Room 23: God Loves You
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By AngeloComet
- Room 23: God Loves You
- Created: Apr 18, 2008
- Last updated: Aug 14, 2008
- After episode: 3.7: Not In Portland
- Status: Current
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If someone were to remark that the Island is a ‘God-forsaken place’ they may be more right than they realise.
— AngeloComet
This theory stemmed from a theory by Cimmerian that can be found here: http://lost-theories.com/theories/2008/apr/17/jacob-god-groups/ (My original intention was to leave a comment there, but my comment became a thought-process too long-winded for comment alone.)
Before I begin dissection of the ‘God loves you as He loved Jacob’ slogan I’d like to take a second considering its origination. Curiously, the video in Room 23 (that features the slogan) appears to be a Dharma Inititative product. It’s got that crazy 70s vibe! Even if The Others did somehow edit the video themselves then we have other empirical evidence linking Dharma to Jacob. The Orchid Orientation film also features a brief ‘subliminal’ flash of the ‘God loves you as He loved Jacob’ slogan. So Dharma were aware of, and appeared to have some form of reverence for, ‘Jacob’.
Maybe it’s just me, but that’s a pretty striking notion.
I mean, The Others - comprised of ‘hostiles’, Dharma defectors and new arrivals - have continued a link with Dharma. Post-Purge, having desecrated all that Dharma stood for, The Others have retained this belief in Jacob. Personally, I take the interpretation that The Others (notably ‘the hostiles’) reclaimed Jacob from Dharma. That makes more sense than The Others taking the Jacob ideology as a hand-me-down from Dharma.
(Already I can see two good subjects for future posts - The Others Relationship with Dharma, and another ‘Dharma Facilities’ instalment concerning Room 23 - but Jacob knows when I’ll find the time and energy to write those. . .!)
Let me concentrate solely on the ‘God loves you as He loved Jacob’ slogan. What is the message here? “God loves you” is the bottom line. For all the semantics regarding Jacob, the actual message of the slogan is simply this: God loves you. That’s the take-home message. The extra information concerning Jacob is actually peripheral to the meaning. Excess baggage, if you will.
So God loves you, in the same way that He (note the capital - we’re definitely still talking about God here) loved Jacob. Curious use of the past tense. There’s two interpretations to the “as He loved Jacob” phrase. Either God stopped loving Jacob, or Jacob is considered gone and unable to be loved. And I deliberately chose the word “gone” rather than ‘dead’. Death, after all, should be no limit for God’s love. Death should be the beginning of when God’s love really kicks in, right!?
And pardon me if my Bible-knowledge is rusty but doesn’t God’s love embrace all? I mean, isn’t the idea that no matter what you do, no matter what sin you commit, so long as you embrace God He will love you? Isn’t that how it works? And yet “He loved Jacob”! Either Jacob was a very bad man that rejected God outright and even after death, forever into eternity, refused acknowledgement… Or Jacob is in such a spot that, even if he did embrace God, God can’t love him.
At this juncture I draw your attention to that memorable remark Ben once made to Locke. “God doesn’t know how long we’ve been here, John. He can’t see this island any better than the rest of the world can.”
If someone were to remark that the Island is a ‘God-forsaken place’ they may be more right than they realise. And it is in this where I find my conclusion (and it is mine - I feel this is a very subjective argument). Take the slogan ‘God loves you as He Loved Jacob’ and re-word it to ‘God loves you as He Loved the Island’ and I start to scratch out meaning. Simply put: Dharma believed in God and the video and the slogan existed to affirm as much.
Think of it like you’re walking through the gates of hell, demons everywhere. If you were devout you would clutch your cross, close your eyes, and pray. Keep the demons away. Remember your God. If Dharma, as believers, found themselves on this ‘God-forsaken Island’ - perhaps plagued by visions of dead people demanding they “Confess!” - then they created this brain-washing Room 23, and the ‘God loves you as He loved Jacob’ slogan to reinforce God on a Godless Island in people that may be losing their way.
The notion of scientists believing in God is something of an anachronism, perhaps (though hardly unprecedented). Yet Dharma were scientists interested in an end-of-the-world prophecy (The Valenzetti Equation) and involved in a Black Smoke of judgement (the Cerberus System - Cerberus being the name of the guardian of hell!). Even Dharma itself is proclaimed to mean “the one true way”. Perhaps Dharma considered themselves a divination of science and faith. It’s certainly a concept that sits pretty sweetly in Lost. In such context, a belief in God doesn’t appear too ill-fitting.
