Board index ‹ Specific Bible verses, texts, and passages ‹ Luke

[Kaka Boy]

Luke 1:37 : "for with God nothing is impossible." Yet clearly there are things that are impossible. Even apologists would agree God cannot do logically impossible things like make square circles, let alone Christians. And no one could heal amputees or travel back in time only with God. So is this verse a false promise?

[jimwalton]

It's not a false promise. The verse is to be taken contextually, not ultimately. The intent of the statement, the purpose of the writer, and its context in the Jesus birth announcement tell us its meaning. The point is clearly not that God can do things he can't do, that absurdities are illusions, and that there is no such thing as reason and logic (and therefore self-contradictions and impossible incongruities are not contradictions or incongruous). It's nonsense. The point of the statement is that if God chooses to engender life in a virgin, that's something within his capability. He can create life where there is none, and as the creator of life he is not subject to the rules of biology. That's what the verse means. It's illegitimate to take the saying into realms outside of its intent and scope.

[EriGorn]

So God can't regrow limbs for people?

[jimwalton]

There is no reason to doubt, from all we know of God from the Bible, that God can regrow limbs for people. We have no evidence that he has ever done such a thing, but it would hypothetically be within his capability. But that's not what the text is about.

In the Bible there are a few mentions of Jesus healing lepers (Mt 4.23-24; M7. 8.2). We know from Third World countries that lepers, because of the nerve-ending deadening nature of leprosy, often end up losing their limbs, or at least their extremities, from accidents, infections, or burns. While we can't conclude that Jesus DID regrow their limbs, it may have been part of the picture that is not specifically written for us. But the argument from silence is weak.

What the Bible does teach us is that God doesn't often interfere in the circumstances of our lives. We also learn from the Bible that God is not in the business of healing people's bodies; he is in the business of healing people's souls. Most of the prayers God answers, from the teaching of Scripture, are inner things, not outer ones. Aside from about 10 occurrences in ALL of the Bible (excluding the ministry of Jesus), there are no recorded healings. From the Bible we can learn that healing people's bodies is not often something that God does, and so there is also no evidence of God regrowing limbs for people.

It is also the teaching of Scripture, though, that God's capabilities (With God nothing is impossible) encompass the ability to regrow limbs for people. It's just not something that he does, according to Scripture (just as he doesn't make people fly, though that's no doubt within his capability as well).

But regrowing limbs is not what this text is about. It's about Mary having a virginal conception.

[EriGorn]

It seems to me that you want to suggest God can regrow limbs if he wanted to but that's "not what he does". If he's a loving God, why wouldn't he?

If context is most important, would you say that Isaiah 7:14, then, is talking about Jesus or is it part of a promise by God not to allow Jerusalem's enemies to take the city?

[jimwalton]

If God interfered with every negative situation, he would be interfering continually to the point where we would be mere robots, and not human at all. He would prevent us from physical harm at every turn (after all, a loving God wouldn't stop some hurt but not others!), controlling our bodies, our movements, and the effects of the natural world on us. Science would even be unreliable. Knowledge would be a ludicrous joke. We could fall off buildings without injury. But physical harm is only one sort of hurt. He would have to control our tongues, our body language, and even our perceptions so we didn't experience hurt at the words, glances, or silences of others. This is not humanity. There would be no love (I didn't choose it), no kindness (I didn't mean it), no forgiveness (I have no choice), no crime (I couldn't help it), no justice (I'm not accountable), etc etc ad nauseam. That's not a loving God, it's a tyrant and puppeteer, and that's not human life, is sheer mechanics and robotics. We would all agree (I believe) that a dynamic world in which free creatures can exercise genuine creativity, thereby bringing about truly novel effects, is better than a mechanistic, robotic world, and that a loving God would want to create a dynamic world, where intellect can grow, creativity can flourish, and love is real.

With regard to Isa. 7.14, the sign itself was for Ahaz, it was not miraculous, and it functioned to alert Ahaz that the siege would be lifted. The meaning of the prophecy is that God cared for his people and would save them, but not by the king or military action. Similar prophecies of judgment and accompanying signs can be found in Ex. 3.12; 1 Sam. 2.34; Jer. 44.29-30; 2 Ki. 19.29. The context is very important. As far as we know, Isaiah only knew the prophecy to be about a woman in his era that would birth a son in the course of a few years, and Jerusalem would be spared. Isaiah 7.14 had no place in Jewish messianic expectation.

Matthew appropriated the verse to speak of another reality, as if Jesus' birth took the Isaiah verse to a whole new level, "filling up" the prophecy, as he said (Mt. 1.22). Matthew believes the Isaiah verse is a pattern that is being made full with more meaning. This is not to say Isaiah was prophesying Jesus, since 7.14 can be understood totally in its OT context. But Matthew takes that prophecy and applies it to this new situation; he is adding new meaning to the OT concept. We believe that the Holy Spirit inspired him to do this, making it not only legitimate, but accurate.