When Terror Inhabits Our Souls

As a civilization, we have allowed the scientific revolution to make us invincible: science has offered solutions to every problem in physics, technology, medicine, global communications, even the psychology of self-understanding.

 

Until recently.

When logic seems to be failing us. And in its place? A void.

Although there are many gains from science, we are seeing its limits: science is not answering questions about why we are here, the purpose of our life, or what happens to us when we die.

Indeed, regardless of measured attempts to control wealth and regulate financial security, the global economy is  precarious. Drug addiction is increasing, despite new psycho-social treatments. We are experiencing the impact of climate travail on a planet abused too long and too expansively. We read of horrific killings and torture by Muslim extremists such as ISIS, Boko Haram, and Al Qaeda around the world and in the USA, bewildered by their illogical barbarity. We are living on a planet without solutions to terrorist threats and attacks reported daily as the new reality. 

 

As a consequence, I believe one overarching phenomenon dominates our experience every day.

Terror.

Terror is more than a feeling. It is a cognition, a sensation, and a perception. That's why it can get under our skin and negatively impact our pulse rate, our sleep, our breathing—and our view of the world.

When terror inhabits our souls, it brings its cousins: fear, apprehension, dread, anxiety, panic attacks, paranoia, and even loss of faith and hope and love. The mind and heart, body and spirit: our human nature itself, terrorized.

Where do we seek a solution?

Compass Psychotheology suggests that the Bible offers a larger truth. The Bible views all human beings as sharing a common human nature: our mind and heart; body and spirit, made in God's image. As such, we are universally called to know God and walk in his light. Or, if we refuse God's call and persist in choosing evil, we will walk in darkness.

 

As the Son of God, Light of the World, and Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ offers the antidote to our experience of terror in two ways.

How?

1) The Peace of Christ.

Jesus Christ, the God-man, knew the terror of death on the cross for crimes he did not commit, so that he could rise again to offer interpersonal fellowship with you and me. Jesus offered his blood to build a living connection between each of us and God, a rock of salvation who overcomes earthly terrors through the inner presence of the Holy Spirit, Christ's most precious gift to every believer at the moment of their conversion.

Jesus' peace that passes logical understanding provides the antidote gifted to John the Baptist, Mary, Peter, James, and John, each tested almost beyond endurance. It's the same antidote that early Christians experienced, even though hunted down by Roman legions in the catacombs or fed to hungry lions in the Colosseum. Even a Caesar could not stop them from singing hymns.

"I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart," Jesus said. "And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don’t be troubled or afraid" (John 14:27).  

 

2) Christ's Return.

Many of us in the 21st Century perceive a great darkness enveloping humankind, a darkness so great that Billy Graham, among others, sees us truly qualifying as the generation alive at Christ's Second Coming, an event that Jesus himself foretold:

Jesus said:
"People will be terrified at what they see coming upon the earth, for the powers in the heavens will be shaken. Then everyone will see the Son of Man coming on a cloud with power and great glory. So when all these things begin to happen, stand and look up, for your salvation is near" (Luke 21:26-28).

Christ returns to judge the living and the dead. The Son of God will transfigure the Earth into a new creation: A pristine and sinless Heaven-Earth in which the redeemed in Christ will flourish and thrive. "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared" (Revelation 21:1).

Now is the hour to read the Bible as never before, not to join the skeptics who mock the promise of Christ's glorious return. 

Now is the hour to dig into the living Word of God, personally guided in your reading by the Holy Spirit, taking hold of the inner resources of faith, hope, and love—as a daily, sometimes hourly, antidote to terror.

"But what about the newscasts? What about the disaster movies? What about the worry that consumes the people around me?" Joshua chose to challenge fear-based thoughts, even when enemies surrounded him, by declaring, "As for me and my household, we will follow the Lord!"

"Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows," Jesus said. "But take heart, because I have overcome the world" (John 16:33). 

The Second Coming of Christ: Where Do You Stand?

Years ago when I was taking a Bachelor of Science degree in biology, my eight professors in this field agreed on several philosophical assumptions. They agreed that homo sapiens evolved out of primeval life organisms over the course of millions of years. They agreed that Darwin wrote the Bible of evolutionary biology in his book On the Origin of Species. They agreed, when I asked each one, that there is no God, no Christ, and no Second Coming.

This was difficult for me to hear as a new Christian. I believed that the Holy Bible possesses far greater wisdom for human living than the Origin of Species does. I experienced Jesus Christ as a Person dear to my heart. And I had faith in the New Testament proclamation, including Jesus' own testimony, that Christ would return at the end of human history to judge the living and the dead (John 5:28-29).

