Resurrecting a Victorious Christian Faith for Easter and Beyond

 If only I had known in my younger years how rich and vibrant the history of our Christian faith truly is. As Dr. Brad Jersak might say, we have been robbed of much of the beauty that the Church once knew and celebrated.

With Easter just six weeks away, I want to recommend a book that has profoundly shaped my understanding of our faith: Resurrecting Easter. This book is one of my favorites, not only for its top-tier scholarship and meticulous research but also for its accessibility. It presents some of the most striking and lesser-known depictions of our faith—images you may never have encountered and might never have the opportunity to see in person.

For those seeking to explore the roots of Christian belief beyond Western traditions, Resurrecting Easter is particularly insightful. It reveals how, relatively early on, Western Christianity began to diverge from the established Orthodox thought of the early Church. This divergence had a significant impact on Christian art in the West, leading to the portrayal of a terrifying afterlife—imagery completely foreign to Eastern Christians, who remained steadfast in their vision of Christ’s victory and humanity’s resurrection with Him (see the book’s cover).

On a similar note, Dr. J. W. Hanson, commenting on the artwork found in the catacombs of the earliest Christians, wrote:

“The Catacombs give us the views of the unlearned, as Clement and Origen state the doctrine of scholars and teachers. Not a syllable is found hinting at the horrors of Augustinianism, but the inscription on every monument harmonizes with the Universalism of the early fathers.”

First published in 2018, Resurrecting Easter was one of the first books that revealed to me the richness, stability, and legitimacy of the earliest Christian faith—a faith I sadly did not inherit in my own upbringing.

I hope you’ll consider reading this book during the upcoming Easter season.

One final thought: I find Hanson’s statement particularly fascinating. His research demonstrates that both the average believer (“the unlearned”) and the scholars (e.g., Clement and Origen) shared a victorious vision of the afterlife—one that stood in stark contrast to the later "horrors of Augustinianism." While Hanson’s book provides the historical context for this, Resurrecting Easter as its own work graphically proves his point in a way that is both compelling and deeply moving.

Grace = Peace,

Jeremy

God's "Wrath": A Matter of Perception

God's "Wrath": A Matter of Perception

The word "righteous" in Greek (dikaios) also means "innocent." However, Scripture tells us that the Law cannot make a person righteous (see Romans 3:20; Galatians 2:16; 3:11). Why? Because the Law can only bring condemnation and death (see 2 Corinthians 3:7, 9); it cannot declare anyone innocent.

Those who try to find peace with God by relying on their obedience to the Law will never find lasting peace. This is because they are living under a system that condemns rather than justifies. When a person fails, they know they’ve fallen short. Even when they do good, they feel they could have done better. This mindset puts the burden on the individual and often fuels pride, which is why the religious leaders in Jesus' time were so prideful, despite their inner struggles, as Paul described in his own experience.

True peace comes to those who know Christ and their union with Him. In Christ, they are declared innocent. To experience this lasting peace and sense of innocence, one must fully grasp and trust in their union with Him.

Where "wrath" enters:

A person's sense of guilt, rather than innocence, is what makes them perceive God's "wrath."

Norman Grubb offers a profound definition of God's wrath, showing that it’s all about a person's perspective, not God's actual nature. God Himself remains eternally innocent:

"The wrath of God is only manifest in those who have the wrong relationship to Him. It is not Him as He is, who is all love. But it is what He must appear to be to those who run counter to the law of His being. The wrath operates in them, not in Him. They projected on Him a rejection which was really in themselves. And this is the wrath of God. All He said was, ‘Where are you, Adam? Come out from your hiding, I haven’t changed.’ And when they came, He talked with them, not in judgment and wrath, but in mercy. All He told them was that they would experience the inevitable effects of the discords self-loving self always brings on itself."

According to Grubb, God's wrath originates in the person’s own mind, not in God. It stems from a misperceived relationship. Grubb explains further, saying, "they projected onto Him a rejection that was really in themselves."

We often believe that God is against us, difficult to approach, and prone to rejecting us, but these are merely reflections of our own internal conflicts, which are driven by a legalistic mindset that never declares us fully innocent. The Law only strengthens sin against us and keeps us trapped (see 1 Corinthians 15:56).

Scripture says no one has known the Father except for Christ, who revealed Him. This suggests that the Old Testament, including the prophets' words about God, must be understood through the lens of Jesus. Scripture is "inspired" only insofar as it points to Christ. As the early Church recognized, there is a great danger in idolizing Scripture if it is elevated to the same level as Jesus Himself.

The revelation of God the Father through Jesus far surpasses everything the prophets said. In His dealings with us, God remains innocent. He is not the angry, distant, hard-to-please deity we may have been taught to fear. That image of God is a creation of a deceived mind, and it is difficult to let go of, especially as long as religious institutions continue to use fear to control God’s children. They withhold the knowledge and Spirit of the freedom that belongs to the mature sons and daughters of the King.

Grace and peace,

Jeremy

We Is Risen

As we near the culmination of Holy Week, I’d like to briefly share some thoughts on some of the significance of this time.

