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Salvation by Crucifixion

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salvation by crucifixionI know that when authors and publishers send out “review copies” of their books, they are hoping for positive reviews. As an author myself, I know how much negative reviews hurt. So whenever someone sends me a review copy of their book, I try my absolute hardest to write about everything good in the book, while downplaying or ignoring anything I didn’t like. 

So when Christian Focus Publications recently sent me a copy of Salvation by Crucifixion by Philip Graham Ryken, I wanted to like it. I really, really did. Especially since I am a big proponent of “Cruciform theology” which places the cross of Jesus at the center of all theological thinking and Christian living. I hoped that this book by Ryken would emphasize and reiterate how critical the cross is for our thinking about God, Scripture, the church, and our role in this world. 

I was severely disappointed. 

I will explain why, but first, let me point out the positives of  Salvation by Crucifixion.

Positives of Salvation by Crucifixion

First, I loved the emphasis on the cross. Every page had something to say about the cross, and clearly defends the idea that the cross is central to Christian life and Christian thinking. 

It is when Christians fail to recognize the centrality of the cross that we fail to live as Christians and as the church in this world. Ryken did a decent job of pointing this out in Salvation by Crucifixion. 

I was also glad to see Ryken describe the brutality of crucifixion (p. 76). I have written about this myself, and find it helpful to remember the pain and suffering that Jesus went through out of His great love for us. 

Finally, I really appreciated his explanation of how the practice of Roman crucifixion was reserved for the worst criminals of Roman civilization (p. 30-31). As I have mentioned frequently in the book I am currently writing, it is as a “criminal” on a cross that Jesus most clearly reveals God to us. Ryken didn’t take the imagery that far, but I was glad to see that he emphasized that crucifixion was for criminals. 

So, what then did I not like about the book?

Negatives of Salvation by Crucifixion

I will try to be brief and not overly critical. 

My bottom line disagreement is that Ryken is writing from a Reformed/Calvinistic perspective. As such, I would have loved this book 15 years ago when I was a Reformed 5-point hyper Calvinist. But no longer. I found myself disagreeing (sometimes quite strongly) with something Ryken wrote on nearly every page. 

For example, his use of the word “salvation” is murky. Very rarely (probably never) does the Bible use the word “salvation” as an exact synonym for “eternal life.” But this seems to be the way Ryken used the word throughout his book. 

Second, though there were places where Ryken said that “salvation” was by faith alone in Jesus Christ (that’s good!), he then went on to add various conditions to faith. Just one example: One page 25, he writes that we must not only believe in Jesus, but we must believe “that Jesus died for his or her sins on the cross … accept that Jesus Christ lived a real life and died a real death … acknowledge that you, personally, are a sinner … confess that  you need Jesus Christ to save you … believe that Jesus died on that splintery old cross … accept that Jesus Christ is not merely a legend.” He want on to tell a story about a woman who apparently believed this (or most of it?), but didn’t realize that the cross had relevance for her own life, and therefore (according to him) didn’t have eternal life (p. 26). 

christus victor atonementThird, I am not a fan of the Penal Substitutionary theory of the atonement. I am a proponent of the Christus Victor view. Ryken’s book is overflowing with imagery, language, and themes from the Penal Substutionary view, and in my opinion, this perspective damages our view of God and what Jesus actually accomplished on the cross. This topic is so large, I cannot say anything else about it here. 

Fourth, there is a strange statement on page 21 that God “purposed” the crucifixion (what does this mean), and then two paragraphs later that “the crucifixion of Jesus Christ was the most evil deed ever committed on the planet.” I know that my Reformed/Calvinistic friends place great emphasis on the sovereignty of God, but this is one of the areas that causes great problems to their view. How can God “purpose” the greatest evil in the world? I just have real trouble with this line of  thinking. 

Fifth, I was shocked to read this statement on page 81: “If God did not spare His own Son from His curse against sin (see Rom 8:32), then why would He spare us from  that curse?” Aside from the fact that this is an example of that penal substitution view rearing it’s head, for in this view, God hates sin, and is angry at sinners, and so must kill His Son as a way to appease His own wrath against sin (which doesn’t make much biblical or theological sense), the real reason I was shocked to read this statement is because it is the exact opposite of what Paul actually says in Romans 8:32! Paul says that if God did not spare His own son, then will he not also freely give us all things? The fact that God did not spare His own son is not evidence that He will curse us, but quite to the contrary, evidence that He will freely bless us!

Anyway, I could go on and on (As I said, I disagreed with something on almost every page), but those are some of my most serious misgivings about this book. Obviously, I cannot recommend  Salvation by Crucifixion. It is too Calvinistic in thinking, approach, and theology, and thus, distorts Christ, the cross, and the Gospel.

How Satan Uses Religion to Cast out Satan

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violence and religionIn Part 1 of this short series called “Satan Casts out Satan” we saw that although Satan stole dominion over the earth from Adam and Eve, Satan loves nothing more than to use violence to get rid of violence, and in so doing, consolidate and amplify his own power over the earth. One way he does this is through violent religion. This post looks a little more at this topic. 

