One Faith
My friend Josh and i were sitting in church yesterday. We got to talking, as there is supposedly an upcoming re-empowering of Christianity. This is an interesting idea, as people have for many years struggled to define what Christianity is. Now, bouncing around in my head has been a certain song by John Michael Talbot. He's a monk/worshipper who ( Read more... )
What say you, yoda?
That God is separate, that we are lost without Him?
What say you about self-sacrifice? Is this really such an important factor, as I have been told, a foundation of christian faith? Anything done for yourself is greedy, be sure to do what it takes to take care of everyone else first? Or is the majority mistaken, and that isn't what He meant at all?
Perchance, methinks that Jesus was an example of what anyone can become. To say that we are lost without someone elses help implies a Two Way relationship with an idea: He can't save us without us taking His hand, and we can't be saved unless we accept His help. We are indebted. A religion building debtors to a Mysterious Host.
Whats in it for God then? Not for us to fathom? A politcal answer for "We don't know". Altruism? or, better stated, Self-Sacrifice again? An infinite God has no history of sacrifice, He never suffers a loss (ie: read infinite) To say he sacrificed His Son is to contradict that He's Alpha & Omega, and to say that He never intended for it to be looked upon as a sacrifice apparently goes against christianity at its core.
What do I have to gain by "attacking" and "nitpicking", why, understanding and wisdom of course. Either I'm right and I'll be able to help someone else see it, or I'm wrong and I'll understand a new point of view.
For now, you can call me Jeff, seeing as how you would like a name to go with a post.
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First, addressing the nature of God. God is infinite, there is nothing that He cannot do. However within the realm of time (that’s our currently reality) He is still bound by His own nature. God is God, God has rules set by Himself. Just as we cannot go against our nature and say become a flower, nor can God become something less than God. To say that an infinite God could not suffer is a question addressed by the ancients and answered just as easily. If God were to redeem Humanity, He would have to assume the fullness of Humanity. That means everything: sickness, pain, hurt, and frailness. He at the same time possessed a dual nature, full humanity and full divinity. Thus, as God He was redemption and as man incarnate (as the source of all live His very presence renews, hence Moses glowing after he talked with YHWH). Thus, now having possessed a human and divine nature, Christ was able to 'save', that is redeem and renew. He experienced the fullness of human life, and it is to His perfect life that we are grafted. We cannot work anything out, we are already imperfect. He perfects our spiritual nature in this realm, and later after the resurrection. This flesh having been cast off, we are given eternal flesh, then those 'in Christ', that is those who have grown into His call and been renewed by His works within us, are given to enter into God's Heavenly (now returned to earth) Kingdom.
The ideas of self sacrifice are tied into this whole reality. If God is truely working within us, and if we are listening to His call on our lives. Then we would naturally live out a sacrificial existance. God the Father gave His son to fulfill the deal that we couldn't. God made a covenant in blood, (Genesis 17) that said the Jews(at the time) and then those 'in Christ' would be His people. A blood covenant demands that one member shed blood to keep the covenant if it is broken. (The rules of the covenant of course being the 10 commandments and then Mosaic Law)We couldn't do this, so God, as per His deal, shed His own blood to finish what we couldn't even start. That is the call to sacrifice. We are supposed to follow that example, and more importantly live into that example.
Christ said in John's Gospel that "He did only what His Father was doing", being perfectly obedient and working beside God. We are to do this as well. For us, to be working with God might appear to be a sacrifice, but it is also a joy, as there is already enough for those who are truly working with God. It might not seem that way, but He keeps His promises. Anything you are called to give up, God will provide whatever you need if you are willing to give it up. If not, you are being selfish, making whatever it is you refuse to lose more important than God's direction. This is unacceptable to Him, as He is the creator, and the Father, and the most important person to you, even if you don't acknowledge it.
Thus, it cannot be that we are our own Jesus, we aren’t Devine, nor are we possessing of any power. The Truth of Christianity isn’t a good moral code, it’s actually exactly the opposite. It is living without a code, in a situational relationship with an actual being, one that created everything seen and unseen. He has given us His Word in the bible as a guide to finding Him, learning about Him, and letting Him teach us by His already written example. Kinda like taking a college class with a professor who wrote the textbook. The book is important, but without going to class and learning in what situation to apply each lesson and how specifically to do that, it’s just a book.
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So i'm going to get right to the point i had at the end of that lengthy post: God cannot be separate from us.
A church puporting to be the liason between me and my God is a sham by greedy men: The part of the story where God made a covenant where we couldn't keep our end of the bargain is akin to a mob boss indebting an individual by means of a gift that comes with an obligation that you owe him something in return in the future. Add onto this the statement that you must give up whatever God asks of you, and you have a church that scares people into giving up their lives to other men in the name of a supposedly all loving God.
But since God is all loving, then the following must be true: His salvation of us could not be an obligatory debt that we must strive to fulfill, when we can't, but a gift. (A gift in the sense that He wants us to come with Him, I'm assuming that since he loves us He wants a closer company with us, so His gift helps Him out as well) And since He is all loving, anything He would ever ask of you to give up would only be in a sense of asking someone to give up a bad habit. To a man blinded by his own view of what is a destructive habit, being asked to give it up is a large act of faith. Pretending to be speaking for God is an abuse of this faith.
Anyone saying that God is separate from you is spouting falsehoods again. (the same self-proclaimed liasons to God are a large body of such speakers). If God saved you, then yes, He must assume all parts of you, He can't just save part of you. But to assume one responsibility, He assumes them all. Therefore He must come from within you, not from outside, to do so. A church saying that God saves you from the outside says that He alone is responsible for your actions, thus separating a man from his responsibilities. A man who acts like he is not responsible for his actions destroys almost everything he touches.
But God is a part of us, the most important part as you say, whether we acknowledge it or not. That is what i mean when i say that we are our own Jesus. I see that whole story as an example to follow, like a How To guide. Jesus was probably the first one, the one who drew the map for the rest of us. But that doesn't mean He alone did all the hardwork. He can't, in fact, do the work for us and have it still mean the same thing for us. Walking the path is at least half of it, you can't have someone else write your paper for class and still expect to learn everything.
Jeff
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