We all are likely aware that this past Sunday was a celebration of Palm Sunday, that day when Christ entered Jerusalem riding on a donkey, fulfilling Zechariah 9:9 – “Behold your king is coming to you; He is just and endowed with salvation, humble, and mounted on a donkey.”

But I’m not sure that we realize the significance of the verse that follows: “I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the horse from Jerusalem; and the bow of war will be cut off” (verse 10).

At the very same time Jesus entered Jerusalem from the Eastern Gate, the Roman governor, Pilate, entered through the Western Gate. Pilate would have been riding a war horse and accompanied in full military armor by his troops. By simultaneously entering the opposite side of the city, Pilate’s message would have clear: “You can have your feast and celebration, but any attempt to rebel against Rome’s might will be dealt with swiftly and severely.”

Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem was a direct, peaceful statement against not only Rome’s power, but also that of the Jewish religious authorities. Ultimately, the powers that be (Pilate, as Caesar’s representative; Caiaphas, the high priest; Herod, the Jewish vassal king) collaborated against the Lamb of God.

Jesus offered no soldiers or threat of violence--no coercion or power to lord over others. His humble entry offers a glimpse at a new way of life possible for us. He offers his own life as the foundation for us to experience gentleness, humility, consideration, and trust for safety and provision. Again, these strike at the root of what the world offers us: fear, division, violence, idolatry, and the lust of power and abuse of people for our own selfish purposes (physical, sexual, emotional, or otherwise). Jesus would have us know that none of those characteristics are worthy of praise, admiration, or adoration. Those behaviors inevitably and ultimately lead to destruction.

As we celebrate these last few days of Holy Week, may I humbly suggest that we remind ourselves of the Father’s humble entry into our lives? He does not control or coerce. Whereas Pilate entered a city to enforce a system of domination, Christ enters our heart so we would for the first time know love, peace, and true freedom. For us to experience these and so much more, we must lay down our methods and defenses we’ve used to protect our *own* life and happiness, trust that our Father is in fact good, and humbly accept the free and generous gift of…himself. 

Pilate enforced control and ultimately abuse; Christ brings mutual relationship and ultimately healing from what is in reality our *own* destructive ways—a freedom not saturated with selfish motives.

May the King of Glory come in and may we know his love and our resurrection *with* him this coming Sunday.

We is risen.

Why Seeking Happiness As Your Goal in Life Fails

As long as happiness in life is your goal, you will always end up dissatisfied. Auschwitz death camp survivor, Viktor Frankl, stated: "It is the very pursuit of happiness that thwarts happiness. The more one makes happiness an aim, the more he misses the aim.”

Tragically, those who make happiness their goal usually resort to the same methods they've always tried in life. As we have noted, if you plant more of the "same" in your life, you get more of the "same."

This means that most us of have a pretty large learning curve; we keep trying to find happiness and satisfaction in life by our means, our wisdom, our efforts. We think to ourselves: "Money will make me happy." "These drugs will make me happy." "This relationship will make me happy." "This exciting and thrilling adventure will make me happy." "This job will make me happy."

Happiness comes only from what *happens* to you. Therefore, your mood will always be dependent on something external to you. That is a very precarious and unstable way to live. We long for--and were created for--a deeper, more permanent source.

Money, power, and sex ultimately fail to bring us fulfillment and satisfaction; even less so happiness.

They don't. Because they can't. You were made for something, Someone more.

Happiness, joy, and life satisfaction only come through knowing our Father. And the reason we went to all those other things was not because we had a sinful nature. On the contrary, our actions are evidence of a good nature created for relationship with the Father. The reason we sin and seek satisfaction in all those areas is because we don't really know the Father. We have believed a lie about him and that lie misguided us. We went off course thinking we would find what we wanted; thinking we were right.

"The spiritual life is about the liberation of God from our images of him.” - John O'Donohue

Grow in knowing the Father and his love for you and you'll stop behaviors that take you away from him and community. You'll see why certain actions were both unwise and unhealthy. Stop trying to solve your desires by planting more of the "same" in your life. Its fruit is obvious and predictable. Allow instead the seed of Christ's life and Christlike love to grow in you. Guard it and watch the results. Scripture promises you won't be put to shame or disappointed.

MacDonald on Loving One's Enemies

George MacDonald commented on Jesus' command to love our enemies, asking if our love for an enemy should be based simply on the fact that they, too, are human. No, he said. There is something deeper. It is because in them God has joined his divinity to their humanity.

He wrote:

"Why should we love our enemies? ...  It is in virtue of the divine essence which is in them that that we call our enemies men and women. It is this humanity that we are to love—something deeper altogether than, and independent of, the region of hate. “Is this humanity in every one of our enemies?” Yes, else there were nothing to love. Then we must love it, come between us and it what may.

But how can we love a man or a woman who is cruel and unjust to us? Who sears with contempt, who is self-righteous, self-seeking, self-admiring? Who can even sneer, the most inhuman of human faults, far worse in its essence than mere murder? These things cannot be loved. But are these the man? Lies there not within him a divine element of brotherhood, something which, once awakened to be its own holy self in the man, will loathe these unlovely things tenfold more than we loathe them now? Shall this divine thing have no recognition from us? Say rather, “My love shall come as near thee as it may; and when thine comes forth to meet mine, we shall be one in the indwelling God.”

MacDonald's understanding of the true nature of humanity starkly contrasted with the strict Calvinist environment of his childhood. He knew his own earthly father to be completely unlike the angry and wrathful God presented to him by religion. It was because of this difference in views that MacDonald was able to not only draw the best out of others through stories and imagination (just as Jesus did), but it is also why his hope for humanity's end was far more positive. I suggest it's that positive faith which undergirded his encouragement to us to love our enemies. MacDonald knew that ultimately, God would be all in all. As Scripture tells us, God is faithful to finish his work in us. That is true of both us and our enemies. We have no other reason but to love.

Consuming Fire : The Inexorable Power of God’s Love : A Devotional Version of Unspoken Sermons. 2015. North Charleston SC: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.

Love Notices Quality

A cousin of mine once worked in a bank. She told me after she handled cash for a time, she knew simply by touch if she had come across a counterfeit bill. Her familiarity with the *real* enabled a sense of the *false.* It is the same with love. However, we've become all too familiar with false love. So much so that *true* love is strange to us at first. False love is the type of love culture and society tells us to pursue and is, in reality, not love at all. It's candy-coated selfishness that seeks satisfaction through physical means (e.g., sex, possessions, accomplishment, and prestige).

Jesus, because he *knew* the Father's kind of love, never gave into what the world offered to him.

Japanese Christian theologian Kosuke Koyama writes:

"Love is an inner energy of man which makes him perceptive to the presence of good and bad in human relationships. And love is committed to encourage the good and discourage the bad to grow anywhere. It is the mind of God at work. So often the New Testament writers write: ‘And immediately Jesus, perceiving in his spirit that they thus questioned within themselves, ...’ (Mark 2.8). Jesus was not a magician. He is perceptive to what is going on in the hearts of men because he loves them."

May our pursuit be to always be the object of God's fatherly love and to know and experience that love in ever greater ways, so that we, like Jesus, will not be satisfied with the anemic, false love which our society and culture panders to us. If we do this, we will love and protect in the same way our Father does and the world will take note and begin to ask why we love differently...and far better and truer than what they've ever known.

May we have high (i.e., godly) standards for the love we pursue and practice in all our relationships.

Safe from Yourself

 I just wanted to share something I'm cooking today:

In life we all have the basic need to be seen, soothed, safe, and secure. Most people can say they had parents who tried reasonably well to provide all four of those for us. I want to touch on the matter of being safe for just a moment.

Even with their best efforts, many parents may not have been aware there was one important way to keep us safe:  that is, from ourselves.

Sure, they taught us not to stick anything into an electric outlet or to look both ways before we cross the street, but they couldn't as easily address our basic need to keep ourselves safe from our own thoughts.

I'd encourage you to set some time aside soon, if not today, to review and renovate how you think about yourself. We all are experts at conveying negative messages to ourselves. It takes intention, time, and solitude to reverse the effects of such negativity.

You are lovable and you are loved. You make a difference and you belong. You are a unique expression of the life of Christ, who created, fills, and sustains all things. Be intentional to make the time to retrain your mind and body to undo the unsafe messages you sent yourself. You are safe in the arms of a loving, giving, comforting Father, even if that wasn't your model on Earth, or even of yourself.

Choose Wisely

Scripture would agree that we tend to live as if we were God. We tend to live by our own insight, our own wisdom, our own sense of justice, our own short-sighted desires. We tend to allow passions to overwhelm us.

We are drawn to that which we believe to be good, true, and beauty. We tell ourselves, "This person will make me happy. That job will bail me out. These material possessions will satisfy me."

But, without God's wisdom, we easily go astray, and catastrophe and pain are usually the result. And then we blame God, thinking in our hearts that He is against us and that we will always be "cursed" somehow.

None of this behavior is because we are evil or wicked. We're just very complex beings within any number of complex relationships. We can be like boats tossed around my stormy weather.

David Goa tells us, “We are always deceived around something which appears to be good, or true, or beautiful. And it isn’t. And it’s always death-dealing. It’s always bringing us out of communion, out of reality.”

In all of this, the essence of our being does not change. We are in the image and likeness of God. We were created to reflect His goodness, His truth, and His beauty. When we pay attention to what we pay attention to, we will have taken the first step to choosing wisely.

Finally, Paul prayed for us in Eph. 3: "I pray that he would unveil within you the unlimited riches of his glory and favor until supernatural strength floods your innermost being with his divine might and explosive power. Then, by constantly using your faith, the life of Christ will be released deep inside you, and the resting place of his love will become the very source and root of your life. Then you will be empowered to discover what every holy one experiences—the great magnitude  of the astonishing love of Christ in all its dimensions."

We have everything we need for life and godliness. Don't be deceived otherwise by shiny objects around you that aren't the real thing.

Explicit Knowledge (facts) versus Implicit Knowledge (feelings)

Conveying explicit knowledge seems to be nearly always the main point in our relationship with God and others. What do you know? What are the facts? Do you understand what I said? But feelings run deeper in us than facts. So, while facts are important and need to be true, a person's feelings are like an undercurrent: they are the unseen reality about what they really hold to be true in a given situation. While we think that we are acting according to what we believe, in reality we tend to act according to what we feel. We perceive more deeply at an implicit level...in our emotions

It is important that we understand and address implicit knowledge. Healthy and safe relationships strengthen positive implicit knowledge. If someone doesn't feel safe and loved, very few facts (explicit knowledge) you present to them will be transformative for them.

Explicit knowledge informs, but implicit knowledge transforms.

In the following quote the authors are referring to the difference in the effects of explicit versus implicit knowledge between mature (healthy) and less mature (unhealthy) relationships. Mature relationship skills are grounded upon healthy implicit knowledge of oneself and others

"A number of studies have shown a link between people’s experiences of attachment figures and their experiences of God. For example, one study found that people who have more mature relationships in general are more likely to experience God as loving and benevolent. In addition, these researchers found that people with less mature relationships were more likely to experience God as wrathful, controlling, and irrelevant. Another study found similar results but also showed that people who used more mature defenses, or ways of coping with psychological pain, were more likely to experience God as loving. Likewise, those who used less mature defenses were more likely to experience God as wrathful.

Spiritual mentors in our lives, who function as a type of authority figure, also influence our implicit knowledge or representations of God."*

Why is this important? Because what we feel about God and ourselves is usually more important and more deeply rooted than what we know. If you want to transform your relationship with yourself, God, and others, find out why you feel the way you do. Allow the feelings to express themselves. We should also seek to understand (and experience) the feelings of another. If those feelings are negative and unsafe, take time to become aware and instead allow for a healthy transformation to occur through compassion and patience. Your faith and life will be enriched beyond what you've known to be possible.

*Todd W. Hall and Miriam Elizabeth Lewis Hall, Relational Spirituality A Psychological-Theological Paradigm for Transformation, InterVarsity Press, 2021, p. 126

The Minority Report of Faith and the Father's Subversive Goodness

Hello All,

When you view God, the Father of Jesus, as a god who, because of his nature, demands sacrifice, it puts you in a very precarious position. A god who requires a sacrifice is a god who must be appeased. Failure to do so can only end in a negative way: an afterlife that you will want to avoid as much as possible. Fear is a powerful motivator.

One way out of this is to create an atonement theory that pits the loving Jesus against his angry Father. Jesus sacrifices himself for you to satiate his blood-thirsty Father. Afterall, we see all those scary passages in Scripture as warnings, right? But along side of them, we also see a thread of goodness, grace, and mercy. What if we were to understand this double story in Scripture differently? Perhaps, that God himself has actually worked into Scripture not a yin and yang we need to somehow find a logic to intermingle together, but rather the very clear, yet minority report of his mercy.

Could it be there by design to show us a real Father God who is Love Itself so that we can by faith refuse the chaos of voices screaming at us otherwise?

The message that God is Love and therefore ultimately restores ALL is the thread of a subversive faith deliberately intended to counter our need for violence and a violent God.

The following two paragraphs are from Brad Jersak's newest text, "A More Christlike Word":

"The broken voice of sacrificial religion demands retributive justice, and so do its gods. By contrast, the Bible also reveals the surprising and counterintuitive response to our spiritual and social malady: humanity redeemed in Christ, the true image of God. God-in-Christ counters retribution with restoration, justice-as-punishment with justice-as-mercy, wrath with forgiveness, and death anxiety with resurrection life. Jesus’s messianic victory is not through military conquest but through radical, kenotic (self-emptying) service. Thus, the voice of Christ forever abolishes sacrificial religion through the supreme act of self-giving love.

The Bible preserves God’s revelation of fallen humanity not because it harmonizes with the voice of self-giving love, but because the former revelation begs for and points to the latter. It is therefore nonnegotiable that we read particular texts in the context of the whole story, so we don’t mistake specific retributive invectives or religious injunctions as “the word of the Lord” to followers of the voice of Jesus."

Which voice in Scripture will you listen to and obey:

The accuser, who believes someone to be guilty and demands violence and wrath?

The victim, who believes the violence against them was undeserved and therefore demands vengeance?

The Law, which believes only retributive justice and sacred/political violence will work?

Or to the voice of the Lamb, which calls for mercy, forgiveness, and self-giving love?

As Jersak states:

"We will need to render due diligence to the often difficult work of distinguishing between the image of God portrayed by sacrificial religion and the image of the Father revealed by the self-offering Lamb.

