How many consecutive years and we can legitimately call something ‘annual’? Anyway here is this year’s podcast that Martin Purnell (off Grid Christianity) hosted with a Christmas Quiz (sadly I think Noel won this one) and some serious banter… and some not so serious banter. Anyway here it is to bring life and insight into your Christmas!!
The Discipleship of Love
An article by Simon Swift how about his approach that because we are in the image of God we have the birthright ‘to love and to be loved’.
The best description of love I have ever heard was ‘Making room in my life for someone else to be themselves.’ Sounds simple, yet we struggle to do it. It’s easier to be judgemental and expect others to fit into our sense of what is right and wrong, and what is expected behaviour. Sometimes we judge ourselves, not allowing our own self to simply be, perhaps we fear the judgement of others, even God. As Christians we are not just called to profess a love of God, but to embody that love in our daily lives. That means loving ourselves, our neighbours and even our enemies. It is the way of the disciple: To learn how to love; giving and receiving.
I think some of us have to learn to receive love. We can have a tendency to let false humbleness to get in the way. We need to be able to receive love in whatever form that may take. It may be a gift, a recognition of success, a hug, or just a simple compliment. We should accept and receive these things as a blessing, being thankful for them while not letting our ego feed on it. We must nurture compassion for ourselves as well as each other. It is a two way connection, through love, with God, family, friends, neighbours, and even the rest of creation. It is a place of vulnerability and it is a risk.
Humanities identity is wrapped up in the idea of carrying God’s image and reflecting it into the world. It is our birthright: to love and be loved. Yes, it is something we are entitled to. Not in a selfish ‘me’ way, the kind of negative meaning that is often implied with the word ‘entitled’. No, it is the realisation of our purpose and so as a disciple of ‘The Way’ we must not be trapped by the ‘I’m not worthy’ thinking. That does not belong in the mind of the disciple. At the core of this purpose, and our relationship with God is grace.
Grace is not about getting something you don’t deserve, of escaping some sort of judgement like going to Hell and enduring eternal damnation. Grace is God taking the initiative in liberating us. He was even willing to send his son, who was also passionate enough to die for us. That initiative took place despite humanity being more than happy to forget about divine purpose and play at being our own gods. We do as a species tend to be all ‘me, me, me.’ God on the other hand chose not punishment, instead, he chose to set us free before we even made any commitment to changing our ways. That’s grace: It isn’t a ‘get you off the hook’ free pass, no, it is an action with a purpose and it comes with an invitation.
That invitation is into a love empowered life. As humans we have the right to be loved and an obligation to love. Needles to say we have to sort out our own ego: not demanding our rights but accepting them with grateful thanks. When we learn to love ourselves and others we begin to enter into eternal life and perhaps we even add to it, expanding it into Creation. This is the anvil of our discipleship. When we step into the Kingdom of Heaven I don’t think God wants us to start blubbering about how unworthy we are. No, He wants us to accept his love, to drink it in, to be transformed by it. Yes, to be grateful, but not to have the ‘I’m a terrible person who doesn’t deserve this’ mentality. From this point on you can say to the Accuser, ‘Go, do not darken my door again. I have found my salvation and it is through the grace of God. You can not accuse me anymore.’
Now we are disciples there is the hard work of repentance. Our world view changes, we have different priorities, and a new way of being. A new life to live which throws off the chains of sin that we have wrapped round ourselves. We are now able to take the risk and vulnerability that comes with loving. Paul, in one of his letters, gives good practical advise on love. On how to live the life of love and what that means in our daily lives. As disciples we begin to practice that love.
This is what the emphasis of church life should be: The discipleship of it’s members, learning to live a life empowered by love. Not how to put a good show on Sunday mornings. No judging others who don’t fit in or who’s life falls short of their God given purpose. Instead we are called to invite everyone into a kingdom based on love and discover the grace of God, becoming transformed by it.
Lets us be done with the religion of fear and trying to get God on our side, lets leave that with the pagan gods. Instead accept the grace given to each of us and walk the way of love. As for Satan, you can tell him exactly where he can stick his accusing finger.
Summary of ‘Long Awaited’
I haven’t yet put together a 7-10 minute video of the pdf on ‘Eschatology: Here not There’ but I thought I would just put together a very short summary here and why I consider it to be important. The article covers two areas – one a kind of rebuttal of the ‘secret rapture / Dispensationalism’ and then the second part being a positive – the direction of eschatology being focused on ‘here’ and not ‘there’.
Dispensationalism is late on the scene and the consensus of perspective is that it appears around 1830; some have suggested that J.N. Darby was influenced by a vision that Margaret MacDonald had around that time; others (myself included) see some measure of antecedent in the charismatic revelations / teachings from within Edward Irving’s movement. What is clear is that J.N. Darby developed the ‘dispensational’ scheme around that time and in the decades that followed. More latterly with the view that ‘the secret rapture’ was not found any earlier than this time frame there have been those who are committed to the ‘secret rapture’ teaching have sought to show that it was present in earlier church writings, however there is nothing that is clear, and the writings have to be interpreted through that presupposition.
Even if there are earlier references that can be found the real issue is that (for me) it flows not from Scripture but a later abandonment of the Hebraic worldview for Platonic / Hellenistic that saw the material realm as without value, the soul needing to escape the body, and this material world to be destroyed.
Beyond that the hope of the New Testament is that of the appearance / coming of the Lord Jesus (maranatha – Lord come), not of our disappearance. To change the hope changes how we then live – rather than looking for transformation we look only to see ‘souls saved’; rather than focus on life here we look to ‘life after death’ as all that is important; we tend therefore to draw the line of what is sacred and what is secular, rather than see all of life to be the place where God is present.
