Army of Priests

A poem from my journal.

I believe in a delusion
That I can reach my own conclusion
Living my life by human steam
But finding this is just a dream

I seek out what seems best to me
I worry not about what you see
And in the end I just become
Yet another hopeless blinded one

But you, O God, you placed me first
On Calvary’s hill my shackles burst
From your deep love I cannot hide
You knew one truth: I’m broke inside

By knowing this, your heart was hurt
You reached down to lift me from the dirt
Your boundless grace is where hope lies
And now I see life through new eyes

A rich new hope was in me placed
To see the world saved by your grace
And every day I walk in step
To ease the world of sin’s great debt

I do not know how to prevail
But I can hear dreary souls wail
My heart breaks like yours does also
Yet the people hurt only more so

Help me lord, to rely on you
My conscious will is shattered in two
I want to live by holy light
So give me strength for my fight

By will alone I cannot win
I am still tempted by constant sin
The deception of Hades waits
To lure me in with fresh new baits

Let me know you’re all I need
So I won’t seek any other creed
When fiend comes, let weakness seethe
For from my side you will not leave

How dare God love me.

We have a system going in this world where we love the people who provide value (money, good laughs, etc) and hate those that do not (pedophiles, murderers, etc). For the most part, it works well for us. It gives us a platform for pride by comparing ourselves with the less loved, and opportunity for advancement as though we are in control.

I recently read a news article about bullying where children said that one boy deserved the constant teasing he received because he choose to read books during his lunch break. This is disgusting to us yet how often do we withhold our love for people because of such simple things as the colour of their skin, the fact they are annoying, because they swear or drink and they live on the streets. Yet we are so keen to love people who are popular, rich, funny, intelligent, and who can give us things in return. The golden rule of society: only love when it is easy and there is a reward.

We can go about our lives without ever suffering for someone who will not return our favour. We can hide the ugly parts of our personality and past as people do not care about who we are – only what we do. Because we are respected due to instrumental rather than intrinsic value we can pretend that we are not broken as long as we are useful.

But then Jesus came and upset all that. He went straight to the most undesirable, useless members of society and showed them a love that is greater than what we reserve for even the most popular members of society. It upset the system.

Jesus didn’t love people for what they could do, how they dressed, or what their status was. He loved the unlovable people and he extends the same love to all of us. This is scandalous, for we are of no value to God. He does not need us to help him run the universe, or to make him feel good from our praise, or to do his will. He’s bigger than we are! If anything we are like an ache in his side. Forever hurting one another and raping this world. We should, if things were fair, be recipients of God’s wrath rather than his love.

But God is not fair. He loves us. This causes a lot of trouble because it undermines the fundamental assumption of our system – that people are of value solely for what they do. God loves us for who we are. We can’t have this, as it exposes us all for wretched, sinful, and self-absorbed brats competing for love that we have already had since birth.

We can’t have this. Our pride will not let us be exposed as such.

So we killed God. The only truly innocent man, who did nothing but love, disturbed our pride in such a way that we had to kill Him. Even more, we needed to brake Him. The system required that He hated us, so we had to make Him hate us. If we could then we would prove His love was conditional, and thus the world could go on. So we tested His limits and poured out our greatest wrath upon the most innocent man – the world’s worst evil.

But our plan was foiled. For on the cross Jesus did not choose to hate us, but instead offered us forgiveness. Love overcame evil. It persisted through the greatest darkness and showed itself to be greater, much greater, than we had imagined.

What a scandal! That Jesus could love men even as they drove nails into His hands! That when we mocked Him, and spat on Him, He still loved us. It shattered for all our assumption that love must be earned and exposed us for fools.

We couldn’t break God, but He broke us. With all our attempts to prove our instrumental worth stripped bare we are left with nothing. We are wretched. We are sinners. We are evil.

But God still loves us!

He loves us regardless of social status, popularity, income, the colour of our skin, the thoughts we have, or the sins we have committed. Nothing we do can make Him love us more or less.

Also, He loves everyone else the same way. Jesus set up a new system for living. One where love cannot be earned, but must be given. It is the kingdom of the loved unlovables. Its citizens no longer try to bolster their image and instrumental value, but they’ll strain themselves to love others. It is the ultimate alternative to the current order, and its existence serves to criticise that order and call its members to repentance.

It’s scandalous. We Christians belong to a reality of freely given yet utterly undeserved love. It appears so foolish to this world that they will persecute us, jail us, beat us, scorn us, and kill us but we will still love them. As in the example of Christ our love with outlast their evil, revealing their inadequacy, and showing them a new way of life.

This is Christianity: a broken and unlovable people who extend grace so freely that they world must stop them at any cost. Love is a scandal.

I’m struggling to think of how to communicate what I want to. I have been newly reminded in the last few days of just how desperate and spiritually bankrupt I am. We truly are wretches and broken people in need of God.

So often I try to improve my relationship with God solely through my own efforts by reading my bible more or praying harder but I cant. No matter what I do I can not improve my stance with God by one iota. I also like to think that through study I can get an understanding of God but really I am nothing more than a blind man in the dark. Only God can flip the light switch.

We really are wretches. We really need God’s help. I’m getting sick of the parts of Christianity that think God is some ATM in the sky and like to proclaim that we are “heirs to the thrown” as through we Christians are something special. We’re not. We just have a really, really awesome God.

