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Stop Calling Yourself a Christian

By Jeremy Myers
87 Comments

Stop Calling Yourself a Christian

love like JesusI think all of us “Christians” should stop referring to ourselves as “Christians.”

Nor should we ask other people if they are a “Christian.”

I have two lines of reasoning for why we should stop saying we’re Christians.

1. They were first called Christians in Antioch (Acts 11:26)

When the term “Christian” was first invented, it was coined by an outside group of “pagans” who observed the way Jesus-followers behaved and recognized the similarity between what they were doing and what Jesus did. And so they called these Jesus followers “Christians.”

In other words, the first “Christians” did not take this title for themselves; it was given to them.

The term means “little Christ,” and while some scholars think that it was maybe intended to be a derogatory term (sort of like Yankee Doodle), I do not think so. I think the people of Antioch noticed how “Christ-like” the people were who claimed to follow Him, and so they started to referring to this Christ-like followers of Jesus as “Christians.” It was a way to identify them and talk about them.

they will know you are christians by your loveThe Christians of Antioch were not known for their hate, venom, judgmentalism, or religious pride, or even for their good theology, pious life, and vast Bible knowledge. Instead, They were knowing for looking and acting and behaving like Jesus Christ, and as a result, they were “called Christians” by those who were not Christians.

If the watching world started giving titles and nicknames to those who proclaim to follow Jesus today, what sort of titles do you think they would give us?

I am not sure I want to know … but I doubt it would be “Christian.”

But this leads me to the second line of reasoning for why we should stop calling ourselves “Christians.”

you keep calling yourself a Christian

2. They will know you are Christians by your love (John 13:35)

If you truly are a “Christian” you don’t have to tell people. They will know it. How? By your love.

Those who truly act like a “Christian” do not have to tell people they are a “Christian” because people already know it. They know it by your love.

I follow Jesus t-shirtI walked by two guys in the store the other day who were both wearing Christian t-shirts. One was saying to the other, “Yeah, they all hate me at work, but that’s okay, because I’m standing up for Christ.”

Now, I cannot say for sure, but I imagine that since I heard this about five days after the United States Supreme Court ruled in favor of gay marriage, that this man’s idea of “standing up for Christ” consisted of telling his coworkers that LGBT people were headed for hell, were destroying our country, and were signs of the collapse of modern society and traditional marriage.

Some religious people think that “standing up for Christ” in today’s culture means telling others that God hates gays. Just check out some of the comments on my post from two days ago.

Look, I don’t know where you stand on the gay marriage issue. I don’t care. What I do know, however, is that wherever you stand on gay marriage, the proper response to gay people is love.

The same goes for other groups of people some Christians love to hate. Like Muslims. Whatever you may think about the Muslim religion, the proper way to treat a Muslim is with love.

Love is the proper (and only) response to ALL people, no matter what they believe or do, if we are followers of Jesus.

If you want to represent Jesus to people, don’t do it by hating or condemning them. (And don’t use the line about how you “Love the sinner, but hate the sin.”)

Anyway, back to the conversation I heard in the store, I wanted to tell this guy who was proud of his “stand for Christ” that just because people hate you for what you say doesn’t mean that you are standing for Christ.

In fact, in the Gospels, the only people who really hated Jesus were the religious people. Those who were condemned and judged by the religious people loved Jesus and hung out with Him and were accepted by Him.

So if the world hates you but religious people love you, you might not be following Jesus.

Also, if, like this guy in the store, you have to tell people you are a Christian by broadcasting it on your t-shirt, you’re doing it wrong.

If we want to tell people we are followers of Jesus, we do it by loving them. Just as He loves us. Unconditionally. That’s what Godly love is.

I am convinced that the person who loves others unconditionally but doesn’t claim to follow Jesus is closer to the Kingdom of God than those who claim to follow Jesus but doesn’t love others unconditionally.

love is of GodIf love is of God, and everybody who loves is born of God and knows God because God is love (1 John 4:7-8), then it only makes sense that love will be the prevailing characteristic of one who is born of God and know God!

