Rethinking My Reservations

In class today, Mr. Bryant had us read Matthew 25:31-46. Since it is integral to our discussion, it would be appropriate to include this passage here.

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’ “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

After making it through this long, scriptural trek, Mr. Bryant asked us if we were comfortable with being judged by the standards that the King uses in this passage. No one raised their hand. Were we too nervous to take a stand, or were we all admitting that this judgement is not the judgement we are preparing for? We often declare that belief in Jesus’ death and resurrection will guarantee us access to heaven. We expect God to judge on terms other than those on which Jesus says the Last Judgement will occur. After considering the passage for a second time I am disappointed that I did not raise my hand. After a little more consideration, I do not think this passage contradicts what many of us believe. Let me explain.

Many have, over the years, pointed out the apparent discrepancies between Paul, who says that we are saved by grace and faith (not works), and James who claims that we are justified by works and not by faith. I believe that these two passages do not present contradictions, but complement each other nicely. We are covered by Jesus’ perfect life, boundless blood, and victory over death. We are justified by His works, and we are saved by His grace (and, of course, our faith in that grace.) Looking back at the passage from Matthew, no one is able to claim perfect fulfillment of the requirements detailed there. Clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, and visiting the sick are not things that we routinely do. But Jesus did these things. The King will declare us to be among the “sheep” because we are covered by Jesus’ works.

To sum this up, we need not fear the Judgement Day, even if we have failed to live up to God’s standards. If we have accepted Christ, we are covered by His works, and He far exceeds the standards of even God’s perfect law. He is sure, and we need not fear our journey or our destination if we have placed our hope in Him.

The MITA Vita

Well, we’re back this week for more Biblical Theology blogging, and this time, we will be discussing the Moral Influence Theory of Atonement. If you’re reeling from the title, don’t worry. The view is pretty much the same as the name, if not shorter. To give you a bit of a roadmap for what we will be discussing, I’m going to lay it out in two different paragraphs. The first will look at what this belief stands for. We’ll then delve into what this view has to do with two separate passages–Hebrews 6:4-6 and Matthew 13:3-9. Let’s go.

The Moral Influence Theory of Atonement (we’re going to call it MITA) declares that Jesus’ main purpose in coming to earth was to teach us how to live. The purpose of his dying on the cross, for example, was to teach us what true love is. His miracles were to demonstrate full faith; his teachings exemplified how his successors should preach; and the list goes on. MITA closely equates Jesus with the Law. It says that He came mainly to demonstrate the code of conduct by which we should live. Many of us immediately discard this idea. But MITA does understand a relationship which many Christians today miss. According to supporters of MITA, Jesus came to bring positive moral change in this world…And speaking of those supporters, there were many in the early church, most notable among them were Polycarp of Smyrna, Clement of Alexandria, Irenaeus, and Peter Abelard. Now let’s look at those two passages in the light of MITA.

Hebrews 6:4-6 (ESV), “For it is impossible to restore again to repentance those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they then fall away, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt.”

Matthew 13:3-9 (ESV), “And He told them many things in parables, saying: ‘A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil, but when the sun rose, they were scorched. And since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. He who has ears, let him hear.’”

Well, this looks like a rather formidable job, but let’s count our blessings: One, we can be thankful the passages are similar. The first passage indicates the category of people who allow the Holy Spirit to control their lives for a while, but wither in their faith to the point of rebellion. From there, this passage teaches, they stray beyond hope of repentance. The passage from Matthew deals with the same type of people, those who appear to be believers but fall away after a while. It is these people who, after welcoming or pretending to welcome the Spirit, walk away from the faith and pursue their own lifestyles. What does this have to do with MITA? Aha! I’m glad you asked. What makes someone reject their faith? They spurn it because they do not want to live according to the laws the Bible lays in place. No one rejects God for His love, His mercy, or His grace. People reject God because of His justice and His judgement. Both are the result of laws. Without a law, there is no justice; and without rules, what is there to judge by? Nothing. So if the laws are what drive people away from the faith, MITA is making an important connection. Today, many people feel that they can accept their own version of Jesus. Often, this “Idiosyncratic Immanuel” is rather soft, fuzzy, furry, and mushy intellectually. He bends to the whims of the individual and is easily manageable. People with this kind of Messiah want to separate God from His standards. However, when theology takes the turn and places Christ as a Savior inseparable from the Law, such as MITA attempts to do, many will realize they are not following the true Jesus. As the epitome of God’s Law, Christ does not seem so welcoming to the droves. If we actually connected the Law and the Messiah, perhaps we would have fewer nominal Christians, fewer wolves among the sheep. Please note the PERHAPS. This is not a hard and fast rule. This is merely what first struck me when considering those who are shallow in Christ and fall away from the faith. In the end, I am not endorsing the MITA, but I am not tossing it out the window either. It is presents a very good solution for rooting out those who are not truly servants of Christ. Although many of us assume we have an appropriate and balanced view of the atonement, we might have some thinking to do.