People who truly follow Jesus are just people who have had their pride painfully broken by encountering the overwhelming majesty and love of God. All the gospel is can be summed up as such: “We are broken. We are sinners. We are nothing. But God’s love overcomes our wretchedness.” That’s it.

God’s love changes everything. He loves you. He loves you. He loves you. It’s hard to believe. It’s scary. If we can accept such overwhelming love all we can do with it is pass it on. If somehow there was a way that I could redeem myself then I would be in control. But God’s love is out of control and it is ferocious.

He’s all we’ve got. He really is. The only difference between me and a prostitute or a meth addict or a thief is that I know God loves me and they don’t yet. That’s it. Because there is nothing in my power that I can do to hold my life together. God is the only one.

I’m just learning how to be a child and depend on Him, rather than my own effort, to absolve my bankruptcy.

In my previous post I discussed how I felt contemporary Christianity’s popular gospel message had reduced the good news to just another consumer product. I also pondered how to evangelise a gospel which was much more demanding and, I believe, true to the original message. The next few posts are my fractured part-answers to my questions.

The Cross of Christ

I think Christians often underestimate the power of the cross. Many times I have heard people ask “Why did Jesus have to die?” If you believe He died only to provide for us a means of forgiveness from sins it is a valid question. God doesn’t need blood to forgive. He is absolutely in love with you. He begs to spend every moment with you. If He slept He would dream of you. He is your one true father. He wishes to lavish you with attention. He isn’t looking over you waiting for you to stuff up so that He can punish you. And He certainly doesn’t need payment to satisfy Himself (the oft-taught dogma that God’s wrath needs to be satisfied before His love can forgive does not appear in the Bible; God justice is not vengeance). The son did not come to save us from the Father.

But if Jesus died for our redemption we have a different story. You see, God didn’t need Jesus to die – we did. Whilst God would forgive us in a second without Jesus I doubt we would turn to Him. And sin has done much more damage than just to put a few black marks against our name. It has consistently and cruelly destroyed the image of God that was once in us. Over the centuries it has turned us from glorious beacons of God into awful monsters. It is this fate – being monsters – that hangs in the balance. I believe God came to redeem us from this reality and to turn us into fulfilled, living people who will glorify Him the way we were made to.

How does the cross do this?

The Cross reveals our Sin

The Pharisees accused Jesus of blaspheme against the temple for His statement that “not one stone will be left here upon another” (Matthew 24:2). Jesus was telling the truth. They taunted His majesty by giving Him a crown of thorns. Jesus is the king of the heavens. With whips they tore the skin of His flesh. Jesus comforted the poor. They spat on Him. Jesus feed the hungry. They shamed Him before crowds. Jesus healed the sick. They nailed His hands to the cross. Jesus never sinned.

Christ’s death represents the greatest injustice of human history. Jesus let himself – the only truly pure and righteous man – be killed upon a roman torture device. In so doing He proves once an for all that we are evil. The fact that my sins resulted in the death of the most beautiful thing in the world teaches me how far I have fallen. And His death exposes for once and for all the prince of this world for what he is – disgusting. As Colossians 2:15 says, “having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.” Christ, by His death exposed those powers and authorities, and their exposure is God’s victory.

This revelation leads to conviction which leads to humility and fear which leads to repentance. A deep, life changing form of repentance birthed in brokenness before God. “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” (Psalm 51:17) This form of brokenness is a far cry from the usual consumerist response we often try to use to get people to convert.

The Cross reveals our Beauty

The fact we killed Christ proved we are ugly, but the fact Christ let us proves we are beautiful. Jesus, the king of the 160 billion galaxies in the known universe, made Himself nothing – even going so far to submit himself to our scorn and death on the cross (Philippians 2:6-8)! And He did it entirely because of love (John 3:16). That shows just how valuable we are.

There are two types of value an object may have. Firstly, it may have instrumental value – we value it because of what it can do for us. Secondly, it may have intrinsic value – we value it because of what it is. If a fire burns in your house you would grab your birth certificate and drivers license because they have instrumental value. But you would grab the family photos because of their intrinsic value.

One of the great problems with sin is that it emphasizes people’s instrumental value at the expense of their intrinsic value. Lust, for instance, is the focus on a person’s ability to bring you pleasure whilst degrading their instrumental value as a person with their own needs and feelings. So often do we make this mistake. How many times have you become frustrated with the slowness of a checkout chick, as though she were just a machine, without ever considering that perhaps she is having a bad day herself.

By exposing our evil Christ’s death strips us of our instrumental value – we are worth nothing to Him for what we can do for Him. But it elevates our intrinsic value to new heights. The fact that even though we can never repay Him, but He still died for us shows that He did it just because He values us for what we are. That is true love. And where conviction brings us to our knees, His love brings us into His arms. Without Christ’s death we would never truly know how much we mean to Him.

The Cross reveals our Option

I remember in a sermon hearing the story of a solider, who after several battles in a hard war collapsed in a church – hopeless and depressed. As he lay there he saw a spider trying to climb the glass, yet constantly slipping to the floor. But each time it would fall it would try again, and again, and again, and again. The determination of that spider inspired the soldier to get up and march off to war once again.

