Fear – Numbers, Part 3

Posted on April 21, 2014 by admin

Now Korah son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, and Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, and On son of Peleth, who were Reubenites, took men and rebelled against Moses, along with some of the Israelites, 250 leaders of the community, chosen from the assembly, famous men.^[1]

Fear, the Hebrew word yârêʼ, doesn’t appear in the story of Korah’s rebellion. That in itself is instructive. Though there is plenty to be frightened of, there is no fear of the Lord here; it is difficult to find even a hint of reverence for God. The rebels confronted Moses and Aaron and said, “You take too much upon yourselves, seeing that the whole community is holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them. Why then do you exalt yourselves above the community of the Lord?”^[2]

Accusing Moses of exalting himself above the community of the Lord was hitting below the belt. He was the most reluctant Messiah: “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, or that I should bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”^[3] he had said. Then he had caviled, “If I go to the Israelites and tell them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ – what should I say to them?”^[4] He had fretted, “And if they do not believe me or pay attention to me, but say, ‘The Lord has not appeared to you’?”^[5] He had made excuses, “O my Lord, I am not an eloquent man, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant, for I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.”^[6] He had all but refused to serve, angering ^[7] the Lord in the process, “O my Lord, please send anyone else whom you wish to send!”^[8]

He had wholeheartedly admitted that he was burdened excessively, beyond [his] strength, so that [he] despaired even of living:^[9] I am not able to bear this entire people alone, Moses had cried out to the Lord, because it is too heavy for me! But if you are going to deal with me like this, then kill me immediately. If I have found favor in your sight then do not let me see my trouble.^[10] And his most profound hope was that all Israel would know the Lord and be holy in fact: “Are you jealous for me?” he had said when Joshua was offended because Eldad and Medad had prophesied in the camp.^[11] “I wish that all the Lord’s people were prophets, that the Lord would put his Spirit on them!”^[12]

With his body Moses fell down with his face to the ground^[13] when he heard the rebels’ accusation, but I wonder about his heart (Numbers 16:5-7 NET).

Then he said to Korah and to all his company, “In the morning the Lord will make known who are his, and who is holy. He will cause that person to approach him; the person he has chosen he will cause to approach him. Do this, Korah, you and all your company: Take censers, put fire in them, and set incense on them before the Lord tomorrow, and the man whom the Lord chooses will be holy. You take too much upon yourselves, you sons of Levi!”

I’ll be the first to admit that it doesn’t pay to be too subtle with Moses’ matter-of-fact writing style,^[14] but the brute fact of goading Korah and his accomplices into presenting strange fire before the Lord^[15] sounds like sarcasm to me. Moses spoke to Korah and the sons of Levi, but he summoned^[16] Dathan and Abiram as a prince would summon unruly subjects. They refused his summons and said, Is it a small thing that you have brought us up out of the land that flows with milk and honey, to kill us in the wilderness? Now do you want to make yourself a prince over us? Moreover, you have not brought us into a land that flows with milk and honey, nor given us an inheritance of fields and vineyards. Do you think you can blind [continue to deceive] these men?^[17]

It was another low blow. It hadn’t been that long since Moses had interceded ^[18] for Dathan and Abiram, when the Lord wanted to strike them with the pestilence and disinherit them^[19] after they had refused to enter the promised land because they feared the people living there rather than the Lord. Reading the Bible in faith I am privy to the secret communication between the Lord and Moses that Dathan and Abiram heard about only through Moses. Granted, they had rejected the privilege of hearing from the Lord when they said to Moses, “You speak to us and we will listen, but do not let God speak with us, lest we die.”^[20] Still, I want to consider the truth of Dathan’s and Abiram’s accusations, both literal and perceptual.

Is it a small thing that you have brought us up out of the land that flows with milk and honey, to kill us in the wilderness? Yes, Moses had led them out of Egypt, and, yes, they were going to die in the wilderness (Numbers 14:28-30a):

As I live, says the Lord, I will surely do to you just what you have spoken in my hearing. Your dead bodies will fall in this wilderness – all those of you who were numbered, according to your full number, from twenty years old and upward, who have murmured against me. You will by no means enter into the land where I swore to settle you.