Jacob, then, becomes a bogeyman. A scare story. A failure to remember God’s love may cast you into the damnation of being lost like Jacob; trapped in a bizarre zone where few can see or hear you, where your cries of “Help me” will mostly go unheard. ‘God loves you as He loved Jacob’. And don’t you ever forget it. Not whilst you’re on the Island.
Now thats a brilliant theory!
I too believe that this slogan is pretty important , concerning the capital H in He , i believe the reason of using it is we’re talking about God and usually when God is to be refered to , mostly with high respect and using the capital H does it , and to get more attention on who’s He …
Now Loved Jacob , in my opinion it means that Jacob is not loved by God anymore , why ? that’s not revealed yet , hopefully within season 4 we get to know more about it , perhaps Jacob did something that made him damned in the form we’ve seen so far , so this message God loves you as He loved Jacob i think it means do not do what Jacob did or you’ll be damned , and i believe that because the 1st statement or sentence we’ve heard from Jacob was to Locke when he said Help me , that means he does need help , either he’s in an eternal pain , or he’s stuck between the living world and the dead world, his restless soul is looking for aclosure ..
I dont know , the Jacob thing is so confusing and it could be interpreted into many ways .. and am sorry I couldn’t explain my point of view very well , it’s just i speak 3 languages and English isn’t my first .
and +1 btw..
Interesting! I would normally say tha you are over analizing this but Lost beggs for over-analysis! Very good dissection of what seems to be a simple sentence but is most lilely not
+1
Good stuff Angelo, worth the slight wait. +1
It strikes me as strange that Dharma (with all there scientific knowledge) actually believe in a God and refer to him as specifically as ‘He’.
Maybe the Lostie’s entire reason for being there is to “save the world”. God forbid someone like Widmore control the Island (or Jacob). And since God can’t do it Himself (if we follow your assumptions), then maybe that’s why He sent Jack and Co….
It is interesting to me that the two characters who wore their faith on their sleeve and arguably had the crosses ready while “walking through the gates of hell”, Charlie and more notably Mr. Eko, are dead. Did they complete their “mission”?
I searched the transcripts for references to “God” and picked out the more relevant ones…
Yemi (Smokey?) speaking to Mr. Eko:
S2E10 - Yemi: God did not bring you here, Eko. You’re own greed did. Now I will always love you, but I will not help you. It’s good to see you again, brother.
S2E10 - Yemi: Bless you. God be with you all and please come back in the morning. It’s okay.
S2E10 - Yemi: Perhaps we are, but God will forgive me, Eko.
Ben speaking to Jack:
S3E5 - Ben: *No, I want you to want to save my life. But we’re beyond that now, so…all I can ask is that you think about it. Do you believe in God, Jack?
S3E5 - Ben: Two days after I found out I had a fatal tumor on my spine…a spinal surgeon fell out of the sky. And if that’s not proof of God, I don’t know what is.
Brother Campbell and Desmond:
S3E17 - Brother Campbell: God tests our faith in many ways. So as you know, we have our own test here. A vow of silence that lasts as long as we see fit. This challenges both one’s patience and his faith. For some it may last a week. Those we’re less sure about a month. Personally Desmond, I’d never thought you’d last. And so now I stand corrected. For whatever reason, your path has led you here. And now you’re one of us. Welcome brother.
S3E17 - Brother Campbell: And yet God spared Isaac.
S3E17 - Desmond: Well, one might argue that God need not asked Abraham to sacrifice his son in the first place.
S3E17 - Brother Campbell: I’m sure you did hear the call, but the Abbey clearly isn’t where you were meant to end up. I have little doubt that God has different plans than you being a monk, Desmond. Bigger plans.
S3E17 - Desmond: Like God, testing Abraham…except I’ve failed, because I change what I saw.
Desmond to Penelope:
S3E17 - Desmond: Oh they can. You know, I was told in no uncertain terms that the Abbey wasn’t where I was meant to end up. Just uh…step along a path. You know God allegedly has bigger plans for me.