It seems no matter how hard we try we continue to sin. We continue to be that monster formed more by sin than by love. Inevitably the situation can seem hopeless. Christ’s death however gives us hope.

There is something about the cross which is more than symbolic. Love is not just a nice feeling. It means something. When you love someone you change them. And as Christ loves us absolutely, so we should be changed absolutely.

When we are in the gutter the cross tells us that God’s hand is there waiting to lift us out of it. When we are ready to give up being disciplined in our holiness the cross urges us to go just a little bit further. When we think we are lost the Cross shows us there is a way, there is always a way, to follow God and be the person we were made to be.

The Cross reveals a greater reality than we can see with our eyes. It shows us an option: either we can reject Christ’s help in serving Him, or we can follow Him and learn that redemption has arrived not on the back of a war horse but on the back of a cross. It shows us another way. It shows us a kingdom way. And by showing us these things it empowers us to make this choice.

I’ve looked at the message of the cross here more than its power. But through the cross Christ does for us what we ourselves can never do – He pays our ransom and washes away our sin (expiation). The fact that God’s option exists is revealed in the fact that He died to make it happen.

If we are going to reach the lost without selling them a commodity I believe our message must focus on the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. It is a story, which through its own power, transforms people’s lives.

I first posted this in May. It has since been published at The Ooze. I think it really summarizes what the gospel means to me and it is a good thing to be constantly reminded of. I’m re-posting it for that purpose.

————————————-

36 million people starve to death each year. Meanwhile, 300 million adults are obese.

1 billion people are so poor that their lives are in danger. Meanwhile, the global economy is worth $46 trillion dollars.

There are 8.6 million refugees, and 21 million “people of concern”. Meanwhile, the UN has received only 4% of the money it needs for 15 world crisis.

28 million children die from easily curable diseases each year. Meanwhile, the church is the biggest financial power, wealth accumulator, and property owner in existence.

I wonder: would Jesus be ashamed of us? After 2000 years we have done little to change the world. Jesus said people would know we are his disciples if we love one another (John 13:35) yet people post bumper stickers begging “Jesus, save me from your followers”. We are called to be like Christ, yet Ghandi spoke: “I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. They are so unlike your Christ.”

I remember walking through the city one night around a great, impressive Church. Inside the choir was practising but what shocked me is that they had forgotten the homeless person left sleeping on their steps. I was moved to pen this:

Under the Steeple
Of the old, stone Cathedral
Lies man with no cradle
Bar the cold, hard, steel rail

And under that Steeple
Of the wise, holy People
The sound of the faithful
Rips the dark night’s new veil

Yet under this Steeple
Of the great, powerful Symbol
The hungry man will wail
For some food, love, or ladle

For under this Steeple
Of the old, stone Cathedral
The folk of the temple
Are too busy, yet idle

Cos’ no one is faithful
To the man with no cradle
Hoping peace will prevail
Laying under their Steeple

I latter tried to find this man and show him that Christians are more than good singers but was never able to.

I am a Christian because I believe God is guilty of scandalous and unfair grace. I believe he loved a broken world and a broken people so much he came and died for us. I believe ‘love’ is a verb – an action word. I believe God loves us so much, even though we were so wicked, that he moved heaven and earth to show just how much he cares. I believe that if God can love me, than he can love anyone.

In this world everyone is trying to do what is best for them. Three people feast on more than they can eat whilst another seven are permanently hungry. I believe there is enough food for all ten. I believe that God did not make the mistake of putting more people on this Earth than it can support but rather that there is enough for everyone’s need, but not everyone’s greed.

I believe greed is unsatisfying. No matter how much one acquires there is always more to acquire. I believe there must be a better way. Jesus showed us that way. He did not seek what is best for himself but rather placed other’s first. I believe that love is a choice to place other’s before you. In this way I believe that God’s kingdom is countercultural. I would rather a shack on the rock than a castle built on sand.

I believe that Christ did not die to get a rabble into heaven but rather to create a Church that would revolutionize society. I believe he came to plant a Church which the Gates of Hell will not prevail against (Mathew 16:18). Gates are defensive fortifications, thus I believe the Church is called to be offensive – to storm the gates of sin, pain, shame, anger, and greed in this world and to change it through contagious love.

God’s plan to save us from our sin is to teach us to love. I believe love hurts. I believe that love costs. I know that the only way to undo the damage done by a self-serving culture is to become part of an other-serving culture. I believe that God loves homosexuals, immigrants, criminals, porn stars, the hungry, orphans, widows, the handicapped, the lonely, the unloved, the depressed, and the abused. And I believe that God loves me. I wonder that if God, who is infinitely huge, can love them than who am I not to?

I am a fraud. I live in comfort whilst others are uncomfortable. I eat my fill whilst others starve. I walk past people in poverty with my pay check in my pocket. But love is an action word. And love is hard. And love is costly. But love will save the world. And love has saved me.

I long for a church that reminds the world what it is to live in community. I long for more than programs on Sunday morning. I long for us to see the pain around us and ask ourselves “what does it mean to be Christian?”

I believe another world is possible. If we humble ourselves and remember that whilst we were still wretched Christ died for us than maybe we could be motivated to show that same love for other wretches. I believe that as we place others before ourselves we will infect the world one person at a time and take it over with our love. I know we won’t get it right till after we are dead, but I believe it is worth the try.