God’s Activity in Satan’s Dominion

God was not inactive during this endless cycle of Satan using religion to “cast out Satan.” He constantly sent messengers, individuals, people, and even nations in an attempt to spread light and love in this dark world. But it is in these instances where Satan’s power really worked. Satan loved nothing more than to use redemptive violence against those whom God had sent so that God’s messengers were killed in God’s name (Matt 21:33-46, 23:34-37). How did Satan do this? Through religion.

God’s message to the world has always been a message of grace, love, mercy, forgiveness, and acceptance. But Satan has always taken God’s message and perverted it so that it becomes a twisted set of rules, regulations, sacrifices, and laws by which mankind seeks to regain God’s love and favor.

But whenever God sent messengers and prophets to proclaim grace to the world, religion reared up to condemn God’s message of grace as false, heretical, contrary to God’s will, and of the devil. Then, having used religion to convert God’s messenger into a messenger of Satan, Satan used religious redemptive violence to kill and destroy God’s messenger in the name of God.

Satan turns God’s messenger into “Satan,” and then uses violent religion to destroy this newly minted “Satan.” It is in this way that Satan “casts out Satan,” and once again, protects and consolidates his own power in the world.

religion-facts-christianity-joan-of-arcSo by causing violence to be ascribed to God, and by using violent religion to “cast out Satan,” Satan had developed the perfect cycle of violence from which there seemed to be no escape. When bad things happened, it was God’s fault. And when God sent messengers to proclaim His truth and love, Satan vilified them until they too were killed in the name of God. This beautiful lie was perpetrated upon the world and carried out in plain view over and over and over since time began.

Satan Turned Religion against Jesus

But when Jesus arrived, He began to unmask the lie and pull back the curtains on Satan’s scheme. He told people what God was really like. He invited people to turn away from violence, and live in love and forgiveness. He set people free from sin, from darkness, from slavery, and from hate. He called people to a new way of living.

This, of course, was not something Satan could allow. It was not something Satan could permit. And so he resorted to the same ploy that had worked millions of times before. Every previous time that God had sent a messenger, Satan raised up religion to kill God’s messenger in God’s name. Satan did the same thing with Jesus, believing that such a plan would work as it always had before. He got religion to condemn Jesus as a son of Beelzebub, a blasphemer, an idolater, as one who was opposed to God and God’s Word. And then Satan got religion to kill Jesus in the name of God. Satan used religion to turn Jesus into a “Satan” so that religion could then kill Jesus in the name of God. Once again, Satan sought to “cast out Satan,” and thus solidify and consolidate his power even further.

And just as it had always done before, the plan worked beautifully.

Almost too beautifully.

One can almost feel the confusion of Satan in the end the Gospel accounts as Jesus, who has struggled and taught and healed against all the death and destruction and lies of the devil throughout His entire three years of ministry, now goes silently to the cross, like a lamb to the slaughter. Satan does not see the trap until it is too late.

satan defeated at the crossFor all of human history, Satan cast out Satan so that he might continually reinforce his own power, and reinsert himself into human structures and institutions, forever consolidating and expanding his own power and dominion over God’s creation. But when he tried it with Jesus, he failed to recognize that he was snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

Jesus Beat Satan at his own Game

Jesus, of course, knew what Satan was about. This is why He asked earlier in His ministry: “How can Satan cast out Satan?” (Mark 3:23). Jesus asks this question, but never answers it. Why? Because the answer was the key to His victory over Satan. The initial answer to Jesus’ question seems to be that “Satan would not cast out himself. It would be foolish to do so. For if Satan cast out Satan, then his kingdom would crumble, his house would fall, and his power would come to an end.” But Jesus knew, as did Satan, that the key to Satan’s power was that Satan had been casting out Satan since the beginning of time, but blaming his violent overthrow upon God.

But in the crucifixion of Jesus, when Satan tries once again to use violent religion to “cast out Satan,” this time in the scapegoat of Jesus Christ, Satan did not realize that his plan would backfire.

When Satan attacked Jesus through the crucifixion, Satan believed he was conquering over Jesus and casting Jesus out of this world once and for all. But little did he know that Jesus, by submitting Himself as the willing scapegoat for all the violence, enmity, hatred, and evil of the world, was unmasking the power and dominion of Satan, and thus, defeating Satan even as Satan thought he was striking the victorious blow. 

What do you think of this idea of Satan using religion to cast out Satan, which in reality, is nothing more than Satan using violence in the name of God to solidify his own power in this world? Include your own ideas in the comments below!

God of the Old Testament and JesusHow can a God who says "Love your enemies" (Matthew 5:44) be the same God who instructs His people in the Old Testament to kill their enemies?

These are the sorts of questions we discuss and (try to) answer in my online discipleship group. Members of the group can also take ALL of my online courses (Valued at over $1000) at no charge. Learn more here: Join the RedeemingGod.com Discipleship Group I can't wait to hear what you have to say, and how we can help you better understand God and learn to live like Him in this world!

Satan Casts Out Satan

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satan casts out satanOne of the great lies of Satan is in how he uses human institutions such as religion and politics to make it look like God uses violence to defeat violence. This is the great myth of redemptive violence, which is seen in almost every movie, story, and legend of history, as well as within every daily newspaper and every nightly news broadcast.