The Scofield Bible (and subsequent similar study Bibles) with its notes that explained the various dispensations, effectively replaced the text as the notes explained (replaced?) the meaning of the text. (Of course the same should be noted with all writings – even mine!!). Over decades there have been books written that have explained how current events fit with what we read in Scripture (my era – the writings of Hal Lindsey) who bizarrely explain the visions of Revelation with the perspective that John could not know what he was seeing as he was actually seeing realities of the 20th Century with such military equipment as attack helicopters, inter-continental missiles etc!!! Of course as his writings progress he has to revise what he wrote earlier. Add to books that ‘educate’ a set of novels and films and a very powerful understanding is planted in the sub-conscious and conscious minds of those who are exposed to this.
The danger is of an overriding desire to depart which at worst is that of an escape mentality.
That is the first part of the article, in summarising the second part I draw on numerous NT passages that show the movement is from there to here and the transformation of this creation, that any redemption of people does not stop at the human level but includes the whole of creation. Let me simply take one passage (that wrongly could be thought to underline that ‘this world is not my home’) to illustrate.
But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ (Phil. 3:20).
The article expands on what I put below but in summary one of the challenges with Scripture is that it was not written to us so we can misread some texts if we assume the Bible is in parallel to our culture. In that culture and in Philippi specifically those who were born free were not citizens of, for example, Philippi but they were citizens of Rome. The reason for this was that there was a tendency for people to move from where they were based with a desire to get to Rome which caused a problem for Rome as the infrastructure struggle with the growth. So to counteract that issue people were made citizens of Rome with the desire that they would work to make sure where they lived had as much of the culture and values of Rome in their location. So when Paul wrote to Philippi his language would have been instantly understood, not as ‘Philippi is not your home, heaven is your home’ but as you live in Philippi so your desire needs to be to work / pray for as much of heavens’ values and culture shape the future of your city. In the same way that within the culture the citizens worked for Rome’s values to be expressed, the believers were to work for a heavenly culture to be expressed; the citizens had a hope that one day the emperor would come from Rome and in the same way the believers hoped for the ‘Saviour’ (a title the emperor also had) to come from heaven.
I hope the summary helps a little to position what I have written, and this again I consider as foundational before any discussion about such topics as ‘millenium’, ‘tribulation’ or even life after death.
Long awaited!!
The above title is what is often attached to a piece of writing that we have long been anticipating but has not yet the bookshelves but we simply know it will be a block-buster and consequently sell millions. However… language is defined by usage more than by etymology… the above is the common usage of the word, but in my small world I am using it somewhat differently!
I have just completed another pdf on the theme of eschatology. It is long awaited – for me. I have been waiting, waiting, waiting and at last have finished it. And no it does not hit the bookshelves, and isn’t about to be read by millions, but here it is at last! This is the third and we are still very much in the foundational realm… no mention of millennial, tribulation or such topics.
The book is about ‘movement’. The direction of eschatology. Is it ‘heavenward’ or ‘earthward’? The first part I look at the popular movement from here to there with the secret rapture as the sharp focus on that. This is as far from my view as one can get! The second half is taking the various Scriptures that a) talk of a movement earthward (God changing postcode I might suggest) and how redemption through the cross and resurrection includes, or one might even say, centres in on a comic dimension. No ‘late great planet earth’ or ‘the earth will be burned up…’
Some time soon I will make a short video to go along with this volume and look to have an open zoom in the new year with an invite to one and all.
Alienation and reconciliation
What words do we use regarding the biblical narrative of ‘fall’ and ‘redemption’. The Western world since the Reformation has focused on sin and used that to essentially describe the problem in a right / wrong framework with humanity on the wrong side thus being condemned for not living obediently up to the standards of heaven. ‘Guilty’ being the resulting judgement. (An unpayable debt being the forerunner to this ‘guilt perspective’, with deliverance or recapitulation predominating the early post-NT writings. Shame being another lens mainly contributed from an eastern perspective.)
I am convinced that we have to find a different set of lenses than guilt which will bring about re-definitions to how the Reformation taught us to see. God is relational, and the problem is how to bring about a relational restoration. Not only do we need redefinition of the various ‘sin’ words (sin, trespass, iniquity) but also to such terms as ‘forgiveness’ and certainly a deeper understanding as to how forgiveness comes about.
There is a very hard view of the cross which in simple terms has an angry God and a Jesus who is willing to be punished in our place, so that the wrath of God is satisfied. A softer presentation is along the lines of (illustration) we have visited a home and broken a vase and as a result someone will have to pay to replace the vase (this softer version being as much aligned with the pre-Reformation debt as it is with the guilt model). Thankfully that is a softer approach but misses it with the illustration – it is not a broken vase, or even a broken commandment that is the heart of the issue, it is a broken relationship. This is why forgiveness is so key, not forgiveness on the basis of payment, though all forgiveness proves costly.
We do need to bring redefinition to certain words when they are applied to God. We can make the error of transferring human / fallen emotion on to God. Wrath / anger – if we see this through human emotion what picture of God do we end up with? likewise when we read that God is a jealous God we tend to project emotions from a broken romantic relationship; and I also propose that we have to go a little deeper with the word ‘forgiveness’. When I am wronged I might have to process what took place, and then go through various feelings to eventually get to the place of forgiveness. Imagine if that was the process with God… eventual forgiveness but the carrying of billions of wounds, suspicions and a resultant reticence to commit again, with a great level of self-protectionism!!! We cannot, as Barth said, say ‘man’ (sic) with a loud voice and imagine we are saying ‘God’. Neither can we project human experiences of emotion on to God and imagine that we are reflecting the emotional experiences of God.
The word aphesis / forgiveness has at the roots that of releasing so the untying of a boat to sail to its destiny was an aphesis. God’s forgiveness is right at the forefront, not as a result of working through a process, but right at the forefront is the releasing of whoever to their destiny. Forgiveness is not that of overcoming a sense of being wronged but of desiring freedom for one and all and actioning that desire.