Grace=Peace,

Jeremy

The End of Violent Sacrifice Caused by Mimesis, not Nature

Hello All,

Many of you may be unfamiliar with René Girard, a 20th Century theologian whose atonement theory has found more and more voice in Christian circles. In short, Girard postulated that the self-sacrifice of Christ on the Roman cross of execution was done to expose the violent nature of humanity. God, who never delighted in sacrifice in the first place, entered into our need for sacrifice caused by a deep covetous desire to be God ourselves. Girard equates this desire with mimesis, the desire to imitate. For example, two children commonly fight over one toy, but only after the first child begins to play with it; the second becomes jealous and wants to possess it for his own. Add more children who want the same toy, and chaos ensues. In Girard's view, this has further implications for Christianity because we become violent in our mimetic jealousy and therefore need to find a scapegoat to unleash our violence rather than upon the community.  Therefore, a victim "saves" society. For example, Cain kills Abel because God was more pleased with Abel; or, Caiaphas' advice concerning the crucifixion of Christ: "You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.” (John 11:50)

Below are more enlightening remarks by Girard:

The suffering of Christ "is the underside of scapegoating sacrifice; it reveals everything. In other words, it brings to perfection what is already there in the Hebrew Bible. It is the revelation of sacrifice as false worship: it is nothing more than the result of a false accusation against the victim. [...] Christ is in the place of all victims since the foundation of the world, all sacrificial victims, revealing their accomplice--a willing accomplice--of the violence of humanity with divine permission, as it were, to enable us to reach the point where we become able to understand that."

In other words, God divinely consents to be sacrificed as Christ by humanity's violence in order to expose its violent, mimetic jealousy and thus end the need for sacrifice forever, including its use by humanity as a unifying method. And yet, at the same time, through this sacrifice humanity is saved through Christ, for there could be no humanity without Christ's self-sacrifice--we would have eventually destroyed each other. Therefore, when you celebrate communion, you're actually celebrating Christ having ended the system of violent sacrifice, and through communion, drinking the wine and bread, you actually obtain what you were desiring from the beginning: to be united with God.

Lastly, I'd like to submit that the whole system of violence erected as sacrifice was brought about not by an evil human nature, but rather by blindness, by deception, and human *minds* hostile toward God. Even after the slaying of Abel, humanity remained in the image of God. It was Paul who clearly saw that Christ was in him and in the Gentiles, and who prayed that a person's heart and mind would be open to the reality that they were in fact objects of Christ's salvation, even while they continued to sin.

Grace=Peace,

Jeremy

Brightening God by Darkening Humanity?

 Hello All,

William Ellery Channing (1780-1842), in argument against the low views of humanity propagated in and before his time by mainline Christianity (and being horrified specifically by slavery and the apathy of some Christians toward it), eventually wrote the following:

“There can be no spirit of brotherhood, no true peace, any farther than men come to understand their affinity with and relation to God and the infinite purpose for which he gave them life. As yet these ideas are treated as a kind of spiritual romance: and the teacher who really expects men to see in themselves and one another the children of God, is smiled at as a visionary. The reception of this plainest truth of Christianity would revolutionize society, and create relations among men not dreamed of at the present day. A union would spring up, compared with which our present friendships would seem estrangements. Men would know the import of the word Brother, as yet nothing but a word to multitudes. None of us can conceive the change of manners, the new courtesy and sweetness, the mutual kindness, deference, and sympathy, the life and energy of efforts for social melioration, which are to spring up, in proportion as man shall penetrate beneath the body to the spirit, and shall learn what the lowest human being is. Then insults, wrongs, and oppressions, now hardly thought of, will give a deeper shock than we receive from crimes, which the laws punish with death. Then man will be sacred in man's sight: and to injure him will be regarded as open hostility towards God.” 

Channing profoundly suggests the above would only have been possible had religion not, in its effort glorify God's splendor, negated humanity's worth; had it not sought to "brighten" God's goodness by emphasizing humanity's "darkness." Imagine how the world would be different if the dominating Christian conceptions of God and people had been different for the last 200 years.

Grace=Peace,

Jeremy

Sulphur is for Pure Praise

 Hello All,

Both the prophet Jeremiah and Jesus himself warned Israel about the coming destruction by Babylon and Rome, respectively. Faith placed in military might is not well founded and this was the problem of Jews in the times of Jeremiah and Jesus and it is also one of our problems today. All too quickly we assume that God is on our side, and this belief is part of a vicious cycle that also creates an "us versus them" mentality. It also feeds and is fed by our desire that evil doers and unbelievers would be punished and ultimately rejected by God (of course, we're never included in *that* number, are we, because we'll *always* be faithful, right???). However, for those with faith in God's goodness and peace toward all humanity, there is a subversive undercurrent of promise throughout Scripture that all humanity will be healed, redeemed, and restored. Isaiah announces it, and Paul later expounds upon it.  Isaiah (45:22-26) writes:

22 Turn to me and be safe,

    all you ends of the earth,

    for I am God; there is no other!

23 By myself I swear,

    uttering my just decree,

    a word that will not return:

To me every knee shall bend;

    by me every tongue shall swear,

24 Saying, “Only in the Lord

    are just deeds and power.

Before him in shame shall come

    all who vent their anger against him.

25 In the Lord all the descendants of Israel

    shall have vindication and glory.”