Now do you want to make yourself a prince over us? Moses had summoned them as a prince.

Moreover, you have not brought us into a land that flows with milk and honey, nor given us an inheritance of fields and vineyards. True, under Moses’ tenure as leader Dathan and Abiram would not inherit fields and vineyards in the promised land. Their children might have: But I will bring in your little ones, whom you said would become victims of war, and they will enjoy the land that you have despised,^[21] the Lord promised. Dathan and Abiram, however, would die in the wilderness.

Do you think you can blind [continue to deceive] these men? Slavery in Egypt didn’t seem so bad any longer. But here they were wrong. Moses had not deceived anyone. Dathan and Abiram added up all the facts they perceived but came to the wrong sum. How do I know? Through faith, the very faith Dathan and Abiram did not have, though they saw with their eyes, and lived through, the circumstances I can only read about.

Moses was very angry…^[22] Perhaps I should accept his anger as righteous indignation and let it go at that. I certainly have in the past. I would be willing to do so again, if not for the Scripture the Holy Spirit brings to my mind: Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters! Let every person be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger. For human anger does not accomplish God’s righteousness.^[23] Have no respect for their offering! Moses “interceded” with the Lord. I have not taken so much as one donkey from them [no one accused him of stealing anything], nor have I harmed any one of them!^[24]

Let me say before I go any farther down this road, that apart from the Spirit of God raising the dead, I would have folded long before this if I were under Moses’ pressures. But I do wonder here if Moses was concerned with justifying the Lord or himself. And I probably ask the question because I’ve spent so much of my time and energy trying to justify myself. Be that as it may, I can’t help but wonder if I am staring at the terminal moraine, if you will, of the most humble man in the world.^[25] Is this the foreshadowing of what would become explicit at the waters of Meribah?^[26]

I am foreshadowing for those who know the story and will be explicit for any who do not. Even Moses could not enter the promised land. “Then who can be saved?”^[27] Jesus’ astonished disciples exclaimed on a different subject. But I think his answer still applies: “This is impossible for mere humans, but not for God; all things are possible for God.”^[28] And don’t fret too much for Moses. He came back in the sequel (Luke 9:28-31 NET).

…Jesus took with him Peter, John, and James, and went up the mountain to pray. As he was praying, the appearance of his face was transformed, and his clothes became very bright, a brilliant white. Then two men, Moses and Elijah, began talking with him. They appeared in glorious splendor and spoke about his departure that he was about to carry out at Jerusalem.

This followed Jesus’ promise, I tell you the truth, there are some standing here who will not experience death before they see the Son of Man coming (ἐρχόμενον, a form of ἔρχομαι) in his kingdom,^[29] as Matthew recalled it. The definition of ἔρχομαι in the NET lists “to appear, make one’s appearance…come forth, show itself” and “become known” as possible meanings. These make some sense of Mark’s Gospel account (which I assume was Peter’s recollections), there are some standing here who will not experience death before they see the kingdom of God come (ἐληλυθυῖαν, another form of ἔρχομαι) with power.^[30] The vision^[31] (ὅραμα) of not just one but three glorified sons of man was overwhelming to Peter in its power (Luke 9:32, 33 NET).

Now Peter and those with him were quite sleepy, but as they became fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men standing with him. Then as the men were starting to leave, Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it is good for us to be here. Let us make three shelters, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah” – not knowing what he was saying.

For they were afraid (ἔκφοβοι, a form of ἔκφοβος) Mark wrote, and he did not know what to say.^[32] But God, the Father, made sure there was no confusion in the matter (Luke 9:34, 35 NET).

As [Peter] was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them, and they were afraid (ἐφοβήθησαν, a form of φοβέω) as they entered the cloud. Then a voice came from the cloud, saying, “This is my Son, my Chosen One. Listen to him!”