It is not a person’s words that make him or her a Christian, or what they post on Facebook or wear on their t-shirts, or even how many Bible verses they can quote, or how often they attend church and Bible studies, or whether they can “take a stand for Christ.”

They will know we are Christians by our love, and if you have not love, they will never know you are a Christian, no matter how much you tell them you are.

Or maybe I should put it this way: If you have not love, you can never properly act like a Christian, no matter how much you tell people you are one.

The REAL Question We Should be Asking Ourselves (and others)

So the question we should be asking is not “Am I a Christian?” but rather, “Am I Christ-like?”

“Do my words sound like words Jesus might say?”

“Do my actions look like things Jesus might do?”

“Do I love unconditionally, forgive freely, serve sacrificially, and accept all?”

“Do I challenge the religious status-quo for setting up barriers to God and creating groups of us vs. them?”

“Do I break down the walls of religion by eating with the so-called ‘tax-collectors and sinners’?”

If so, then keep living in love and looking like Jesus, and maybe, just maybe, someone might call you a “Christian.”

God is Redeeming Church, Redeeming Life Bible & Theology Topics: 1 John 4:7-8, Acts 11:26, Christian, Discipleship, evangelism, hate, John 13:35, looks like Jesus, love, love like Jesus, missions

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Stop Saying You “Love the Sinner; Hate the Sin”

By Jeremy Myers
486 Comments

Stop Saying You “Love the Sinner; Hate the Sin”

love the sinner hate the sinIt is common in Christian circles to hear admonitions to “Love the Sinner; hate the sin.”

More and more I hear this said in the context of LGBT people and gay marriage.

“Oh, I don’t hate gay people, I just hate the gay lifestyle. … You know, I love the sinner, but hate the sin.”

There are so many things wrong with the “Love the Sinner; Hate the Sin” statement, I hardly know where to begin. So let’s begin with a laugh:

Calvin and Hobbs love the sinner hate the sin

Now… on with the post…

There are several things wrong with the statement, “Love the Sinner; Hate the Sin.”

Let’s begin with the word “sinner”

love the sinner hate the sinThe simple fact that we label the person we are talking about as a “sinner” indicates that we do not have love for them in the first place.

To label someone a “sinner” is to imply that they are outside of God’s grace and unless they clean up their act, cannot be forgiven.

To label someone a “sinner” reveals an “us vs. them” mentality, where you are the “righteous” person looking down your nose at the poor, wretched, ignorant “sinners” down below who just cannot get their act together. If only they would listen to what you tell them to do…

We Christians pay lip service to the idea that “We are all sinners” but we reveal that we do not really believe this when label someone else a “sinner.”

By labeling them a “sinner,” we condemn the sin of someone else as worse than our own.

Then there’s the word “hate”

love vs hateWhen a watching world says Christians are full of hate, it is not a good strategy to tell them that we don’t hate them we just hate their sin.

Why do we have to “hate” anything?

Is it because God “hates” sin?

Well, there are some statement like this in the Bible, but such statements require great care in understanding and applying them to life.

We have to understand why God says what He says.

We also have to recognize that even if God does “hate” (which I don’t think He does … at least, not the way we understand it), He doesn’t anywhere tell us to hate.

Furthermore, we have to recognize that when God uses this sort of language about certain sins, it is not because He that upset at the person for committing the sin, or even at the sin itself for being so “terrible.” God isn’t nearly as worked up about sin as we are. God is not in the sin-management business.

The reason God says some strong things about certain sins in the Bible is because these sins hurt us, and He loves us, and doesn’t want to see us hurt by sin.

So if you really, really want to hate someone’s sin, hate a sin which is actually hurtful to them and to others. Hate a sin like rape, murder, incest, child abuse, torture, sex slavery, or one of the other multitudes of damaging and destructive sins.

But why do we Christians sometimes focus on hating the “sins” in others that they say results in love and community? If a homosexual couple wants to get married because they say they love each other, why would we say they cannot?

“Because it destroys families!”