I believe we are in this world, but not of it. I think we must somehow balance the requirements of living in a corrupt world with the values of our true home. I believe God has given us the Holy Sprit and each other to help guide us on this type rope walk. I believe Christianity is not a destination. We don’t simply become saved and then exist as the end point of the gospel. I believe Christianity is a journey of imaginative, deeply expressed, and aggressive love.

Another world is possible. Another world begins in each of us.

Exclusivism encompass two different yet highly coupled ideas. Firstly, that salvation is by Christ alone (as understood by Christendom) and Secondly, that there exists mutually exclusive categorizations between those that are saved and those that are not. Most denominations are exclusive and some are so exclusive they do not believe people from other denominations within Christianity are saved.

There are two events that greatly shake by belief in exclusivism. Firstly, when a person dies who has had no chance to hear the good news. Secondly, when I encounter a non-Christian who shows more fruit of the spirit than most Christians. I find it very difficult to believe in a God who sends very good people to hell because they never heard the gospel (or because the gospel was misrepresented). My mind is even more ravaged by the thought that God creates people who He knows are going to go to hell. Unfortunately for me the alternatives are not much better.

Alternatives

Universalism – The belief that there is no hell, or that hell is temporary. Everyone ends up going to heaven. (Opt-out is a newer theology found in “A Heretic’s Guide to Eternity” by Spencer Burke in which people are born saved but may choose to “opt-out” of God’s grace)

Pluralism – The belief that all religions are equal and valid paths to salvation. People who fail to meet the standard for salvation for at least one religion still end up in hell.

Inclusivism – The belief that salvation is by Christ alone, but that people do not need to have a Christian understanding of Christ to be saved. God only expects people to comply with what has been revealed to them.

If we take Jesus’ words “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6) at face value we can eliminate universalism and pluralism as plausible alternatives. Inclusivism still seems possible, but the strong terms surrounding many salvation passages and Paul’s questions in Romans 10:14-15 (How can they believe unless someone tells them?) makes this appear unlikely.

I much prefer these alternatives. I would love it if no one had to face the horrors of hell, but unfortunately this seems unlikely. Thus I must learn to understand exclusivism in light of an all-powerful, all-loving God.

Unanswerable Questions

It seems to me the greatest injustice that an all-loving, all-powerful God would allow people to suffer so dreadfully. People who do not grasp the depth of this tragedy usually underestimate God. There is nothing God cannot do. God can create beings with free will who will not disobey Him. To suggest otherwise is to make God subject to laws He created and set them up as higher than Him. God can also intervene to ensure that no one should perish. He did it with Paul and no one suggests Paul’s free will was taken away.

God intervened in such a way that it made Paul fall in love with Him. Paul still choose to love God, even though God had determined what Paul’s choice would be. Why did God save Paul (and similar events for other people have also been recorded) but not everyone else? God is willingly allowing people to go to hell. He has the capacity to stop it, but does not use it. Further more, God could have created Adam and Eve in such a way that they would not have succumb to the temptation to eat from the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The same applies for Satan (not to mention there is the question of the origin of Satan’s temptation).

I have heard it suggested that God created (and predestined) evil so that He would be glorified. This makes a mockery of God’s love. It sets God up as a vain monster rather than a loving father – not worthy of worship or glory.

Thus I cannot reconcile an all-powerful, all-loving God with an exclusionist soteriology. Yet the bible calls on me to believe in both. This means that either a) the bible is wrong about God and/or the exclusivity of salvation, b) my interpretation of the bible is wrong, or c) I am unable to understand the complexity of the issues involved. Option c seems the most likely, thus I will file these issues under “mystery”. I can however deal with the practical elements of exclusivism.

Categorizations

I do not generally believe it is helpful to label one group of people “saved” and another “unsaved”. Where would one draw the line? At a certain amount of good works? At baptism? When you speak in tongues? Upon the recital of the “sinner’s prayer”? At faith? If so, in what exact doctrines because people disagree. If you are a Protestant do you consider Catholics saved? How about Jews or Jehovah Witnesses? If we cannot know to what exact degree salvation is exclusive it become practically impossible to draw a line at which someone joins the “saved” category.

Also, by labeling ourselves “saved” and outsiders “unsaved” we send the message that “I’m ok, you’re not”. This is clearly untrue. The reality is that “saved” people are not ok. We are still sinners and we are still broken. We are not saved. We are not saved from our sin because we still sin. We are not saved from injustice because we still perpetrate it and are victims of it. The only thing we have been saved from is the label of “non-Christian”.

It does not help to say that we have been saved from death and hell when we are still living in death and hell. Only Jesus could claim to be saved, for he was the only person to exist who was not in allegiance with the empire of this world. Furthermore, to suggest that we will be saved upon death because of our faith or our baptism and that others will not says that we have influenced God’s grace. His love is no longer unconditional. It can be earned by having the right beliefs or doing enough works.