Back to the relational aspect of all things and to the relational aspect therefore of the cross: we have to understand this is not about payment for something broken, but an act to bring about the restoration of relationship, as Paul puts it ‘God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself’.
What beautiful words… the world, reconciliation, and to bring about a relational connetion. And as we follow it through we realise there must also be an annuling of wrong relatoinsips to the powers that have dominated, powers that are summed up with the two words ‘sin’ and ‘death’, with all the sub-categories of principalities and powers.
Reconciliation:
- to God
- to others
- to self
- and to creation.
(Adrian Lowe put me in touch with a video of Iain McGilchrist who approaches these dimensions from the view of a psychiatrist; a not short interview but full of insights:
Every aspect of those four relational areas in the early chapters of Genesis were broken as an account of the various ‘falls’ are outlined. The God /human might be at the forefront, but the creational rift is very evident (‘cursed because of you’) and the othering of even close familial relationships with blame shifting (Adam / Eve) and and murder (Cain / Abel) are seeds that inevitably lead to inter-tribal division.
Reconciliation is a process, for salvation is a process (and this is perhaps why ‘healing’ is a good synonym to use for salvation). And if a process perhaps salvation is more on a spectrum than ‘in/out’ language suggests.
Mending what is broken is God’s work and the invitation to participate in that work is still open.
The Cross Revisited
This post is Chapter 7 of The LifeLine (Vol.4 of Explorations in Theology, available from https://bozpublications.com). I am currently on my third read (!! yes it is good but not a light read!!) of Andrew Rilllera’s Lamb of the Free which is an awesome look at the foundations to the cross through the lens of the OT sacrificial system – in summary he says the sacrifices were not to enable God to forgive ‘sin’ but to cleanse… I am along the same lines in this chapter, but a much easier read, though I have to admit I would need to add a few elements to the chapter if I were to rewrite it.
Paul had a sharp focus, that being the cross of Jesus. When entering the city of Corinth he determined to have a focus on the cross (1 Cor. 2: 2) and he claimed that he would glory only in the cross (Gal. 6: 14). In writing this final chapter I want to briefly revisit what was opened in the final pages of volume 1, the nature of the cross, or what theology terms the ‘atonement’. I wrote there of the cross being the roadblock to the path that humanity was on with no way of escaping from it. The rut had gone so deep that Scripture calls the era the ‘fullness of times’. No hope for Israel, and therefore no hope for the world. The crucifixion of Jesus occured in a specific time of history and the reasoning for that I argue is key to understanding what took place. The cross deserves a full length book, but given that for Paul it is so central, a few comments are fitting to finish this volume.
God does not require sacrifice
In the ancient pagan world of gods it was not uncommon for those gods to require sacrifice, even at times the sacrifice of human lives. The sacrifice was to enable the worshipper to get in the good books of the god in question. Scripture uses the word ‘sacrifice’ of the death of Jesus and the Old Testament is replete with instructions about sacrifice, but it remains that God does not require sacrifice in order that we are in her/his good books.
Sacrifice can be understood in two ways, and is well illustrated in the story of the two women who come before Solomon both claiming to to be the mother of the child. Solomon’s solution is to give each of the women half of the surviving child, cutting the child in two. The women respond differently. The first receives the advice, advocating that the child be cut in two. This is one understanding of sacrifice. The death of the child will satisfy something in her, perhaps dealing with her grief, jealousy and hatred. The real mother also gives us a window on sacrifice. She is not willing to sacrifice the child, but in order that the child might live she is willing to forgo her own legitimate claim of ownership, live with separation and pain.
If we understand sacrifice through the path of the real mother’s response then we will grasp the sacrifice of Jesus (God) well. If however we understand sacrifice along the line of satisfaction we will miss it. God is not vengeful demanding sacrifice. A book (Hebrews) that uses sacrifice as the lens through which the cross is viewed makes this ever so explicit:
First he said, “Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them”—though they were offered in accordance with the law. Then he said, “Here I am, I have come to do your will.” He sets aside the first to establish the second. And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all (Heb. 10:5-10).
The writer makes the direct statement that God did not desire sacrifices, yet goes on to write about the sacrifice of Jesus. Before seeking to make a response to the ‘yet’ part of the sentence there is one more verse from Hebrews I wish to add in order to clarify something.
In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness (Heb. 9:22).
No forgiveness with death, without sacrifice. And sadly this verse can be taken to imply that God cannot forgive without sacrifice. There is however a process in the verse. Working backwards, there is no forgiveness without there being a cleansing, there is no cleansing without the shedding of blood. The blood, in the sacrifices of the Old Testament, was to cleanse, not in order that God might forgive. This gives an insight into the bloody sacrifices of the Old Testament, such as we read of in Leviticus. Not one of my favourite books but maybe let’s jump there for a short while!
Leviticus 4 is when we have the first mention in the book of ‘sin’ and how to respond to it. A sacrifice is to be brought1, a ‘sin-offering’ and the blood from the animal slain was to be used… not used to bring God around but to cleanse. Indeed the term ‘sin-offering’ might not be the best translation, with certain versions offering us ‘purification offering’ or ‘cleansing offering’. In our world it is strange to think of blood as being a cleansing element, a detergent if you like, but we are not entering our world. Blood was seen as a means of cleansing, and if we continue to read the following chapters we will encounter the ‘sin-offering’ again in chapter 12 where after a woman gives birth to a child there was to be a sin-offering made, not made to forgive the act of childbirth (!) but in order to clean up the mess. Childbirth is not clean and we might have all means, in our world, of ensuring that the situation is left hygienic, sterile and germ-free. But the ancient world of the Hebrews is not our world, and their solution was ‘use blood’ to clean it up!