We have been taught that violence is the best way to defeat violence. This is the myth of redemptive violence.

But more than that, divinely sanctioned violence is the most successful, and can even be carried out in the name of God. But Jesus reveals in His life and ministry, and especially through His death and resurrection, the true emptiness of redemptive violence. He unmasks Satan’s lie of redemptive violence for all the world to see.

Although really, as it turned out, it was Satan himself who, in crucifying Jesus, unwittingly revealed his lie to the world. The trap that Satan had set for Jesus turned out to be a trap that Jesus had laid for Satan. This is why Paul says that if Satan had known that the death of Jesus would be his undoing, he never would have crucified the Lord of glory (1 Cor 2:8). In blaming God and finally crucifying God, Satan thought he was winning; but the death blow he dealt upon Jesus turned out to be his own. By using the power of Satan, Jesus defeated Satan, which in reality, turned out to be Satan causing his own defeat.

Satan Stole Dominion Over the Earth

It all began in the Garden of Eden. When Adam and Eve were created by God, they were given dominion over the earth. But when they sinned in the Garden, they effectively handed this dominion over to Satan. He did not steal the dominion; it was freely given to him. As a result, he now became the ruler of this age, the god of this world (John 12:31, 14:30, 16:11; 2 Cor 4:4).

Due to the nature of the dominion which God had given to Adam, God could not simply take back the dominion now that it had been handed over to Satan. God had freely given it to Adam, and Adam had freely given to Satan. The only way for God (or mankind) to get the dominion back from Satan was if Satan freely gave it back, which he was never going to do. Satan had wanted to be like God, and in gaining dominion over the earth, he became a god. Satan had an iron grip on this world, and he ruled it ruthlessly and with all dominion, power, and authority.

Under Satan’s rule, darkness, terror, death, and chaos reigned. If you have read Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy (or seen the movies), imagine what life would be like in Middle Earth if Sauron had been able to obtain the One Ring, the ring of power. The reason that Gandalf and the races of Middle Earth sought to stop Sauron from regaining the ring is because they did not want their world to plunge into eternal death and chaos. But in the biblical account, this is exactly what happened when Adam handed dominion over to Satan.

Satan Blamed God for Satanic Violence

But Satan was not content just to rule by spreading darkness and terror. He wanted to get humanity to blame God for all the evil that happened in this world, and in so doing, solidify his own power even more. How did Satan do this? He used the myth of redemptive violence. He got people to believe that when evil people rose to power, whether their power was over a single person or an entire country, violence was required to overthrow that evil. And yet almost without fail, when the new rulers rose to power, they became more oppressive than the oppressors they overthrew.

In this way, the cycle continued endlessly.

Satan raised up oppressive and tyrannical individuals, governments, and religious institutions so that he might later raise up “righteous liberators” who would violently overthrow the oppressive regimes, but in so doing, become more oppressive and tyrannical than those who preceded them. Those who had power reigned with violent methods and those who came into power did so with violence. Almost always in human history, when the persecuted rise up in violence to overthrow the persecutors, it did not take long before the persecuted become the persecutors.

In this way, Satan “casts out Satan,” and thus endlessly consolidated and amplified his own power. 

We will look more at this idea tomorrow. Until then, what do you think of the idea laid out above? Do you think that Satan uses violence to make it look like God is defeating Satan, when in reality, it is Satan “casting out Satan” so that it appears that God is defeating him? 

God of the Old Testament and JesusHow can a God who says "Love your enemies" (Matthew 5:44) be the same God who instructs His people in the Old Testament to kill their enemies?

These are the sorts of questions we discuss and (try to) answer in my online discipleship group. Members of the group can also take ALL of my online courses (Valued at over $1000) at no charge. Learn more here: Join the RedeemingGod.com Discipleship Group I can't wait to hear what you have to say, and how we can help you better understand God and learn to live like Him in this world!

Why does Jesus say “Go and sin no more” when it is impossible to “go and sin no more”?

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Go and Sin no MoreA reader recently sent in this astute question:

Why does Jesus tell people to “Go and sin no more” when He knew it was basically impossible for them to stop sinning?

This is a great question, and one that has been cropping up a lot in the comments on this blog recently. For example, check out some of the comments in my post about “How do I stop sinning?” 

“Go and Sin No More” Disclaimers

Before I attempt to answer this important question about what Jesus means when He says “go and sin no more,” let me state two disclaimers.

Yes, I know that Scripture contains numerous passages which seem to teach that sinless perfectionism is possible in this life (cf. Matt 5:48; 1 John 3:4-10). So please … don’t leave a comment below quoting all the text in the Bible which you think I haven’t read. I have read them, studied them, and believe them.  I simply have a different understanding of those texts than you do.

Second, just because I believe the Bible teaches that it is not possible in this life to go and sin no more at all ever again in any way, this is not at all the same thing as telling people to go sin all they want. I believe that Christians can and should stop sinning, but I approach the issue of sin differently than often encountered elsewhere. I think the primary reason God wants us to stop sinning is not because it offends Him, but because sin damages us.