Really? How exactly does their love hurt your family? I suspect any problems in your family might be found a bit closer to home…

“Because it destroys the definition of marriage!”

Is it really? And even if it does, so what? What is more important? The definition of a word or a relationship between people? Don’t use an argument over the definition of a word as an excuse to hate people. That sounds an awful lot like something a Pharisee would do in the days of Jesus. Even if the definition of marriage changes, will that somehow ruin your marriage? I cannot possibly think how.

“Yeah, but … but … AIDS!!! They’re gonna get AIDS and AIDS will hurt them and so I’m just trying to warn them about the dangers of AIDS! You see? I am concerned about them! I don’t want them to get AIDS!”

… If this is how you express your concern, I think they don’t need it.

I could say so much more about this, but I must move on. Here is a post which says more: Love the Sinner, hate the sin is really just hate

love the sinner hate the sin is just hate

There is also a problem with the word “sin”

Yes, yes, “sin” is a biblical word. No, I don’t want people to stop talking about sin.

But here is what I have noticed in my own life, and among the majority of Christians.

We all have our “favorite sins” we commit.

We have sins we ourselves commit all the time that we don’t bat an eyelash at. And when someone point out to us the sin in our own life, we say, “Well, Christians aren’t perfect, you know.” Or maybe we say, “Thank God for grace!” Or possibly, “Yeah, I know that’s an issue, but God is working with me on that.” Occasionally, we may even justify our behavior and says, “What?! No, that’s not a sin! Stop judging me!”

Lots of these “favorite sins” in Christians circles are even “Pulpit approved.” That is, pastors and churches leaders raise up these “sins” as virtues to be acquired.

The sin of pride is called “healthy self-esteem.”

The sin of gluttony is called “Respecting the wife’s cooking.”

The sin of laziness is called “relaxing after work.”

The sin of greed is calling “planning for the future.”

The sin of national idolatry is called “patriotism.”

The sin of hate is called “warning them of the fires of hell.”

The sin of anger is called “standing up for what I believe.”

And so on.

These are our favorite sins, and we have baptized our sins to make them acceptable and even praiseworthy. And even when our sins our not praiseworthy, we allow ourselves excuses which we never allow to anyone else.

mark lawry on love the sin hate the sinner

And then we have our “favorite sins” we like to point out in others.

These sins are ones we typically do not commit, but we use these to make ourselves feel better about our own sin. How? We point them out in others and condemn them and their sin for all the problems in the world and in society.

Ironically, when we point out the “sin” in others, we hardly ever allow them to use the same “excuses” toward us that we use toward others about the sin in our own lives. We tell them that their sin is worse than ours. That their sin is destroying the unity in the church. That their sin is bringing down our country. That their sin is perverting our culture. That they better fix their life right now, or God is going to kill them and punish them and send them to hell to burn forever.

More ironically still, the favorite sin we love to condemn in others the most are usually the sins that are mentioned by Scripture the least, whereas the “favorite sins” we ourselves commit are the sins that get a lot of attention in Scripture.

Take the most popular “sin” in America to condemn right now: homosexuality. It is mentioned 3 times in the Bible (6 times at the most, depending on how you want to understand a few terms).

But how often are greed, pride, slander, gluttony, anger, and hatred mentioned? I don’t know, but it’s probably in the hundreds for each one.

So why have we picked out this one “sin” as the one to focus on?

Because we need a scapegoat to blame for our own sin, and the “other,” the “outsider,” the “one who is not like us,” is always the person who gets chosen to be the scapegoat.

So to bring this back around…

love and hateWhen we say, “Love the sinner; hate the sin,” what we are really saying is “I will love only those I want to love, and I will hate and despise and cast out those people who do things I have decided are worse than the things I myself do, and this way I can make myself feel better while I condemn them for all the problems that I myself have contributed to but don’t want to admit.”

That’s my problem with the word “sin” in that statement. It sets us up in the position of God to decide which sins are worse than others, and which sins can be overlooked and which cannot. It makes us the arbiter or grace and forgiveness.