Childbirth, with the loss of blood, always carried the threat of death, and as the ‘life of the flesh is in the blood’ the use of blood to cleanse was not to appease an external deity, but to bring life to the situation. Sin, a failure to follow the path of life, brought the threat of death; the response was to sprinkle blood to get rid of the pollution.
The sacrifice of Jesus has a cleansing effect. As we read further in Hebrews 10 we read,
The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God! (Heb. 10:13-14).
Sacrifice cleanses. The former sacrifices simply cleansed outwardly, the sacrifice of Jesus cleanses inwardly. The process is of cleansing (Old or New Testament) so that forgiveness might be a reality.
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9).
The purify / cleanse word is so important, and once that is grasped Jesus’ death is not a sacrifice to appease, but a sacrifice that is one of laying down rights, laying down his life in order that we might receive not simply a symbolic cleansing, but a deep cleansing.
God did not kill Jesus
In an anti-Semitic way texts have been construed to mis-align Jews as being those who murdered Jesus. That is not the case, for ‘we’ all killed Jesus. The historical and geographical context, and the epoch of the redeeming nation being simply one of the nations does mean that there are many, many Scriptures that lay at the feet of that generation the culpability for the death of Jesus. One of many Scriptures in Acts can illustrate this,
This man was handed over to you by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him (Acts 2: 23-24)
‘You put him to death’. God did not kill Jesus, though the plan of God is outworked through the activities of humanity.2 What a journey from the garden of Eden to the cross. In the day that you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, take on a path that draws lines, you will indeed surely die. Death was the result, not to be understood primarily as punishment but consequence. Israel encouraged to choose life not death, given laws to guide in the path of life, reduced those laws to be a means of excluding all others, read the law but without realising it the very letter of the law was bringing death to them.
[F]or the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life (2 Cor. 3:6).
But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read.v It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away. Even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts. But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.Now the Lord is the Spirit,y and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplatea a the Lord’s glory,b are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit (2 Corinthians 4: 14-18).
Death held sway over one and all. It was the consistent choices from the Garden onwards that led to the cross, not the ability of God to forgive without the shedding of blood. There are so many graphic examples of the life that comes through the death of Jesus. Original humanity exits the place of wonderful bounty eastward. Ezekiel carries a vision of a cleansed temple, where the water flows eastward, bringing life wherever it went. Wherever humanity has gone the life that flows from Jesus has gone. He appears to a husband and wife on the road to Emmaus, a small village outside of Jerusalem. As the evening draws in so he reveals himself to them. The re-enactment of the Garden is clear. They have left Jerusalem where death has taken place, the death of their leader and the death of their dreams. They saw the resurrected Jesus, the original couple never saw that God had trudged eastward with them away from the place where they had brought in death. He carried that death from Eden, until at ‘the fullness of times’ there was a concrete manifestation that it had been carried to the place where death was given the death sentence, the place where Jesus ‘tasted death for everyone’ (Heb. 2: 9).
God did not kill Jesus, but was in Jesus bringing the rule of death to an end. Choose life, was indeed his choice. Choosing life for humanity meant embracing death. Like the true mother who chose life for her son in the Solomonic story meant that she had to embrace death. That is sacrifice. That is a sacrifice that can cleanse.
Not just the Jews
The early chapters of Acts are historically situated in Jerusalem, hence the consistent references that they (Jews) were the ones who crucified the author of life. Yet there are so many elements that come to put Jesus on the cross. Jewish religious power (the final manifestation of those who insisted on the right / wrong divide), the acquiescence of a crowd, the betrayal of Judas, the denials of Peter, the abandonment by the disciples, the Roman imperial power that controlled one and all. And we can add beyond that the spiritual powers that seem to dominate the very ‘air’ around us, the toxicity of a system that is not bent toward finding the path of life for people. And then we have to add the glad submission of God, who takes this all in, to end an era and open another one, a ‘new creation’ era.
Life is more powerful than death. Death was overcome, for it is not stronger than death. When Moses told the people that there were two options before them, that of life and death, they were not instructed to avoid death, but simply to choose life. Life could not be chosen by avoiding death; rather death would be overcome if they chose life, for in the very choosing of life death would lose its power. Life and death are never presented as two equally strong opposition forces. God raised Jesus from the dead as a confirmation that we are not still in our sins, and the early chapters of Acts says that death could not hold the Author of life. There is life in God, abundant life, that overcomes death. And as a result of the cross is an invitation to live from that same life source.
Prior to the cross Pilate offers the people a way out. I can hand over to you the one who is truly guilty, Barabbas (Aramaic: son of the father) or Jesus. Echoes of Cain and Abel. Abel’s blood speaks from the ground (Heb. 11:4, 12: 24), probably calling for justice. God’s response was to protect the guilty one, the one who sacrificed his own brother. Now the people are given the choice. Yet again the choice is to kill the Abel figure. Protecting the guilty one but by sacrificing the innocent one. God protected, damaging his own reputation in the process, the guilty one through self-sacrifice, thus offering the path of transformation for the guilty one. The cross touches the mind and emotions, and in doing so can bring about a transformation, but there is something even bigger taking place where the powers that previously ruled are broken and there is a doorway from death to life (Col. 1:13).
Peter explained that life was no longer something that was open only for Jews to choose, but that ‘God had granted repentance that leads to life also to the Gentiles’ (Acts 11: 18). Such an easy door, the door of repentance, the door of a mind-change. A change of perspective primarily about God, about oneself. A perspective that sees the cross as the place where a transaction took place, not between us and God, but between God and us, a transaction without any small print. If, I come with guilt, the innocent one has taken the consequences of my guilt; if I come with shame, he has endured the shame because the other side of the cross is joy, joy at seeing the door opened for the very real start of true humanity to be expressed; if I come with a sense of sickness there can be healing for my soul. All three elements, guilt (the over-emphasis of the Western church), shame (the issue that seems to plague eastern cultures) or sickness (the Orthodox church) come together at the cross, the fullness of times, where they are dealt with once and for all, for it was at that time there was no hope to be found of finding a solution. We live from that time, pulling in the future into this time and place. A firm historic foundation opens up levels of creativity and diversity.