So can we “Go and Sin No More”?

There are two times in the Gospels when Jesus tells people to “go and sin no more.” One is after Jesus healed the man by the Pool of Bethesda (John 5:14) and the other is after He rescued the woman caught in adultery from getting stoned to death (John 8:11).

“Go and Sin No More” in John 5:1-18

What is strange about the instance with the man by the Pool of Bethesda is that the text mentions no sin which had led to his condition. The text simply says he had been there for 38 years (John 5:5). We aren’t told why. We aren’t told what happened. Though most commentators say that the man must have sinned in some way to cause his condition, the text says nothing of the sort.

Bible scholars say, “Well, it must have been some sort of sin which led to the man’s condition, or else why would Jesus say, ‘Go and sin no more or else something worse will happen to you’?”

Really? I have major problems with this. First, if the man had been invalid for 38 years, how old could he have been when he committed this terrible sin which caused God to strike him down as an invalid for the next four decades? I mean, what sort of terrible sin had this child from 38 years ago (or possibly a teenager) committed, which would cause God to punish him in such a terrible way? 

And then, Jesus comes along and say, “Now don’t do that again, or I’ll have to punish you even worse!” 

Does that sound anything like Jesus? Not the Jesus I know. I don’t think that sin led to this man being an invalid for 38 years, and I definitely don’t think that Jesus was threatening this poor man with some greater punishment if he committed that sin again. 

So how then are we to understand Jesus’ statement, “Go and sin no more”?

Well, notice that it is not in the context of healing the man from being an invalid that Jesus says “Go and sin no more.” It is in the context of the religious leaders threatening the man’s life because he had the audacity to carry his bedroll on the Sabbath (John 5:10). Why do I say there were threating his life? I believe there is a parallel in John 5 with something that happens in Numbers 15:32-35.

There, man is caught picking up sticks on the Sabbath, so they arrest him and take him to Moses, who consults God on the matter. God (apparently) tells Moses that the community should stone the man for the high crime of picking up sticks on the Sabbath.

So when Jesus tells the man “Go and sin no more or else something worse might happen to you,” I think he says it with a sparkle in His eye, some satire in His voice, and a head nod toward the disapproving and judgmental religious leaders.

Essentially Jesus tells the man (read the following with soft sarcasm): “Oh no! You carried your bedroll on the Sabbath! How could you do such a terrible thing! You sinner! Stop it! If you don’t, they’re going to have your head.”

Of course, although Jesus was speaking to the man with satirical humor, the situation was deadly serious as well, and Jesus knew it. It was true that if the man was not careful, the religious leaders would try to kill him simply because he carried his bedroll on the Sabbath. In fact, in the very next verses, their murderous rage gets redirected toward Jesus because He is the one who told the man to carry His bedroll (John 5:15-18). The text says they sought for a way to kill Jesus. The “something worse” which was going to happen to the man is now directed toward Jesus.

So was Jesus telling the man to “Go and sin no more”? Well … yes, but it is more like this: “Go and ‘sin’ no more, or the sin police over there are going to kill you.”

That’s how I read John 5:15-18.

Based on this, you can probably predict how I understand John 8:1-11.

“Go and Sin No More” in John 8:1-11

I think John included this incident in his Gospel just a few chapters after the “grievous sin of bedroll-carrying incident” because unlike the carrying of the bedroll on the Sabbath, the woman in this event was truly sinning. She was caught in the act of adultery.

go and sin no moreThe religious leaders are about to stone her to death when Jesus shows up, scribbles in the sand, and when no one is left to condemn her, tells her to “Go and sin no more.”

Most commentators note the connection here with the Levitical law that the punishment for adultery was death by stoning (Lev 20:10; Deut 22:22). Most commentators also point that the Levitical law required that both the man and the woman are to be stoned, but in John 8, only the woman is present. This was not because the religious leaders didn’t know who the man was, for they had caught the woman in the very act of adultery. Where is the man? We do not know.

There is some speculation that this woman was simply the innocent bystander in a malevolent plan by the religious leaders to accuse and attack Jesus (John 8:6). Since John 5:1-18, the religious leaders had been looking for ways to discredit and kill Jesus, and they had now found (or created?) a way in this poor woman. Could it be that her guilty partner was involved in the scheme himself?

It is likely that the woman was actually a prostitute, and the religious leaders saw this situation as a “win-win” opportunity for them. If Jesus did not defend her, then they got to stone a prostitute. Yay! If Jesus did defend her, then they could stone Him too as a bonus.

The plan, of course, didn’t go as expected, and Jesus wrote something in the sand which caused all the men to slink away. We don’t know what He wrote, though there is endless speculation about it might have been.

Anyway, once they have all left, Jesus tells the woman that He does not condemn her (and He is the only one present who could have!), and that she should “Go and sin no more.”

Why? For the same reason Jesus told the man in John 5 to go and sin no more: because the religious leaders were out to get her. Now that they had been rebuffed by Jesus and their righteous activity of stoning a prostitute had been denied them for the day, they would doubtless begin looking for a way to kill her again.

go and sin no moreBasically, Jesus is saying, “My beautiful lady, I am sorry you got caught up in this. They were after me; not you. They framed you to get at me. I want to protect you from them, so please, consider leaving your current profession. They are likely going to seek to frame you again, and the next time, they won’t bring you to me. They’ll just kill you. Neither one of us want that, so go … do something different with your life.”

