly expressed purpose?"

Now, friend, it's not wrong to help God. The Bible calls us His fellow workers. But when we do it by lying, by subterfuge, we've taken the wrong path. And when we step up and help, with any thought that God is helpless, and that we must save the day, we're way off on the wrong path. God made a world, and a universe, and a baby named Isaac, and a Redeemer named Jesus . . . without any creative input from us. I think He's up to the job.