Mercy Triumphs Over Judgment

This Bible text, "Mercy triumphs over judgment," comes from James 2:13. My wife Cheryl and I have both recently come across several items on the Internet supporting the ideas of God's wrath, justice, judgment, and predestination - the salvation of the elect and damnation of the unelect. Prooftexts for these ideas can all be found in the Bible, but we can also find many Bible texts that speak about God's mercy, His loving kindness (hesed = mercy or loving kindness) that endures forever. God is love. This is expressed in both the Old and New Testaments, but especially in Christ's and the Apostles' teaching.

All of these ideas are true: the question is how to strike a balance between them. In Psalm 85:10 we read - "Mercy and truth meet together. Righteousness and peace have kissed each other." This clearly illustrates the balance between mercy and truth, between righteousness (justice) and peace. In the final analysis, "mercy triumphs over judgment." God so loved the whole world that He gave His one and only Son. God wants all to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.

The Old Testament tends to emphasize God's wrath and judgment when the Israelites repeatedly messed up and reverted to idolatry, temple prostitution and human sacrifice like the surrounding nations practiced. But things changed in the New Testament: Christ summed up the Law and the Prophets in His dual commandments to love God with all your being and love your neighbor as yourself. These words, of course, are quoted from the Old Testament, but they seemed to have gotten covered up and forgotten by all the bad stuff that happened with Israel and God's response to their misdeeds.

The Apostle Paul puts it this way: "The law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith" (Galatians 3:24). Picture a schoolmaster being strict with students, passing out punishments for infractions of the rules. That's how the Old Testament Law worked. But how does faith work? St. Paul continues: "faith works through love" (Gal. 5:6).

Then Paul goes on to explain -

"But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you won't fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, that you may not do the things that you desire. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

Now the works of the flesh are obvious, which are: adultery, sexual immorality, uncleanness, lustfulness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, strife, jealousies, outbursts of anger, rivalries, divisions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, gluttony, and things like these; of which I forewarn you, even as I also forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the Kingdom of God.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts. If we live by the Spirit, let's also walk by the Spirit" (Gal. 5:16-25).

For many people today, the ideas of freedom and democracy mean that we're free to do whatever we want, we can vote to choose the laws and rules of society to match our desires and wants. This leads to the immediate gratification of our passions. The Apostle Paul writes about this as follows -

"This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardening of their hearts; who having become callous gave themselves up to lust, to work all uncleanness with greediness" (Ephesians 4:17-19). That's immediate gratification.

St. Paul continues - "But you did not learn Christ that way; if indeed you heard him, and were taught in him, even as truth is in Jesus: that you put away, as concerning your former way of life, the old man, that grows corrupt after the lusts of deceit; and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind. Put on the new man, who in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of truth. Therefore, putting away falsehood, speak truth each one with his neighbor. For we are members one of another" (Eph. 4:20-24). This is delayed gratification, being transformed into God's likeness!

What does it mean to be transformed into the likeness of God? Paul gives the answer - "Be therefore imitators of God, as beloved children. Walk in love, even as Christ also loved you, and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling fragrance" (Eph. 5:1-2). Imitating God is giving up oneself just as Christ gave up Himself for us.

And here's the "how-to" of imitating God and becoming like Christ - "But sexual immorality, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not even be mentioned among you, as becomes saints; nor filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not appropriate; but rather giving of thanks. Know this for sure, that no sexually immoral person, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the Kingdom of Christ and God" (Eph. 5:3-5).

This all comes back to the idea that God is love: "For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. His commandments are not grievous" (1 John 5:3). God loves us and wants the best for us. His commands - His rules for life - are not mean and harsh, they're for our long-term good. We are destined for an eternity of joy in God's presence - let's not lose out on this wonderful opportunity!

(Linked to www.Hosken-News.info of 30 Apr. 2017.)

Christian = Disciple; Body = Good

For much of my life, I was trained to believe that salvation, becoming a Christian, is by God's grace alone, it's a free gift; but becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ takes discipline and self-denial. NO! This is totally false! There should be no difference between a Christian and a disciple of Christ. In conventional thinking, the average, middle-class way of life in the United States has been considered "Christian," meaning fairly moral, church-going, polite and neighborly; but a disciple is someone who's gone overboard and become a religious fanatic.

Now, however, things are changing: the definition of morality has been stretched to include what God of the Bible calls lying, adultery, witchcraft and sodomy. Fewer and fewer people are church-going, polite and neighborly; more and more are openly secular and agnostic, rude and self-centered. According to the 7th circuit court, the term "Christian" is now equivalent to "bigot" - see "Did the 7th Circuit Just Rule That Christians Are Bigots?" Unelected Leftist judges are unilaterally legislating from the bench to push the U.S. further and further to the left.

But this is nothing to be surprised about, it's to be expected. When Christ said just before ascending to heaven, "All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things which I commanded you. Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age" (Mat. 28:18-20), He didn't say, "make people into nice, moral and neighborly good citizens." Becoming a disciple is much more than that. It's about denying ourselves, taking up our cross, and following Jesus Christ.

Now, here's the clincher: after the new faith had spread to the gentiles in Antioch, Luke records this fact: "Barnabas went out to Tarsus to look for Saul. When he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. For a whole year they were gathered together with the church, and taught many people. The disciples were first called Christians in Antioch" (Acts 11:25-26). What were they called before they were called Christians? Disciples! Up to this point in time, all followers of Jesus Christ were just called disciples. Then sometime after the Gospel was preached in Antioch (church tradition tells us that Evodius, the second bishop of Antioch, invented the term "Christian"), the disciples began to be called Christians. In other words, a disciple equals a Christian, and a Christian equals a disciple. They're one and the same thing. It's not "Christian vs. Disciple" but rather "Christian = Disciple."

But with the recognition of Christianity first as a tolerated religion and then as the official religion of the Greco-Roman Empire, many people became Christians because it was the acceptable thing to do. It didn't cost anything, in fact it was advantageous Thus we began to see the notion emerging of "two-tier" Christianity: a "laity" of ordinary citizens of the Empire, and a higher level of Christian commitment that included monks and clergy who were supposed to practice self-denial and really live according to the Gospel. Someone has jokingly said, "The clergy are paid to be good, but we laypeople are good for nothing!" (Should someone practice self-denial and "discipleship" only if he is collecting a salary for it?)

All Christians (disciples) are "laity" because the Greek for "laity" is "laos theou" - the people of God. Clergy are also part of the "laity." And all Christians (disciples) are called to be saints. Sainthood or holiness (they're the same word in Greek), just like discipleship, isn't an optional add-on, it comes with the basic model. Either you're a disciple who's striving to be transformed into the image and likeness of Christ, or you're not a Christian at all. There's no such thing as being "just a Christian" and not being a disciple.

We need to cleanse our minds of the false dualism or false dichotomy of "two-tier" Christianity, because the time is already upon us when we must identify either as fully-committed Christians that the world may call "bigots" and "haters," or not as Christians at all.

How does this relate to the second half of this essay's title, "Body = Good"? For centuries we in the "Christian world" have been taught the notion that the body is sinful, matter is inherently evil, but spirit is good. This is another false dualism or false dichotomy, because if we are called to be saints, to be transformed into the image and likeness of Christ, then we should ask ourselves, "What kind of body did Jesus have?" He was subject to the same sort of hunger, weakness, tiredness and temptation as we are, yet without sin. He fully partook of our human nature so that we can be full partakers of the Divine nature (2 Pet. 1:4). This is our "theosis" - becoming united with God.

When God created humans out of the dust of the earth and breathed into them the breath of life, He said, "It is very good!" In other words, our body-soul-spirit nature is inherently good, even in spite of the Fall. Adam's sin did not totally corrupt and pervert human nature. The Augustinian doctrine of inherited guilt and total depravity due to Adam's sin is incorrect, and it's a little-known fact that Augustine himself recanted of it in his last great work, The Kingdom of God. In the end, he agreed with his contemporary St. John Cassian and earlier theologians that Adam and Eve's sinning caused death, not guilt, to be passed on to all mankind. All Christians (disciples) are called to become purified and sanctified, restored into humanity's original state of goodness, into the likeness of Christ.

This false dualism or dichotomy of "the body is evil" has led directly to the notion that sex is sinful, and that to be really holy requires being celibate. This false notion is especially prevalent in Western Christianity, where the Catholic clergy is supposed to practice celibacy. But actually, sex in the proper context is "very good" - remember what God said when he created humans as male and female. Just as fire is a good thing when kept in the fireplace or on the stove but when it gets out of its place it can cause great harm, sex is a beautiful thing in the right context of a male-female permanent marriage but sex outside of this setting burns like fire and can be very destructive of families and society in general. Rod Dreher, in his new book The Benedict Option writes the following:

"To reduce Christian teaching about sex and sexuality to bare, boring, thou-shalt-not moralism is a travesty and a failure of imagination. While one may credit the courage of certain conservative pastors who don't shirk their duty to tell the truth about sex, those who jackhammer away at sexual immorality as if it were the only serious sin, or were somehow disconnected from a host of other sins of passion, distort the Gospel and undermine its credibility. This lamentable reductionism constitutes a failure to draw on the inexhaustible well of resources within the theological and artistic tradition. In the end, it comes down to a matter of Christians having lost our own grand story about eros, cosmos and theosis, the Greek word for 'union with God,' the ultimate end of the Christian pilgrimage."

In his letter to the church at Ephesus, St. Paul wrote that the marriage relationship is an icon or image of theosis, of us as the Church becoming united with Christ and being transformed into His glorious likeness -

"Subject yourselves one to another in the fear of Christ. Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, and Christ also is the head of the church, being himself the savior of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives also be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself up for it; that he might sanctify it, having cleansed it by the washing of water with the word, that he might present the church to himself glorious, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. Even so ought husbands also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself" (Eph. 5:21-28).

(Linked to www.Hosken-News.info of 17 Apr. 2017.)

The "You Will Not Die" Lie, Part 2

How many people have you known who, when disaster was imminent, simply stuck their heads in the sand and ignored the impending catastrophe? Hurricanes and floods can have days of warning ahead of the events, and yet some people will decide to "stick it out" because they're convinced it won't be so bad. It's just like when the old serpent whispered in Eve's ear - "You will not surely die!"

This is called "linear thinking" or "the normalcy bias" - the frame of mind that people enter when facing a disaster. People with a normalcy bias have difficulty reacting to something they haven't experienced before. Perhaps they've lived through a category 2 hurricane, so they convince themselves that a category 5 hurricane won't be much worse. They also tend to interpret warnings in the most optimistic way possible, seizing on any ambiguities to infer a less serious situation.

You might have heard the joke about the man who jumped off the top of the Empire State Building: as he was passing the 34th floor, another man stuck his head out the window and said, "How's it going?" And the first guy replied, "So far, so good!" You can't outsmart gravity. That's "linear thinking" or "the normalcy bias" - the idea that the way things have been is the way they will continue to be. If I'm not dead yet, this means that whatever I do, I'll just continue on living.

The Psalmist wrote, "A senseless man doesn't know, neither does a fool understand this: Though the wicked spring up as the grass, and all the evil-doers flourish, they will be destroyed forever" (Psalm 92:6-7). The senseless or foolish person thinks, "I can keep on overeating, or smoking, or stealing, or lying, etc. because I'm not dead yet or haven't been caught yet." But then the laws of God, nature or society catch up with them.

As Christians, we can become discouraged when we see the rich and powerful of this world getting away with cheating or committing crimes and not being caught and punished. This has been going on for centuries:

"O Lord God, to whom vengeance belongs, o God, to whom vengeance belongs, shine forth. Rise up, you judge of the earth. Pay back the proud what they deserve. O Lord, how long will the wicked, how long will the wicked triumph? They pour out arrogant words. All the evil-doers boast. They break your people in pieces, O Lord, and afflict your heritage. They kill the widow and the alien, and murder the fatherless. They say, 'The Lord will not see, neither will Jacob's God consider'" (Psalm 94:1-7).

And then the Psalmist answers this dilemma: "Consider, you senseless among the people; you fools, when will you be wise? He who implanted the ear, won't He hear? He who formed the eye, won't He see? He who disciplines the nations, won't He punish? He who teaches man knows. The Lord knows the thoughts of man, that they are futile" (Psalm 94:8-11).

Social pressure has a huge influence on us adults as well, not just on teenagers feeling their hormones. When you're driving along at the 55 m.p.h. speed limit, literally all the other cars are passing you and there's a big SUV tailgating you, flashing its headlights, don't you feel pressured to speed up and just "go with the flow"? One little car against a whole stream of bigger cars doesn't stand a chance.

But let's say you're in the Army Reserves, and you're driving an APC (Armored Personnel Carrier) with 12 reservists in it, along with a convoy of other APCs and Army trucks along the same highway, going the 55 m.p.h. speed limit. Nobody - but NOBODY - honks their horns at you! This is why we need to form "thick" bonds in genuine Christian communities, as described in The Benedict Option, Rod Dreher's new bestseller book.

The motives of our heart are not hidden from God. He knows when we're not even trying to appear righteous, and especially when we're trying to appear righteous but actually, we're deceiving people. We can't deceive God. Sooner or later He catches us in our self-deceit. It's time to "face the music," to sincerely repent and change our ways.

(Linked to www.Hosken-News.info of 03 Apr. 2017.)