Metaphors – no debt paid
A common description of the cross in the Gospels is of Jesus’ death being a ransom for many. Behind this is a slavery image. This led to many discussions in the early church as to who the debt was paid to. Paid to God? Paid to the devil? But the language is a metaphor and is rooted in the Exodus story where the people were ransomed from Egypt (Mic. 6: 4; 1 Cor. 7: 23). No payment was made to Pharaoh, but the people were redeemed, ransomed. The reality is that they were delivered, that Pharaoh no longer had ownership of them, the people going free from bondage.
Jesus does not die as a sinner
The verdict of the powers was that he was a sinner. A blasphemer (Jewish view), an anarchic insurrectionist against power (Roman view). Those accusations covered the reality of their positions. He exposed the supposed understanding of right / wrong that the Jews had to offer, and of the benefits that the Empire claimed to bring to all the citizens. He made an open show of the hostile powers. He might have been condemned and hung there stripped naked, but truly the powers that exercised their rule through religious and social constructs were the ones being exposed.
He is no sinner dying. God has another verdict. He dies as an innocent one, and is not judged by God. We have to stay within the bounds of biblical language, and Paul is very careful to state that it was not Jesus who was condemned by God at the cross, but that sin was condemned.
And so he condemned sin in the flesh (Rom. 8: 4).
The cross is not some pagan ritual but the act of a Tri-une God to deal in history with everything that stands in the way of humanity finding the path to truly reflecting the glory of God. It is not that my sin plus your sin plus… is put on Jesus, raising of course the question for whom did Jesus die (‘only the elect?’, or ‘for all’ and we all go free), but sin as the dominant power, sin as devouring lives, as transgressing boundaries, as scapegoating others, sin as religion, sin as division is judged in that event. Truly the tree of knowledge of good and evil does not need to be eaten from ever again. The tree of life, the tree that counteracts death is open.
We can theorise about the cross, we can elevate one metaphor above another, but we also have to recognise that no one metaphor will make plain what took place. I wonder whether there is something reflected to us in the description of those who are still present at the crucifixion that encourages us to be like them and that if we are that we might just have greater sight into what took place. The men had gone. The women remained. John remained. Maybe the one who saw love at a deeper level than others, perhaps due to his simplicity by male standards, perhaps the one who exhibited unique responses, leaning on Jesus’ chest (exhibiting behavioural or emotional ‘special needs’?). The heart, not the head is the means to understand the cross.
EndNotes:
- In the light of the Hebrew texts that say God did not desire sacrifice we could also suggest that virtually all ancient cultures used sacrifice transactionally to appease, and therefore God accommodated Israel’s expectation of sacrifice, but transforming it in order to give it a different understanding than the surrounding cultures. We do not have to suggest that God instituted sacrifice.
- Other Scriptures that state this directly in the early encounters between (Jewish) Christians and their fellow Jews are: 2: 36 ‘whom you crucified’; 3: 13-16 ‘you killed the author of life’; 4: 10-12 ‘whom you crucified’; 5: 28-31 ‘you… are determined to make us guilty for this man’s blood’; 7: 52 ‘you have betrayed and murdered this him’; 10: 39 ‘they killed him’.
Preserving the animals!
They came in as pairs (Gen. 6:19) or the alternative is that clean ones came in as pairs of 7 (Gen.7:2), probably indicating that there are two base stories for the flood and the salvation of the world. Given that there are numerous flood narratives (a very famous one being the ‘Epic of Gilgamesh’) we don’t have to take every detail as being literal – but as stories to communicate. Maybe there is nothing deeper in the narrative than a story that explains why humanity and the animal world continue after the flood, but perhaps we see something of God’s concern for the animal world (now how many species have disappeared at the hands of those ‘made in the image of God’?).
There are two Scriptures that I know of that show something of God’s care for animals. In the narrative of Jonah and Nineveh we read of the sparing of Nineveh (was Jonah written to challenge the Jewish view of the nations?) and included in God’s sight are the (domestic) animals,
And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left and also many animals? (Jonah 4:11).
A reference, almost hidden, in Mark’s account of the wilderness experience of Jesus includes a reference to animals, this time not to domestic ones but to the wild animals,
He was in the wilderness forty days, tested by Satan, and he was with the wild beasts, and the angels waited on him (Mk. 1:13).
The animal world was divided between the ‘clean’ and the ‘unclean’ and between the ‘domesticated’ and ‘wild’. The wild beasts, the ones that could never be tamed, the ones that spoke loudly of humanity’s inability to ‘subdue’ creation became symbols of the nations that resisted God’s design – hence ‘beasts’ that rise from the sea / land etc. And here they are in the wilderness with Jesus… in the wilderness the place that will blossom once the kingdom comes, and until then the abode of the demons. Jesus having confronted the three powers – shown by the three temptations of economic, political and religious power – subdues not simply domestic animals but even the wild ones.
In the wilderness, there is shalom, an order that eludes us. Heaven is present on earth, remarkably in the wilderness, and that presence brings an order to everything, so much so that the wild beasts act differently, echoing the eschatological passages of ‘wolves with lambs’,
The wolf shall live with the lamb; the leopard shall lie down with the kid; the calf and the lion will feed together, and a little child shall lead them (Is. 11:6).
Jesus sent out the disciples as ‘lambs among wolves’. Challenging, as there is the absence of self-preservation in the instruction, but if we are to see anything of the eschatological promises breaking in I guess self-preservation has to decrease.
