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WHEN GOD SAYS TWO AND TWO IS FIVE

There’s a cute story where a mathematician with binoculars was intently watching the house across the street, the comings and goings. On this particular day, he clearly saw as two people walked up the sidewalk, opened the door, and went in. No question about it. He kept staring at that door, and about two hours later, it opened up, and three people came walking out. They got into a car and drove away.

“What do you deduce from that?” asked a friend who was watching the mathematician do his watching. “Well, it’s obvious,” said the professor. “That house now has negative one people in it.”

And you know, from a math number line point of view, that would be right. Positive two minus three would be negative one. Unless, of course, there were already some people inside the house before we came along to do our watching and surmising.

In his book, God in the Dock, C. S. Lewis shares some of his essays over the years, and one is entitled “Religion and Science.” All through this rather deep treatise, by the way, he writes about the issue of miracles. And creation. Can supernatural things, like what’s described in the Bible — healings and raising from the dead, and the sun standing still, and the Red Sea parting — can stuff like that happen? Many scientists and even theologians START their journey with this premise: there are no miracles. Nothing supernatural ever occurs. The laws of nature cannot be bent or broken. And when you take that as your Bible, you do end up with some rather limited conclusions. In the Bible story we’ve been studying these past two weeks, where Jesus says to the paralytic man: “I forgive all of your sins. And now, in addition, why don’t you pick up your bed and walk?” the scientist would say: “No way; that didn’t happen. Neither of those things happened. Miraculous healings do not occur. Virgins do not give birth. On Sunday morning, the tomb outside Golgotha was still occupied by the corpse of a 33-year-old man because miracles do not happen.”

Lewis goes on to describe what is perhaps an imaginary conversation he had with a friend about this business of miracles and the “laws of nature.”

“‘I think the laws of Nature,’” [said he], “are really like two and two making four. The idea of their being altered is as absurd as the idea of altering the laws of arithmetic.’ ‘Half a moment,’ said I. ‘Suppose you put sixpence into a drawer today, and sixpence into the same drawer tomorrow. Do the laws of arithmetic make it certain you’ll find a shilling’s worth there the day after?’ ‘Of course,’ said he, ‘PROVIDED NO ONE’S BEEN TAMPERING WITH YOUR DRAWER.’”

And Lewis, playing his side of the tennis court admirably, comes right back at him:

“‘Ah, but that’s the whole point,’ said I. ‘The laws of arithmetic can tell you what you’ll find, with absolute certainty, provided that there’s no interference. If a thief has been at the drawer of course you’ll get a different result. But the thief won’t have broken the laws of arithmetic — only the laws of England. Now, aren’t the laws of Nature much in the same boat? Don’t they all tell you what will happen provided there’s no interference?’”

And right here in this great Bible story, a huge crowd of people are watching as a terribly sick man comes down through the roof. One look and you know this guy’s beyond help. By the medical math of the world, he’s maybe got six months. To paraphrase Lewis, you put in this patient’s medical file a one-word report: “Terminal.” That’s all it says: “Terminal.” And unless someone reaches into that file with a supernatural fix, that’s all it’s going to say.

And you know, “reach in” is exactly what this Jesus does. He reaches into this man’s heart with forgiveness and into his body with divine healing power. He tampers with the normal time line, which was hurtling this man toward the cemetery. And this sick person doesn’t just get a little bit better — I mean, he is completely well! The transformation is complete.

I just love a line we found in the Tyndale New Testament Commentary for the book of Mark, which is written by a Dr. R. Alan Cole. After Jesus heals the paralytic, and the crowd is buzzing about it, praising God and saying, “We have seen remarkable things today,” he observes:

“The crowd at least realized that an entirely new factor had now entered the situation, the ‘finger of God.’”

Isn’t that terrific? He leads in by writing:

“That which was impossible by NATURE took place, and a paralyzed man walked home, carrying his mattress.”

And I think what all of us who harbor spiritual doubts have to accept is this: when the finger of God enters the equation, the old math of “can’t be done,” of “fixed laws of nature,” of “doomed to die,” of “cannot be forgiven” . . . are all swept away. It’s true that without something from heaven invading the story, we’re all going to be claimed eventually by the dirt and the grass at Forest Lawn. “A time to be born, and a time to die” is the unalterable equation, unless God does something on our behalf. And the good news is that He HAS moved in to change the rules.

Interestingly, this expression, the “finger of God” is itself a biblical one; you can find it clear back in the Old Testament book of Exodus. Right at the beginning of the infamous Ten Plagues of Egypt, when Moses stretched forth his hand and made the Nile turn to blood, or caused frogs to appear, it looked for a while like Pharaoh’s shyster magicians could duplicate the feats. Using sleight of hand or satanic agencies or whatever. But you get down to Plague #3, which was a cloud of fifty million gnats buzzing around, and all of a sudden the fallen fakers of Pharaoh were unable to copy the miracle. There probably wasn’t enough available free airspace to tuck in some alien gnats anyway, but the magicians lamented to their leader: “This is the finger of God.” And the omnipotent finger of divine power was felt seven more times before Pharaoh finally gave in and admitted that God was God, and that God was a higher power than the genetic laws governing the normal multiplying ability of frogs.

You know, when we invite people to sign up and take our Discover Bible Course, we’re actually inviting them to voluntarily enter into this kingdom where the “God element” is permitted to invade and make its dramatic difference. An evolutionist will say: “Well, if you do the carbon dating, if you count the levels of strata here in the Grand Canyon, if you look at these fossils, you will see that the earth came to be in just such-and-such a way.” And the Christian responds: “How do you know that the finger of God didn’t come in at some point and change the time line? How do you know that a flood didn’t throw your scientific numbers off?”

A philosopher will suggest that all of these Gospel stories of healings, of demons being cast out, of the dead being raised are just fables. That you can’t trust either the stories of Jesus or the teachings of Jesus, either one. And the man or woman of God rejoinders: “How do you know that the finger of God didn’t move upon these people, and create new bodies and new hearts and new spirits and an entirely new world religion based on the possibility that one Man did indeed go through the tunnel marked Death and come out on the other side?”

But friend, more to the point: the secular psychologist might point to how your spouse cheated on you, and say, “Well, look at that. Divorce is inevitable.” The counselor looks at your son’s drug habit and says, “Pretty hard to lick that problem. There’s not much we can do.” Things are hard at work, and you don’t know if you can continue to deal with a co-worker who cuts you down behind your back and gossips about you. And the HR director says: “It ain’t gonna get much better. Better brush up your resumé.” We live in a hard world where fixed bad things loom on all fronts.

And to all of that the person of faith can say: “But what about the finger of God . . . moving in my marriage? Allowing me to forgive and seek reconciliation? What about God’s power to see my kid through a drug rehab program, and giving me the strength to still love him? What about God’s mighty arm around me, helping me to stay on this hard job, helping me to realize that I’m actually working for Him, and that these personnel problems and petty distractions are nothing compared to what Jesus went through with His enemies?” Let’s never lose sight of the fact that two and two being four is only true until the great Mathematician of the universe steps to the blackboard and begins to write with power and determination a new law, a new hope, a new beginning.