Interesting stuff to ponder as usual AC.
awesome post!!! i love this idea!! i have always pondered just what Ben meant when he told Locke that God can’t see the Island any better than anyone else can…… so why has God forsaken this Island?? and back to the one question that always rings in my brain……….. just who are the Good guys and who are the Bad guys????????
I can’t say that I always agree with your theories AngeloComet, but I’m intrigued by this one. Following from the quotatoions in shamballa_108’s posting, and the hint of a relationship between Brother Campbell and Ms. Hawking, might we surmise that His bigger plans for Desmond involve bringing the Island back within His domain? And, just like The Beatles, he’ll get by With a Little Help from [his] Friends?
So, what is your take on the question of where is the island? You are right, God loves each and every person, whether they have accepted Him (and His Son) or not. But He will not save those who do not accept him. And the only way He couldn’t love someone, in my opinion, is if they were already in hell. Literally, hell. And that is a place you cannot ever leave. But I thought the creators had already discounted the hell/purgatory angle.
Angelo, I really like the connection you made between Ben’s comment and Room 23. But I always assumed that “God loves you as He loved Jacob” was a reference to the Bible passage in Romans 9:13—”As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated” and that the use of the past tense was just a parallel of that verse. Maybe it does mean more, like you theorized, but maybe they were just trying to keep it as close to the Biblical reference as possible so people would recognize it.
Oh, and +1 because this was a good read.
Good work AC, though I really hope you’re wrong with most of this. I got the fear now!
Fantastic post AC, scottishchris‘ comments speak for me also. +1
Angelo, +1 for taking a simple sentence and turning it into a brilliant theory. “The island is a God-forsaken place” . Perfect. :)
Okay I’m sure I’m not the only one to automatically assume that the slogan is referring to the Biblical Jacob who God loved more than his brother Esau?
I’m sure it also has an application to the Jacob in the show, but I believe if definitely originates with the Biblical Jacob.
sorry to interrupt the discussion but i have to say how happy I am to see a comment by Annie79. Hope life is treating you well Annie :)
Great points ac! +1
AC- C’mon, if you’re gonna give Cimmerian credit for helping you with this theory, then I think I’m owed some credit too. Your analysis on the use of the word loved was totally taken form my ideas (read the comment section from Cimmerian’s post)
Secondly, in considering your statement about God loving everyone, well it really depends on whether your talking about the Old or New Testament. In the Old Testament plenty of people incur Gods wrath and hatred such as the people before the flood, Sodom and Gamorrah, Pharoah and the Egyptians, etc. The New Testament God in the form of Jesus Christ seems to be a little more foregiving because of the concept of original sin.
I know I shouldn’t compain too much, since I haven’t posted a theory of my own in some time, but I would like to say that this isn’t one of your better theories AC. -1
I wouldn’t say Angelo is giving me any credit for helping with this, all the ideas in the post are his own. He just mentioned that I wrote a similar one recently.
good work AngeloComet
Hi wtf waving wildly above me to wtf
It’s nice to be back. Life’s been okay, but busy.
AC, As always a good read +1
DCL you are right with the fact that the old testament god is less than plesant. Always seemed petulant and angry to me. I think s/he’d grown by the time man got around to writing the new testament.
AC, I always give you a +1 for your well-written theories. I always appreciate a post with no spelling errors, proper grammer, etc. I strive to do the same.
However, I just think this is too much analyzation over a sentenced that flashed before us for less than half a second. I think we can assume that your average Lost viewer (excluding all us die-hard fans on this site) didn’t even see it. That being said, I don’t think it will have much (if anything) to do with anything else on the show.
This is good writing. Breaking down this ‘simple’ quote (as with much writing on Lost) is critical to our understanding. However, my take, leans closer to the idea that this ‘clockwork orange’ style commitment to a cause may add the name ‘Jacob’ merely to emphasise the importance of its name sake on the island. It adds immense gravitas to the the entity that is jacob, and ‘followers’ of Jacob are subliminally induced with his name to compound this God like character. Remember this quote was part of an audio/visual based onslaught into the mind of Karl - naughty karl who is sleeping(?) with Ben’s daughter. I believe its more about cleansing bad thoughts as it is a conformation of God’s love for anyone. If,as you quite rightly say, God cannot see the island, doesn’t this make the quote somewhat void anyway? Cheers. +1