Blown Again

I should be getting used to this by now.  I have been teaching myself to read ancient Greek.  It's slow, but I've got time.  So I was reading Romans 3:22 and picked up on something that didn't seem right.  The NIV translates it as (context included):

But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, 23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

In ESV the last sentence carries into v25:

21But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— 22the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: 23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,

But the Greek doesn't say, "faith in Jesus".  It says, "faith of Jesus".  I thought I must be reading it wrong, But in the Greek, it is quite certainly the possessive form of the noun, usually translated as apostrophe s or "x of y".  This is confirmed in extra-biblical sources.  I'd eventually remembered seeing this translation before.  Some versions like KJV, Darby, and Youngs render it this way.  So it's not a verse about what we have to do, but about what Jesus did.

The thing is, that changes the meaning dramatically!  If it's not about how to receive salvation, as I had been taught, then what is it about?  So I looked further into the verse.

That's when another mistranslation jumped out at me.  To get the idea, I'll give you a very literal translation from Young's:

And now apart from law hath the righteousness of God been manifested, testified to by the law and the prophets, 22and the righteousness of God [is] through the faith of Jesus Christ to all, and upon all those believing, — for there is no difference, 23for all did sin, and are come short of the glory of God — 24being declared righteous freely by His grace through the redemption that [is] in Christ Jesus,

And again in the most literal I found, Darby's (which was actually created not to be read, but to be an English study tool for people who didn't know Greek)

21But now without law righteousness of God is manifested, borne witness to by the law and the prophets; 22righteousness of God by faith of Jesus Christ towards all, and upon all those who believe: for there is no difference; 23for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; 24being justified freely by his grace through the redemption which [is] in Christ Jesus;

Do you see the difference? This is not about how to, "be saved".  There's no prequalifier directing this to only those who believe, or ascribe to the right system.  No performance standard.  That is the old religious mindset of the Jews, the Classical Pagans, and every other religion.  Far from being an exclusive text, this is ultimately inclusive.

No one is right.  All are justified, including those who believe, because of Jesus' faith.  Not only those who believe in Jesus.  "For there is no difference"!  Why?  Because ALL have fallen short, but are justified freely by the ransom (i.e. 'getting rid of-ness' in possessive form again) in Jesus.

Wow!    Bomb dropped.    Mind blown.    Again.

Why is this a big deal?  It's really good news!  We're not exchanging one religious system for another.  That's the point of the chapter!  That's Paul's whole deal across all his writings!  Remember this is coming from Paul, the guy that some think is so different from the other writers in the Bible he should be decanonized!  But in this clearer understanding, he's right in line with the spirit of the other writers.  We are all justified.  Period.  Jesus did away with everything else by his faith.  Paul, the murdering jihadist, knew that better than anyone.  

His faith in what?  I'm not sure.  But faith just means trust.  That's really all the Greek word means.  It was a banking term originally.  Like you trust the bank with your money or a creditor trusts you enough to lend to you.  I think it might be his trust that God was working for his good.  In other words, his trust in God that all he was going through was necessary and would come out right.  His trust that God loved him and was powerful enough to complete what he had set out to do.  This is a Gospel...good news...I can get behind!

But what about belief?  Am I saying even people who don't believe go to heaven?  What about murderers and rapists?

OK.  Slow down a minute.  I am NOT discounting belief.  The Bible talks about it a lot.  Jesus himself says it.  What I'm talking about is JUSTIFICATION.  That doesn't depend on belief.  Secondly, let's use another word.  The original word is a verb form of the noun faith.  So it isn't like believing a fact.  To disbelieve a fact is idiotic.  Even an abstract fact, like the sun coming up tomorrow.  Sure we all know the world could end and the sun may not come up in some remote, all-possibilities-included, sort of way.  But to seriously disbelieve this...enough to act on the belief, would be a sign of mental illness, not faith.  Jesus isn't saying we have to believe in him like we believe in the sunrise...Yeah, he existed, even the demons believe that!

So if we sub in the word trust, it works a lot better.  Jesus says we need to trust him.  Yeah, of course.  He trusted God, and see what happened?  We have to trust him and act on what he said, then we'll see what happens too.  Not until then.  He is the first down the path.  The firstborn, the Bible calls him.