It’s a beautiful picture of the kingdom of God. And the hope of, not being afraid,^[33] but walking among them as one of them is wonderful beyond description. It’s an occupational hazard of studying the Bible I suppose, but Jesus, Moses, Elijah, Peter, Paul, Abraham, David, Jephthah’s daughter, Mary and Abigail are more vibrant and alive to me than most of the people I see every day. I can only imagine what it was like for Jesus to step out of that vision and back into the here and now. I know what was on his mind. The Scriptures make it abundantly clear that He was concerned that his disciples understood his departure that he was about to carry out at Jerusalem. The clock was ticking loudly then.

As they were coming down from the mountain, he gave them orders not to tell anyone what they had seen until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead. They kept this statement to themselves, discussing what this rising from the dead meant.^[34] But while the entire crowd was amazed at everything Jesus was doing, he said to his disciples, “Take these words to heart, for the Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men.” But they did not understand this statement; its meaning had been concealed from them, so that they could not grasp it. Yet they were afraid (ἐφοβοῦντοto, another form of φοβέω) to ask him about this statement.^[35] They went out from there and passed through Galilee. But Jesus did not want anyone to know, for he was teaching his disciples and telling them, “The Son of Man will be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him, and after three days he will rise.” But they did not understand this statement and were afraid (ἐφοβοῦντο, another form of φοβέω) to ask him.^[36] When they gathered together in Galilee, Jesus told them, “The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him, and on the third day he will be raised.” And they became greatly distressed.^[37]

Finally they began to hear Him. They became greatly distressed which is understandable, maybe even commendable, but completely beside the point! So with the foreknowledge of their unbelief weighing on his mind, Jesus walked down the mountain of transfiguration into an argument (Mark 9:14-18 NET).

When they came to the disciples, they saw a large crowd around them and experts in the law arguing with them. When the whole crowd saw him, they were amazed and ran at once and greeted him. He asked them, “What are you arguing about with them?”

A member of the crowd said to him,^[38] “Teacher, I brought you my son, who is possessed by a spirit that makes him mute [Table]. Whenever it seizes him, it throws him down, and he foams at the mouth, grinds his teeth, and becomes rigid. I asked your disciples to cast it out, but they were not able to do so.”

Then the Son of Man vented his own frustration, You unbelieving generation! How much longer must I be with you? How much longer must I endure you?^[39]

Fear – Numbers, Part 4

Back to Fear – Numbers, Part 5

^[1] Numbers 16:1, 2 (NET)

^[2] Numbers 16:3 (NET)

^[3] Exodus 3:11 (NET)

^[4] Exodus 3:13 (NET)

^[5] Exodus 4:1 (NET)

^[6] Exodus 4:10 (NET)

^[7] Exodus 4:14 (NET)

^[8] Exodus 4:13 (NET)

^[9] 2 Corinthians 1:8b (NET)

^[10] Numbers 11:14, 15 (NET)

^[11] Numbers 11:27 (NET)

^[12] Numbers 11:29 (NET)

^[13] Numbers 16:4 (NET)

^[14] https://religiousmind.net/2013/07/01/fear-exodus-part-6/

^[15] Leviticus 10:1 (NET)

^[16] Numbers 16:12 (NET)

^[17] Numbers 16:13, 14a (NET)

^[18] Numbers 14:13-20 (NET)

^[19] Numbers 14:12 (NET)

^[20] Exodus 20:19 (NET)

^[21] Numbers 14:31 (NET)

^[22] Numbers 16:15a (NET)

^[23] James 1:19, 20 (NET) Table

^[24] Numbers 16:15b (NET)

^[25] Numbers 12:3 (NET)

^[26] Numbers 20:1-13 (NET)

^[27] Mark 10:26b (NET)

^[28] Mark 10:27 (NET)

^[29] Matthew 16:28 (NET)

^[30] Mark 9:1 (NET)

^[31] Matthew 17:9 (NET)

^[32] Mark 9:6 (NET)

^[33] Matthew 17:6, 7 (NET)

^[34] Mark 9:9, 10 (NET)

^[35] Luke 9:43b-45 (NET)

^[36] Mark 9:30-32 (NET)

^[37] Matthew 17:22, 23 (NET)

^[38] The NET parallel Greek text and NA²⁸ had ἀπεκρίθη αὐτῷ here, where the Stephanus Textus Receptus and Byzantine Majority Text had αποκριθεις and ειπεν (KJV: answered and said).