Which is the worst sin of all? When we say “Love the Sinner; Hate the Sin” we ourselves commit the worse sin possible, by setting ourselves up in the position of God to decide which sin is acceptable and which is not. We Christians must repent of this self-idolatrous, scapegoating judgmentalism of others.

And finally, the entire “Love the Sinner; Hate the Sin” statement is complete BS

If you just take the statement as a whole, it makes no sense.

People are complex creatures, and psychologically and emotionally, it is nearly impossible to separate what a person does from who a person is. This is especially true when a person is the way they are because they were born that way.

Forget homosexuality; take obesity as an example.

Many people who are overweight say that they were born with a slow metabolism, or they have some sort of disorder. Or maybe they went through some difficult times in life that were out of their control and psychologically turned to food for comfort. Or maybe they were just born with tastebuds and a stomach that really liked to eat good food.

Now imagine going up to such a person and saying, “Overeating is a sin. I love you, but I hate your fatness.” How will such a person respond?

I believe that person will be rightly offended.

Here’s the bottom line: If you love someone, you love all of them — even the lifestyle choices that might have resulted from sinful actions and behavior.

This does not mean you have to agree with what they do, but instead, you simply view the things in their life that you don’t agree with the same way you view all the sinful habits and choices you make in your own life.

And how do you want people to view you and your sin? You want to be loved while others withhold judgment.

This also is how you should view others who do things, say things, or live in ways that you think are “sinful.” Just love them, and withhold judgment.

And look, if you really want to start judging some sin somewhere, start with the whole mess in your own life first. Stop pointing out what you think is the sinful behavior in other people, and instead, work on the stuff in your own life.

I think Jesus said something about that… (You know … something about specks in their eye and a log in your own?) And when the Bible does talk about the relationship between love and sin, it says that love covers a multitude of sins. Hmmm…

just love and forgive the sin

The One Word I Like

So when it comes down to it, the only part of the “Love the Sinner; Hate the Sin” statement that I like is the word “love.”

just loveAnd why can’t that be enough? When we see someone else behaving in ways we don’t approve of and which we think is sin (and as long as it’s not illegal or harming someone), why can’t “love” be the only word that comes to our mind?

Apparently, Jesus loved this other person enough to die for them. And if He loved them, why can’t we?

So the next time you are tempted to say you “Love the Sinner; hate the sin,” just stop at love.

God is Redeeming Life, Redeeming Theology Bible & Theology Topics: forgiveness, homosexuality, looks like Jesus, love, love like Jesus, Theology of Sin

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Dear World, I am sorry. Will you forgive me?

By Jeremy Myers
15 Comments

Dear World, I am sorry. Will you forgive me?

i am sorryWe Christians owe the world an apology.

I, at least, owe the world an apology. So here it is:

Dear World, I am sorry.

About what?

About so many things …

… But the one thing I am sorry about the most is presenting to you a picture of God which you found repulsive and repugnant and worthy only of your rejection.

If I had done a better job of presenting God as He really is, as the God revealed to us in Jesus Christ, you might have loved Him instead of hated Him. You might have seen how much He loves you. How much He likes you.

Instead, I told you that if you do not do certain things that he wants, he will torment you forever in hell.

You could not love or worship a god like that. (Who truly can?) And so you rejected this god.

You figured that if this god really existed, and if he was going to send you to hell anyway, you might as well “live it up.”

I told you that God loves you, but his love has strings attached. His grace has limits. His mercy eventually fails. But you knew better. You knew that this was not true love, not free grace, not real mercy. And so you rejected this god.

You figured that if this god really existed, and since you could never really be sure of his love for you, you might as well live any way you wanted.

I told you that God would forgive you of all sin, but I added conditions to this forgiveness. God would forgive you “if” you did this and this, “and” as long as you kept yourself from that, “but” only when you felt this or that.

You figured that if this god really existed, it did not appear that you could ever know real forgiveness, so you decided to stop trying and go sin all you want.

I told you that the kind of people god wanted in heaven were the types of people who sat in pews on Sunday morning, who dressed in “proper” clothes and spoke “proper” language. Everybody else was headed for hell.

