A Reason to Talk Sensibly about Eschatology
… so it is not left to this sort of discussion. I did some study of and discussion of the so-called Bible codes some years back, and I’m not spending more time. The problem is that using the methodology in question (and its variants) one can come up with so many things and such vague things that it becomes self-defeating to try to respond.
In my view, by doing this sort of thing (trying to know things that are not present in the text), we go well beyond what the Bible was intended to do. The Bible is there to help you come into communication with God. That it conveys some information is not the main issue. We get stuck arguing about informational details while ignoring the broad sweep of the text.
When we turn to the Bible codes, we begin not just concentrating on informational details, we’re creating new content. It may be nice to feel that we know these things, but in fact we do not. Nobody knows. That’s the way God intended it.
Bible coding rests on an assumption that all of history is merely God’s foreordained plan being played out. I suppose that if everything that happens is inevitable, then coding might make sense (if the method itself could be shown to have merit). There are biblical passages that can be cited to support such a deterministic view. However, I object to it on many grounds. Primarily, it turns human beings into nothing more than robots without any free will. Whatever we do for good or ill is not our concern or responsibility; it was God’s doing, not ours. We can’t even say, “The devil made me do it!” History is reduced to a movie being played out on the screen of the cosmos. Ultimately, there is no meaning to anything, no choices to make, no real love or acts of mercy. All is God’s work down to the minuscule moment. This is the ultimate abuse of the idea of the sovereignty of God.
Can I site scripture to support this? Certainly. Acts 5 and the story of Ananias’ freedom to do with his property as he chooses, comes to mind, among others. And I see even God changing God’s mind from time to time. It’s hard to imagine THAT being foreordained. Nevertheless, theology always trumps isolated texts. An open future is taught in the Bible.