^[39] Mark 9:19a (NET)

Romans, Part 52

Posted on April 18, 2014 by admin

So how can I view, Abhor what is evil, cling to what is good,^[1] and what follows as a definition of love rather than as rules? I’ve constructed the following table to help.

The Fruit of the Spirit

Galatians 5:22, 23 (NET)

Goodness (ἀγαθωσύνη)

…for you were at one time darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of the light – for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness (ἀγαθωσύνῃ), righteousness, and truth (ἀληθείᾳ) – trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord.^[2]

Love (ἀγάπη) is…

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (NET)

…not glad about injustice (ἀδικίᾳ)…

1 Corinthians 13:6a (NET)

…but rejoices (συγχαίρει, a form of συγχαίρω) in the truth (ἀληθείᾳ).

1 Corinthians 13:6b (NET)

The person who speaks on his own authority desires to receive honor for himself; the one who desires the honor of the one who sent him is a man of integrity, and there is no unrighteousness (ἀδικία) in him.^[3]

This Love Without Hypocrisy…

Romans 12:9-21 (NET)

Abhor (ἀποστυγοῦντες, a form of ἀποστυγέω) what is evil (πονηρόν, a form of πονηρός)…

Romans 12:9b (NET)

…cling (κολλώμενοι, a form of κολλάω) to what is good (ἀγαθῷ, a form of ἀγαθός).

Romans 12:9c (NET)

While it makes some sense to place cling to what is good (ἀγαθῷ) under goodness (ἀγαθωσύνη), there is also a certain arbitrariness to subdividing a multivariate unity like the fruit of the Spirit. Why not place rejoices (συγχαίρει) in the truth under joy (χαρά)? I have no argument against that at all. I wholeheartedly believe that the motivating power (both to will and to do)^[4] is the fruit of Christ’s Spirit. I rejoice in the truth because of his joy flowing in and through me. And I’ve clearly walked everything through love (ἀγάπη; 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 NET) as well. What is most important to me is the direction of flow, that I abhor what is evil and cling to what is good by God’s goodness, not my own.

I used to work this backwards. I believed that if I gathered a list of all that is evil and abhorred it, if I gathered a list of all that is good and clung to it, then I would be a man of integrity who desired to honor God. And if I was not glad about injustice but rejoiced in the truth, then I would be walking as a child of the light, and I would have achieved the fruit of the Spirit, the very Goodness of God. I would have climbed up sunshine mountain.^[5] Though I now consider this adultery, even a super πορνεία, and precisely what Jesus meant when he called the Pharisees hypocrites, I didn’t know any better then. My only alternative in the futility of my thinking ^[6] was to say, “No, I won’t do any of those things.”

Though I could see no alternative to obeying rules in my mind, I felt it in my heart and in my spirit. I had moments, brief, precious God-given moments of unbounded grace, when I could do no wrong, effortlessly. Why did they end? I wondered. And so I studied the Bible for more rules to obey. But despite my best efforts to remain blind and unthinking, God’s light shone through. His love, his joy, his peace, his patience, his kindness, his goodness, his faithfulness, his gentleness and his firm control^[7] began to take its toll on my recalcitrant mind, and renew it.

Now I see even with my mind, that if I abhor what is evil and cling to what is good, it is due to his goodness. If I am not glad about injustice but rejoice in the truth, it is due to his love and joy. If I walk as a child of the light it demonstrates his righteousness, not mine. It is his gift received by faith. For if, by the transgression of the one man, death reigned through the one, how much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one, Jesus Christ!^[8] Now I can look back and see that even the point of that silly little song was to “Look to God on High,” but my religious mind tried to keep me blind—tried and failed because eventually I learned to stop trying to do and started believing.