You figured that if god only wanted certain types of people in his presence, and you could never be one of those types of people, you might as well follow all your friends to hell.

I am sorry for all those things I told you.

Not a single one of them was true.

Not one.

I lied.

Jesus reveals god to us

The truth, as I see it now, is the truth you have always known to be true.

The truth is what you always tried to tell me was true, but I never listened. Because I was the Bible expert.

The truth is that you were right all along, and I was wrong. You hated the god I was proclaiming because that god was a god of my own making. I invented that god. And you knew it. Thanks for being patient with me while I came to the same realization you knew all along.

You see, I have recently come to understand that everything you hated about the god I proclaimed, you hated because you were listening to the voice of God better than I was. The true God hates that false god also. The true God hates the god I was proclaiming.

So in rejecting the god I was proclaiming, you were more godly than I.

And I am sorry for condemning you for it.

I have come to see the truth of your position because I have come to see the truth of Jesus.

You have always liked Jesus, because you knew that if God existed, He would look like Jesus. You always knew that if God was like Jesus (as I claimed), He would be loving and compassionate. Full of justice and mercy. He would be kind and generous. He would laugh a lot. He would tell good stories. He would go to parties. He would hang out with people that religious folk labeled as “sinners.”

But the god I was proclaiming looked nothing like Jesus, and so you rejected him.

And as a result of rejecting the god I proclaimed, I condemned you.

So I am sorry.

I never accepted the Jesus you knew to be true, because your Jesus didn’t fit with my conception of god. But now that I see that Jesus truly reveals God to us, and now that I see that the god I was proclaiming was a god of my own making, I have come to see that the Jesus you knew is the Jesus who really exists, and therefore, is what God is really like as well.

So I now see the truth you have seen all along.

What truth is that?

The truth that God loves us. Period.

The truth that God forgives us. No ifs, ands, or buts.

The truth that God likes us so much He wants to hang out with us and our friends. Just as we are.

The truth that God doesn’t care so much if we sit in those pews on Sunday morning. In fact, He may prefer that we don’t.

The truth that God isn’t concerned about our sin. He only cares about sin because it hurts us. And since He loves us, He doesn’t want to see us hurt.

And regarding all those silly rules about what to wear (and not wear), what to say (and not say), and where to go (and not go) … the truth that God doesn’t give a rat’s ass about those things. Those aren’t His “rules.” He never made those. We made those. Yes, we religious people. We invented those rules to make ourselves feel better. To make ourselves think we were better than you. When we’re not.

So we’re sorry.

No, I’m sorry.

And if you ever want to tell me more about Jesus, I would love to learn.

God is Redeeming Church Bible & Theology Topics: crucifixion, cruciform, crucivision, evangelism, looks like Jesus, Theology of God, Theology of Jesus, Theology of Sin

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God is not very Christlike … or is He?

By Jeremy Myers
8 Comments

God is not very Christlike … or is He?

Christians are always encouraged to become more “Christlike.”

But we rarely do.

Or at least, not to any significant degree.

Over the centuries, pastors and theologians have proposed dozens of explanations as to why this happens. Some say we just need to be more “filled with the Spirit.” Others say that the problem is that people who don’t live like Christians were never really Christians in the first place, and they won’t be until they truly “get saved.” A few proclaim that the problem is a lack of Bible knowledge, and that if we can just “renew our minds” with the Word of God, renewed lives will follow. And on and on it goes.

Christlike God

Can I propose something radical?

Maybe the reason many Christians are not very Christlike is because the God we worship is not very Christlike.

In the minds of most Christians, God is sitting in heaven with His arms crossed and a scowl on His face about all the sin in our lives. In the minds of most, the primary activity of God is to judge sin, point out our failures and weaknesses, and decide who is truly righteous enough to be part of His family.

He is controlling to the point of determining who lives and who dies, and He is to blame for tsunamis, earthquakes, diseases, famines, and wars.