God cares for what has been created and creation is there to teach us both to care for the wider world (Rom. 8) and also to provoke us to ‘subdue’ the ‘wild’ that threatens shalom. As Simon Swift wrote in the previous post:
As we leave the Garden of Eden to head into the wild. We should not hunger for a return to the garden, rather in the wild we should create a garden.
Should we really think that we can see a shift to the powers? Why not… if the cross is far more about cleansing, and keeping clean, the ‘temple’ of God in the earth so that heaven and earth meet not in a specific place on a specific date but in the wilderness of life, perhaps the ‘wild animals’ might just take note.
Carrying God’s image
Another article by Simon Swift on exploring humanity as in the image of God. I particularly liked, ‘As we leave the Garden of Eden to head into the wild. We should not hunger for a return to the garden, rather in the wild we should create a garden’.
In our modern understanding of history and science based fact which is supposed to be based on evidence rather than mythological story telling, we can lose a lot of depth of meaning that can be found in the biblical stories if you take them literally as fact. We have to remember myth does not mean untrue. The Genesis stories are a case in point; especially the first couple of chapters. I find in the creation stories deeper truths can be dug out if you don’t take them literally. It is especially helpful as our own world view changes from that of other generations and we can re-visit the stories to help us understand the world around us and ourselves. The suggestion that we are made in God’s likeness is profound and we would do well to take on board the implications of such a blessing.
It suggests not so much that we look like God visually, rather we have a destiny within creation to represent God’s intent. I like how Tom Wright(* YouTube Video at the end of the post) advocates that it should not be seen as a static image but a dynamic one. We reflect God’s image into the world through what we do, the way we be, and how creatively we redeem the world through restorative justice. Now if you want a purpose in life I suggest that should be your number one choice.
Perhaps, the story of what we call the fall had to happen. How else would both Adam and Eve be able to tell the difference between good and evil? After all, it was the fact they did not know the difference that led them to eat the apple in the first place. They ended up with knowledge but not wisdom. They were, you could say, immature in how to use this new found knowledge and it led to discovering new emotions like shame and fear. They had to be sent on a journey out of the garden into the wild. Maybe it was God’s intent all along: We as humans have a life which is one big journey through a dark valley where we learn to live in his presence; and waiting for us is an overflowing cup.
Is this not similar to how we grow up, discovering the world is not as safe or as simple as we found it in childhood? Unfortunately we find it difficult to mature into the destiny of reflecting God’s image into the world. There seems to be within the knowledge of good and evil a corrupting temptation which we easily find attractive. The world is cold and dark without a light and so turning to self-preservation we lose sight of who we are as humans. Our ego is prone to make us think the world resolves around us, further drawing us into the trap of selfishness. Unable to see passed our own nose, we do not realise we are walking into the kingdom of death. We create a culture driven by exploitation and lose the delight of beholding creation and of the creator himself. The temptation is for power and control. We celebrate people with such power, we build ever taller towers in homage to it; it becomes our idol. We become owned by an empire based on death and our freedom can only be paid for by blood. Biologically we are human, yet our humanity shrinks in this kingdom of death. In this empire of power, humanity loses its meaning and worth.
But there is hope. There is one who is fully human and has paid that price of blood. We can now leave behind the kingdom of death and enter into the kingdom of heaven. It is the way of the pilgrim on the narrow road. It winds its way through the dark valley and onward to the overflowing cup; it is still waiting for us. Perhaps it is this journey which gives each of our lives a meaning, finding connection again with the light of the world. A journey of encounter and exploration of God’s love based power. A rebirth into an eternal life connected to the spirit. It may seem counter-intuitive to give ourselves away as we make our way on this pilgrimage, but when we do we find we are filled again with the bread of life.
The challenge for us is to learn how to live immersed in the power of love and freely give that power away into a world run on empire power and death. Have we the courage to live creatively, bringing redemption into the world? The passion enough to see structures, institutions and philosophies stolen from the power of empire, redeemed and repurposed by the creative power of love? Are we ready to suffer for a kingdom based on love when faced with the demands of the dominating power of empire? Perhaps maturity is to be found in living out a life of love power while still being in enemy territory; not escaping but subverting.
As we leave the Garden of Eden to head into the wild. We should not hunger for a return to the garden, rather in the wild we should create a garden. Perhaps the wild is, and always was, waiting for us. Waiting for us to learn the way of love, maturing and using the knowledge of good and evil in wisdom. Let us take our destiny, purpose and inheritance as God’s image bearers and give life in all its glory a meaning. The story of Humanity and God is not finished, far from it. The exciting thing is, you and I are writing the story right now. How do you want your chapter to be written?
* N.T. Wright on What It Means To Be An Image Bearer
Seven Mountains… NO!
Jeff Fountain sends out a ‘weekly word’ and this week he explains that there is not a straight line from Loren Cunningham’s belief in engaging with the seven cultural spheres of influence and what is being taught today. He suggests the difference is essentially bottom-up or top-down. Control or serving. [This could be further explored as from within with a bias toward the marginalised?]
God or Mammon – Introduction
I have known Adrian for some 20 or so years, and he and Marion have given me hospitality on different occasions. Humble, smart and always wishing to be authentic. He recently posted on SubStack this article that he gave me permission to re-post here. The link at SubStack (which also gives a link there to follow his posts) is:
God or Mammon – Introduction
This is the first in a series of essays exploring the how the architecture of our existence is shaped either by God or Mammon.
In 2005, I resigned from my position as a senior manager at one of the country’s leading retailers to take on the role of lead pastor at my local church. I had worked for Marks and Spencer for nearly 30 years, was 45 years old, and had felt called to serve in paid ministry since the age of 18. Now, one of my dreams was finally being fulfilled. In my mind, I was leaving the relentless, cutthroat commercial world to serve God and His people!
Looking back, in my naivety, I had failed to fully comprehend that the free-market ideology underpinning the cutthroat commercial world I had left behind held no respect for the imagined boundaries I believed existed between the sacred and the secular—the church and the world. As time went on, it became clear that the lifeblood of “buying and selling” coursed deeply through the veins of the many different forms of church. In truth, much of what I had thought of as “church”—local, national, and global—seemed gripped by the forces of commodity, commerce, and consumerism. Beneath the jargonized spirituality lay the acquisitiveness of the shopper and the shop, the client and the service provider!
Of course, it became starkly apparent that I hadn’t escaped its talons either. While taking some time out on retreat, ten years into my newfound ministry, it dawned on me that in many ways, I had remained a “shopkeeper,” focused on keeping my “customers” happy. I felt as though I was struggling to breathe under the mounting pressure to lead people into ever-new and greener pastures. During this time, I came to realize that the treadmill was less a material reality than an existential one—it lived within me, providing an overarching narrative that governed and judged not only my ministry but my life as well. Anxiety and fear gnawed at my calling, leaving me to wonder whether, as a shepherd of the flock, I could ever truly satiate the deep longing of those I led.
By the grace of God, while on retreat, I came across John chapter 6 and the story of Jesus’ challenge to Philip to feed the five thousand. “‘…He said to him, ‘Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?’ He asked this only to test him…” (John 6:5-6). In short, Philip’s conclusion is that, however long he laboured (on the treadmill), he could never satiate the appetite of those who had gathered. You know the rest of the story! Jesus goes on to describe himself as the bread that comes down from heaven—sustenance and satisfaction without human labour and free from the notion of buying and selling.
My eyes were opened. To use the Apostle Paul’s words, my struggle was not merely with flesh and blood, but with principalities and powers that sought to govern, regulate, and codify not only my life but also the very essence of what it means to be human. A friend refers to these as “the faceless powers that seek to control and influence us.” I wonder—can we put a name to any of these faceless powers? I believe we can!
‘In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.’
Genesis chapter one, verse one, furnishes us, its readers, not just with an account of a God whose creative genius is of cosmic proportions, but also bequeaths us a vision of who God is. Yahweh, by nature, transcends the dark, chaotic mass of the material world and is revealed as the architect of a different reality—a bringer of light where there was darkness and order where there was chaos. His work is to create an architecture for existence—an environment that enables us as humans, God’s image-bearers, to flourish.
Everything has a beginning; all that was created had a starting point, an origin, and Yahweh is that person. The meta-narrative of the creation story teaches us that everything that exists has its origin in something or someone that transcends the material world. It is the transcendent that illuminates our way, brings order to our chaos, and gives shape, form, and meaning to our lives. To use the apostle Paul’s words, the world “in which we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28) finds its structure, definition, and purpose in the story of whichever ‘god’ we serve. The narrative of the Bible is that the very architecture of existence—what it means to be human and ‘do life’—is founded in the person of God.
Yahweh, the God of the creation narrative, is by His very nature a relational being. He is the Triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Therefore, it is no surprise that the four primary pillars that support the perfect environment for human flourishing, that is for our living, moving, and having our being, are central in the creation story and that all are relational. First and foremost, though not standing in isolation from the other pillars, is our relationship with the transcendent—with God. Secondly, our relationship with ourselves—knowing myself. Thirdly, knowing one another—we are sociological beings. And finally, our relationship with the earth, the planet, the world, with which we have been entrusted. In the creation story, God constitutes reality by giving His order, shape, and purpose in and through relationships.
If, as it seems to me Paul suggests when he confronts Athenian idolatry, our living, moving, and being find their origin in the ‘god’ that we worship and serve, then it follows that both our individual lives and our collective life can be ordered, shaped, and empowered by ‘another god.’
Which brings us to the words of Jesus:
“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and Mammon.” (Matthew 6:24)
Jesus’ words are profound, clear, and indisputable. We are faced with an ‘either or’ decision. There are two ‘gods,’ two voices that transcend our material world and potentially give purpose, structure, and definition both to our individual and collective ‘living, moving, and being.’ They configure the very framework [PF1] of our collective human existence. Unsurprisingly, they are described relationally, using the terms of love and devotion, and thus it is that both compete for our affection. Ultimately, there are just two ways the world can be ordered. There are just two masters calling for humankind’s fidelity. Humanity must elect to serve God or Mammon. By implication, our collective decision will have a radical impact on the four relational pillars of creation that we talked about earlier. How I understand and relate to myself, how I relate to my neighbour, and how I relate to the world in which I live—these relationships, which have been critical to human flourishing from the beginning, take their form from our worship. These are two opposing kingdoms, and each has an ideological and theological framework that dictates the structure—the architecture—of human existence. The altar at which we sacrifice delineates the architecture of our collective life.
After all, Jesus teaches us that the dwelling-place of God, heaven, is not an ‘otherworldly’ destination, an upward trajectory, or a future disembodied reality. Quite the opposite: it’s a downward trajectory, from heaven to earth. Not only does Jesus teach His disciples to pray, ‘Thy Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven,’ but the apostle John also sees a ‘Holy City…coming down out of heaven.’ Both suggest that heaven’s design must affect the earth’s architecture. So, in His declaration, “You cannot serve God and Mammon,” “No one can serve two masters,” Jesus is suggesting that there are two principal ways in which life in the ‘here and now’ is ordered. There’s the order of God, heaven’s architecture, or alternatively, the world is organized and codified by an alternative transcendent personality, another ‘god.’ Just perhaps, there’s another potential superpower called ‘Mammon,’ enticing humankind into a relationship, ultimately demanding its own code of sacrificial devotion. When Jesus talks about Mammon, it seems to me He’s not merely referring to money—pounds and pence, dollars and dimes. I want to suggest He’s talking about a global social and cultural architecture, an ideology, and its power to systematically control us and the rest of creation – the four pillars of our shared life. This is a ‘god’ that not only exerts its power in shaping an economic vision—which, of course, controls us—but more than that, ‘Mammon’ fundamentally shapes human relationships. This other ‘god,’ like all ‘other gods,’ is by its very nature formational; its character is discipling. It configures our ecological, sociological, and psychological relationships—how we relate to the planet, the people around us, and perhaps most critically, it shapes our identity—our ‘self.’