John’s words are an excellent transition to believe into the next definition of love in Paul’s letter to the Romans, Be devoted to one another with mutual love, showing eagerness in honoring one another.^[9]

I am writing to you, little children, that your sins have been forgiven because of his name. I am writing to you, fathers, that you have known him who has been from the beginning. I am writing to you, young people, that you have conquered the evil one (πονηρόν). I have written to you, children, that you have known the Father. I have written to you, fathers, that you have known him who has been from the beginning. I have written to you, young people, that you are strong, and the word of God resides in you, and you have conquered the evil one (πονηρόν).^[10]

The Fruit of the Spirit

Galatians 5:22, 23 (NET)

Kindness (χρηστότης)

But “when the kindness (χρηστότης) of God our Savior and his love for mankind (φιλανθρωπία) appeared, he saved us not by works of righteousness that we have done but on the basis of his mercy (ἔλεος), through the washing of the new birth and the renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us in full measure through Jesus Christ our Savior.”^[11]

Love (ἀγάπη) is…

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (NET)

…kind (χρηστεύεται, a form of χρηστεῦομαι)…

1 Corinthians 13:4 (NET)

…it is not envious (ζηλοῖ, a form of ζηλόω).

1 Corinthians 13:4 (NET)

But the Jews became jealous (Ζηλώσαντες, a form of ζηλόω), and gathering together some worthless men from the rabble in the marketplace, they formed a mob and set the city in an uproar.^[12]They court you eagerly (ζηλοῦσιν, another form of ζηλόω), but for no good purpose; they want to exclude you, so that you would seek them eagerly (ζηλοῦτε, another form of ζηλόω). However, it is good to be sought eagerly (ζηλοῦσθαι, another form of ζηλόω) for a good purpose at all times, and not only when I am present with you.^[13]

This Love Without Hypocrisy…

Romans 12:9-21 (NET)

Be devoted (φιλαδελφίᾳ, a form of φιλαδελφία) to one another with mutual love (φιλόστοργοι, a form of φιλόστοργος)…

Romans 12:10a (NET)

…showing eagerness (προηγούμενοι, a form of προηγέομαι) in honoring (τιμῇ, a form of τιμή) one another.

Romans 12:10b (NET)

Now on the topic of brotherly love (φιλαδελφίας, a form of φιλαδελφία) you have no need for anyone to write you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love (ἀγαπᾶν, a form of ἀγαπάω) one another. And indeed you are practicing it toward all the brothers and sisters in all of Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers and sisters, to do so more and more, to aspire to lead a quiet life, to attend to your own business, and to work with your hands, as we commanded you. In this way you will live a decent life before outsiders and not be in need.^[14]

So I began here with John’s good and kind and gracious words that I may cling to them and rejoice in their truth: 1) your sins have been forgiven because of his name; 2) you have known him who has been from the beginning, 3) you have conquered the evil one [whether that be Satan or the sin in my own flesh]; 4) you have known the Father; 5) you have known him who has been from the beginning [and it is good to hear it again]; 6) you are strong, and the word of God resides in you, and you have conquered the evil one.

This kindness (χρηστότης), an aspect of the fruit of his Spirit, is from God: when the kindness (χρηστότης) of God our Savior and his love for mankind (φιλανθρωπία) appeared, he saved us not by works of righteousness that we have done but on the basis of his mercy (ἔλεος), through the washing of the new birth and the renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us in full measure through Jesus Christ our Savior. And so, love is kind (χρηστεύεται), it is not envious (ζηλοῖ, a form of ζηλόω).

It’s worth the time to try to grasp what Paul meant by negating ζηλοῖ here, because he often used forms of ζηλόω in a more positive sense. I am jealous (ζηλῶ, another form of ζηλόω) for you with godly jealousy (ζήλῳ, a form of ζῆλος), because I promised you in marriage to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ.^[15] He encouraged the Corinthians to be eager (ζηλοῦτε, another form of ζηλόω) for the greater gifts,^[16] to Pursue love and be eager (ζηλοῦτε) for the spiritual gifts,^[17] to be eager (ζηλοῦτε) to prophesy, and do not forbid anyone from speaking in tongues.^[18] But he was well aware of the jealousy of the religious mind (Acts 17:1-5a NET).

After they traveled through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a Jewish synagogue. Paul went to the Jews in the synagogue, as he customarily did, and on three Sabbath days he addressed them from the scriptures, explaining and demonstrating that the Christ had to suffer and to rise from the dead, saying, “This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Christ.” Some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, along with a large group of God-fearing Greeks and quite a few prominent women. But the Jews became jealous (Ζηλώσαντες, a form of ζηλόω), and gathering together some worthless men from the rabble in the marketplace, they formed a mob and set the city in an uproar.