Buy Two, Give One Free

In class yesterday, Mr. Bryant gave us three examples of situations both hypothetical and real in which he challenged us to decide how we should act to right certain wrongs. One of these examples was the slow but sure thieving by Europeans of the land that once belonged to Native Americans. Mr. Bryant challenged us to think about what we should do about this. We will examine this issue through the lens of the facts, the way we react, how we are wrong, and what we should do.

My explanation: Native Americans once inhabited the land in which we now live, and in many cases, they still do. Two entire continents were once occupied by multiple millions of American Indians, from the Yupik to the Arawaks to the Incas. Although many of these peoples’ descendants have intermingled with the European immigrants and have flourished, (e.g.: ½ of Peru’s population is of Incan lineage) there are still some who desire to live in their previous ways with their erstwhile cultures and beliefs. To loosely accommodate this desire, the governments of many countries, the U.S. especially, have set up reservations for the indigenous Americans to occupy. After having secured the rightful owners of the Americas on separate tracts of land, our country has proceeded to take up residence wherever we please, claiming that we have been fair in our dealings. Right now, you and/or your family lives on ground once peopled by native inhabitants. Your ancestors stole it, as it were. The Indians were pushed off of their land and into the less useful zones, leaving the fertile and beneficial areas to the colonists. To put it straight, you are possessing and using something right now that is not rightfully yours.

Your [false] rebuttal: Our knee-jerk reaction to this statement is a two-part fraud. We claim, first of all, that it was our ancestors who took the land (communally), not us. Hence, we say that the fact that we now are living on Native Americans’ land is not our fault. The other counterargument is that we (or our parents, or grandparents, etc.) paid fair and square for every inch of land on which we dwell. Nice tries on both fronts, but both are wrong.

My rebuttal (of your rebuttal): Why did you (or your parents) buy your house? At the root of the answer, the simple truth is that they valued that square of grass and lumpy edifice more than a pile of green paper. Why did the previous owners sell it? They wanted that pile of green paper more than the land. Almost every piece of property can be traced back to a time when it was owned by the government (who sold it to some long-gone anonym who had that coveted paper). If you live in the midwest, most likely the government got your land from the French. If you live in Alaska, it came from the Russians. Are you from the Pacific Northwest? Britain sold that to the U.S.. Florida, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, California, Colorado…? Spain. Out east…well, no one paid for that land (besides the $24 the dutch paid for Manhattan Island in 1626). It was all taken from faceless and preferably nameless people, as was the land when the rulers preceding the U.S. took over. All of that land was claimed, not bought. If the entire trade line is examined, the people you ultimately “paid” for your land are the ones who stole it from the Indians, not the Native Americans themselves. This can be compared to buying what you know are stolen goods and claiming that since you paid for them, they are yours. Beyond this, you KNOW who the ‘goods’ belong to, so you are willfully withholding from them what is rightfully theirs. If your mother stole the neighbor woman’s ring and sold it to you, would you feel justified in keeping it? Of course not! If you really desired to have that ring, you should give it back to the one from whom it was stolen and buy your own ring!

Our examination: So what should we do about this issue? Should we forget about it? Well, what did we do with the ring? We went and bought a new one and gave it back. So, the simple conclusion becomes this: If you have the resources (I won’t go into that discussion) buy two houses. Keep one for yourself and give one back to an impoverished Native American family.