The Gospel is not about our personal salvation. Religion is the work of man to reach God. The Gospel is the work of God to reach man. The question is not “what must one do to be saved?” the question is “what has God done to save me?” The great commission is not to go out and create saved people, it is to create disciples – followers of Christ. The gospel is an invitation to join God as He goes about the work of saving the world in a much greater sense than merely the after-life spiritual dimension. Our task is not to do the right stuff to “get saved” because we can’t do it. Our task is to take up our cross and follow Christ and trust Him to go about the work of getting us saved – because only He can do it.

Can we know we are saved? The question misses the point. It doesn’t matter if we know. If I serve God my entire life and go to hell than I still would have done the right thing. I do not follow Christ in order to ensure my salvation – to acquire favor in the afterlife. I follow Christ to help him save others (from more than just hell) and because He just happens to be God. There is still assurance of salvation, because, by grace, the spirit assures us. But this assurance is based on trust not something I have done to deserve being in the “saved” category.

I read recently (I cannot recall where) that the only difference we can determine is between people who act like they are saved and people who do not. Perhaps this is the great irony of God. There is an old trick where by if you act like you are x even though you are not, you eventually become x. Perhaps if we act like we are saved, even though we are not, eventually we become saved? Yet it is still the wrong motive for doing what is right.

I am a human first, a Christian second. I may always be 100% human, but often I am not very Christian. The only difference between me and a non-Christian is that to me Christ means something, to the non-Christian He doesn’t yet. We both still sin. We both struggle. We both have the same needs and desires. But I have hope that one day the my lover will save me and the non-Christian does not have that yet. However, until that day happens I have only faith in my salvation, I am not saved yet. It’s bedrock faith whereby I proclaim my salvation now (prophetically) knowing it will not actually be realized for some time. So until that time both me and my non-Christian friend are unsaved sinners in desperate need of grace.

My non-Christian friend does not need me to get them “saved”. They just need me to give them the hope and love that comes with knowing a certain friend of mine.

(From Emerging Grace)

“There are two freedoms – the false, where a man is free to do what he likes; the true, where he is free to do what he ought.” - Charles Kingsley

There is a common idea in Christianity that God respects our freedom so much that He is willing to allow our mistakes to lead us to eternal torture in hell. According to this view we consciously choose to say no to God and God responds by leaving us to our own devices. After we die He judges us and sends us to hell for the choices He allowed us to make. The consequences are our fault and are just. God is not required to intervene on our behalf whilst maintaining the moral high ground. Freedom from sin is understood as forgiveness from sin and it’s consequence of hell (i.e. freedom from sin = a ticket into heaven). Much of this is true but it misses the point.

The Nature of Sin

No one in their right mind chooses to sin. When we sin we should think of ourselves as being mentally disabled. If we truly know the consequences and exact details of what we are doing we would never choose to do it. If we knew truth we would always choose God. Always. Sin relies on deception to strike and thus eliminates free will in order to cause you to stumble (i.e. you have to lose your freedom before you sin; it is not something you lose after you sin when you are subject to the consequences you can no longer avoid).

Take Adam and Eve. When they ate the apple they were choosing to “become like God”. They were presented with a choice for something that looked really good. Instead they got misery. Who in their right mind would eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil if they fully knew (and believed) the consequences? Adam and Eve got something different to what they choose – their freedom was overruled. Imagine if you walked to a bakery and ordered a sausage roll but always got a meat pie. You would not really be choosing. Freedom only exists when we get what we choose. Adam and Eve did not get what they choose. They did not have freedom (although they are still guilty for their lack of belief and self-centred thinking).

Sin always works this way. It works by polluting our vision, confusing the data, and making a bad choice look like a good one. When you sin you almost always justify it in your mind thinking it would satisfy you in some way – but in fact you have been fooled by a lie! The results are never as good as righteousness and the only reason you ever “chose” it is because you were deceived into thinking it was the better choice. You did not get what you choose. Between a choice of A and B you chose B but got C. You never asked for C, you wanted B (because it genuinely looked better than A), but C was forced upon you against your free will.

Sin is not a wrong choice between good and bad. Rather it is a choice between good and bad masquerading as “better”. Sin itself is a symptom of the evil in this world. Evil can be understood as a disease transmitted by sin (like flu is transmitted by its symptom of sneezing). We are born into this world filled with this disease, someone inevitably wrongs us, and this sin against us tarnishes what was supposed to be a perfect creation. In our ruined state we place ourselves before God, becoming or “catching” evil ourselves, and soon begin to spread it to others with our selfish sins against them. The end result is a world full of ruined people who, because they are ruined, strike out against one another ruining each other even further.

This is hardly what you would call freedom, and a God who sat back and allowed it all to happen whilst this trap forced us into hell (which we didn’t want) would not be respecting our free will. Sin is hardly what you would call a “choice” although our ability to choose is what allows it. If God truly respects our free will he would be compelled to intervene in this cycle, not dispassionately sit back and allow it to continue.

Justice

It’s a sad thing to see a Christian who stuffs up and then cowers as they expect God to begin punishing them for their mistake. Such a view is based on a western understanding of Justice. Justice as executed in our court systems is punishment for doing something wrong. It is directly opposed to mercy which holds back punishment. Thus God is perceived as a being whose senses of Justice and Mercy contradict each other. The end result is a God who appears to have unconditional wrath (everyone is sent to hell) except where mitigated by his conditional love (based on our faith).

