Hat tip to Brandon Chase for this. Also check out his blog.
Christians are under attack?
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The God of the Exodus is a God of Violence
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I finally watched “Exodus: Gods and Kings” last night. I watched it with my wife, Wendy.
Well, we watched part of it … we got too tired and went to bed after 90 minutes.
I wasn’t too happy with many of the changes in the movie from the biblical account, but whatever. It’s Hollywood. Frankly, I’m a little more upset at the travesty of the 3-part “The Hobbit” than I am at what Hollywood did to the Exodus story. But that’s not the point here either.
What I found most fascinating was how Yahweh, the God of Israel, was portrayed in the movie. And I’m not talking about how he was a little boy. I don’t care about that.
What I found most interesting about the movie is that God was portrayed as this violent, blood-thirty, thoughtless, bumbling, vengeful deity. There was a clear power struggle in the movie between God and Pharaoh (who thought he was a god). That probably explains the subtitle for this movie: “Gods and Kings.”
And frankly, though there were many ways that the movie strayed from the biblical account of the Exodus, the way that the book of Exodus portrays God is not one of the ways the movie strayed. If we really read the book of Exodus without our Christian rose-colored glasses, the God of the book of Exodus is quite similar to the God portrayed in the movie “Exodus.” Several things about the book of Exodus which have always bothered me about how God is portrayed in that book were brought into clear focus in the movie.
What I found most interesting was how the movie stayed true to the biblical text … specifically in regard to the violence of God in the book of Exodus.
I know nothing about the director, Ridley Scott, but he is either a fundamentalist Christian who believes the book of Exodus accurately portrays God as He really is, or he’s an atheist who wants to point out how bloodthirsty the God of the Exodus is.
Isn’t it interesting that both atheists and fundamentalist Christians have a similar view about the God of the Exodus?
Anyway, here is a short list of how God is portrayed in this movie:
1. 400 Years of … Absence
When Moses first encounters God on the mountain, he wants to know why God has waited 400 years to do anything about the slavery of his people. Good question! He gets no answer. But this theme comes up later …
2. Leave Your Wife and Child
When Moses heads off to Egypt, Moses’ wife gets it right when she says, “What kind of a God asks a man to leave his wife and children?” I actually laughed at this part of the movie, because not three seconds earlier my wife asked the exact same question. Same exact words. Same tone. Everything.
Moses’ basic answer was, “I don’t ask questions. I just follow orders.” Of course, later God denies that He ever told Moses to leave his wife and children. That was Moses’ decision.
Hmmm… So is God saying that Moses could have brought his wife and young son into the hell-hole that became Egypt?
3. Freedom through Warfare
Moses begins his attempt to free the Israelites by engaging in guerilla warfare. After numerous cycles of vengeance and retaliation increase the bloodshed, pain, and suffering on all sides, God shows up again and tells Moses he’s taking too long.
Moses says, “What? You wait 400 years and now you’re in a hurry?”
God doesn’t really answer him again, but simply says “Just step back and watch what I can do.”
4. Any war you can do, God can do better
Crazily enough, this is when the pain, suffering, bloodshed, and slaughter really begins in earnest. First we get a scene of crocodiles tearing people limb from limb in the Nile river. Apparently, this is how the Nile turned to blood. All the fish die. Rice fields are ruined. People starve.
Plague follows upon plague, each one more bloody, brutal, and terrifying than the last. Worst of all, these plagues hit Egyptian and Hebrew alike. Moses brings this up to God. He basically says, “You know, if you want to be loved by the Hebrew people, you probably shouldn’t inflict the same plagues on them that you inflict upon the Egyptians.”
God responds by saying, “Oh! Good point!” and starts sending plagues just upon the Egyptians.
The scene where the poor, starving Egyptian farmer wails in misery over his last dead cow is especially touching.
5. God will have His bloody revenge!
At one point, Moses tells God that enough is enough. He grew up with these Egyptian people. He was one of them. It is difficult, he says, to see people you love suffer so greatly. Basically, Moses points out that these plagues from God don’t seem to be doing anything more than the guerilla warfare was doing, and God was behaving a little too violently.
God gets angry at Moses at this point, and tells him, “Don’t talk to me about violence! I have watched my people suffer under slavery for 400 years, and now you think that I am being too violent?! I will have my revenge!” …
So God waited through 400 years of violent oppression and slavery so that He could exact violent revenge upon the Egyptians?
6. When it comes to a killing contest … God wins!
By now, Pharaoh is pretty upset. So late one night, in a fit of (justifiable?) anger, he declares that Moses and Moses’ God have gone too far, and if this is a contest about who can kill the most people, he will kill all of the young Hebrew children. He will prove that Pharaoh is better at killing that Moses or the God of Moses.
God hears this, and basically says, “Oh yeah? Watch this.” And then he kills all the firstborn sons of Egypt. In other words, “You think you’re good at killing? You know nothing. When it comes to a killing contest, I always win. Watch this …”
Then all the firstborn sons of Egypt die, including Pharaoh’s own son.
As a result, Pharaoh finally tells Moses that he and the Israelites can leave Egypt, but in so doing, he asks the most poignant question of the movie. He says to Moses, “What kind of God kills little children? How can you worship such a God?”
We, as the movie viewers are supposed to see the irony. Pharaoh seems to have forgotten that he, as an Egyptian deity, was planning to kill children, and therefore, his question proves that he is not a god or, if he is, he is not worthy of worship.
But doesn’t the same logic apply to the God of Israel? It seems so.
Closing Questions about the Exodus
That’s where I stopped watching the movie. I will finish it tonight.
Look. I believe the Bible too. And yes, in case you are wondering, I believe in the inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible. Yes, every word.
So how can I write what I did above? Because I believe that the truth which the inspired and inerrant biblical text teaches us is not the truth that many Christians say it is.
I plan on writing a lot more about this in the months ahead, so stay tuned.
Until then, if you are troubled by what I have written above, or if you were troubled by the way God was portrayed in this movie, but you are not troubled by the way God is actually portrayed in the book of Exodus, you might want to ask yourself “Why?” How is it that you would get upset if Pharaoh killed children, but not upset when God does it?
Why are some Christians upset that the cast of Exodus was mostly “white” people, but not too upset about the violence of God in the movie?
Why are some Christians upset that God was portrayed as a child, but not upset that God was horribly violent?
Why are some Christians upset at the “naturalistic” explanation for the plagues, but not upset at how God was the primary source of this violence?
Why are Christians upset about everything in the Exodus movie, except for how God was involved with violence?
Well… maybe some people were upset about these things, and I just didn’t hear about it.
How about you? Did you watch the movie “Exodus”? What were your thoughts? Share below!
The Satanic Messiah vs. The Suffering Messiah
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Have you heard of the Satanic Messiah? Probably not, since most people usually don’t think of Satan and the Messiah as having anything to do with each other.
Yet surprisingly, worship of the Satanic Messiah may be more common than we realize.
In fact, such worshippers may exist in our own town … maybe even in our own church!
What is the Satanic Messiah?
The Satanic Messiah usually goes by the name of “Jesus,” and is often confused with Jesus. In fact, the Satanic Messiah Jesus is identical to the Suffering King Jesus in nearly every way.
There are only three things that set them apart. While the Satanic Messiah looks like Jesus, acts like Jesus, and talks like Jesus, the Satanic Messiah has accepted and adopted the three values of the Satanic kingdom which were offered to Jesus in Matthew 4 and Luke 4. In Matthew 4 and Luke 4, Jesus rejected the Satanic offerings of (1) self-reliance, (2) control over others, and (3) glory before men. And while Jesus rejected these things when offered to Him by Satan, the Satanic Messiah has accepted and adopted such offerings, and has even called them “good.”
Where is this Satanic Messiah so that we might avoid Him and warn others to do the same?
This Satanic Messiah is the Messiah which is often preached from the pulpits and beheld in the books of modern Christianity. If modern Christianity has patterned itself after Jesus, then the Jesus we present to the world is not the Jesus who rejected the offers of self-reliance, control over others, and glory before men, but is the “Jesus” who has accepted such values and now holds them up as virtues.
Where is such a “Jesus”? He can be found all around us. He can sometimes be found in our churches, homes, and in our own treatment of others.
If the church is the representative of Jesus to the world, then to the degree that the church seeks to meet our own needs before the needs of others, desires to control the beliefs and behaviors of others (both inside and outside the church), and chases after glory, fame, power, wealth, and recognition before men, is the same degree to which the church presents Jesus as a Satanic Messiah to the watching world.
Don’t be shocked by such a statement. This is not new. Mankind has always tried to make God in our own image, and God has always been trying to reveal Himself to us as He really is. We have wanted a God of self-reliance who needs nothing and nobody, who glorifies Himself by destroying His enemies and forcing every molecule into submission to His will, and who requires that all people worship and adore Him lest they face the torment of His eternal wrath.
But in the face of this grotesque depiction of a manmade-God, God has been trying to show us since the very beginning in Genesis 1, that He is a God of light, love, hope, healing, mercy, grace, and forgiveness. As a result of God’s eternal love, He created human beings so that we might love Him in return. He wants our love, but knowing that He cannot force love, He woos us and invites us and calls us to Him, but we, being the worst of all possible lovers, slander His name, drag Him through the mud, tie Him up in a dark corner, and eventually even crucify Him on a barren hill. And all the while we declare that it is God Himself telling us to do these things.
It’s insanity. When God sends His messengers of grace and love to show us what He is really like, we get so upset that someone is threatening our idea of a God-who-looks-like-us, that in the name of God we kill the very messengers of God. This is what we have been doing since the very beginning. It’s what we’re doing today. It is also what we did in the days of Jesus when the “image of the invisible God” walked among us. Jesus was not despised, rejected, condemned, and ultimately killed by the sinners and so-called “enemies of God,” but by those who claimed to know God best.
The Messianic Secret
All of this better helps us understand what many Bible scholars call “the Messianic secret” in the Gospels. Have you ever noticed that as Jesus went around preaching and performing miracles, almost any time someone recognizes Him as the Messiah, He instructs them to keep quiet about this and tell nobody else? Since we all assume that Jesus came to declare Himself as the long-awaited Messiah, we get confused when Jesus prohibits people from telling others that He is the Messiah.
Why would Jesus want to keep His identity secret? Why does He want His role as the Messiah to remain a secret?
The reason, I believe, is because the Messiah the people wanted was not the Messiah Jesus came to be. The people of Israel wanted a warrior Messiah, one who would slay the enemies of Israel, overthrow the corrupt and pagan Roman Empire, slaughter the wicked, and set up Israel as the ruling nation over all the world.
The Messiah the people of Israel wanted was the same Messiah that Satan offered to Jesus in Matthew 4 and Luke 4.
Jesus knew that if word that “The Messiah has come!” spread around the countryside, many people would start little rebellions in their towns, believing that this was what the “Messiah” wanted them to do. Thousands of people would show up with swords in hands, ready to follow the “Messiah” into battle against Rome. Since this is not what Jesus wanted, and not at all the kind of Messiah He came to be, He told people to keep quiet about Him being the Messiah. He needed to show them what kind of Messiah He was before He would let them announce that the Messiah had come.
The Confession of Peter
We see this exact same scenario play out on a smaller scale in Matthew 16. Jesus asks His disciples who He is, and Peter, by the Holy Spirit, says that Jesus is the Messiah (Matt 16:16). Jesus praises him for this answer, but then immediately tells them not to let anybody else know (Matt 16:20). A few verses later we learn why. Jesus instructs His disciples that since He is the Messiah, He must go to Jerusalem to suffer and be killed.
But the disciples do not want to hear this. Peter, the one who just proclaimed that Jesus was the Messiah, pulls Jesus aside and tells Him to stop saying such things (Matt 16:22). The Messiah is to kill His enemies; not be killed by them. The Messiah is to rule and reign and conquer; not suffer and die. At least, this is what Peter thinks.
How does Jesus respond? He rebukes Peter as speaking for Satan (Matt 16:23). He says that the Messiah which Peter has in mind has nothing to do with the ways of God, but is based entirely on the ways of men. This is the Satanic Messiah.
Jesus then goes on to say that if we truly follow Him, we will follow Him into death and self-sacrifice (Matt 16:24-26), not into power, glory, self-advancement, and control over others.
The Spirit of the Anti-Christ
When we put all this together, then we also begin to understand the New Testament teaching about the anti-Christ.
If the Christ is the Suffering King who bleeds and dies for His enemies, who loves and accepts all, and who has no desire to control others but only to serve them, then any “Christ” which is used to defend war and violence toward enemies, to reject and divide from others, and to control and manipulate others for personal gain, is the anti-Christ.
Any portrayal of Christ that allows Jesus to accept the offers that Satan made to Jesus in Matthew 4 and Luke 4 is a false Christ, an anti-Christ, a Satanic Christ.
The Church and the Satanic Messiah
But has not the church accepted and adopted for ourselves the very things that Jesus rejected in Matthew 4 and Luke 4?
If so, are we not wanting, desiring, proclaiming, and following a false Christ, an anti-Christ … a Satanic Christ?
In many ways, the church has become just like Peter.
Though Peter understood that Jesus was the Christ, he did not understand what it meant for Jesus to be the Christ. The church has been making the same mistake ever since. The Messiah that Jesus rejected is often the Messiah that much of the church proclaims.
When we lust for power over others instead of giving power to others, we are following the Satanic Messiah.
When we desire to control the beliefs and behaviors of others instead of trusting that God will lead them as He leads us, we are following the Satanic Messiah.
When we call for the death of our enemies “in Jesus’ name” instead of seeking to serve our enemies in His name, we are following the Satanic Messiah.
When we chase after wealth, power, prestige, glory, and fame instead of choosing to love, give, bless, and forgive, we are following the Satanic Messiah.
Instead of helping people in hopeless situations, we give them authority figures who tell them what to do.
Instead of seeing that we are all brothers and sisters on this earth and that our struggle is not against flesh and blood, we create false divisions based on skin color, cultural traditions, religious preferences, and invisible geographical boundaries called “borders.”
Instead of seeking to be reconciled to our enemies, we seek revenge upon them by asking leaders to bomb them, kill them, or at the bare minimum, round them up and lock them away.
We cry out for freedom from oppression, not so that oppression can cease, but so that we ourselves can become the oppressors.
We vote in leaders who promise to change everything else so that we ourselves do not need to change.
The Satanic Messiah is alive and well, and I sometimes think he is worshipped and followed more than the one true Messiah, Jesus, our Suffering King.
Which Messiah do you worship, and why?