Paul writes later (Phil. 2:10-11):

10 that at the name of Jesus

    every knee should bend,

    of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

11 and every tongue [joyfully] confess that

    Jesus Christ is Lord,

    to the glory of God the Father.

Of course, now you're going to say to me "Ha! It says that people must turn first in order to be safe. What if someone doesn't turn?"

To which I would respond, "And it also reveals that his word WILL be true, since ALL will come before him, even those who come in shame. Moreover, every knee will bow and every tongue will JOYFULLY confess (exomologeō)."

And what's more, some will come in shame, but that is not the same as saying they'll be condemned and cast into eternal damnation.

Something strange happens in Paul's reference in Philippians. Paul, who is obviously quoting from the Isaiah passage, blatantly omits the part about Israel being vindicated and instead writes that EVERYONE will JOYFULLY confess Jesus' Lordship (isn't that how one is "saved" according to Romans???) and this all is not to Israel's glory, an ethnic group, but rather to the glory of the Father.

When we see the Father we'll realize that he has been working to redeem and restore EVERYONE.

EVERYONE, even Christians, will need to be salted with fire (sulphur is used for purification, not damnation). It's just that some will come having believed, and some not. But ALL WILL JOYFULLY confess Jesus is Lord and give the Father glory.

I didn't say it; Paul did--and it's completely fine and normal for Paul to modify an Old Testament prophet's understanding of God, as he so often does.

Grace=Peace,

Jeremy

Fear vs. Love

 Hello All,

Why should the Church teach the concept of post-mortem Eternal Conscious Torment (ETC)?  Quite simply put, it is a teaching that leads most quickly and most effectively to moral behavior. Fear of punishment is a powerful motivator.  Even some of the early Church fathers who did not believe in ETC realized this and went the easy route to modify the behaviors of others, while they themselves knew better. In the following paragraph, historian George Marsden quotes from a more recent preacher, Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887), and reveals Beecher's thoughts on this topic, which I find very honest.

The idea of eternal punishment for all who do not know Christ, accordingly, makes us "shiver and tremble with sensibility." Such sensibilities accounted for the move away from the "medieval literalization" of the doctrine. Nevertheless, Beecher did not shock his audience and deny this doctrine. "I must preach it," he says with apparent sincerity, even though "it makes me sick." It is a "great element of moral government." No one else, however, he hastens to add, need accept this view. "We are to be utterly tolerant of those who have adopted other theories; . . . we are neither to disown them as Christians, nor to discipline them for believing as they do—the day has gone by when a man is to be disciplined for his honest belief. . . ."

Beecher and I may not agree on every point in other areas of his doctrine, and he may not have lived the most exemplary life, but his point is solid.  Again, fear of punishment is a powerful motivator and as others have said, has been seen as necessary to produce a society that is moral in both civil- and self-governance. Fair enough. But to see that as an *absolute* necessity is short-sighted. Fear is a powerful motivator, but Love is more so by far. What would happen if Christians unanimously demonstrated love toward those who are not Christians, and, of course, even to their own? The world would change within one generation. Love seeks to build bridges (which is what the Pharisees were *supposed* to do). Fear, instead, creates unhealthy and destructive borders.

May Holy Spirit convince your heart that you are loved so that you can be love to another person.

Grace=Peace,

Jeremy

A Monstrous God is either Not Good, or Impotent, or both. But we have reason to be Joyful

 Hello All,

Just a quote from Athanasius today, regarding how it was impossible in God's character for him to allow humanity to ultimately perish.  Athanasius, an early church father, did not believe in a monstrous God.

Athanasius (d. 373) believed that because humanity was created in the image of God and by sharing that image with God, reflected God's glory. Because of sin, however, death entered and was antithetical to man's nature. God, being good, could not let man perish into nothingness.  Either God, because he is Goodness, would act to save humanity, or if he did not, then the only conclusion would be that he was not good, or that he was an impotent god. Instead, God saves, restores, resurrects, heals, revives, and sustains forevermore. Therefore, Paul was absolutely correct when he wrote to the church of the Philippians:

"At the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue JOYFULLY confess (exomologeō) that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." (Philippians 2:10-11)

Note: the Greek word exomologeō means to joyfully confess, a detail that was "conveniently" omitted by Bible translators. Having been recited for generations without that understanding, the Church has constantly cited this passage with the idea that those who will eventually be sent to hell must at this time be subjugated before a justly angry God. Fortunately, that's not the true meaning of the passage. Every person will see the Lamb and this passage gives at the very least hope that every heart will be persuaded, thus "saved."

And now from Athanasius:

"Man, who was created in God's image and in his possession of reason reflected the very Word Himself, was disappearing, and the work of God was being undone. The law of death, which followed from the Transgression, prevailed upon us, and from it there was no escape. The thing that was happening was in truth both monstrous and unfitting. It would, of course, have been unthinkable that God should go back upon His word and that man, having transgressed, should not die ; but it was equally monstrous that beings which once had shared the nature of the Word should perish and turn back again into non-existence through corruption. It was unworthy of the goodness of God that creatures made by Him should be brought to nothing through the deceit wrought upon man by the devil; and it was supremely unfitting that the work of God in mankind should disappear, either through their own negligence or through the deceit of evil spirits. As, then, the creatures whom He had created reasonable, like the Word, were in fact perishing, and such noble works were on the road to ruin, what then was God, being Good, to do? Was He to let corruption and death have their way with them? In that case, what was the use of having made them in the beginning? Surely it would have been better never to have been created at all than, having been created, to be neglected and perish; and, besides that, such indifference to the ruin of His own work before His very eyes would argue not goodness in God but limitation, and that far more than if He had never created men at all.  It was impossible, therefore, that God should leave man to be carried off by corruption, because it would be unfitting and unworthy of Himself."