Atoning for a Dutiful Icon

Mr. Bryant said this yesterday: “This week for blogs, I want you to talk about the concept of atonement in the context of duty and of Eikon.” This might turn out to be quite a job, so we are going to approach the topic systematically. To begin, you need to know what the three major words (atonement, duty, and Eikon) mean. Of course, you probably know the first two, but I want to establish working definitions. Atonement, in the way we are dealing with it, is best defined as the reconciliation of God and man through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Duty, for our purposes, is specifically Christian duties. These are the responsibilities that come with giving your heart and life to Christ. Lastly, Eikon (pronounced ‘icon’). Our word icon did indeed come from Eikon, which means image or likeness. This word is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew word ‘tselem’, which means the same thing. The word ‘tselem’, usually used to refer to idols, is applied to humans when saying that we were created in God’s image. We are God’s ‘idols’, if you will. Don’t take this wrong, we are not to be worshiped, but just as an idol is the supposed embodiment and tool of the god it represents, we are God’s ‘idols’ through which he can work. Our goal in this blog is to relate these last three definitions with some sort of spiritual significance. Before we plunge in, I will tell you that in my opinion, the following is the relation: atonement brings about Eikon, which in turn requires duty. Put that in your mind and put extra air in your lungs ‘cause we’re going for a very deep plunge.

Now that we have the definitions behind us, let’s put them together. Atonement is something that was done in the past. Atonement is done…over. Jesus lived a perfect life, died a brutal death, and rose again on the third day to reconcile us to God. Eternal life or eternal death is simply based on whether or not we choose to acknowledge and believe in the truth of that atonement. Once we accept that atonement for our sins, we become God’s ‘Eikon’, or ‘image’ (idol). God wants to use believers, who are to be His ‘icon’, as tools to minister to the world. This is where the duty comes in. Our duty is to spread the truth of the atonement to make more ‘Eikons’ to accomplish God’s work.

This is a self-repeating, never-ending process. However, all too often, people feel comfortable with everything but the duty. Unfortunately, this is where the cycle breaks down. Christians are fine with accepting atonement and the eternal life that goes with it, but we aren’t too comfortable with all of the duty. We’re fine with the part that requires us to sit at home, say we are Christians, and flow in and out of church on Sundays. But we want no part of the duty that sends us into the jungles of Brunei. This is how the cycle ends, and this is one of the largest issues with the church today…a lack of devotion to duty. So I leave you to ponder three things. If you have not accepted Christ, are you willing to welcome His atonement? If you have accepted that atonement, have you opened your soul to the plying hands that God uses to fashion you into someone who glorifies Him; into an Eikon? And if you’ve chosen to become His ‘icon’, are you doing your duty?

A Magnification of the Magnificat

To begin this blog, I want to start with a statement that Mr. Bryant made in class yesterday. He said that much of what we believe about the gospel springs from the context in which we have been taught it. This means that we will see the Gospel’s priorities differently than a man who has just heard about Christ and lives in the Amazon Jungle. This means that our approach to spreading the gospel might revolve less around mercy to the poor and grace for the humble than a homeless Christian on the streets of L.A. Today we will take two Christian views and look at their differences. We are going to examine the Magnificat, Mary’s prayer of thanks in Luke 1:46-55 and compare its major themes to how we apply the Gospel today. I think we will notice that we ignore many of the issues that concerned Mary. To begin, I want to point out three of the major themes in the Magnificat. They are mercy to the oppressed, the raising up of the humble and poor, and the lowering of the proud and rich. None of these truly show up in the church today as Mary expressed them.