Biblical justice is closer to what we would call reconciliation (Isaiah 1:17, 30:18, Jeremiah 21:12, Zechariah 7:9, Matthew 12:18-21, Luke 4:18-19). It is correcting a wrong not via punishment but through the healing power of grace. It is about undoing the damage done by evil in this world. Violence cannot do this. It only inflicts more damage where damage has already been done. Two wrongs never make a right. Redemptive violence is a myth.

Now there are places in the bible where God displays his wrath and punishes people. This however is a preventative measure, not a redemptive one. When a child breaks something and his parents punish him it is not so that what he has broken can be repaired, rather it is so that he does not do it again. God’s wrath works the same way. It is the desperate attempt of a father to teach his children not to run onto the road during peak hour. It is conditional and it is disciplinary (not redemptive). After a child has been hit by a car and is in a coma there is little point in punishing him for it, the time for healing has come.

In the case of humanity that healing comes through love, and not just any love, but the unconditional, infinite love only found in a relationship with God. It is through this love that our ruined state can be repaired, and the symptoms of it will begin to desist. This is why relationship must be made central to Christian theology: God does not need to forgive us of our sins so that we can have a relationship with Him; rather it is through our relationship with Him that we are cleansed of our sins. Jesus did not need people to be clean to eat with them. The idea that we are cleansed of our sins and can thus get into heaven at salvation and then after this, we can begin to have a relationship with Christ makes the relationship optional (we can get into heaven before we have the relationship). If we understand the cleansing of our sins as something that happens through that relationship it becomes vital for salvation.

Salvation

Viewing salvation as a mere key to heaven however greatly minimises it. He we are trapped in a cage: broken, ruined, diseased humans. God, whose love stirs in him a longing for justice, longs for our freedom, our repairing, our healing, and our curing. He cannot sit back and let sin ensnare and drag his creation into hell. So He sent His own son to die for us. Did he need Jesus to die in order to declare us righteous? Did he need a scapegoat to satisfy his wrath or some law he was bound by? No, but we needed Him to die. We needed to know that we were loved enough for Him to die. We needed to know that we were beautiful under all our scars. We needed to know that in our discussing state someone cared so much to go through so much pain. And so as Jesus was struck by a blow designed to put His message of love out of action what really happened is that God turned this own blow against the devil, amplifying this message of love a hundred fold, and defeating evil once and for all (or put differently: whilst on earth Jesus teaches a message of love, the devil tries to stop it, but by Jesus’ death He pays our ‘ransom’ and makes the greatest statement of love of all).

That message – that we are loved – changes us. It begins the healing process. It acts as a cure. But Jesus work is not done yet. In his resurrection we find hope. We find hope that a dead man (like we are) can find life. We have hope that a man wrapped in our chains of sin can find freedom. That a man locked in hell can escape – just as we are trapped in hell even whilst alive. We know we no longer need to try to escape these chains on our own because someone is coming to us with the key. That key is grace, and that grace is experienced the only way it can be – in our relationship with Him.

The gospel is not the story of God giving us a choice to avoid punishment in hell whilst He sits back and hopes we make it. The gospel is the story of God coming to us whilst we are bound in chains we cannot escape and tearing them from us before it is too late. It is the story of God giving us freedom, not expecting us to act with a “free will” that we do not have. As God woos us we fall in love with Him. As we fall in love with Him we begin to place Him first – the criteria upon which we base judgements begin to change. As that criterion becomes love filled we begin to sin less (because sin no longer looks like a good choice). As we sin less we contribute less to the mess this world is in and instead begin to get to work helping God to save it.

That is freedom – not choosing something that we want to do based on criteria ruined by our selfishness, but choosing what we ought to do based upon love found in Christ. Freedom is a good thing, not something that causes us to sin, but something that causes us to be righteous. Something found in relationship. The result of redemption. The purpose of salvation.

(Disclaimer: I am aware that the thoughts in this post are not complete and need some refining. It is a base upon which to think about a relational theology and not the final product. I encourage you to build upon this base just as I have built upon the base built at The Rebel God and by authors such as Donald Miller and even John Eldredge. As my fellow blogger says, “Theology is something that should be done in community.”)

Stanley Hauerwas, professor at Duke University and America’s “best theologian” (TIME Magazine, 2001), makes the following profound statement: “The work of Jesus was not a new set of ideals or principals for reforming or even revolutionizing society, but the establishment of a new community, a people that embodied forgiveness, sharing and self sacrificing love in its rituals and disciple. In that sense, the visible church is not to be the bearer of Christ’s message; but to be the message.”

As a religion, I believe we focus too much on life after death. The comfortable knowledge that we are “saved” keeps us chained to the pews until eventually this life ends and the next one begins. However, I believe God is just as interested in revolutionising life before death as he is in providing life after it. I’m not talking about prosperity; I am talking about a life that is in stark contrast to the culture surrounding it. A life filled with love, a life lived in humility, a life where pain is healed and treasure is built up in heaven – and sacrificed on earth. This revolution requires us to forcefully abandon the ideology of this world and embrace another.

