God Doesn’t Take Fingerprints With Ink

October 11, 2017 | by: Dave Maniquis | 0 Comments

Posted in: Theology

As a former federal law enforcement officer, I have a not so fond memory of the first time I fingerprinted someone I arrested. Sure, I learned at the academy how to properly take an arrestee’s prints. I was schooled in how to roll the fingers on the fingerprint card with just the right amount of pressure, squeezing the correct amount of pasty ink from the tube. Not too much, not too little. Now, here was my debut out “in the field” where the big boys did their thing.

A disaster!  By the time I lifted the poor felon’s fingers off the card oozing with jet black ink it looked like he had been finger painting in preschool rather than preparing to be whisked off to a jail cell. I mean, it looked like he had just finished using his hands for a brownie mix. That’s how much ink I squirted on the card. Fortunately, a senior agent was passing by and disabused me of the notion that more is better. Humbled by a senior peer and the dumbstruck felon who must have thought I was grooming him as a Betty Crocker poster child, I began anew. By the third or fourth attempt I actually completed the task for the betterment of society. You’re welcome. My duty was to serve.

I haven’t the foggiest idea of whatever happened to that guy but I am sure of one thing. When I did finally record his fingerprints they were his. They ID’d him. There’s forensic debate concerning how 100% certain it is that a person’s fingerprints are unique. In other words, might there be someone else in the world having the same exact patterns of loops, arches and whorls? That aside, “in the field” I was able to put a unique name and a unique face to the adorable little ridges on this guy’s fingers. For all intents and purposes this guy was unique. He was special. He had blackened extremities. He was under arrest. 

God tells us that He has also recorded the ID of all those who are His. But it’s not with lifeless ink and paper. It’s spiritually written by God’s omniscient knowledge of our uniqueness. His knowing us when we were a birthed from His eternal mind. You see, God has, indeed, divinely fingerprinted every individual who has or will exist. And within that knowledge He also knows those who are His and those who will not be written in the Lamb’s book of life (Revelation 13:8; 27:27). 

God’s foreknowledge of who will actually be in that book, who will have eternal life in His presence, is one of those theological mysteries. Ultimately, only God knows the genuinely faithful. As the psalmist says, Great is our Lord and mighty in power; his understanding has no limit.” (Psalm 147:5, NIV84) However, Scripture does teach us that we have a “system of checks and balances.”  Consider when Peter instructs, “Therefore, my brothers and sisters, make every effort to confirm your calling and election.” (2 Peter 1:10, TNIV)  Or, elsewhere in Scripture, “We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold firmly till the end our original conviction.”  (Heb. 3:24, TNIV; cf. Phil. 2:12)

Scripture teaches, concerning all people, that God created them before the beginning of the world in and for His eternal plan (Romans 9:22-24, NIV84). My deeply rooted joy and solace is that He has imprinted me along with all the other imprints of his people. Looking at the uniqueness of the swirls and loops on your fingers is a magnificent testimony to your imprinted soul that’s been recorded by love. Examine them every now and then.

Your prints have been recorded with the blood of Jesus Christ and your fingerprint card has, is, and always will be in God's filing system: His heart.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.  For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.  In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.  (Ephesians 1:3-6, TNIV)

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Dave Maniquis is a Gospel Partner at Restoration Church. He holds a BA in History from Rutgers University and an MA in Biblical Studies from Reformed Theological Seminary. He enjoyed a 23-year career in the U.S. government, working and traveling extensively in Western and Eastern Europe. He has been a Christian for most of his adult life and has been involved in church planting, overseas as well as here in Port Orange, teaching the Bible and speaking into others’ lives with the Gospel. He is married to Maureen and they have two wonderful sons, Dylan and Evan.

 

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