This ‘either or’ that Jesus articulates is nothing new. There are a great number of Old Testament texts that allude to the need for a life-defining ‘either or’ decision. I’ll mention just three.
First, Moses in Ancient Israel. In the Sinai covenant, the practice of which finds its outworking in the book of Deuteronomy, Moses articulates a clear and decisive ‘either or’ that ancient Israel was faced with. The Ten Commandments call Israel to covenantal fidelity and the loving of their neighbour as self (Exodus 20:1-7). This text is part of the re-imaging of life post-Israel’s emancipation from Pharaoh’s predatory social, economic, and spiritual system in which they had been held captive in Egypt for over 400 years. In the passage, Moses seeks to fend off the “Canaanite” alternative that eventually seduced Israel away from their covenantal fidelity. The term “Canaanite” used in this context is not a reference to ethnicity but alludes to spiritual and socioeconomic [PF2] practices that dehumanize life by the process of commodification, turning neighbours into greedy competitors. They risk a return to the slavery they had been liberated from. Moses identifies the way of the covenant or the “Canaanite” alternative as an ‘either or,’ a “life or death” decision.
See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the Lord your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess. But if your heart turns away and you do not hear, but are led astray to bow down to other gods and serve them, I declare to you today that you shall perish; you shall not live long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him; for that means life to you and length of days, so that you may live in the land that the Lord swore to give to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob (Deuteronomy 30:15-20).
Moses makes this emphatic declaration because the “Canaanite” alternative appears to offer a life of ease, comfort, and security, when in truth its power is dehumanizing. Eventually, self, neighbour, community, and creation will fall prey to its destructive power.
Secondly, when, finally, Israel is settled in the land of promise, Joshua leads Israel in yet another ‘either or’ decision. He assembles Israel for a critical covenant-making ceremony where he presents his ‘either or,’ exhorting Israel to choose Yahweh, the God of life, and reject all alternatives. ‘Choose this day whom you will serve.’
Now, therefore, revere the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness; put away the gods that your ancestors served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. Now if you are unwilling to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served in the region beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord (Joshua 24:14-15).
And finally, one more example of an Old Testament text that echoes the words of Jesus as He talks about the ‘either or’ of God and Mammon—the prophetic contest on Mt. Carmel. This is where Elijah assembles Israel to hear yet another dramatic ‘either or’ when he says:
How long will you go on limping with two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him. (1 Kings 18:21).
Elijah tells Israel they can’t have it both ways, saying it’s not possible to be faithful worshipers of God while assimilating the way’s of Ball, the god who embodies the world of commodity, productivity, and profit. They have to decide: who will they serve, God or Baal (Mammon)?
As we have already seen, Jesus stands in the same covenantal tradition as His forbears as He exhorts His listeners, including us, to make a similar ‘either or’ decision. In Christ, we too now stand in that same covenantal tradition and are being challenged to make a similar choice, ‘choose this day whom you will serve,’. And like in the day of Moses or Joshua, it’s a life-or-death decision. Who will we allow to give purpose, structure, and definition to our lives, both individually and collectively?
I am convinced that it is the spirit of Mammon that empowers postmodern capitalism’s ‘Machine’ [PF3] and fuels materialism and consumerism, creating a paradigm of reality defined by ‘things.’ Our consumer culture is driven by the myth of secularism—the idea that there is nothing more than stuff, that you are just stuff, so grab all the stuff you can before you die. This is the ‘god’ of commodification, and it is inherently dehumanizing. Mammon also ignites an obsession with progress—progress at all and any cost. Value is measured by productivity; we become monstrously performance-driven, and our worth is calculated based on outcomes. All this results in us all wanting more for less. This is a world order where accumulation is the goal, economic viability is the wise arbiter, people are assets or products, what they can do is more important than who they are, and so human beings become human doings. Mammon is the ‘god’ behind the ‘Machine’ and the author of objectification, disavowing us of our humanity by exchanging human dignity for utilitarian value. Under Mammon’s tyrannical reign, we humans are progressively dehumanized. As God’s image-bearers, we are demeaned, His image is diminished, and we struggle to flourish.
Mammon is more than an ideology; it’s theological. It assumes a transcendent status and is more akin to religion. The ‘Machine’ is a ‘god’ who doesn’t just require mental assent to a political or cultural idea but insists on soulish devotion and fidelity, often demanding sacrifice from followers enticed into servitude and spellbound by its promise of progress, anticipating the next breakthrough.
In this next series of essays, I am going to attempt to explore our contemporary culture’s social, economic, and spiritual enslavement to the tyrannical rule of Mammon. I aim to uncover the methodology of the dehumanizing stealth ‘Machine’ and how it has systematically degraded our vision of what it means to be fully human. I also hope to show that we are not without hope! The story of God, which culminates in the birth, life, death, resurrection and intercession of the God-man Jesus, makes the claim that it’s possible to make an Exodus from the tyrannical rule and enslavement to the powers of Mammon. And so, I also hope that we’ll unearth some of the ways the Gospel liberates us from the treadmill of the Machine.
I must say, I remain ever grateful for the gift of Walter Brueggemann. If you can be discipled by reading, he is my Rabbi. I am also deeply appreciative of the insightful, timely and prophetic perspectives of Paul Kingsnorth. Both Walter and Paul have been a source of inspiration for my writing.