The “Me” Complex

Self Centeredness, or pride, is at the core of every Sin. Adam and Eve were deceived by possibility of becoming “like God” – an entirely self focused motivation. Ever since humans have forgotten just how infinitely incomparable we are with God and have continued to place ourselves first. We wouldn’t sin if we truly placed God above our own desire to do wrong. We could never hurt others if we cared for them more than what ever we would gain my doing so. This self centeredness is having a debilitating effect on Western Culture – and the Church.

Many Christians claim to place God as a priority (a minority actually – 15%) yet when you challenge them to express that through their actions – to volunteer for the poor, reach the hurting people, or even spend more time with God – it rapidly becomes apparent that other priorities get in the way. The reality is this: they place their salvation first (which is placing themselves first), then they place there other priorities second, then they get to the work of actually serving God in the community if it is convenient.

Christians in Western Societies are never required to make a sacrifice for our faith. We aren’t persecuted. But in order to solve the deep pride (sin) problem we need to learn to place others and God first in our lives. Because Christianity is easy in the west Christians never have to make this move, thus they never deal with the ‘me’ complex.

There comes a point where a Christian has to decide: how much is God worth? How much will they hold back? Will they drop everything – everything – and follow Christ? No more “buts”; no more compromise. No more convenience. God wants to fix the greatest problem you will ever have, but it will not be easy.

Cheap and Dear Grace

We’ve often heard the definition “Mercy is not getting what you deserve (i.e. punishment), Grace is getting what you don’t deserve (i.e. eternal life etc)”. But only recently did I realise there is another element to grace – grace costs. Think about how much God’s grace cost him. It cost him the life of his son. If you really want to make a difference for God in this world you need to learn to show that type of grace.

Plenty of Christians are willing to show “cheap grace”. This is grace that costs nothing. We’ll spread the good news if someone brings it up; we will provide a shoulder if someone needs one; we’ll give some money for a cause if we have change. What the world really needs though is “dear grace”. We need more people who are willing to purposefully go out of their way to show God’s love to someone. We need people who are willing to give away more than they can afford for someone. We need more people who will sleep with the homeless. This type of grace changes the world – and it changes you. This is sacrifice and it will cure you. The world sees this and they say, “There is something different about that man/woman.”

Crucify Yourself

Similarly we must learn to be ruthless in our pursuit to place God first in our lives. Christ died for us and it is time to us to “take up our cross” and follow him. As we crucified Christ, so we must let him crucify ourselves. That picture above isn’t just Jesus – it is our old flesh and way of life. Some of the “nails” are as follows:

• Obedience – do what ever God tells you to do (no “buts”, no hesitation)
• Dedication – pre-commit to sticking with this journey even when it is hard. Follow God all the time.
• Discipline – Make your time with God a habit. Say “no” to temptation.
• Sacrifice – Be prepared to give up everything. Hold nothing back.
• Authenticity – place following God and being “real” above being accepted by others
• Accountability – be honest with others. Have them keep you on track.
• Service – Place others and God first. Go out of you way to serve them.
• Evangelism – Be proactive in spreading God’s grace right where you are.
• Contagiousness –Replicate yourself by showing and sharing your life with others.
• Righteousness – Hunt down and destroy sin in your life.
• Ruthlessness – You’re at war with the ways of this world.
• Courageousness – Take risks, have faith.
• Humility – Give the glory to God.
• Teaching – Share with others what you have learned.
• Learning – Commit yourself to learning more from God and others.
• Compassion – Judge sin, but don’t condemn a sinner. Love is the solution to sin.
• Change – Commit yourself to continual change.

To be honest, I’m not there yet. But I am on the way. It’s a much more vigorous form of Christianity than you may be used to. God is worth it.

The Radical Christian: An Overview

The Radical Christian: Revolutionising Society

The Radical Christian: Place in Ecclesiology

The Radical Christian: How they got there

The bible’s picture of a New Creation seems far removed from what exists in Church’s today. The primary mission of this blog is to inspire people to turn from “born again lazy” into “samurai”. It is time western Christianity got itself into gear and started going all out for God. This is difficult, for we have taught ourselves a gospel that isn’t as good as the Good News should be. In light of all that we have studied so far, let us examine in this final post where we go wrong.

Saved by Works

In the past people feared that if they sinned after they were baptised they were doomed. Sin was condemnation. Consider: “For the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23), “He repays everyone for what they have done; he brings on them what their conduct deserves” (Job 34:11), “The dead were judged according to what they had done” (Revelation 20:12), “God ‘will give to each person according to what he has done.’ To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honour and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger” (Romans 2:6-8), “Those who obey the law who will be declared righteous” (Romans 2:13).

The bible makes one thing clear: actions are important. As such the majority of Christianity over the last two millenniums has focused on us eliminating our sin. There is one problem – it doesn’t work! I cannot go a day reaching God’s standard. This is old covenant ideology. Yet we see much condemnation being poured onto sinners by so called Christians. Perhaps they have the wrong idea of what saves them – or worse, maybe their frauds interested only in appearance!

The idea here is that we make ourselves as righteous as possible to get into heaven.

Saved by Faith

There is another idea that faith in God is what it takes to save us. We can’t do it on our own, but if we believe in God he’ll get us into heaven. Consider: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8), “That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9), “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

Thank God! We can’t save ourselves so he helps us out. We need only believe in him. Unfortunately, James gives us a wake up call: “What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? … You foolish man, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? Was not our ancestor Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar?” (James 2:14, 20-21). And then there are the verses in the section above.