Clearly, Jesus did not mean that the woman should never sin again in any way whatsoever. He knew, and we know, that this is impossible. He was simply warning her about the danger of continuing in her current lifestyle.

Can you “Go and Sin no More”?

So what does this way of reading these texts say to you and me? Several things.

First, please, please, please … don’t be a religious jackass. If Jesus is the only one who has the right to condemn and judge a person, but He chooses not to (cf. John 8:11, 15), then we all better think twice (and thrice!) before we cast the first stone. Don’t call for people’s jobs, or pray for their house to burn down, or tell them that because of their lifestyle they are headed for hell.

Such behavior looks less like Jesus and more like the religious leaders who sought to kill Jesus.

Second, recognize what sin is (and isn’t). Sin damages our relationship with God and with one another. Sin destroys our lives and causes emotional, financial, physical, spiritual, and psychological harm. The reason God wants us to stop sinning is simply because God wants what is best for us, and sin does not result in God’s best.

Our sin doesn’t cause God to turn away from us, reject us, hate us, or cast us out. Our sin grieves God because He knows how much sin hurts us, and as our loving Father, He doesn’t want us to get hurt.

God doesn’t care about our sin; He cares about us — which is why He wants to help us not sin.

Finally, as I’ve said before, we stop sinning not by trying to stop sinning, but by walking with Jesus and inviting God into the dark places of our life. When a room is dark, you don’t chase away the darkness by talking against it, praying against it, and commanding the darkness to leave. No, darkness naturally recedes when light enters the room. You want to stop sinning? Invite God into it, and watch the light of His love cast out all sin.

Is God a murderer?

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This post continues to (re)summarize my proposal about how to understand the violence of God in the Old Testament.

However, I have two quick questions for you …

Now that I have returned to this series on the violence of God, the blog comments have drastically dropped off. While I was previously getting about 30 comments per post, now that I have returned to this topic, the posts have received only 1 or 2. I am trying to figure out why … So here is a two-question survey for your input:

Thanks!

Now on with the post …

One truth which Jesus revealed to the world is that the violent murderer of world history is not God, but the devil. Not only is the devil involved in some way or another with all the violence and murder in the world, but the devil then lies about it to humanity and gets us to blame God for what was done.

What is most surprising is how little we recognize violence as the devil’s work, and instead attribute most violence to God.

The Devil is a Liar

One of the primary lies of the devil is that God is a murderer. The devil commits violence, and get us to say “God did it. It’s God’s fault.” From the very beginning, this is the lie that he tells.

is God a murderer?This was the lie of the serpent to Eve when the serpent asked her why God would put a tree in the garden from which she could not eat, or even touch. Aside from misquoting what God had said and raising doubt in Eve’s mind about the Word of God, the serpent was implying that whatever Eve did about the fruit, it was God’s fault for putting the tree there in the first place.

After Adam and Eve had eaten of the fruit, Adam proved that he was a quick learner. When God asked Adam why he had eaten the fruit, he too blamed God “The woman whom you gave to be with me …” (Gen 3:12). Adam not only blamed Eve; He blamed God because God had given the woman to Adam.

So you see? It was God’s fault again. Such satanic laying of blame upon God continues in the rest of Genesis and throughout the Old Testament. It is not God, but Satan, who is the god of violence (Girard, The One by Whom Scandal Comes, 55), and the original lie of Satan was that everything done in God’s creation was God’s fault and could be blamed upon God.

The Devil is a Murderer

But when we get to the Gospels, Jesus reveals what we should have known all along, that it is not God who is the murderer, but the devil.

The original lie is that everything bad is God’s fault. When we do evil, we blame God. When evil happens to us, we blame God. When evil happens to others, we blame God.

devil is a liarThis blame game is something we learned from the devil since the very first human sin. The devil carries out the murders and lies about it, and as subjects to the god of this world, we follow in Adam’s footsteps and learn to blame God as well for the evil we do. Jesus shows this in numerous places in the Gospels, but one of the clearest is in John 8:44 where Jesus explains that the devil “was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him … he is a liar and the father of lies” (NIV).

One of the primary lies the devil tells is the lie about the origin and source of violence. The devil wants us to believe that God is at fault, that the bad things which happen in this world are because God is mad at us, hates us, and is out for bloody revenge. But in fact, the devil himself is largely responsible for much of the violence that happens in the world, and he loves nothing more than to carry out that violence and then frame God for it.

If this is so, why then does God allow it? Why does God let Himself get framed? Why does God inspire the human authors of Scripture to write about Him in violent ways? We will see why in the next post …

God of the Old Testament and JesusHow can a God who says "Love your enemies" (Matthew 5:44) be the same God who instructs His people in the Old Testament to kill their enemies?

These are the sorts of questions we discuss and (try to) answer in my online discipleship group. Members of the group can also take ALL of my online courses (Valued at over $1000) at no charge. Learn more here: Join the RedeemingGod.com Discipleship Group I can't wait to hear what you have to say, and how we can help you better understand God and learn to live like Him in this world!