Grace=Peace,

Jeremy

Christ is a King, but not like Constantine

 Hello All,

I believe it's important that we understand how we view God.

When Jesus' fans wanted to take him and to thrust him into their idea of who and what the Messiah-King should be, he refused.  Jesus was a King who came riding in humility on a donkey, not a battle horse.  Jesus was a King who served.

Eusebius, the baptizer of Emperor Constantine, had this to say of his emperor's victories:

"And thus the Almighty Sovereign himself accords an increase both of years and of children to our most pious emperor, and renders his sway over the nations of the world still fresh and flourishing. …He appoints him this present festival, in that he has made him victorious over every enemy that disturbed his peace: He it is who displays him as an example of true godliness to the human race. … Invested as [Constantine] is with a semblance of heavenly sovereignty, he directs his gaze above, and frames his earthly government according to the pattern of that Divine original, feeling strength in its conformity to the monarchy of God. And this conformity is granted by the universal Sovereign to man alone of the creatures of this earth: for He only is the author of sovereign power, who decrees that all should be subject to the rule of one."

Dr. Brad Jersak remarks:

"Note here how Eusebius defines God’s ‘sovereignty.’ It relates to victory through violence and peace via conquest; monarchy through force and coercive power; rule through decrees and reign as subjugation. Rebellion—polytheism, pluralism and democracy—would be trodden underfoot for the sake of God’s kingdom. [...] What does all this imply? For Eusebius, God’s kingdom had come “on earth as it is in heaven” through the lifework of Constantine. The earthly emperor was now the image and agent of the heavenly King, with the institutional church written in as his happy chaplain, confidant and cheerleader!"

So, if Christian theology conveys to the Christian an exemplar of Jesus in the person of an earthly emperor who brings peace through force and violence, how do you think that Christian's view of God will be defined?  And what will their belief about God and the eternal destiny of a person who is an "enemy" be?  Will that God finally, ultimately, be violent, or will mercy triumph in the end?

Romans 11:32 - "For God has bound everyone over to disobedience (Greek: apeitheia, "obstinate rejection of the will of God"; "unpersuadable-ness") so that he may have mercy on them all."

Grace=Peace,

Jeremy

Inviting People to Worship a Loving but Retributive Jesus? Nonsense.

Hello All,

One way to describe the difficulty some people have with Christianity is to note that the faith has been presented as a mixture of the law of Moses and the grace of Jesus; specifically, that the person is subject to both simultaneously. This situation does not bring true freedom and joy, but rather produces feelings of anxiety, insecurity, and fear. The gospel message of Christianity has been presented to the person through an incongruent lens, making people think that Jesus is more like Moses, and instilling the belief in them that Jesus' supposed heart of compassion is in fact a heart toward karma with the end result for the person being retribution and revenge if they fail to be faithful.  Those are strong words, but they are the ultimate conclusion of a person believes that God is ultimately against them.

The key to understanding the Good News is the removal of any idea that Jesus, and thus the Father, will bring retribution upon any person. Retribution is not the same thing as Judgment. Judgment is a correction, not a punishment. And even if it is a sort of punishment, Scripture is plainly clear that Mercy triumphs in the end over Judgment. Punishment and retribution is not his heart toward us and we do an injustice to someone when we tell them of Jesus's love and compassion in our effort to convert them, but withhold from them our ulterior belief that God will eventually turn his back on them.

The apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians, that they should understand this problem: "But to this day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their hearts; but whenever someone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away."

Dr. Brad Jersak writes:

"Jesus came to show and tell us exactly who God is in ways no prophet had the capacity to anticipate—not Moses, David or even Isaiah.

For example, we read in John 1:17 that Moses gave us the Law (a system of rewards and punishments), but Christ brought us grace and truth. We read in 2 Cor. 3:9ff that Moses’ covenant brought condemnation but Jesus’ covenant brings righteousness, true freedom and transformation.

What’s happening here? Rather than replacing Yahweh of the Old Testament with the Christ of the New, these authors emphasize that Moses’ revelation of God as the just Judge (the law-bringer) is being eclipsed by Jesus’ greater revelation of God the loving Father (the gospel-giver). They preach the same God, but through a different lens. With the restorative lens of Jesus and his glad tidings, Yahweh comes into focus as that gracious Father whose judgments are mercy. Whatever maleficent image we see is the result of distorted vision, whether ours or the stories’ characters or their human narrators. Through a retributive lens, even Jesus appears vengeful and violent.