The bible suddenly appears contradictory. What saves us – faith or works? In the mean time millions of Christians blissfully go through life confident that they are “saved by faith”. This ideology produces a dead Christianity.

The idea here is that we have faith and God removes our sins to get us into heaven.

Saved by God

Fortunately for us there is a much grander gospel which most Christians miss. According to Kenny Luck, mercy is when we don’t get what we do deserve and grace is when we get what we don’t deserve (Risk, pg 45). Consider this verse: “To the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness” (Romans 4:5). God justifies the wicked (mercy) and credits us with righteousness (grace). He saves us from hell (mercy), but then does more (grace). What is this more?

Let us return to the beginning. We were made perfect. We stuffed up. Consider part 4, that God makes us New Creations. God doesn’t just plan to get rid of our sin. He doesn’t even just plan to get us into heaven. He plans to return us to intimacy with him. This is the good news! It’s not about heaven, it is about restoration. We can be perfect again!

Because we cannot defeat sin on our own, God places part of Himself in us. He begins the process of restoring us to intimacy with Him simply by being intimate with us. In this way he changes us from the inside out. Rather then enforce external rules we find that through faith God begins to change us. He makes us a new creation. Rather then fight that sinful nature God wants to slowly get rid of it all together!

He does this by walking with us. When we stumble, and we will, we are not condemned to hell. God would never condemn us for our sins. He’ll discipline us for them, but only in his loving pursuit of making us perfect again. Our part is not passive rather our salvation is a partnership. God works with us to remove our sin. Not just the record of them, but our actual doing of them.

This is the New Creation – a person who walks with God; a person who passionately seeks Him as He seeks us. The more we go after God, the more we find that we don’t want to sin. The more we become a new person.

It is an awesome privilege, and great news. I don’t need to struggle constantly against sin in my life only to fail again and again and again. Nor do I live as some born again lazy Christian relying on my belief in some 2000 year old dead guy. God is making me good and I want a part of that. My job is to follow him, and give him permission, as he does his work in my life. He is the potter and I am the clay.

Salvation comes neither by works, nor by faith. It comes from faith, expressed only by action, that a living God can change you. This is the resurrection. We haven’t just died to sin; we have been raised in new life! This is good news. We are New Creations. This is better than can be imagined. It’s not just about heaven; it is about becoming whole again. It is about redemption, not survival.

.

This concludes this series. I have barely brushed on this topic and missed much. But I challenge you to seek God as he changes you. Don’t try to change yourself. Don’t sit back and keep living your sinful life. Seek God. Let him credit righteousness to you. Become a New Creation.

We’ve been going through the story fairly quickly. We were made perfect, we fell, pride hurts us, and so God provided us a moral compass to help us out. But it wasn’t enough. This story ends where it started. We have to be made perfect.

Redemption

Perfection is more then simply doing something. God has the whole universe that will do what he tells it to do. We are so much more. God’s intention is not merely that we follow some strict set of rules. He wants to get us back to what we were made for – perfect union with him.

God doesn’t want to change just what we do; he wants to change who we are. The Law failed because we simply cannot meet God’s standards on our own. Even when we know what is right and wrong we still rebel because of that pride in us. Our problem isn’t just a problem of confusion; it is a problem with us. “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.” (Mathew 15:19)

We needed more help. God provides this to us. He offers to change who we are. If we have a good heart where would evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, and slander come from? He intends to make us into a new creation. One undefiled by sin that can complete our original purpose.

The New Creation

Paul tackles the problem with an often confusing passage from Romans:

“What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “Do not covet.” But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from law, sin is dead. Once I was alive apart from law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death.

For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death. So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good. Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! But in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.

We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!

So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.” (Romans 7:7-25)

Notice that Paul begins by explaining the law as I did in my last post. Without the law he would not know what sin was. But there is a problem when we know that something is a sin – we are no longer ignorant and our knowledge is not enough to stop us. We rebel even more. Whilst ignorance is not an excuse for “the requirements of the law are written on their hearts” (Romans 2:15), this defiance of the law is much more wilful. As Paul says, “through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful” (v 13).

Paul goes on to explain why he keeps on sinning. He is “a slave to sin”. He knows the law is right, and he wants to follow it. But the sin living in him (v 17, 20 – note this, it is important) has him in chains. But, God is here to save the day.

Consider, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Does this new creation have a “sinful nature” (v18)? Does God create anything imperfect?

Another verse, “Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” (Romans 6:3-4). We have been “baptized into his death”. What died? It is our sinful nature, our old life that dies. Then as we rise with Christ we have “new life”.

If the “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23), what is “new life”? It must be life without sin, for life with sin would be death, not life.

Look at Paul’s passage again and remember that he is a new creation. Notice that it is not him that is sinning but the sin in him (v17). He knows he is good. He knows he is made new. He knows he is a sinless new creation. When he sins it’s not him! It is the sin in him. He is good! He has been made perfect.

But does all this leave us no where? So what if we’re a new creation all we are doing is saying that it is the sin in us rather than us. It sounds like an excuse to sin. I’ll tell you right now there is never an excuse to sin. Our problem is that whilst we are “new creations” we do not act like it.