All War is Holy War

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One of the great lies that humanity has believed is that every war it engages in is a war for the good, a war for a righteous cause, a “just war.”

And yet it is often these wars to defeat evil which result in a vicious cycle of even greater evil and violence. Nobody goes off to war thinking they are about to carry out evil. Countries go off to war to defend their cause, protect their people, enforce their liberties, and safeguard their interests in the world. People say that war should be waged unless it has a just cause, but every person who wages war believes his cause is just.

It could be said that every war is a Holy War.

Holy WarIn fact, other than some recent wars produced by atheistic som, most wars throughout history have been fought in the name of god. When men march off to war, it is with prayers on their lips that their god will see the righteousness of their cause against the unrighteousness of the evil enemies.

I am reminded of a recent war fought by the United States in which millions of people around the country prayed that God would bless America as we fought against the “Axis of Evil” in the Middle East. Then we sat glued to our television screens as our military rained down fire and brimstone upon our enemies in the form of “shock and awe” missile attacks.

Even today we use God’s name to justify our own violent actions toward people we perceive as enemies. Violence attributed to God is thus seen as the source and seed of all violence. Therefore, violence will not cease until God stops being violent.

Ironically, God was never violent. We made God violent so that He could be used to justify our own violence and bless us as we marched off to war with His name on our lips and our swords.

So again, it circles back around to Jesus. Jesus did away with the entire concept of Holy War by showing us what God is really like.

God is not murderous and bloody. He is not violent. God is loving, patient, kind, forgiving, merciful, and just. And if there is violence, He would rather bear that violence upon Himself than lash out in violence toward others. Rather than attempt to defeat violence with greater violence, God takes the blame for violence and suffers the consequences of it. On the cross, Jesus does away with war and religion, and most importantly, the marriage of the two in Holy War.

And when Jesus taught us about war and violence, a surprising truth emerges, which turns out to be not so surprising at all, just overlooked.

God of the Old Testament and JesusHow can a God who says "Love your enemies" (Matthew 5:44) be the same God who instructs His people in the Old Testament to kill their enemies?

These are the sorts of questions we discuss and (try to) answer in my online discipleship group. Members of the group can also take ALL of my online courses (Valued at over $1000) at no charge. Learn more here: Join the RedeemingGod.com Discipleship Group I can't wait to hear what you have to say, and how we can help you better understand God and learn to live like Him in this world!

The Light at the End of the Theological Tunnel

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The solution I proposed yesterday (and last year) about how to understand the violence of God in the Old Testament is based on the two theological convictions, the two ways of reading Scripture, and the two key passages which were discussed in earlier posts (see the link list at the bottom of this post).

Of primary importance, however, is the concept of reading the Bible backwards. If we are to understand what God was doing at the beginning parts of the Bible, we must read those parts in light of the end of the Bible. And by “the end” I do not mean the book of Revelation. Though Revelation may be found on the last pages of the Bible, the book of Revelation is not “the end” of the Bible.

What do I mean?

The Telos of the Bible

the end the telosIn the New Testament, the Greek word telos is often translated “end,” but it could also be translated as “goal, purpose, or culmination.” So while the word can refer to the end of something chronologically, as in “then the end will come” (e.g., Matt 24:6, 14), it can also refer to the goal, purpose, or outcome of a series of events (cf. Rom 6:21-22).

One interesting use of the word in the New Testament, however, is in relation to Jesus Christ. There are numerous places which refer to Jesus Himself as the “end” (cf. Rom 10:4; 1 Cor 10:11; 15:24; Rev 21:6; 22:13).

This means that the goal, purpose, or culmination of God’s redemptive history is Jesus Christ. Jesus is what God has been working toward. Jesus is the fulfillment and completion of God’s eternal plan. Jesus is where all things have been headed. Jesus is the originator of history and is the light at the end of the tunnel of history.

So when I write about reading the Bible with the end in mind, I am thinking primarily about Jesus. We read the Bible with Jesus in mind. We read the Bible through Jesus-colored glasses.

The Telos of Jesus

With this in mind, there is one use of the word telos which I want to emphasize. It is found in Luke 22:37. Jesus is preparing His disciples for His crucifixion and His eventual departure from them, and says that the reason is because “this which is written about Me must still be accomplished in Me: ‘And He was numbered with the transgressors.’ For the things concerning Me have an end.” The word “end” Jesus uses there is telos.

Notice carefully what Jesus identifies as His end. He says that His end, His telos, His goal, His purpose, the culmination of His ministry, is that He be numbered with the transgressors. Jesus is saying that His goal, His purpose in coming, was to be identified as a transgressor—as a lawless, godless, sinner.

Jesus looks guiltyThis does not mean that Jesus was going to sin or become a sinner, but that it was necessary for Him to identify with us in our sin. His goal was to be counted among the lawless, the godless, and the transgressors. One translation of Luke 22:37 even states that Jesus’ goal was “let himself be taken for a criminal” (JB).