He manipulates countries, pulls strings to govern human affairs, and demands the people follow and obey Him “or else.” And although He says He loves humanity, He does not seem to like us very much. At least, not until we fix ourselves up a bit. After all, “God cannot even look upon sin. He loves the sinner, but hates the sin.”

And since humans become like what we worship, when we worship this God who doesn’t look much like Jesus, we become more like God and less like Jesus.

Just like God, we sit around with our arms crossed and a scowl upon our faces at all the sin in other people’s lives.

Just like God, our primary activities seem to include judging sin, pointing out the failures and weaknesses in others, and deciding who is truly righteous enough to be in God’s family.

Just like God, we seek to control the lives of others, telling them what they can and cannot do, can and cannot believe.

And since our God seems to be at war against “wicked people,” we feel it is our duty and responsibility to also wage war against people we think are “wicked.” You know, the Muslims, the gays, and the abortion doctors.

Just like God, we try to manipulate rulers and leaders to do what we want. We try to pull the strings behind the scenes to get others to follow our ideas and our teachings.

And just like God, while we say that we love everybody, we don’t seem to like other people very much. We do not hang out with “sinners,” because they might pollute us. We say that we “love the sinner, but hate their sin.”

We have become images of the God we worship.

And since our God is not very Christlike, neither are we.

But in recent decades, a growing number of people are beginning to see what it really means for Jesus to be God incarnate.

An increasing number of people are beginning to recognize that one of the primary reasons Jesus came was to reveal God to us.

People are beginning to see that Jesus is not like God; God is like Jesus.

And God has always been like Jesus. God has always been with us and among us, sharing our pain, taking our blame, and redeeming our shame. He heals, He comforts, He restores. He hates nobody, kills nobody, and condemns nobody. He knows all, loves all, and forgives all.

And though many among Western Christianity are just now coming to understand that Jesus reveals God to us, this view is not new. It was the dominant view of the church for over 1000 years, and has always been the view of Jesus in Eastern Christianity. It is only in the West, where we allowed economics and empire to guide our theology, that God came to look more like a king on a throne than Jesus on the cross.

But that is all changing now, and I cannot wait to see what happens in the church and in the world as a result.

Jesus hangs out with sinners

To become more Christlike ourselves, we need a more Christlike God, and to see a Christlike God, we simply need to look at Jesus.

And when we look at Jesus, and recognize the truth … that He is the image of the invisible God (Col 1:15) and the exact representation of God (Heb 1:3), we will discover that we start to become more Christlike as well.

We will bless those who curse us.

We will pray for those who persecute us.

We will serve those who wish us only harm.

We will love those who seek violence against us.

We will hang out with those that religious people label as “sinners.”

We will see all people as our brothers and sisters, rather than just those who dress like us and believe like us.

We will no longer judge and condemn others, but will freely forgive them instead.

And we will do all these things because this is how Jesus treated others and how our Heavenly Father treats us.

When we see that God is Christlike, we will become Christlike as well.

God is Redeeming Theology Bible & Theology Topics: Christian living, Christlike, Colossians 1:15, cruciform, crucivision, Hebrews 1:3, looks like Jesus, love of God, Theology of God, Theology of Jesus, violence of God

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A More Christlike God

By Jeremy Myers
15 Comments

A More Christlike God

Jesus does not look like God; God looks like Jesus.

Let me explain what I mean.

For far too long, Christian theology has allowed a domineering monarchial view of God to discolor and distort our perspective of Jesus. We have an idea of God as the Sovereign King of the universe sitting on His throne in heaven, ruling the poor masses below through sheer power and control. And we have often interpreted Jesus in light of that picture of God. God, up there on His throne, is angry at us for how we rebelled against Him, and so Jesus has come to appease the wrath of God against humanity, which He does by dying on the cross.

Of course, Jesus has a dark side too, and at the end of time, when Jesus comes again, the bloody side of God will be on display in all its glory when Jesus lays waste to the world. So apparently, God is still angry at us, and although the death of Jesus calmed God down for a while, eventually even Jesus gets sick of all the sin, and decides God was right after all.