Next, let's let go of this concept of salvation equalling heaven.  That's a shallow piece of the puzzle.  And I can tell you, for anyone who has really faced their demons, heaven is the least of their worries and not much of a reward.  Sure I'll take it when I get there, but I really need the help NOW.

As for murderers and rapists, yeah, they are justified too.  I don't get it either.  But I trust God enough to know that everyone gets fair play and all wrongs are righted.  So I don't know what has to happen to people like that.  I don't know what they go through, internally, externally, in this life, or elsewhere.  But I trust that their wrong will be righted.  Not in vengeance alone, because that sort of retribution doesn't fix the wrong.  

But in real ways that are bigger than me or them, I can see that for them to come to true realization of the horror they have inflicted, the horror they have become, is the best vengeance and for them to react to that by doing all they can to compensate for it (i.e. to repent) can lead to far more good than the wrong done.  I also trust that the wronged person is not ultimately ruined, but can blossom from it into something so much more beautiful (hear me here: I know whereof I speak), and I can equally mourn the wrong and hope for the redemption of the wronger without hatred.
 

How to make a liar

I haven't posted in a while.  I tried but couldn't.  I've been through one of the worst dark periods I've had ever.  I don't want to go into it, but it's been rough.  I'm doing better now.

I don't know what the purpose of it is, but it has revealed my weakness, my baseness, my violence, and my selfishness.  Maybe that is the purpose.  I just know it is not fun and not pretty.  It's also not made up and I can't help it.  If you've never been there, you won't understand and that's ok.  Don't seek it.

I have said it before, but it is clearer to me than ever that whatever is good in me is not from me.  I know you'll deny that and think it's just the darkness talking, and that's fine.  I hope you never see that side of me.

But I'm trying to keep seeing it.  I don't want to live in it, but I don't want to forget it either.  I tend toward hubris and self-confidence without it.  Even the humility you think you know in me is a form of self-pride.  I'm not kidding.

People lead the question all the time.  Christians are the worst about it.  What do you think will happen if you constantly keep telling people how to be?  Anyone with half a brain will quickly learn how to pretend at it.  Put on the actions and even self-deceive that they have achieved it.  I've done it.  I habitually do it.  And you reward the better liars.

I have a ready bunch of scripts to throw up in any given situation.  I watch carefully.  I have fakes backstopping fakes and will say whatever works to get the reaction I need.

And what I really need is a safe place to let those things slowly fall off.  People who are not impressed by it.  People who want me to thoroughly be good rather than merely seem good.  You condemn yourselves in me!  And I condemn myself!

Understand me, I am not saying this from a place of despair.  Quite the opposite.  When I was despairing, I hid from you because then I can't keep up the masks, can't keep the demons in their chains.  But right now I'm in that hazy space between the nightmare and the bright day and soon I'll be fully dressed and presentable again.God forbid!

I need a savior.  I am fully reminded that if there is any hope for me it is in Jesus.  Not knowledge about him, but in the real living him.  I am not claiming to know grand mystical things.  If I did, I doubt them now.  He didn't even show up in some nonmiraculous way to rescue me.  But I don't care.  My heart leaps when I think about him, when I read about him.  I understand the meaning of hoping in him.  I didn't choose this.  If I did it was rigged.  I am not in control.  So if he doesn't have me, if I do not eventually arrive in a place of peace and perfection and learn that he was there when I couldn't see it or know it, then I would rather rush headlong into the void now.  It isn't about this world.  It isn't about the surface things you spend so much time talking about as if we could just decide to be something else.  Even if you can, I CAN'T!  I don't know how.  It doesn't work.  Whether that's brain chemistry, spiritual sense, slavery, karma, grace, whatever you want to call it.  What I can do is lie about it though!

You'd rather me be presentable, disfigure my feelings into acceptable packages, even though you THINK you want me to let it out.  Which is the most insidious part!  Your words say one thing and your actions say another in the same breath.  Your words are a trap.  A demon maw yawns behind your fair and hopeful words, you whitewashed tombs!  Damn you satans in a hollow christ's image!  I've never yet found anyone who really meant it when they say it's safe to let it out and let it go.  Maybe one or two people come closer than others.  But if I have ever let the depth of it peak out, people take pains...no give pains to shut it in again.

So keep teaching behaviors.  Keep focusing on outwards before inwards.  Keep modeling the plastic masks.  Keep grinding out budding faith with your two faces.  Keep making liars.  I don't want to be one anymore.

Rephrased

So the Fanbase asked me a question about my last post.  Seems it caused some confusion.  This blog is usually a very raw vomiting of my thoughts such that I  rarely remember what I've written once it's posted.  But she is a dear friend and actually engages this rambling enough to think about it (which is saying something) so I went back over my post and am now trying to offer a fuller explanation, which will delve into the theological.

First, let me say that I wasn't making up the ideas I talked about in the last post.  I was merely rumbling them around in my own mind, much like a rat thoroughly inspects its treats before eating them.  The ideas themselves are all well established, centuries-old ideas that have been well treated in Christian record.  They are, in fact, some of the sharper dividing lines between certain large chunks of denominations.  All this to say, I'm not in any danger of moving beyond the lighted sphere of orthodoxy, in the sense that each side of the debate is considered orthodox to some major denominations.  Though if you've only been steeped in one side, the other will no doubt seem nearly heretical.

The funny thing is if you are a Christian, you probably know people whose denomination is on the other side of the fence and never knew there was a fence.  I know for a fact the Fanbase has regularly attended churches on both sides, and judging by her questions, didn't notice.  This is not a slight to the Fanbase.  I mean it only to say, I am struggling with some obscure points of doctrine that mean a lot to me, but won't really impact most people...which is why I hate theology as a discipline in the first place.  End of preface, now the meat.

The struggle for me is over the doctrines of penal substitutionary atonement and imputed righteousness.  These things are endlessly discussed in theological texts, blogs, websites, etc.  So feel free to delve as deep down that rabbit hole as you want.  Here's a good place to start: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/inebriateme/2014/11/thoughts-against-penal-substitutionary-atonement/.  In very brief, the first is a teaching of what Jesus' dying and rising again accomplished and how.  The second is about how salvation works.

Penal substitution says that Jesus had to die to pay for our sins.  The theory, and I stress these are all theories since God didn't see fit to lay it out in long-winded grammar (though I will argue by the end that it is laid out in other ways).  Anyway, the theory says that God is both just and loving.  So he can't abide sin, but he has to forgive it.  To be just, he has to punish the guilty.  But that means killing all his children that he loves.  So God himself decides to take his own punishment for us.  So he sends the aspect of himself known as the Logos or Son to be a human so that he can be fully divine and fully human.  In this way he can 1. support the weight of all humanity's guilt for all sins for all time.  2. take the annihilating punishment of God the Father for us.  and 3. Survive it (the resurrection).  Therefore we as humans can now claim Christ's atonement as ours and are no longer guilty of our own sins, even the ones we haven't committed yet.  God's wrath is satisfied.

This is the doctrine I was steeped in as a kid.  I was trained in theology from a young age and taught to apologize (argue) the faith, since in that particular bent of the faith, it is the duty of every good Christian to be an educated debator for the faith who wins souls by the power of our divinely inspired compelling logic (groan).  But if I'm honest with myself, this doctrine raises so many questions and bad understandings of God.  Of course, I can give you all the answers to dodge the problems, but they are just that: dodges, not resolutions.  Which is probably why that group hasn't won the world in 2000 years time.

For one, how is it just to punish an innocent person?  For that matter, how is it just to let the guilty off because someone else stepped in?  How does that help the guilty get better?  How does that right the wrong they committed?  But worse than that, what does it teach about God?  He seems a twisted father that beats his children black and blue while thinking it's to make them improve.  Or worse yet, the father who beats another kid because his kid did something wrong.  He seems the very opposite of love, or at least schizophrenic about it.  It doesn't at all mesh with the countless verses about love, protection, forgiveness.  In fact, there are far more verses in both the old and new testament that are clearly about God's love and forgiveness and fatherhood than there are verses to support the penal sub model, and those that do could easily be interpreted in other ways.

Moving on.  The second doctrine of imputed righteousness says that Christ's substitutionary work is imputed, put on, the believer so that they are now viewed as righteous in God's sight, even though they are still going to commit sins.  It says that when God looks at a human, he sees the bad we've done, unless we have accepted Christ (done in different ways in various denominations) in which case God sees Christ...in other words, we have a big "PAID" stamp across us, so we're good.  Forgetting the mechanics of this, which are all purely speculation, it still raises many questions, such as why we would be left to continue committing sins?  Why wouldn't it stop?  Why wouldn't it be imputed in a way that it did stop?  It requires some sci-fi time-space disconnect to understand why "new creations" aren't really any newer than the old ones in any humanly discernible way.  I remember the huge let-down when I was baptized and didn't feel any different.  I know some people that kept getting baptized again and again because they felt so much the same they thought it just wasn't sticking, like they were dud dunks.  I felt the same about saying "the salvation prayer".

Not only these questions, but then come the aftermath questions.  Let's say we accept it for a second.  Now what?  Can I just go sin and know it's not going on the record anyway?  Already paid, like a cosmic gift card?  Or do I need to be careful to stay in the salvation?  Perhaps I could get uncovered as easily as I got covered and I'd never know it.  To deal with this, my particular group has ample proof-texts about assurance of salvation to convince us we can't lose it, even if we continue to be terribly bad people.  While others do stress a continuation in faith to keep the record clear.  And still others require a continual re-covering for the new sins.

At this point I should note that the two doctrines are not tied together.  There are denominations who accept one and not the other.

So this brings me to the point of my last post.  I have slowly grown to the point that I can't accept either of the two doctrines.  But what then?  When I try to read the Bible with fresh eyes, I can't hear anything but the old interpretations because I was SOOO steeped in what they mean to the group I was raised in.  So my heart says, "No, it can't be!" and my head says, "But it must!"  And that was what came out in my last post.

Fortunately, I am beginning to see what else is there.  It has taken years of information filtering into my brain, but now it is coming together so that it makes sense.  The trail was blazed by many things that Steve Miegs taught, though I don't know if he remembers them because he was so caught up in the moment when he spoke, I have no doubt he spoke from the Spirit.  C.S Lewis, then laid the real groundwork (I often refer to him as my teacher Jack in this blog) with his talk of halls and rooms and hell being locked from the inside.  The push down the road came from Wayne Jacobsen, who showed me I was not alone in modern times and that if my heart was sick at the system, it was not a flaw in me, but God's truest voice.  Also that what we call churches need not be the Church.  And the fog is clearing at the hands of George MacDonald (Uncle George), who wrote so so many things about this a full two centuries before I would read them.  It is Uncle George who is primarily showing me how to understand the world in this new view.

Of course there have been many others along the way, helping hands and points in the direction.  One of the dearest to me is Dan Dunn, who has never had a shadow of doubt that I was heading right, and never placed an ounce of pressure to do otherwise, even when it forces us to part ways for a time.  He is truly a Christ-like example for me in what it means to love people where they're at.

Which brings me to the summary of this long post.  So what now?  For me, I think we can leave the theology (study about God) and just get to know the real God.  There is only one way to do this.  That is to do what he says.  As Uncle George says, if anyone truly wants to see what Truth might reside in Jesus, he just has to try it out.  There's a reason Jesus didn't leave a theological treatise.  He didn't even write a single word of his own.  He simply DID his work.  So forget the teachings, the processes, the doctrines.  I don't care if you never understand the history or processes, or even call him Lord.  If you want to find out if he was who he said, simply open one of the Gospels and go do what you read him doing.  Simply start with whatever next comes your way.  In whatever way you can act like Jesus, do it and see what happens.  Then do it again and again until you understand.  If there's no value, you'll soon see.  Doing good can't hurt in any case.  But if there is value in it beyond the ordinary good deed, you might just have found the door to the universe.  Work it out and see for yourself.  If you get stuck, let's talk.  No guarantees I'll have an answer, but if God is there, shouldn't he help us find one?

I am convinced, this is the only true means of salvation and I'll go no further for now accept to say that it was proven for me in one simple sentence when a dear friend was downing Christians and then said to me, "but you and your wife are the most Christ-like people I've ever met.  You actually live it."  I almost cried right there on the street.  There could be no better compliment for me and no better proof amidst all my doubts.

Time warp

Have you noticed that time passes differently based on your particular perception of it?  If we are busy it tends to pass quickly.  If we're bored, it drags.  But what time is cannot really be defined.  We can tell that a duration has passed, but we can't measure it except by tracking some cycle within space.  This is still a function of our perception.  So if the rotation of that atom or star were to change speed, we would only be able to know it by the relation of it to another object also bound in space and time.

Think of it like an airplane.  If there were no windows to see things moving past you, you'd have no idea whether you were actually moving or not because everything in the plane would be moving at the same rate, whether that rate was faster or slower, everything would continue to move in unison and you'd never know how fast it was going.  Same goes for time. For all we know, time may actually not be static and might actually pass at different rates which we can't perceive because we can't step outside of it to find a fixed point of reference.

One thing that certainly seems to slow time is expectation.  I've been looking forward to many things lately.  Not in the sense of enjoyment, but simply, a lot of things to keep track of in the near future.  This made the previous month drag like none other.  I'm glad it's over so some of those things can actually occur and time can go back to the pace I usually perceive.

But this led me to remember something Augustine, the philosopher and theologian said.  He talked a lot about time and said that what we call future is really just expectation of something coming into being.  The past is the memory of that moment which no longer exists.  So that makes the present the point between expecting something and remembering it...which really has no space at all.  If you squeeze your conscious perception of time passing down to the smallest moment you can grasp, you'll experience an infinitesimally small point at which the future is sliding into the past, the expectation becoming memory.  It seems to rocket by and can actually be quite dizzying.  Try it right now and see.  Faster than sand through a funnel, moments of potential are becoming memories and we can't hold on to any one of those points.

This tiny point that occupies no area, no space, no time, is the present.  The eternal now.  And that is all that really exists.  If I focus on it too much, I seem to see everything around me like Neo seeing the matrix code; in constant flux through an infinitely minute Now.

At this point I also usually experience a sublimity.  Something enormous and palpably greater than myself.  It's there.  And if I chase it, try to focus on it, I find that it's focusing right back at me.  And that's where I usually lose it.  My mind starts to unravel and the window closes, thankfully, so I can exist without being dissolved into that present. 

I believe that this is a glimpse of the nature and reality of God.  Not some man in the sky.  If that's what you think then your conception of God is far too small.  I'm talking about the Source of all sources.  The prime.  The thing from which all that is derives its being.  And by many other philosophical proofs, I could demonstrate why it must be personal.  In short, it can't be a nameless force or a reflection of my own infinity because it must needs be something higher than my faculty to perceive it or contemplate it.  So if I can regard it, how much more would the source have to be capable of regarding?  If I can think of it, how much more must it, first and to a greater degree, think of me.  But there are treatises (literally) on this, and I invite you to do your own homework on it.

My point is that where else could such a being (even "being" is too small a word) exist but in the only spaceless, timeless space that does exist?  That ever-present, unchanging Now. In that point, I can access the big bang.  I can understand the origin of the universe.  I can know the meaning of knowing.  I can experience what IS on a deeper level than can be cognitively processed.  It's right there all the time.  Seriously try it, see what you experience.

Toss up

So, here's a question I wrestle with.  What exactly is the good news?  I've blogged it before and I still believe that.  But the crux of it this time is more about how that should be walked out.  I grew up steeped in Evengelicalism.  I'm still not too far away from it, since we tend to orbit around the gravitational centers of our upbringing.  Though I feel more like a comet than an inner planet these days.

My struggle is this:  Evangelicals take the very plain text of Paul and others about the Gospel, or good news, which simply says that Christ died and rose again, and then overlay their interpretation of what that means.  The meaning they ascribe is something of the substitutiary atonement thing that this coming and rising atoned for sins and now people can be right with God.  It's all in the Bible.  I've read it all.  I know the theology.  The thing is, it never sits that well as they spin it.

I don't disbelieve it, but I'm not sure they (we, I guess) have it right exactly.  I see a disconnect in the things Paul says and does and the things Jesus says.  I see differences in the things the Apostles say...Peter from Paul, James from both of them.  Again, I know the theology to reconcile them, but I'm not sure it's right.  It never sits well.  Never resonates true in my deep parts.

I'm not even sure how to articulate it.  So I'll ramble.  (This has the makings of a long post, so fair warning.)  Jesus says believe on him, follow him, keep his commandments.  Got it.  But his actions and words are all about doing right, faith in God, forgiveness.  It's a topside down, knife through paper, sort of worldview that rocks the people of his day.  He lifts up prostitutes and adulterers and speaks to people's hearts.  His sermons have a more universal appeal.  He harangues the self-righteous and opens arms wide to heal, meet needs, etc.  It's a big love.  He never asks them to get in line with some theological system.

But then we get into Acts and the Epistles and we get this charge out and argue, win converts, lose your life defending the truth sort of thing.  It's far more political in a sense...or am I missing something?  Maybe I just need to do an in-depth study of some parts to get a better handle on it.  But it seems to me, either these guys are heading in a different direction (though it could be a direction they were sent, as some argue that Jesus' work is different from ours). 

Or we've missed the point of the message the early evangelists preached.  I've heard this approach too.  That we're piecing together a system out of one side of several  conversations addressing discreet issues.

So is it valid to think that Jesus' approach is what the Apostles were using?  In some cases, clearly not.  They were preaching out systematic theology.  Most of Romans is this and it accounts for most of what we call Christianity today.

So when it comes down to it, here's the rub.  I have gone out and "witnessed".  I've used the tracts.  I've used the wordless book and beads.  I've worked the tents at fairs.  And all of it was uncomfortable and hollow.  I felt like it was doing little and I just wanted to stop.  So am I so lost inside that my old nature has that much sway?  If so, I can't change it.  No fake it till you make it for me.  That's living a lie and I've done that too.  I have no choice but to wait until that is fixed within me, despite what the "get out there" people are saying.

But I am totally comfortable with people knowing what I believe.  I explain it, allude to it, talk about it in an easy natural sort of way.  I'll explain theology to people who have an interest.  Listen to people's problems, meet needs (oh this is another peeve I'll get to in a minute), pray for people.  But I don't want to whack them over the head with my beliefs.  I'm not going up to people and cold-cocking them with, "Hey dude, you know what the Bible says about following Jesus?  Let me tell ya!"  I'm not walking the streets looking for people to stop and witness to or pray for or debate with.  Heck, I'll pray for them.  I'll jump right in and meet the need as soon as it's shown to me.  Which brings me to the peeve.  If you're going out and doing any sort of ministry without first meeting the real present needs before you, you've got it backward!  I'm sorry.  You don't need to ask a homeless guy what you can pray for.  It's obvious, man!  Give the dude some food or clothes, or money even (if that won't send him into a bender).  Even regular people.  Just meet the needs, then work on the spirit.  you can't get teh spirit in tune until the animal is cared for.  But too often, Evangelicals are so after the soul part, they walk right over the needs of the moment.

And I have struggled with this for a while.  I once went and talked to a mentor of mine regarding this very thing because I was convinced I needed to start some direct ministry and was even going to abandon my community to "spend the energy on more holy pursuits".  But surprisingly, this person told me I had it all wrong.  He told me I already had my flock.  He cautioned me against what I was thinking for good reasons.  I asked how I make it more Christ focused and he said, "don't."  I was shocked, but it rang clear as a bell in my heart and mind.  I felt the peace about it.  He was right.  It went against my upbringing and theological training.  But he was right.  I should trust my heart over my head if the Spirit Lord is living in me.  When I get confirmation, I should drop anything that isn't in line with it.  But it's hard to do when I'm surrounded by the buzz of the other mess.  My mentor told me that I was to do what I'm doing.  Follow God's leading in the moment.  When he led me to speak, I'd speak.  Otherwise, live it first and foremost.  Serve my community.  My flock.  It's that simple.

And that's what I'm trying to do.  I just wish I could settle my head around these other issues.  Like I said, I think I need a period of intense study to come to terms with it so I won't keep feeling like I'm missing it when people start jawing that other stuff...that isn't wrong necessarily.  Do what you gotta do, man.  But let me do what I gotta do.