Such an aspect of Christ’s ministry is sorely missing from most evangelical theology. Why would Jesus want to be counted among the lawless? Why would Jesus want to make it look like He was godless? Why was it the goal, the purpose, the telos of Jesus to be numbered among the transgressors?

Why?

Because Jesus is the ultimate and complete revelation of God, and this is what God has been doing from the very beginning.

By counting Himself among the transgressors, Jesus reveals to us once and for all what God has been doing all along. Jesus is not guilty, but to the outside observer, He looked guilty. To those who did not know better, as Jesus hung on the cross, He  looked like a traitor, a thief, a common criminal dying on a cross.

So also with God.

To those who do not have eyes to see, to those who do not peer behind the curtain, to those who do not see read Jesus back into the pages of the Old Testament, God looks insanely guilty. God looks like the greatest traitor, thief, and criminal of the universe. Is God guilty of these things? He is not. No more than Jesus was guilty as He hung on the cross. But God looks guilty, because, just like Jesus, God was numbering Himself among the transgressors. God looks violent in the Old Testament in the same way that Jesus looks like a criminal when He hung on the cross.

Why would God do this? For the same reasons Jesus did: to free us from sin, death, and the devil. To destroy the destroyer’s work. To liberate us from bondage and decay. To reconcile us to Himself. To redeem a fallen world. To take the blame for that which would otherwise have sent humanity into an ever-increasing spiral of destructive violence.

God of the Old Testament and JesusHow can a God who says "Love your enemies" (Matthew 5:44) be the same God who instructs His people in the Old Testament to kill their enemies?

These are the sorts of questions we discuss and (try to) answer in my online discipleship group. Members of the group can also take ALL of my online courses (Valued at over $1000) at no charge. Learn more here: Join the RedeemingGod.com Discipleship Group I can't wait to hear what you have to say, and how we can help you better understand God and learn to live like Him in this world!

A Proposal about the Violence of God in the Old Testament

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Okay … after a nearly six month break, I am finally starting back up on my series about the violence of God in the Old Testament. Although, … it wasn’t really a break. I was madly reading, writing, and researching that whole time … and now I think I am ready to begin again.

Ultimately, I’m trying to solve the problem illustrated here:

violence of God in the Bible

(Note: These number above don’t count the flood. Some estimate this might add anywhere between 20 million to 6 billion people to that tally.)

Since there are many new readers on this blog, and since probably everyone who has been here longer than a year has forgotten the basic argument I am trying to present, I figured I would spend one post summarizing my view and inviting people to go back and read some of what I have written previously only this topic.

Eventually, of course, these posts will make it into a book, although at this time, it looks like it will more likely be books. A normal 200 page book has about 60,000 words. So far, I have written 120,000 words on this book, and I figure I am about half-way done. Sigh.

So, either I need to cut out about 75% of what I will finally end up with, or I will have to turn this one project into three or four books. Maybe I can get it down to two.

Anyway, here is a brief introduction/summary to what I am trying to show from Scripture:

A Modest Proposal about the Violence of God in the Old Testament

If Jesus truly and fully reveals God to us, and there is no violence in Jesus, then neither is there any violence in God.

God looks like JesusAt times God appears violent, not because He is violent, but because, just as Jesus on the cross took the sin of the world upon Himself, so also God in human history, took the violence of humanity upon Himself.

Why?

For the same reason Jesus went to the cross: to rescue humanity from the devastating consequences of their actions.

Just as Jesus took sin upon Himself on the cross so that He might rescue and deliver all mankind from sin, so also God took violence upon Himself in the Old Testament so that He might rescue and deliver all mankind from violence.

Such an idea might seem scandalous to most Christians today, but this idea is no more scandalous to us than the idea to the first century Jewish person of the Messiah dying on a cross.

Read More …

If this is the  first post you have read on this blog about this topic, then my proposal might come as quite a shock to you. Or maybe what I have said doesn’t make any sense. Or maybe you shrugged your shoulders and said, “Yeah? That’s what I’ve always believed.”

Whatever your reaction might be, if you want to learn more, here are some posts to get you started:

God of the Old Testament and JesusHow can a God who says "Love your enemies" (Matthew 5:44) be the same God who instructs His people in the Old Testament to kill their enemies?

These are the sorts of questions we discuss and (try to) answer in my online discipleship group. Members of the group can also take ALL of my online courses (Valued at over $1000) at no charge. Learn more here: Join the RedeemingGod.com Discipleship Group I can't wait to hear what you have to say, and how we can help you better understand God and learn to live like Him in this world!

Over the next two weeks, I will be publishing several more posts which attempt to unfold and explain this proposal in various ways. After that, we will dive once more into several of the violent texts of Scripture to see how the violent portrayals of God in Scripture look just like Jesus on the cross. 

Do mega churches do mega ministry?

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I had an interesting conversation recently with a man who attends a local mega church. Well, the church is about 1000 people, so it’s not quite “mega” (Which I think is defined as 2,000+ in attendance). 

He was challenging my decision to follow Jesus outside the four walls of the church building, and had the usual objections: 

Him: Why would you leave Christ’s church?

Me: I didn’t leave it. I just practice church differently than you do. 

Him: But how do you use your spiritual gifts?