So you see? We have understood Jesus in light of God.

Thankfully, in recent decades, many pastors, theologians, and authors have begun to challenge this idea of Jesus (and God). Their idea is not new, but is as old as the church itself, and has always been the dominant view of Eastern Christianity. The view is that humanity has been mostly wrong about what God is like, so Jesus came to reveal God to us. Jesus does not look like God; God looks like Jesus.

As we in the West have rediscovered this truth once again, many people are publishing books about it. In recent years I have read dozens of excellent books on the topic. Books by people like C. S. Lewis, N. T. Wright, Walter Wink, Derek Flood, Greg Boyd, and numerous others, have been helpful guides in helping me see that God is Christlike.

A More Christlike God by Brad Jersak

More Christlike GodOne of the most recent books I have read on this subject is the new book by Bradley Jersak, A More Christlike God. I love the title, because it makes one realize that many theologies portray a God who is not very Christlike at all. He looks more like Zeus or The Terminator. But in A More Christlike God, Brad Jersak helps us see that God looks like Jesus.

Jersak begins his book with several chapters which show how the un-Christlike view of God developed and is taught in Western Christianity. Then, beginning with the concept of self-emptying of God (kenosis) in Philippians 2, he shows how the New Testament paints a portrait of a God who is non-violent, fully loving, self-sacrificial, and completely forgiving.

Jersak’s defense of a Christlike God centers around something he calls “Divine Consent.” The idea is that just as Jesus emptied Himself of His power and position so that He might better love and serve humanity (Philippians 2), so also, God has been emptying Himself of His power and position since creation so that He also might love and serve humanity. One of the ways God did this is by giving humans a degree of genuine freedom. This means, of course, that we might use this freedom in ways God does not want. God could, of course, use His power to stop us from using our freedom in ways He does not want, but then our freedom would not be free. So God empties Himself of His power, and His right to control us, and consents to our misuse of His gift of freedom.

Yet because God knows that our misuse of His gift of freedom results in death and destruction, God doesn’t just say, “You’re going to regret that decision.” Instead, He jumps into the catastrophic consequences of our bad decisions, and works with us to bring hope, healing, restoration, and redemption from the pain and suffering caused by sin. Brad Jersak calls this “Divine Participation.”

Jesus reveals GodOne of the key sections of A More Christlike God is where Brad Jersak discusses the all-important issue of “the wrath of God.” This idea is found in numerous places in the Bible, and is one of the key issues in this debate about what God is like. Many people assume that the phrase “the wrath of God” indicates that God is angry at us. Jersak presents a compelling case for why this is not a proper understanding of that term. He rightly critiques the idea that “the wrath of God” is God withdrawing His mercy. God never withdraws His mercy. God’s mercy is unfailing and everlasting. His mercy endures forever (Psalm 136).

Instead, Jersak defines the wrath of God as “God giving us over” the destructive consequences of our own decisions. As we all know, decisions have consequences. While God seeks to protect us from the consequences of sin through Scripture, wise counsel of friends, and the indwelling Holy Spirit, if we continue down the path of sin and reject His many gifts of mercy, there comes a point where God’s divine consent to our willful rebellion requires Him to let us face the consequences of our decisions.

The book closed with an interesting way of explaining to others the two primary ways of understanding God in the Bible and what Jesus accomplished on the cross. To show this visually, Brad Jersak and Brian Zahnd put together a YouTube video called “The Gospel in Chairs.” Here it is:

Since this video contains the sort of perspective found in this book, I highly recommend you read A More Christlike God.

My only real complaint is that A More Christlike God does very little to help the reader understand the violent texts in the Old Testament. He makes a minor statement on page 17 (through the words of a teenager girl named Jess) that the violence in the Old Testament is not what God did, but only describes what the people thought He was doing. I would have really like a fuller explanation of this idea, especially in how this idea relates to inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture.

God is Redeeming Books, Redeeming Theology Bible & Theology Topics: atonement, Books I'm Reading, christus victor, cruciform, crucivision, looks like Jesus, love of God, mercy, violence of God

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