It was even difficult for me to sort out the facts of scientific findings in zoology, embryology, molecular biology, and genetics from the philosophy of scientific materialism, a perspective that says the Earth and the Cosmos will keep evolving forever, even if the human species becomes extinct.

The problem with this secular philosophy is that with no meaningful end to human history, there is no meaning along the way. Contrast this bleak perspective to the biblical witness that Jesus Christ will return to earth and gather those whom he redeemed on the cross. This will be a "royal visit," his "appearing" and "coming" (Greek: parousia).

We can't comprehend the full glory of Christ's return to this world, but Christians know it will bring us greater concreteness to the Holy Spirit's power and the Father's love than we are already experiencing. The Savior's second advent will be personal and physical (Mt 24:44; Acts 1:11; Col 3:4; Heb 9:28). And visible to all people (Mark 8:38; 2 Thess 1:10; Rev 1:7). 

Whereas demons trembled with fear at Jesus' first coming, Christians will tremble with joy at his second coming. In fact, the great watershed between those persons who love Christ's appearing and those who despise it will be whether they bow before Him in loving surrender or cringe in His presence with hateful rejection. 

Either way, Jesus comes to end history as we presently know it, one that is filled with tragedy and adversity. He will raise the dead and judge the world. He will usher in a transfigured Heaven/Earth suited for everlasting life in resurrected bodies like Jesus has. 

Yes, we will be the same persons who lived on Earth, whether in ancient civilizations or in the modern world. For it is the same God who created us in His image who will fill us with His glory. We'll be well-equipped for new personal adventures in Christ, brimming with excitement, new chapters written beyond the reach of sin, pain, and death.

We Christians can view our own eventual death as an appointment for intimacy with God and others that will never end—as real as this world, but infinitely more cherished.

And what of those who would scoff at the Second Coming with a superiority complex born of modern scientific materialism? Their heads will bow in silent deference to the King of Glory whom they must obey, even though they reject Him.

To Die Is To Be In The Presence of The Lord

Compass psychotheology asserts that everything about Christianity is interpersonal. This means that no human being is alone in his or her existence; that every person is born, lives, and dies in an interpersonal relationship with God and others.

To highlight this truth we can look at human death in a new light, and lose our fear about it. The physical death and resurrection of Jesus Christ foretells what will happen to every Christian.

Jesus' resurrection was an interpersonal event involving the love and power of all three Persons of the Trinity (John 10:17-18). Jesus said he had to power to lay down his life and take it up again. We also know that the Spirit of God raised Jesus from the dead (Ro 8:11), according to the Father's plan. The important insight is that although Jesus felt very much alone and filled with dread at the moment he became the atoning sacrifice for our sins, he was not abandoned by the Father and the Holy Spirit.

We, too, may feel alone or helpless at the time of death. We may see it coming through a terminal disease, or it may strike suddenly in a fatal car crash. Either way, we are not alone. If Christ is our personal Savior, the Trinity infuses us with the same resurrection power that raised Christ from the grave. We can feel comfort knowing that Jesus has proceeded us in death and will awaken us to eternal life.

Jesus rose from the dead through the creative renewing of his original body, a body now glorified, deathless, and ascended into heaven until his Second Coming. You will receive a body like Christ's, vital and everlasting, when you die in him, or if he returns during your earthly life (1 Cor 15:50-54). 

“It is the same way with the resurrection of the dead. Our earthly bodies are planted in the ground when we die, but they will be raised to live forever. Our bodies are buried in brokenness, but they will be raised in glory. They are buried in weakness, but they will be raised in strength” (I Cor 15:42-43).

It won't have mattered if you died in an airplane crash, were incinerated in a fire, or drowned in the ocean. It won't have mattered even if you suffered the pain of cancer or passed away quietly in your own bed. To die is to be in the presence of the Lord. And to be in the presence of the Lord brings joy unspeakable and full of glory (1 Peter 1:8). Indeed, "Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints" (Psalms 116:15).

What have I learned as a psychologist about dying? I've learned to lose my fear of dying by intensifying my trust in Christ's resurrection and the Spirit of God's power to resurrect me. It has proved helpful to reflect on my mortality. I have often imagined myself dying and waking up seeing Jesus. Though I have never seen his face, I will see it then. And though his human eyes first looked into the eyes of his disciples, they will then look directly into mine.

The interpersonal significance of the resurrection lies in how our unique personalities are preserved through death and brought forward into eternal life with God and the community of the redeemed. Our original selves in Christ, seeing him face to face for the first time, will answer all of our earthly questions, and lead to a fascinating and never-ending life in Heaven.