First we will look at the topic of mercy to the oppressed. If any of these three subjects is somewhat addressed by our churches, it would be this one. We are constantly quoting statistics about how many poor people live in our world. We might give to one charity, hoping that we are improving the life of some destitute farmer in Senegal whose fields were once part of the fertile Sahel but are now barren Sahara. We give to another ministry, sincerely wishing that all the cancer victims in India could be made well. But are we truly addressing the same issue Mary was? I don’t think so. There are two things we’re missing. First, are we giving enough? Second, is the amount that we are giving even going to the right place? The answer to the first is rather straightforward. In Mr. Bryant’s words yesterday, “I am screamingly wealthy, I am maddeningly rich.” He is right. With 50% of the world’s population living on less than $2.00 a day, we have more than a lot. We have so much more to to give. We just don’t feel like we do because we adjust our lifestyle to fit the amount of money we have, leaving us no extra to give away. Adjusting our lifestyle to fit the income does make us look better in the world’s eyes, but is that what we truly want? Next we need to ask if the amount that we are giving is even going to the right place. Consider Mary’s prayer. Do you think that when she is discussing acts of mercy for the oppressed she is calling on God to shower his material blessing on both the good and the evil? Clearly not. So should we be donating to charities helping the families of gang members in Kenyan prisons, or should we be giving to the Christians soldiers in South Sudan, who are literally fighting for their lives? We should not be giving to the general poor of the world, we should rather be specifically giving to Christians who are poor, oppressed, and downtrodden.

Next, I want to look at the issue of the raising up of the humble and lowly. This issue, unlike the last one, deals with more of the societal positions of those who are poor rather than their material wealth. It speaks for the idea that people of lower classes should rise to positions of power in the church and in their communities. Sometimes those with the most wisdom are poor people who are not blinded by wealth. We, however, calmly dismiss this notion with a wave of our hand and the false statement that because they have no wealth, they can’t manage a church. This is certainly not the case. The truth is that we look down on people with less money for no reason other than that they are poor. Our church is decidedly against Mary’s idea of poor people governing and rising to positions of power.

If we are completely against the previous idea, we would kill to prevent this next one from becoming reality. The third major theme of the Magnificat is the lowering of the proud and rich. Oh, of course, we are strongly in favor of this one, as long as we get to decide the definition of a rich person. We all want the people across the street who live in that big house to be the rich ones, never considering for a moment that we are filthy rich. Remember all of those people living on two dollars a day? They are poor. WE are rich. And WE may be the ones whom Mary is calling upon God to humble. Right now our only counter to this is that we are not proud in our wealth, we don’t let it control us. Therefore we say we are above God’s wrath on the proud and rich. If you think that, let me ask you this. Would you be willing to give up almost everything you have? …And, (I wasn’t done) live in a hovel? No, I’m not asking you to live in one surrounded by a whole bunch of other hovels in a dump on the south side of Delhi. You would have to live right on the spot where you live now. You would dwell in a little hut surrounded by normal homes. People would walk right past your house and laugh. No, no, as Americans living in upper-middle class suburbia, we are rich and proud of it. We could probably say we would give up our money to live among the poor, but we would certainly never be willing to live among those who are rich in a way that sets us apart as nearly destitute. We care far too much about our appearances, and that is what Mary is concerned with abolishing in her culture. She understood that it is perilous to become caught up in riches, and she was in effect warning Christians of future generations.

Maybe, just maybe, today’s church needs to do some thinking about its priorities. Perhaps we don’t quite have an accurate grasp of what it means to be a humble community of believers. We have never been exposed to any of these ideas, and that is because of where we live. I quoted Mr. Bryant at the beginning of this post as saying that much of what we believe about the gospel springs from the context in which we have heard it. We have been taught the gospel in one of the richest areas of the world, so perhaps this wealthy community has skewed our view of what it truly means to take up our cross and follow Him. It may mean giving up a little more than we intended, but it will mean receiving more than we ever dreamed.

The Annihilation of Annihilationism

Today we will be taking an extreme turn from the ideas of discipleship and we will begin to address a dangerous belief that is increasingly common among church leaders. The subject we will examine is known as annihilationism. Annihilationism is similar to orthodox Christianity because it says that when a non-believer dies, they will go to hell. However, the foundational principal of annihilationism is that an eternity of God’s wrath as punishment for a mere lifetime of sins is preposterous, even cruelly absurd. Instead, annihilationists believe that a person is punished for an “appropriate” amount of time, then they become “extinct,” or cease to exist. This, however, does not apply to believers, whom annihilationists believe will live in paradise forever. I don’t agree with annihilationism, in fact, I believe that it directly contradicts God’s Word. I would like to examine three passages over the course of this blog that indicate that punishment in hell is eternal and that the doctrine of annihilationism is not scripturally sound.

First, we will look at Revelation 20:10, “And the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.” According to annihilationists, even if Satan has deceived people for thousands of years, he certainly would not deserve the torture of the cup of God’s wrath being poured upon him for eternity. And yet, that is what this passage directly indicates.

Next, I want to explain to you something that struck me very forcefully. If someone who has disobeyed God for 75 years is “punished appropriately,” and then obliterated, how could a just God at the same time allow people who have served Him for 75 years to remain in paradise for eternity? Annihilationism is an appeal to God’s sense of justice, proclaiming that if He is truly just, He could not punish humans who lived so briefly for all of eternity. If this is true, why can that same just God allow men and women who served Him so fleetingly to live in Heaven forever? An annihilationist, to remain true to their idea of God’s justice, would be forced to believe that God also does not reward His followers for eternity. However, this is clearly not true. Look at John 6:51, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” Or how about Revelation 22:5, “And night will be no more, they will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever”?

Think about those words, “…If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever…”, and “…for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever…”. Both “forever” and “forever and ever” are very long times. In fact, neither of those sound temporary to me. If this is how long God will reward the saints for staying true to Him, why would He, being a just God, not do the same for those who have rejected Him by punishing them forever? It is apparent that Scripture does not support the belief of annihilationism. In fact, God’s Word directly opposes it. We must be wary, for annihilationism is just one of Satan’s many schemes to sidetrack and confuse believers through false doctrine.

Subterfuge Christianity

Last week we looked at what it would mean to live so that our entire existence is devoted to God’s kingdom. This week we’ll take a slight turn. Instead of considering how it would glorify God to become a traveling evangelist, we will look at how we can live our lives at home and still make known to all the fact that we are the children of God. First, we will look at what makes a Christian different from the world. Then, we will examine an example of someone who failed to be set apart from the world.

There are several elements of Christianity that make those who follow it act differently from the world. On the surface, it would seem that Christians are set apart because they go to church. However, not everyone who goes to church is a true Christian. One can also proclaim his allegiance to Christ by acting in the same manner both in and out of church. A Christian should speak graciously and appropriately in both arenas (Colossians 4:6). Christians should show love for one another both on Sundays and the rest of the week (John 13:35). Christians should strive to demonstrate all of the fruits of the Spirit every day (Galatians 5:22-23).These are just a few of the ways in which believers should stand out from the world. True Christians can be identified because they not only profess Jesus on Sundays but also try to live to His standards every day. As an Indian once said of missionary David Brainerd, “Him not only talk Jesus, him live Jesus.” This is what we all want to be said of us. But do we live in a manner worthy of such a compliment?

I want to share a story to demonstrate the flip-side. I happen to know a Christian man who had some non-christian friends when he was young. We will call him Jack. His friends were not terrible kids, but they were not believers. He was at a party with several of them when he overheard two of his friends talking about him. One said to the other, “Did you know that Jack is a Christian?” There was silence for a few seconds. Finally the other spoke, “Are you serious? He sure doesn’t act like one!” Imagine hearing that said about yourself. That should be sobering. Jack thought he was living for Christ, going against the culture, and ministering to the non-believers around him. But they didn’t even know that he professed to follow Christ. How many of us assume that we are visible Christians while shrinking from the reality that we actually have to stand out from the world. So now I am going to ask the hard question that you’ve been hoping I wouldn’t ask, “What would you do if you heard what was said about Jack said about you?” Of course, your knee-jerk reaction is to say that you would change, but would you? It takes far more work than we can imagine to get out of a hole like that.

Avoiding hypocrisy is simple. It consists of going to church on Sundays and acting like a Christian, and then going to school on Monday and still acting like a Christian. It’s what Jack didn’t do. It’s what David Brainerd did do. It’s what Jesus calls us to do. It’s what glorifies the Father.

In case you’re wondering about Jack, his is a story of victory. He turned his life around and is now a pastor. So if you feel like you aren’t such a strong Christian, you may be right, but there is hope for you. And if you feel like you’re riding smoothly, watch out, because God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble. Live for Christ every day.