They court you eagerly (ζηλοῦσιν, another form of ζηλόω), but for no good purpose,^[19] Paul wrote the Galatians. The word translated good in for no good purpose is καλῶς, literally beautifully. Paul used it often in an edgy almost sarcastic way. Then you will say, “The branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in.” Granted (καλῶς)! They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but fear!^[20] For you are certainly giving thanks well (καλῶς), he wrote to the one who speaks in a tongue^[21] but does not interpret, but the other person is not strengthened.^[22] For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus different from the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit than the one you received, or a different gospel than the one you accepted, you put up with it well enough (καλῶς)!^[23]

I think this same edginess comes into play here in Galatians as Paul hit on the primary motive of the religious mind’s jealousy: they want to exclude you, so that you would seek them eagerly (ζηλοῦτε, another form of ζηλόω).^[24] Then he explained the difference between a positive and negative ζηλόω. However, it is good (καλὸν, a form of καλός) to be sought eagerly (ζηλοῦσθαι, another form of ζηλόω) for a good (καλῷ, another form of καλός) purpose at all times, and not only when I am present with you.^[25] The words translated good here, καλὸν and καλῷ, are forms of καλός, beautiful literally, “goodness” in appearance. It is a beautiful image of the difference between attempting to be good by one’s own efforts and relying on the intrinsic goodness (ἀγαθωσύνη) of God. For I know that nothing good (ἀγαθόν, a form of ἀγαθός) lives in me, Paul wrote the Romans, that is, in my flesh. For I want to do the good (καλὸν, a form of καλός), but I cannot do it.^[26] The religious works of the religious mind lack the ἀγαθωσύνη of God (and probably his χρηστότης as well).

And so Paul’s description of love is to Be devoted (φιλαδελφίᾳ, brotherly affection) to one another with mutual love (φιλόστοργοι, familial affection), showing eagerness (προηγούμενοι, lead the way) in honoring (τιμῇ, or valuing) one another.^[27] This is what John did with the words that I used to begin this section. And this is what Paul did: Now on the topic of brotherly love (φιλαδελφίας) you have no need for anyone to write you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love (ἀγαπᾶν) one another. And indeed you are practicing it toward all the brothers and sisters in all of Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers and sisters, to do so more and more…^[28]

What follows is interesting as a regional/cultural difference or Paul’s personal taste or something gleaned from experience. In Jerusalem God’s kindness was manifest as a communal ethic: All who believed were together and held everything in common, and they began selling their property and possessions and distributing the proceeds to everyone, as anyone had need.^[29] When Ezra followed Shecaniah’s suggestion to have the men who married foreign women divorce them according to the law,^[30] A proclamation was circulated throughout Judah and Jerusalem that all the exiles were to be assembled in Jerusalem [Table]. Everyone who did not come within three days would thereby forfeit all his property, in keeping with the counsel of the officials and the elders [Table].^[31] With a historical precedent like that Jesus’ followers in Jerusalem may have forfeited their property to the authorities if they had tried to keep it.

Paul worked with his own hands even as he ministered the Gospel. When James, Cephas, and John, who had a reputation as pillars, recognized the grace that had been given to me, Paul wrote the Galatians, they gave to Barnabas and me the right hand of fellowship, agreeing that we would go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised. They requested only that we remember the poor [in Jerusalem], the very thing I also was eager to do.^[32] James commented how some in the Jerusalem church had become judges with evil motives^[33] favoring the rich: Are not the rich oppressing you and dragging you into the courts? Do they not blaspheme the good name of the one you belong to?^[34]

Against this backdrop Paul counseled the Thessalonians to show God’s kindness through a more working-class ethic, to aspire to lead a quiet life, to attend to your own business, and to work with your hands, as we commanded you. In this way you will live a decent life before outsiders and not be in need.^{^{^[35]}}

Romans, Part 53

Back to Romans, Part 69

Back to To Make Holy, Part 1

Back to Romans, