Hello All,
(Just a general disclaimer that I must insert here at the beginning. I am but a lay person, like most of you. And these weekly “thoughts” are but my own. Not the definitive word on this or any topic. Just my own conclusions derived from my own study and faith in God. The greatest hope I have for these weekly “thoughts” is to have them be a springboard for further study on your part. Not to be a weekly treatise to be blindly accepted. So, please read them with this intent, this motive in mind).
This week’s lesson from the “Adult Sabbath School Bible Study Guide”, is titled “Jesus, Our Faithful Brother”. On Sunday’s lesson titled “The Brother as a Redeemer”, the following comment is made; “When Adam sinned, human beings fell under the power of Satan. As a result, we did not have the power to resist sin (Romans 7: 14-24). Worse, there was a death penalty that our transgression required, which we could not pay (Romans 6;23). Thus, our situation was apparently hopeless.” As some of you know me, it will likely not surprise you that I must comment on this “payment of penalty” … this assumption. For assumption it is. It all goes back to the “Garden” when God said, “in the day you eat of (tree of the knowledge of good and evil), you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:17).
Almost universally, all Christians assume that God is threatening you. Assuming God’s threat in the Garden to mean, “In the day you eat of it, I (God) will be forced by the holiness of my character and government to put you to death”. But that is not what God said. He said simply, “you shall surely die”. And in Romans 6:23 (the referenced verse in our quarterly), Paul clears this all up. He says, “Sin pays its wage servants: the wage is death” (Phillips). Oh. This is different. The death is not a penalty after all. It is a natural consequence. Not an imposed penalty from an offended deity. And God is not threatening you (God forbid!). He is informing you, warning you, of what naturally happens to you.
This is not a matter of splitting theological “hairs”. This is the difference between a hostile, angry God; or a friendly, loving God. The difference between a God who saves you from his “wrath”; or a God who saves you from… yourself. The difference between a God who kills His innocent Son instead of guilty you; or a God who comes alongside of each to share our death so that we can then share His endless life. The difference between fearing God; or fearing sin. If God needs His Son to die in order to forgive, then He is not ever a God to come near-to. He is a God to be scared-to-death of. For if we do not come intimately near to Him, then we will never have life… never live. “This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent” (John 17:3). To “know” meaning to intimately understand. To be in real tight relationship with… like the committed, sexual union of husband and wife. However, a God you are afraid-of will never become a God to be known in that way. And then we will have no antidote to our life of sin and self. Because He alone is the “way, the truth and the life” (John 14:6).
Our picture of God here is so very, very vital. If we have a God to be appeased, a God who must have our “penalty” paid, then this will color our understanding and interaction with Him and with our brothers and sisters. It will affect how we read scripture, how we interpret His relationship to us, and ours to Him. And it is this relationship that will determine if we come to Him and are saved (healed); or we never get close to Him and die alone in our sin.
Satan has artfully contrived a false picture of God that seems to fit scripture. But more, it fits our sinful desires. We want to live unto self here on earth, and then have an eternal heavenly retirement. We want forgiveness and absolution for our sins by believing that someone else “paid the penalty” so that I can be free to live as I like and still be absolved. But this is a false picture of God. Hence, a false representation… or even a lie.
Yup. Christianity is presenting a false interpretation about the Father when we say that “there was a death penalty that our transgression required” (Quarterly for Sunday). That concept started long ago as a pagan idea about their pagan gods. Satan has peddled this understanding to us sinners under the guise of the “atonement” from many a pulpit. A falsehood we like because it assuages our guilt and leaves us to only “do our best” to overcome sin. So it leaves the deadly parasite of sin alive in our minds to do its deadly work. But the death from sin God warned us about in Eden is not penalty… not torture and then execution at our loving Father’s hand. Christ’ death on the cross proves that. The Father did not kill His innocent Son on the cross. He did not lay a hand on the Son. The Son said, “why have you given me up, why have you let me go”? (my paraphrase of Matthew 27:46/ Mark 15:34). The Son would’ve loved to have felt the Father’s hand. Yet the Son was treated “as if” He was a rebellious sinner. Treated as a sinner who would never, ever want to return home. Treated “as if” he forever and always hated the Father and His selfless ways. So, what does the Father do to such a one? Our loving Father must finally, sadly, irrevocably let the sinner go. Just as He let the Son go on the cross (see Romans 1: 24,26,28 to see what God does to hardened sinners… “given them up” or “given them over”. Then go to Romans 4:25 to see what God did to His Son on the cross… “delivered up” … the same Greek word in all these passages).
We are misrepresenting the Father when we say that Christ “had to die on the cross as a sacrifice so that the Father could have a legal means to save us” (Quarterly for Wednesday). As if our sin problem is a legal one, requiring a legal remedy. Our sin problem is not legal. It is real. We are dying from sin. It is killing us. And so, our Father comes alongside us in the person of His son and dies our death with us (see Galatians 2;20). So that we can have Christ’s life as our own… if we so choose to “suffer with Him that we may be glorified together with Him” (Romans 8:17).
If we Christians who claim to know our Father keep peddling Satan’s falsehood, countless others will still keep going to their graves believing a lie. A lie that is not salvation. A lie that misrepresents our Father. A lie that does little to deal with our sin problem. And a lie that may keep many out of the Kingdom (we must leave their destiny to God, for He alone knows their heart despite the believed falsehood).
As you read our Quarterly this time, please be cautious. The Quarterly is written by sinful persons… like you and especially like me. Just because a certain explanation is in the quarterly or has been held for a very long time does not make it true. Please prayerfully read these lessons (and any thoughts that proceed from my “pen”). Remember that there is more than one way to read and understand the “Plan of Salvation”. The “legal model” may have been needed for a long time for the servant mentality of us 2-year-old sinners who must have rules and are “kept under the Law” (Galatians 3:23). But the “trust/ healing model” more perfectly fits the relational, family mentality of friends who understand and love. Those who love and trust Him and are “no longer under the (Law)”. (Galatians 3:25; also see 1 Selected Messages Chapter 31).
With brotherly love always,
Jim