Which son is the true Prodigal Son in Luke 15:11-32?
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I wrote previously about Luke 15 here. This post looks primarily at the Prodigal Son.
Have you ever felt like the “older son” in the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32)? I have often felt this way, and so has my wife. Earlier this week, I met someone else online who felt the same way.
I think a lot of “good” Christian people relate to the words and feelings of the older son.
Relating to the Older Son
I mean, why is it that people who lived the rowdy life get more praise and glory in the church (and from God too, it seems) when they repent and return than those who lived respectable and responsible lives?
Even when someone doesn’t spend their lives on sex, drugs, and wild living, but simply chases after worldly things like money, success, and fame, it often seems like they are the ones who not only get rich but also get recognized by the church when they decide to “start living for God.” Of course, they still have their millions of dollars in the bank which they earned while chasing mammon …
Those of us who dutifully worked at home for our whole lives look at this and say, “What is going on? I have lived faithfully, worked hard, made wise choices, didn’t squander my money, didn’t chase after success and fame, was faithful to my spouse, sacrificed for my children, faithfully tithed, never drank, smoked, or did drugs, and served God as best as I could for my whole life, and what do I get for it? No parties. No book deals. No invitations to speak at conferences. Instead, we get broken ovens, broken computers, broken windows, broken air-conditioning units, and an ant infestation … all in the same week. (That is exactly what happened to me this past week. Seriously.)
When this happens, we who are the older brother say,
What gives, God?! You throw a party for him? I’ve served you my whole life. Where’s my party? I’m glad he’s home and all, but if this is the way you treat your faithful children, it’s no surprise you don’t have more … I’m just saying.
I have actually known people who have purposefully “gone off the deep end” just so they could get asked to share their testimony in church when they repented and returned. And it worked! If you want to become a Christian celebrity, go sin for a season, and then repent and write a book about how God brought you back from the brink of hell.
Is this what God wants from us? It certainly seems so from Luke 15:11-32.
Let’s take a look.
A Brief Summary of Luke 15:11-32
The younger son effectively slaps his dad in the face when he asks for his share of the inheritance. This is akin to saying, “I wish you were dead.”
If this sort of behavior weren’t shocking enough, the father says, “OK. I’ll die for you. Here’s your share of the inheritance.” That’s outlandish! When someone says, “I wish you were dead,” nobody responds by saying “OK. I’ll die.” But the father did.
Then the son adds insult to injury by leaving family and home and going to a far country (all big no-no’s in Middle Eastern culture), to waste his father’s hard-earned money on drinking, parties, and sex.
Eventually he wakes up in a pig sty and realizes life is terrible. So he returns home to beg for a position among the household servants.
When the father sees his son coming, he runs out to meet him. Again, the father shames himself with such behavior. Middle-eastern landowners did not run. Running was for servants. In running to his son, the father shows once again that he only cares about his son. He does not care about himself. He is willing to act like a servant for his son.
When the son sees this, he realizes his father will never let him be a servant. So he simply confesses his sin. Note that he is already forgiven before he confesses. Forgiveness doesn’t follow confession, but precedes it. There’s a big theological truth there, but let’s finish the story…
The father is so glad his son is home, he throws a party for this son that has returned.
And now comes the older brother. He (rightfully?!) wonders why a party is being thrown for this wayward son who shamed the family name, insulted their father, and squandered his inheritance.
The father says, “We’ve been together this whole time and everything that is left is yours. But my son, who was dead, is now alive. That deserves a party.”
End of story.
I go round and round on this story (that’s one of the points of Jesus’ stories … to make us think about them for weeks, months, and years). I, too, feel like the older son. So does my wife. You probably do too.
Have we misunderstood the Parable of the Prodigal Son?
At one point in my life, I thought maybe that this was a parable from Jesus which describes how people in this world work, but this is not how it is in heaven. I mean, after the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin, Jesus talks about the angels in heaving rejoicing (Luke 15:7, 10). But there is no such statement after the parable of the lost son. So maybe there isn’t a party in heaven for this son, but these parties only take place on earth where we have a broken sense of who should get glory.
Take church as an example. Who gets the glory, the honor, and the recognition in church? It is always the prodigal sons. The pastor gets some glory if he’s a good preacher, but if the pastor has a shady past AND he’s a good preacher, well, that’s the golden combination right there. Such a pastor will get more book deals and conference speaking invitations than he can deal with.
If this is the way of understanding this parable, then the point would be this: “Honor those who really deserve honor, which is those who are faithful, hard-working, and responsible. Don’t honor the users and abusers until they too have learned to become responsible people.”
This understanding must be rejected however.
First, it appeals to our religious pride (which is a big strike against it). Second, this understanding contradicts the message of the two preceding parables (even though the statement about the angels is not repeated), and Jesus seems to be building up to a point with the 1/100 from the sheep, the 1/10 from the coins, and the 1/2 with the sons, so this third parable is building to a crescendo, not seeking to make a contrast.
And in fact, it was this narrowing of focus from 1/100 to 1/10 to 1/2 that caused me to finally see what this parable is really about (at least, what I currently think it is really about).
The Missing Fourth Parable of Luke 15
The parable of the lost son is not really the last parable in the sequence.
And no, I don’t mean the parable of the shrewd steward in Luke 16, though that parable also fits within the thrust of what Jesus is teaching in these parables. The last parable in the sequence is an unspoken parable which fits between Luke 15:32 and Luke 16:1.
What parable is that?
It’s the parable of the 1.
Since Jesus went from 1/100 to 1/10, to 1/2, the next number in the sequence is 1/1, or simply the number 1. And who is the “1”? It’s the older son.
Note that the parable of the prodigal son ends with the father speaking to the older son, but we do not hear how the older son responds. We do not know if the older son goes into the party, or if he continues to sit outside in the dark throwing a little pity party of his own.
Heck, as the father said, everything now belongs to the older son anyway, so for all we know, maybe the older son threw a party for himself! And why shouldn’t he? When the father said, “Everything I have is yours,” it was almost as if the father was saying, “You want a party? Great! Let’s have one! Since you own everything, go ahead and throw a party!”
We just don’t know what the older son said or did.
Jesus doesn’t tell us.
Why not?
It’s for the same reason that the book of Jonah has no ending. (I am writing about this in my commentary on Jonah … the similarities between Jonah and the older son are striking!)
Why does the third parable in this sequence have no ending? Why do we not hear what the older son says? Why does Jesus leave us hanging as to what happened?
Because the rest of the story is ours. The 1/1, the number 1, is you and me. The parable of the Prodigal Son has no ending because we are invited to end it.
If we identify with the older son in Luke 15, then we are invited into the story to provide it’s ending.
The father is now speaking to us and saying, “I have been with you the whole time. Everything I have is yours. It was right that we should have a party for your brother, for he was dead and is now alive. … But now, the ball is your court. Are you going to come party and play or continue to sit outside?”
And that is not an easy question to answer.
I don’t want to party with those who have abused the grace of God. I don’t want to party with those who have spit in God’s face and wished that He was dead. I don’t want to party with those who live irresponsibly and ask me to pay for it. I don’t want to party with those who spend their days sleeping around, watching TV, doing drugs, smoking, drinking, and collecting their monthly checks, which they can only collect people like me work our butts off every week and mark hard decisions about how to spend our money. They don’t deserve a party; they’ve been partying! I deserve a party. I’ve never had one! Where’s my party! On the other side of the spectrum, how come that rich doctor gets both a million dollar bank account and the big fat book deal? He chased money his whole life, and now that he decides to give a small portion away to children in Africa, he gets the book deal? How about me? I never chased money, and have always given away a large chunk of my income to children in Africa (though it’s still less than what he gave), but I don’t get the book deal, the radio interviews, or the conference speaking invitations!!!
You see how this goes?
Probably, if you feel like the older son in Luke 15, this is the sort of conversations that goes through your head too…
So as one older son to another, let me invite you into what I have been thinking and feeling should be our response to our father about our wayward and returning brothers.
There are four things we older sons can learn from the Parable of the Prodigal Son
1. There is No Older Son
First, the hard and difficult one.
I believe that when all is said and done, we will discover that there is no such thing as an older son.
In other words, you and I think we’re older sons, but we’re not. We are just prodigal sons who have not yet woken up in the pig sty. Oh, we’re in the far country, and our wanton living looks different than it did for our younger brother, but we are lost sons nonetheless. Our particular form of wayward living has a decidedly “religious” bent. We don’t spend our inheritance on sex, drugs, and alcohol. No, we spend our energy and life on self-righteousness, condemnation of others, and feelings of superiority.
One of the main truths of Parable of the Prodigal Son is that everybody is a Lost Son. Some of us just haven’t woken up to it yet.
Furthermore, the “older son” is the worst kind of “lost son” because we think we have stayed with God our Father, when in reality, we have gone into the far country of religion, which allows us to look down our self-righteous noses at everybody else who is not good enough, smart enough, or disciplined enough to truly live for God.
Remember what Jesus said to some of His onlookers? “I have not come to call the righteous, but the unrighteous.” Here’s the translation:
You’re all unrighteous; some of you just don’t know it yet. Those of you who think you are righteous are the worst kind of “unrighteous” because you are only “religiously” righteous.
As I have written elsewhere, while most of us think that Jesus came to rescue us from sin, I think the gospels seem to pretty clearly show that Jesus is more concerned about those of us trapped in religion than He is about those trapped by sin.
Religion is an invisible prison. It makes us think we are okay with God, when we may actually be further from Him than the greatest of sinners. Sinners typically know they are sinning. Religious people never do.
Religion blinds us to the truth of who we really are.
Note that in the Gospels, the “sinners” are little more than a side note. The real focus of Jesus’ interaction is with the Pharisees and other religious leaders. Whenever sinners are mentioned, it is usually in the context of setting up a discussion between Jesus and the religious people. Why is this? Because Jesus came to rescue us from religion! Sin is not that big of a deal for God. But religion? Now there is something He’s concerned with!
I sometimes think God allows people to sin so much so that religious people can have their eyes opened to their own sin!
And that’s the deal with the older son. He thinks he is better than his brother because he stuck around with dad. But he’s not better necessarily, for he is judging and condemning his brother, whom the father has accepted and forgiven! The older son is a lost son as well, and he too has turned away from his father.
So the Parable of the Prodigal Son should be called the Parable of the Prodigal Sons. They’re both prodigal, but in different ways!
2. The First Two Prodigal Sons in History
This leads me to the second point from this parable, which we actually arrive at by going all the way back to the first brothers in history, to Cain and Abel.
In Genesis 4, Cain was older than Abel. Out of anger at God accepting the younger brother’s offering, Cain murdered his brother Abel.
Remember what Jesus taught elsewhere: If we hate our brother, this hate leads to murder (Matt 5:22). If the older son in the parable continues down the path of anger toward the younger son at how the father has accepted him, the older brother could end up in the same position as Cain. That warning is implied here.
Yet there is a warning for the younger son as well. In Genesis 4, after Abel is murdered, God says that the blood of Abel cried out to him from the ground. What did it cry out? We are not told, but we can imagine: It cries out for “Vengeance! Retaliation! Retribution! Justice!” But note that in Genesis 4, there is none of this from God. God does not exact vengeance, retaliation, retribution, or justice. No, he seems to bless Cain. This doesn’t seem very fair either! And now the roles are reversed. Now it is the younger son who feels slighted by God!
One wonders if, after the party was over in Luke 15, as the younger son hung around the house and watched everything go to the older son, if the younger son ever started to feel slighted. Maybe he began to complain that the only reason he left home in the first place is because his older brother always looked down on him, and was better than him at everything. Maybe he began to argue that since he cashed out so early, some of the future profits of the farm should go to him instead of to the older brother if the inheritance between the two was to be truly fair. We don’t know what the younger brother might have said or felt in the future, but we do know human nature. If the younger brother was anything like the rest of us, he probably found reason to be jealous of his older brother, to complain against him, maybe even to blame his older brother for his own poor choices, and maybe even to cry out to his father for equality, fairness, and justice. Just like Abel.
But such a cry for vengeance and justice is not the cry of God. God has His own version of justice, which seems not at all just and fair to humans, because God’s justice is based on forgiveness, mercy, and love. This is why Jesus came and why Jesus died. And this is why the author of Hebrews says that Jesus brought a new covenant, which speaks a better word than the blood of Abel (Hebrews 12:24). Abel’s blood cried out “Vengeance! Justice!” The blood of Jesus cries out “Forgiveness! Grace! Mercy!”
So Jesus, in telling a story about two brothers and alluding to the story of the first two brothers in history, is telling us all that we are both the older brother and the younger brother, and are feelings toward one another have nothing to do with what we have or haven’t done, or how we have been slighted or overlooked, insulted or abused. No, the story is all about forgiveness, grace, and mercy.
Both the older son and the younger son need to see how God has graciously forgiven and accepted each of them, one for his many sins and the other for his religious hypocrisy, and both can thank the father for His love, and then show each other the same love, grace, mercy, and forgiveness in return.
It is only when we come to this recognition that the party begins for us too.
This leads us to the third point about this parable.
3. Parties are only for Screw-Ups
Notice that parties are never thrown for the rebellious sinners or for the religiously self-righteous. Neither one gets a party as long as they are caught these two types of traps.
The younger son only gets his party when he realizes how much he has screwed up and how much his father loves and forgives him. That’s when the party begins for him.
Logically, then, the older son will get a party too … when he realizes how much he has screwed up and how much his father loves and forgives him too. That’s when the party will begin for him.
As I have written so many other places before: Death always precedes resurrection. Until there is death, there can be no resurrection.
The younger son died and has risen to new life. The older son has yet to recognize he is dead. But when he does, there will be life for him as well.
If, like me, you feel like the older son, then our prayer should be this: “Father, show me how I am the younger son. Let me see the pig sty I am living in.” Only then will the party begin.
However, it is possible that we may never fully come to this realization. We may never get the party. Or, more likely, we may never feel like we get the party. In that case, here is what will happen:
We will reach the end of this life and die. (There’s our death). And we will arrive in heaven and stand before Jesus, and I sort of imagine myself saying something like this: “Jeremy Myers reporting for duty, Sir! I have lived my whole life for you and for your glory, and now I am ready to live my eternal life in your service! What are my responsibilities in the eternal kingdom so that I might begin to serve you forever?”
And, based on what I read in this story, I think Jesus will look at me with a half-smile on his face and a twinkle in his eye and say, “Since you have been faithful in a few things, I will make you faithful in many. Do I ever have an assignment for you! Come with me.”
And he will lead me down the steps of the throne room, and to a secret door behind the throne. He will invite me to open the door, and as I step through, all my friends and family from this life will jump out and shout, “SURPRISE! Welcome home!” Someone will throw a robe on my back, put shoes on my feet, and Jesus Himself will put a glass of wine in my hand and will smile and say, “Duty? Responsibilities? Service? There’s none of that here. Now is the time to party, and this one is your honor, for you were dead and are now alive again.”
So even if you and I don’t get the party in this life, there’s gonna be a party for us too.
In the meantime, we can continue doing what only we can do.
If that’s serving to the best of your ability, and working hard, and living responsibly, and making wise choices, and living on a budget, that is wonderful. Just don’t look down on others who seem to not be able to live up to such standards (for whatever reason).
4. The Father Loves BOTH Sons – But the Older Son Gets Something Special
Here is the fourth point, which in my opinion is and most beautiful of all … note that in the end the only thing the father has for the older son is the only thing he has for the younger son – pure, unconditional love. God does not love you any more or any less than the younger sons who are out there. He loves and accepts you both the same.
Nevertheless, there is something you have with God that the younger son does not. It does not make you better, or more special, or anything of the sort. But there are benefits to living the way you do, and in the parable the father reminds the older son about one of them.
Note that the father says to the older son, “You are always with me.”
When it comes right down to it, why have you lived responsibly? Why do you try to make smart choices with your money, time, and resources? Why do you try to always please God and do what He wants? I think, if you are honest with yourself, it is because you love God and want to be with God.
And what does the father say to the older son? “You are always with me.”
Do you hear the tenderness? The love?
Do you hear the relationship?
The younger son went away to a far country. The younger son lost year upon year upon year of relationship with his father. We don’t know how many years pass between Luke 15:13-15, but for the son to spend all his money and for a severe famine to come upon the land, we are looking at probably at least a decade. Typically, a severe famine takes several years to develop. But during all that time, the father and the older son enjoyed conversation over everyday meals, working side-by-side in the fields, laughing at each other’s jokes, and supporting each other through the trials of life. There was never any party, but ten years of memories with his father are probably worth more than the most splendid party of all time.
People who live large portions of their lives apart from God still get the same love and forgiveness from God that we all get. They still get the party. But they don’t get the memories. They don’t get the history. They don’t get the fellowship that comes only with building a relationship through time and trials. And this fellowship is worth more than any amount of parties.
Think about it. If you could rewrite your life, which would you choose: First, you could go with what you have now, and the relationship with God you have now through years of sticking by Him, and struggling with questions and fears, and fighting off temptation, and making wise decisions (that sometimes turn out to be unwise), and persevering through temptation, and learning what you know about God, Scripture, and theology, but ending up as a relative “nobody” in the Churchianity.
Or, you could take all that and trade it for the story of someone who slept around, did drugs, got divorced four times, murdered somebody, landed in jail, found Jesus, got paroled, and then became an internally known Christian author and conference speaker even though they lived most of their life with no thought for Jesus. Would you trade your life for this one? I wouldn’t.
My life is not glamorous or glorious. It doesn’t have the ups or the downs or the highs and lows of other people’s lives. I often get jealous of the people who “strike it rich” with book deals and conference invitations, who get the parties and the fame because they were bad but now they found Jesus, but then I look back over my life, at how far Jesus and I have walked together, what we have been through together, and how we have suffered, and grieved, and rejoiced, and laughed together, and I realize that no book deal, bank account, or applause from men could ever substitute for what I have with Jesus. And I believe the richness of our friendship will only increase as I continue to walk with Him through the thick and thin of life.
If you feel like the older son in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, I believe the same is true of you. You see things and know things that few other people know, and this is due, in large part, to the fact that you have stuck with Jesus when many others have wandered off to the far country. Keep hanging out at home with your father. It may not be glamorous, but it’s good.
Note: A slightly different version of this post appeared at the All About Eve blog? There is a conference in Portland this October called “All About Eve,” and I am writing a weekly post for the 40 weeks leading up to this conference. The idea is that a modern-day Eve is having correspondence with me and a few other authors about her journey away from “Churchianity.” Click the link above to go read some of our “correspondence.”
Good fruits are not the good works we perform
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In Matthew 7:16, Jesus says that to recognize false prophets, “you will know them by their fruits.” In Matthew 7:20 He says something similar: “By their fruits you will know them.” Many teachers and Bible scholars say that Jesus is referring to a person’s good works as the indication of whether or not they are a false prophet, or more generically, whether or not they are even a Christian.
Good Fruit Does Not Equal Good Works
Two things can be said against the idea that good fruit refers to good works in Matthew 7:16-20.
First, in the immediately following passage (Matthew 7:21-23), Jesus talks about a group of people who have all the good works, but they do not know Jesus. They are so “good” in the good works department, they prophesy in His name, cast out demons, and perform many miracles.” Surely, if good are “fruit” then these people qualify. But they do not qualify. Jesus says they practice lawlessness.
So what does Jesus mean when He talks about knowing someone by their fruit? A few chapters later He tells us. In Matthew 12, Jesus once again brings up the topic of good fruit from good trees, and this time, He specifically states that the good fruit is the good words that proceeds out of person’s mouth, while bad fruit is the bad words that come out of their mouths. So by Jesus’ own words, the “fruit” He has in mind is not the good works that a person does or doesn’t perform, but rather, the words that come out of their mouths. Jesus emphasizes this again a little white later in Matthew 15:18 when He says that those things which come out of the mouth proceed from the heart (cf. Luke 6:45). This fits right in line with what James, the brother of Jesus, writes in James 3 about the tongue.
Christian “rules” for Proper Speaking
So what does it mean to have good fruit come out of our mouths? Strangely, we Christians have seemed to reduce this teaching of Jesus down to a few guidelines:
- Christians cannot use curse words or vulgar language.
- Christians should try to include verses or references to God and Jesus in their discussions whenever possible.
- Christians should always stick up for the truth, no matter the cost—even if what we say sounds hurtful and hateful. These three rules come from questionable understandings of Ephesians 4:29, Psalm 118, and Ephesians 4:15.
In many Christian circles, as long as we “Stand for truth no matter what!”, season our speech with Bible quotes, and don’t say “the S-word” or worse yet, “the F-word”, we are good to go.
Yet we turn around and gossip at church about the pastor’s wife. We get online and say the meanest things imaginable to people we do not know on Twitter and Facebook. We curse entire groups of people to hell because we don’t like their religion (e.g., Muslims), their lifestyle (e.g., Gays), or their politics (e.g., Liberals). We speak harshly to our wife, rudely to our children, and arrogantly to our “unsaved” neighbor. With our words, we undercut our boss at work, denounce our President as the anti-Christ, and tell police officers that they are racist pigs.
I sometimes think Christianity would be far better off if we just all shut our mouths.
How to truly have “Good Fruit”
In an age when insults are so normal we think “roasts” are cool, and cyber-bullying occurs so often we barely take notice when suicides are the result, followers of Jesus need to be a rock of love in the swiftly-moving current of curses, providing voices of hope, healing, restoration, and acceptance that have almost never been found in the church.
Good fruit proceeds out of a mouth which overflows from a heart filled with love for others.
So the next time you tap out that perfect insult on Twitter, or come up with the witty rebuttal by email, or simply want to lash out in unchecked anger at the false teacher (in your opinion) on Facebook, take a deep breath, move your finger away from the “Send” button, and remember those famous words from Thumper in the movie Bambi: “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothin’ at all.”
This post is part of the April 2015 Synchroblog. Here is a list of the other contributors. Go check them out!
- Mark Votava – The Fruit of Non Violent Communication
- Carol Kuniholm – Fruit That Will Last
- Clara Ogwuazor Mbamalu – The Importance of Success By Bearing Fruit
- Glenn Hager – Juicy Fruit
- Done With Religion – Can We Produce The Fruit of the Spirit?
- Pastor FedEx – How Do We Bear Fruit?
- K.W. Leslie – New Fruit!
- Leah Sophia – Stewardship Trilogy
- Paul Metler – Bearing Fruit
If you love your church service, don’t watch this video.
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She Would Not Have Had An Abortion If She Had Not Been A Christian
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This is a guest post by Michael Thompson. Michael currently works at Denso Manufacturing TN as Expatriate Support. He is married to his wife Rachel, and they have two children (two and four-year-old). Michael also plays keyboard for Hope Church in Knoxville TN.
Feel free to connect with Michael on Facebook.
If you would like to write a Guest Post, begin by reading the Guest Blogger Guidelines.
When my wife started attending college her father served as an elder in their church. Even though she was very involved with her youth group and loved her church, she didn’t feel comfortable talking about sexual struggles with anyone at church or her family. These subjects were considered inappropriate for discussion.
At some point Rachel started dating the wrong person. To make a long story short, they had sex and she got pregnant.
Her family was prominent at church so her father’s reputation was at stake. Since she didn’t know how anyone would take it, she told no one. The only person who knew was her boyfriend, so he became the only influence over her. Should she have the baby, give it up for adoption, or have an abortion? She had never faced a decision of this magnitude and she was doing it alone and terrified.
If she had the baby her dad would be disgraced and be forced to step down as an elder. In her panic, she felt certain that her church would be ashamed of her and her father would reject her, whether it was true or not. When you’re faced with a big decision and you’re alone you become very susceptible to suggestion, and her boyfriend was telling her an abortion would fix everything.
She waited outside the abortion clinic, in tears, still not sure if she wanted to go inside. Her boyfriend pressed further and Rachel went inside, alone, while he waited outside in the car. When Rachel got inside she saw other girls also in tears. All the other girls had a mother, father, or friend to hold their hand. Rachel sat alone in tears, waiting for a doctor to kill the baby growing inside of her so her friends, family, and church would not learn of this and reject her.
There was another teenage girl at her church who also got pregnant before all this happened. Rachel saw how people talked about her when she wasn’t there and how people started treating her differently when she started to show. Rachel didn’t want that shame for herself or her father. That thought, mixed with her boyfriend’s venom, convinced her to have the abortion.
Rachel always said: “If I wasn’t a Christian I never would have had an abortion.”
It’s a tragedy that any girl should feel this way, and that a child was not given the chance to live because of it.
Rachel and I want all Christians to treat pregnant girls with nothing but the love of Christ.
The truth of Scripture that sex is reserved for marriage should be upheld, but if the only time this comes up in church is in the form of shaming the girl who made the mistake, we could be paving the way for the next Rachel to have an abortion.
It is time to bring to light that which has remained in the darkness. It is time to love those who live in shame and fear.
If you learn that a girl in your church got pregnant, love that person like you’ve never loved anyone before. They need it now more than ever. You’re not approving of the sin by loving them. The incredibly difficult life change and loss of social life and personal time will be punishment enough for them. They don’t need your rejection on top of it.
We also want girls to understand that the world will not end if people know about your mistake. Finding out that you’re pregnant is terrifying, but it’s incredibly unlikely that you’ll be met with an angry mob if people find out. You need someone to support you through this. You made the decision to have sex, you got pregnant, and your life is going to change. You will not look back several years from now and regret having your child. That child is going to be the joy of your life. You will, however, forever regret an abortion. The pain from the decision to abort is so much greater than the work and inconvenience of becoming a mother. It’s going to be very difficult for you, but you are stronger than you think. Reach out for strength from your church family and your immediate family and get through this.
I’m Becoming a Gay Muslim
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Yes, it was sort of a surprise to me too. I never really imagined that I might be gay, and as I have an aversion to religion in general, I never really wanted to be Muslim either.
But as I seek to follow Jesus, I have realized that Jesus leads us into places that others fear to tread. If we really follow Jesus, He leads us to love those that many of the religious people in our culture hate.
As I listened at what is coming from many of the Christian pulpits and Christian radio stations of our country, it seemed that the two groups of people who get condemned the most are Muslims and Gays.
That is when I felt Jesus leading me to become a Muslim. And Gay.
I’ve talked with my wife about this. We’re still figuring out how the Gay part is going to work. As for the Muslim part, she just asks that I don’t demand that she wear a Hijab. I told her I might have to demand it if I end up agreeing with Sharia law.
But wherever Jesus leads, I must follow.
I never imagined Jesus would lead me to become a Gay Muslim. But He loves these groups and so do I.
I think my main challenge at this point is that, like Christians, many Muslims are pretty antagonistic toward the Gay lifestyle as well. I cannot say I have ever heard of a Gay Muslim before. So maybe one of the things Jesus wants me to do is bring love for the Gay community into the Muslim community. I believe this will be pretty easy for me to do since I am a white, western American who grew up in a Christian home.
Anyway, I’m off to buy a Qu’ran! And then I’m up to Portland to hang out in a Gay bar.
Oh, and in case you’re wondering … the answer is YES! (Hint: Today is April 1)
Did the Death of Jesus Appease an Angry God?
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In many Christian circles, when people think about why Jesus died on the cross, the following is the basic logic that many believe:
God is infinitely holy and righteous. As such, any sin against God is an infinite offense. Therefore, an infinite sacrifice is required to cover an infinite offense. Because humans are sinners, we deserve eternal punishment for our eternal offense. But God wanted to show mercy to us, and so He sent Jesus to die in our place. Since Jesus is God, the death of Jesus is an infinite sacrifice, which is therefore sufficient to cover the infinite offense of sin.
Though different authors, pastors, and teachers will explain the death of Jesus in different ways, this is the basic outline many will use. I used to teach and write about the death of Jesus in this same way, and in fact, many of the posts and sermons which you can find on this blog will contain this exact sort of theological explanation about the death of Jesus.
But let us look a little deeper at what this sort of explanation says about God, sin, righteousness, and the death of Jesus.
The logic of the argument above basically teaches that God gets so worked up over sin, He wants to burn forever and ever those who commit any sin. And since James 2:10 says that even one sin makes us guilty, it doesn’t even matter if we only commit “small” sins. Sin is sin, and even “small” sins deserve eternal hell fire. So if you get mad at your neighbor when his dog digs through your trash, or if you are not completely honest with your boss about why you were ten minutes late for work, God’s justice demands that you get punished the same as if you were serial rapist and mass murderer.
Though this seems unjust, people explain that it only seems unjust because we are sinful human beings and think that some sins are not as bad as others. We are told that since God is infinitely holy and righteous, all sins, no matter how small, are an infinite offense to His holiness. So even getting angry at our neighbor’s dog or lying about why we were 10 minutes late for work is an infinite affront to the righteousness of God, and therefore, deserving of infinite punishment.
But … things don’t seem so cut and dry when we rephrase the question a bit …
Look what happens when we turn the question around:
So it is wrong for me to get angry at my neighbor when his dog digs through my trash, but it is perfectly righteous for God to be eternally angry at me for getting angry at my neighbor? And while I vent my anger by muttering under my breath while I pick up the garbage in my lawn, God gets over His anger … never … while I burn for all eternity in hell?
When the question is presented this way, this sort of god just doesn’t seem very godly. Or at least … this sort of god doesn’t look at all like Jesus.
The typical response, of course, is that this why God sent Jesus. God didn’t actually want humanity to burn forever for muttering under our breath at our neighbor, but His justice demanded that He behave like this. God was sort of captive to His own righteous justice.
But since He loves us so much, He sent His Son Jesus to suffer and die in our place, so that all that “righteous” rage can get poured out on Jesus instead of on us.
Again, this is exactly what I used to believe and teach.
But in recent years, I have begun to have doubts that this is exactly what happened (Get my series of posts on the death and resurrection of Jesus to learn more.)
Problems with the Traditional Explanation of the Death of Jesus
Does it make sense to think that Jesus came to rescue us from God? Does it make sense to think that God sent Jesus to rescue us from Himself? Or at least, from some aspect of Himself?
IF so, God now appears rather schizophrenic. Does God want to kill us for all eternity or love us for all eternity? The theological explanation above makes it sound as if He wants both.
Furthermore, what good does it do for God to pour out His wrath upon the innocent victim, Jesus?
Let us say that after I get angry at my neighbor for letting his dog spread garbage all over my lawn, I go down the street and set a different neighbor’s house on fire. Does my act of arson do anything to relieve my anger at the first neighbor or his dog? No! Setting an innocent third party’s house on fire does not alleviate my wrath toward the guilty party at all. This would still be true if the innocent neighbor noticed my anger at my neighbor’s dog, and said, “Don’t be angry at him; instead, come burn my house down.”
I would look at him like he is crazy. How would burning down his house help me at all? Yet this is what we think happened with God’s wrath in the killing of Jesus. Somehow, though God was angry at us, His anger was appeased by letting us kill His Son? I just don’t see how that would help the situation.
But there are other problems beyond this.
God’s love and grace for us is supposedly unconditional. But if He couldn’t actually show us love and grace unless Jesus first came to die on the cross in our place, then isn’t that a condition on His love and grace? It seems that if Jesus had not come to die, then according to this traditional understanding of the death of Jesus, God could not have shown His “unconditional” love and grace for us.
Furthermore, people say that God had to pour out His wrath against sin upon somebody (either us or Jesus) in order to satisfy his justice. Yet then we say that God did this out of His mercy.
But this is logically impossible.
By definition, mercy and justice are mutually exclusive. If a man robs a bank and then goes to prison for 20 years, this might be considered justice. But what if, after the crook spends 20 years in prison, the judge meets him at the prison gates and says, “Aren’t I merciful to let you out of prison today?” The recently-freed man would say, “You’re not merciful. I just spent 20 years in jail. Mercy would have been setting me free 20 years ago.” You see? If justice is satisfied, there is no need for mercy. And if one chooses to show mercy, then by definition, they cannot also demand justice. Yet if God poured out His wrath upon Jesus to satisfy His justice, then God is a just God, but He is not merciful. On the other hand, if God decides to show mercy to humankind, then, by definition, He cannot demand justice, even justice upon Jesus.
I could go on and on about this, but here’s the point: There are numerous flaws with the idea that the death of Jesus paid the penalty for our sins or satisfied the wrath of God.
Logically and theologically, it just doesn’t work.
But there is a bigger problem still …
Jesus: The Pagan Sacrifice to God
A short while back I wrote a post about a few things Christians can learn from Pagans. A guy on Facebook blew up about this, leaving comment after comment after comment about how ridiculous it was to suggest such a thing. He argued that Paganism has infiltrated Christianity in numerous ways, and we must root out and destroy all such pagan influences, traditions, and customs.
I know where he is coming from, but I just think that (1) his position is logically, theologically, and realistically impossible, and (2) the most pagan things about Christianity are found at the core beliefs and behaviors of many Christians — especially those who are on the war-path against pagan influences.
In my experience, for example, those who are most concerned with getting rid of all pagan influences in Christianity, are also those who tend to be the most judgmental and critical toward those Christians who still incorporate some of those pagan traditions and customs. But which is more pagan: putting tinsel on a Christmas tree or judging and condemning the people who do?
What does all this have to do with the death of Jesus?
At the core of much of Christian theology is the pagan idea that God requires blood sacrifice to forgive sins. The vast majority of Christians believe that God hates sin so much that He is filled with wrath toward sin.
He hates sin so much, we are told, that He cannot even be in sin’s presence.
But, we are told, God’s wrath toward sin can be appeased with blood. God needs someone to pay for the eternal offense of sin against Him and His holiness. Thankfully, as the theory goes, just when God was demanding that all of us wretched sinners open our veins for God to appease His wrath toward us, Jesus stepped up and said, “I’ll take the bullet. I’ll die for them all.”
So Jesus came to earth, died as a sacrifice for our sins, poured out His blood upon God’s heavenly altar, and in so doing, appeased the wrath of God.
When God looks at us now, He doesn’t see sin; He sees Jesus. Therefore, instead of wanting to incinerate us, God can now love us.
Again, this is the basic sort of theology we hear in most churches about the death of Jesus and why He had to come and suffer and die.
But do you know where this entire theology comes from? Not from Scripture, but from Paganism!
Almost every religion in the world has the idea that the gods are mad at us for our sin, and we must do things to appease their wrath. We must sacrifice our goats, and make vows to visit holy places, and commit to treating people with more love (or commit to killing certain “enemies” of the gods).
When our sin is really serious, the gods want blood, whether it is our own blood, or the blood from someone in our family. As a last resort, the gods may accept the blood of a valuable animal.
And yes, I know that the most popular way of reading the Old Testament sees support for this idea in the Mosaic Law. When most people read the laws that are recorded in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, they see an angry god who wants blood.
But this sacrificial way of reading the Bible is influenced heavily by paganism, and is not at all what Scripture teaches.
When the Pentateuch is understood in its entirety, it appears that the message of the Pentateuch is that God was never angry at people and never wanted sacrifices and offerings, but wanted instead a people for Himself who lived by faith in God and with justice and mercy before a watching world. See Sailhamer’s magnum opus for more on this.
Furthermore, when the Israelite prophets come on the scene, nearly all of them decry and condemn the sacrificial system as not at all reflecting what was in God’s heart. Jeremiah says that God never commanded his people to offer sacrifices and burnt offerings (Jeremiah 7:22-23). Amos says that God hated their religious festivals and burnt offerings (Amos 5:21-24). Micah points out that God doesn’t need thousands of rams and rivers of oil, and definitely not a family’s firstborn son. Instead, God wants justice, kindness, and humility (Micah 6:6-8). God is not delighted with sacrifices and offerings, says the Psalmist, but with a broken and contrite spirit (Psalm 51:16-17).
So it is no surprise, when Jesus comes on the scene, that He tells people through His words and His actions that God is not angry with His people, that He does not want more sacrifices and offerings, that He loves, accepts, and freely forgives all people, no matter what.
While Jesus did proclaim freedom from sin, He did not do so on the basis of the sacrificial system (or even His own sacrifice), but simply on the basis of God’s limitless love, mercy, grace, and forgiveness.
God forgives, simply because He is a loving and forgiving God. End of story. No sacrifices, offerings, blood, or death are required.
So Why Then Did Jesus Die?
When Jesus went to the cross, He did not die for God.
There are numerous reasons Jesus died. One was to put death to death. Another was to defeat sin and the devil (cf. Heb 2:14-18; Rom 6:4-13; 1 Cor 15:22, 45). But one reason I want to focus on here is that Jesus wanted to expose the lie of the scapegoat: the religious lie that an innocent victim must die for sin.
To put it bluntly, Jesus died to expose religion as a big, fat, satanic lie.
In His death, Jesus put to death the religious requirement of death. In His death, Jesus exposed the emptiness of the sacrificial system for what it was: a form of satanic enslavement by which humans think they are appeasing God for that which He had already forgiven them for.
Religion says: God is angry with you, but will forgive you if you do great things for Him and offer valuable things to Him. By going to the cross under the condemnation of religion, and then being raised again to new life, Jesus exposed the powerful and satanic lie of religion.
Through His death and resurrection, Jesus announced loud and clear that God is not angry at sin, and that just as sin, death, and the devil have no hold on God, they have no hold on us either.
God is not angry at sin. If He’s angry at anything, He is angry at enslavement. God wants us to live free.
And while sin does enslave, the greatest slaver of all is religion.
As such, God wants to free us from religion more than He wants to free us from sin. This is what Jesus proclaimed through His life, death, and resurrection.
The Resurrection of Religion
Sadly, within a few short years of Jesus’ ascension, Christians returned once again the sacrificial mentality of religion. They took the satanic desire to appease God through sacrifice and applied it to Jesus Christ, saying that Jesus was the perfect sacrifice which appeased God once and for all. And ever since this shift was made under Augustine and Anselm, Christianity has been little more than another world religion which seeks to appease God through good behavior and personal sacrifice.
So if people truly want to rid themselves of all things pagan, they need to start not with their holidays and traditions, but with their theology.
Most specifically, we need to rid ourselves of this idea that God is angry at us for our sin and needs to be appeased through blood and sacrifice. This has never been true of God and is not true today.
The sacrificial reading of Scripture is a pagan reading of Scripture, which does not represent the heart of God, but represents a pagan view of God in which God is angry and must be appeased through sacrifice and human merit.
In contrast to this, the God revealed in Jesus Christ is not angry, but loves freely and forgives freely. No ifs, ands, or buts. The death of Jesus did not secure for us the forgiveness of God. God already forgave us freely by His grace.
Now, some of you might be thinking about Hebrews 9:22. But this post is already WAY too long, and an examination of Hebrews 9:22 deservers a post of its own.
The cross of Jesus is CENTRAL to everything!
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Are Christians infatuated with the Blood of Jesus?
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Have you ever listened to some of the songs Christians sing around Easter? We seem to be infatuated with the blood of Jesus.
Take this song as an example:
There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel’s veins;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.
Or this one:
Have you been to Jesus for the cleansing power?
Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?
Are you fully trusting in His grace this hour?
Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?Refrain:
Are you washed in the blood,
In the soul cleansing blood of the Lamb?
Are your garments spotless? Are they white as snow?
Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?
Then there is this song:
What can wash away my sin?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
What can make me whole again?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.Refrain:
O precious is the flow that makes me white as snow;
No other fount I know; nothing but the blood of Jesus.
These songs have images of a bloody river and a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel’s veins. Yikes! Some Christian songs sound more like a gruesome and gory scene from a Freddy Krueger movie than from something having to do with Jesus Christ.
And what’s this about washing in the blood of the lamb? That sounds an awful lot like some ancient Pagan sacrificial rituals where worshippers pour the blood of bulls, goats, and lambs over their heads.
Is this really what God wants from us? To take baths in the blood of Jesus? To swim in rivers of blood and dance around in bloody fountains?
What is the deal with the blood of Jesus?
I fully admit that I used to focus a lot on the blood of Jesus as well. In fact, I once preached a whole sermon about the painful trial and bloody ordeal that Jesus experienced on the cross.
But in recent years, I have begun to wonder if all this emphasis on the blood of Jesus, including His suffering and pain on the cross, is what Jesus really wants.
Does Jesus want us to focus on the blood He spilled and the pain He endured on the cross?
I used to think so, but in recent years, I am not so sure.
Reservations About the Blood of Jesus
One of the first things that made me wonder about our infatuation with they blood of Jesus is the realization that the Gospels don’t say much about the blood of Jesus. Similarly, there is hardly any mention about His suffering and pain. For the most part, the Gospel accounts of the crucifixion of Jesus are fairly benign.
They report the details of what happened and what was said, but they report almost nothing about the gruesome nature of crucifixion or the pain that Jesus must have endured.
Then more recently, I read the following section from Darin Hufford’s book The Misunderstood God:
We have scientifically based teachings that walk us through the pain and suffering Jesus must have gone through during the Crucifixion. We make movies that dramatize the flogging and beating He underwent on our behalf. At Easter we put together pageants and invite outsiders to come and watch Jesus get the tar beat out of Him for their sins.
We have come to believe that it is God’s heart to hold this moment over the heads of His children in an effort to get them to obey the rules. If we are graphically reminded of the pain and suffering He underwent on our behalf, perhaps we will do our best to repay Him by living a right life.
The God I grew up with was like the mother who constantly reminded her kids of the pain she went through during childbirth in an effort to guilt them into doing what she wants. … Sadly, the gospel message has been affected by this way of thinking. “God loves you; come to Him,” has been turned into, “Jesus got a major beating that was meant for you, so come to Him.”
… Imagine if a man broke into my home and was planning on killing my wife and children, but I convinced him to take my life instead of theirs. If he let them escape and then proceeded to take me into a back room and film himself torturing me for hours until finally taking my life, do you think I would ever want my family to see that videotape? Absolutely not! I would want them to remember my life and my love for them. There is nothing inside me that would ever want them to view the pain I underwent to save their lives. That would break their hearts.
This is how God feels when we reenact the stations of the cross in an effort to riddle people with guilt and condemnation. It doesn’t motivate; it exasperates. This is not what love desires (pp. 63, 67).
He makes a good point, doesn’t he?
One could argue, I suppose, that the Gospel authors barely mentioned the blood and gore because the original readers of the Gospel accounts were quite familiar with the agonizing nature of crucifixion, and since most of us are not, the details need to be presented. To some degree, I hold to this argument myself, which is why I continue to keep online my study about the pain of crucifixion.
Yet at the same time, if we want to truly understand what the Gospel authors were saying, we need to do our best to let them provide the details they think are important, and try to set aside the rest as nothing more than interesting historical side notes.
And when it comes to understanding what the Gospel authors are saying about the crucifixion of Jesus, they have chosen to focus very little of their attention on the suffering and blood of Jesus.
So if we want to understand the Gospels, we should do the same.
The blood of Jesus is not that big of a deal in the Gospels, nor is His pain and suffering.
Jesus went to the cross out of love, to rescue us from sin, death, and devil, but since the Gospels (or the rest of the New Testament for that matter) don’t place much emphasis on the blood of Jesus or the pain He went through on the cross, maybe we shouldn’t either…
The cross of Jesus is CENTRAL to everything!
Transform your life and theology by focusing on the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus:
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