Remember, it’s not only the vengeance or violence from which I’m recoiling: the real problem is the portrait of a God whose un-Christlike naked will eclipses love and trumps grace—a coercive force incongruent with Christ’s cruciform revelation of his Father’s love."

Grace=Peace,

Jeremy

A Potential Savior of All? of Some?

 Hello All,

You gotta love First Timothy 4:9-11 -

"It is a trustworthy statement deserving full acceptance. For it is for this we labor and strive, because we have set our hope on the living God, who is the Savior of all mankind, especially of believers.  Prescribe and teach these things."

Every time "especially" (Greek: malista) occurs in the NT, it is inclusive, not exclusive of that which is in the context.

First Timothy 4:9-11 does not say:

1. That the living God is the Savior only of believers.

2. That the living God only saves some.

3. That believers are saved BEFORE everyone else.

4. That God is a POTENTIAL Savior.

But why the "especially" (Gr: malista)?  Because believers *believe* what is already true about ALL of humanity (pas anthrōpos).  Either Christ is the Savior of all, or he is the Savior of none, but he cannot be the Savior of some.  And if he fails to ultimately save all, and is only a POTENTIAL Savior of either some or all, then he is no Savior at all (or of all), and Savior is the wrong title to give him and the wrong name for the Holy Spirit to inspire us to call him.

Grace=Peace,

Jeremy

Jesus and Moses are not equals

 Hello All,

Someone once said, "Many people want to be married to Jesus, but still think it's ok to have an affair with Moses."

When we think  and read about God in Scripture, nearly every sermon we've ever heard is lingering in our consciousness as our interpreter.  This interpreter wants to make Jesus and Moses equal.  It wants to say that the God Moses revealed is the same revelation of the Father that Jesus gave us.  It's just not true.  And if you read Scripture and think like Moses, the Bible literally says that there is a veil covering your eyes, hiding the truth from you.  Here's what Dr. Brad Jersak writes:

"For example, we read in John 1:17 that Moses gave us the Law (a system of rewards and punishments), but Christ brought us grace and truth. We read in 2 Cor. 3:9ff that Moses’ covenant brought condemnation but Jesus’ covenant brings righteousness, true freedom and transformation.

What’s happening here? Rather than replacing Yahweh of the Old Testament with the Christ of the New, these authors emphasize that Moses’ revelation of God as the just Judge (the law-bringer) is being eclipsed by Jesus’ greater revelation of God the loving Father (the gospel-giver). They preach the same God, but through a different lens. With the restorative lens of Jesus and his glad tidings, Yahweh comes into focus as that gracious Father whose judgments are mercy. Whatever maleficent image we see is the result of distorted vision, whether ours or the stories’ characters or their human narrators. Through a retributive lens, even Jesus appears vengeful and violent.

Remember, it’s not only the vengeance or violence from which I’m recoiling: the real problem is the portrait of a God whose un-Christlike naked will eclipses love and trumps grace—a coercive force incongruent with Christ’s cruciform revelation of his Father’s love."

Jesus trumps Moses just as Mercy triumphs over Judgment.

Grace=Peace,

Jeremy 

An All-awful God

Hello All,

Over the years, and not just recently, it has been becoming more and more apparent that today's average person who professes faith in Christ is in a place of disadvantage if they don't understand at least in part how the beliefs of the Christian faith were transferred from one generation to the next over the centuries.  Some beliefs have been true and good; others very early on took the understanding of God as revealed in Jesus and to the apostles (for they had to work through many misunderstandings themselves) to some very wrong and unChristlike places.  In other words, not every belief one hears on sell from a pulpit is in line with the person of Jesus and how his earliest followers understood words like "believe", "repent", "salvation", "justice", just to name a few.  Even those who retort "I read the Bible for myself" are tragically ignorant of the fact that they're reading an Ancient Near East document two millenia separated from the culture in which it was written.  Sure, you "read the Bible for yourself," but you're also using a western, American lens which has centuries of teachings that just are not in line with the intent of the original authors and the life of God revealed in Christ.

Dr. Brad Jersak writes about the one western theologian, Augustine, who, unbeknownst to the majority of Christians, has given us his interpretation of God's person and nature that is not consistent with the revelation of himself in Christ.

"According to Canadian scholar, Ron S. Dart, Augustine took a position at times quite at odds with the Alexandrian Christianity of Clement and Origen. It is in Augustine that notions such as election, double-predestination, God’s sovereignty, just war and God’s willing and choosing reach a place and pitch that has much in common with the God of Biblical Judaism. …[We see] in Augustine the return to a willing, choosing sovereign God, not bounded by goodness or justice. Such a God could and would use his freedom to elect whom he willed for salvation and whom He willed for damnation. This is not a god [we can] truly trust."

In other words, combine the idea of God as all-powerful with the idea he is all-willful without the lens of Jesus' life of goodness and mercy, and you'll end up with an all-awful god who is not good and who does what he wants.  That god is not for you, but only for himself.

It's important to know the history of the church and how we came to believe what we believe.

Grace=Peace,

Jeremy