Hints
What is the purpose of the world? Why are we given mortal, finite lives in this world? What exists beyond the universe and beyond time? Questions like these touch on eternal life and heaven, which is why it is perhaps surprising that the Bible says so little in response to them. On the nature and operation of a realm greater than this universe, the Bible at best offers hints so slender, it is as though they slipped into the text by accident.
Maybe the most perplexing example: Paul, in his Second Letter to the Corinthians, makes passing reference to a man (presumably himself) who had an experience 14 years prior of having been transported to the “third heaven,” with the letter giving no further explanation or detail. What in the world does this reference reveal? Are we to imagine there are three distinct heavens—or three stages to the one place called heaven? And how do these three places, states, or stages fit together and differ from one another? We are not told. It is a hint, and not an altogether illuminating one.
All this reflects the nature of the Bible and how it was written. The Bible is an anthology of the works of many different writers, none of whom imagined the compilation, many of whom could not have imagined they were writing what might later be seen as part of a “religious” text. The contents of the New Testament, in particular, are mundane in their nature if not their subject matter: They consist of reporting, biography, and letters from first-century correspondents all working to process the experience and consequences of the life of the one called Jesus. These people did not write about the workings of eternal life and heaven, because they were writing to human beings about human practical concerns—what happened and what to do next—and because, also, they had no idea. Hints slip out in the recollections they share of the one who did know these things. That is, statements from Jesus appearing in the gospels convey collateral information about the nature and operation of divine reality.
One passage of the New Testament that is particularly rich in this regard is Matthew’s gospel, chapter 18. In this chapter, in close succession, Jesus is quoted as offering two different provocative hints on the purpose of this world and the activity of the realm surrounding and touching it. As you are about to read, neither of these hints is anywhere close to being comprehensive enough to provide answers. Each one instead opens up a different and more specific line of questioning.
Here is the passage, spanning the first 10 verses of Matthew chapter 18:
At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” He called a little child to him and placed the child among them. And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me. If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to stumble! Such things must come, but woe to the person through whom they come! ... See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven.” —Matthew 18:1-7, 10 NIV
(I skipped some verses in the quote above. Matthew 18:8-9, “If your hand or your foot…,” presents an analogy about hellfire not relevant here, but I get into those verses here.)
As I say, the passage above contains provocative hints. Not complete answers, just hints—but hints that say a great deal. The words Jesus offers here point to two conclusions we would not otherwise know:
1. Our Experience in This Mortal World Does Have a Point
“Such things must come, but woe to the person through whom they come,” Jesus says. “Such things” here refers to the things that cause the innocent to sin. These things “must” come, says Jesus—a decisive statement. He might have said, Such things grieve the Father’s heart, and woe to the person through whom they come, but he did not say this. He instead made clear that innocents meeting with causes of downfall must happen, that a purpose is served in the way this broken world works. We stumble, we sin, we are corrupted and lost; we are found and we are redeemed. Why “must” the world, and human lives, proceed this way?
I do not know. There is a different way: If God wanted us always whole, suited to a world fully right, then he could have made and kept the world perfect and he could have made and kept us whole. He did not do this. It is valuable, somehow—valuable to the life that extends beyond this life and to the purpose we will have there—that we pass through sin and death in this world.
The brokenness of the world is important to God even though it was broken by means of the choices of others. Matthew 18:7 thus resonates with the powerful line near the end of the Old Testament book of Genesis, the words spoken by Joseph about his brothers’ betrayal of him that defined the course of his life, the words that seem to tie a bow on all the evil inflicted throughout all 50 chapters of the Bible’s first book. Joseph says:
“[Y]ou meant evil against me, but God meant it for good….” —Genesis 50:20
Somehow, God has a purpose, his own good purpose, in the brokenness and even in the existence of evil within this world.
2. Angels Are Real and Are Assigned to Individual Humans
“See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven.” There is so much in this statement, much of which is contained in the possessive their.
We have our own angels, apparently. We have heavenly caseworkers monitoring and in some sense reporting on our lives. Angels are real; there is no sense of Jesus making the first-century equivalent of air quotes around his use of the term, and no way for the statement to make sense unless the hearer assumes Jesus knows angels and knows them to be real. Moreover, angels are doing something real and, in a sense, doing something earthly and finite. That is, they have assigned interests in earthly, finite individuals.
Is each angel assigned to just one person? There is no way to know from this passage, but we might make a guess that the answer is no: The caseworker has a caseload. Yet if this is true, then the quantity of lives assigned to each angel must be finite; there must be a limit to how many lives in this world an angel watches. We know this because the little ones (each) have “their” angels, meaning one of them has an angel and this watcher is presumed to be different from your or my angel.
What do the angels do? This is unclear. Whether they take action in our lives and what these actions entail are details not known from the passage. But at the very least they watch and report. And some angels with some assignments have a more direct line to the Father than others.
Jesus notes that these particular angels are different because they “always see the face of my Father.” Other angels do not “always” see his face. We know we are in the territory of analogy here—we cannot possibly perceive literally how God’s rule over heaven or his oversight of creation through his angels works. But on some level, God is the most interested in the innocent. He is staring right at them, or staring right at their angels’ reports, as these innocents make their way.
Indeed, there is a connection between point 1 and point 2, and Jesus is making that very connection. The experience of this world shaped by sin does have a point and God has sent us through it for a reason. God is interested in the innocent hearts he has sent through this world. And part of the population of his creation is the host of unseen beings who manifest his watching to see what these innocents encounter and how their lives progress.
Photo: “Angel” by Julie Falk
See other posts with one-word titles