Me: In a multitude of ways, none of which require my butt to be in a pew on Sunday morning. 

Him: But Christians are to live in community. Where is your community?

Me: First, church attendance does not necessarily equal community, but second, I live in deep community with other people like myself who also do not sit in pews on Sunday morning. 

Anyway, the conversation went on like this for some time. At one point though, he said this: 

Him: But you could be accomplishing so much more for the Kingdom of God if you were part of a large group of people. Sure, your small community can accomplish a few small things, but imagine if you were all working together with thousands of others! Your work would be multiplied! You would see exponential growth! 

I told him it was a good point, and one that I would consider. 

multiply your ministry

I have since considered his point … and I would like your input on how you might respond to such a question. Here are my points. What can you add?

1. The Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed

First, I have great trouble with this mindset that only big things are worthwhile.

Jesus constantly modeled that the small things, the unimportant people, the little children, the cup of cold water, the tiny mustard seed, the one act of faith, the shameful, the foolish, and the insignificant, … these are the things that mattered to God and where God was most at work. 

Sure, Jesus performed some large-scale miracles, but it seems that as Jesus progressed in His ministry, He went smaller and smaller; not larger and larger. If Jesus had wanted to, He could have had thousands of followers at His back after 3 years of ministry. But this is not what He wanted. …So why is this what we want?

Even Jesus’ parable of the tiny mustard seed shows this. It is not uncommon to hear pastors say, “See? This church started as a tiny little group of people meeting in my living room. But now, it is thousands of people with a multi-million dollar budget. The tiny mustard seed has grown into a giant tree!” 

It sounds good, but it’s plain wrong. Yes, the tiny mustard seed grows into a large tree so that even the birds can sit in its branches, but if we ever say our particular church or ministry is “the large tree” we have completely misunderstood what Jesus was saying.

mega ministry

What grows into a large tree? The Kingdom of God does … not my little corner of it. No matter how large we become, our part in the Kingdom will always be small. 

2. Fuzzy Ministry Math

Here is often how these comparisons go: 

You and your small group did a good thing there helping that poor family in town pay their rent this month. But at our church, we raised enough money to build an entire orphanage in Africa and staff it for an entire year! 

Sure, you’re small group of six people spent $300 to help that family, but if you could have joined that money with the $250,000 raised by our church this year to build that orphanage, imagine how your investment in the Kingdom would have multiplied! 

Initially, such a comparison sounds compelling. It’s true … helping one family pay rent for one month does not sound as impressive as building and staffing an African orphanage to help rescue, feed, and teach orphans for a year. 

But if you begin to crunch the numbers, things look quite different. If 6 people raised $300 in one month to help one family, then this comes to about $50 per person per month. Who’s to say they won’t do something similar next month? And the month after that? Over the course of one year, this is about $600 per person. 

Meanwhile, if you take the $250,000 that church raised for the orphanage, and divide it between the 1000 people in the church, this comes to $250 per person. 

Obviously, I’m just making these numbers up, but this is how these ministry comparison’s are often done. The tiny little ministry a small group does for a local need is compared with some giant project that a large group does for some other (usually foreign) ministry. But if you really start to compare apples to apples, you will almost always find that the small groups are more generous. 

But what about what is accomplished? Isn’t that important? Yeah, let’s talk about that?

3. Where’s the Ministry Love?

Here is the main concern I have with big ministry projects done by big churches. Usually (but not always!), because of the large scale of the project, there is relatively little personal interaction between the “givers” and the “receivers.” 

Instead of six people helping out a family across the street, whose names are known, whose needs are obvious, and where relationships can get developed, 2,000 people give money into a giant pot to help a nameless “need” in some other part of town or across the country. Then, after administrative costs and overhead are deducted out of the money that comes in, a team of people goes out to perform the ministry to the massive group whose “need” is trying to be met. 

But because the ministry team has to meet the “need” of such a large group of people, there is very little opportunity to get to know the people. Very little relationship building is accomplished.

Sure, bellies are filled, buildings are raised, classes are taught, and books are distributed, but how many long-term relationships were built? How many names were learned? How many conversations were had? 

I sometimes think that the way some churches define ministry is not always identical to the way Jesus defines ministry. 

If you write a check for $500 to help build an orphanage in Africa … but don’t know your neighbor’s first name, what good is it? 

If you attend every mission’s conference your church hosts, but have never learned about the marital problems of your coworker, what good is it? 

If you know your Bible forward and backward and memorize 365 verses a year, but don’t know the names of the children on your street, what good is it? 

Look, everybody has different ministries and different goals, but I just get tired of having to defend small, one-on-one, loving-my-neighbor ministry to people who think that the only true ministry is one that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, involved thousands of people, and takes place on another continent. 

Ministry does not become more spiritual when it is baptized in salt water (when it takes place across the sea).

If you are not loving your neighbors right now, you cannot write a big check and call it “ministry.” 

Okay… so you can weigh in below. Have you ever encountered this “Go big or go home” mentality when it comes to ministry, and that small groups of believers would be wiser to pool their time and resources with large churches so that their ministry effectiveness can be multiplied? If so, how do you respond?

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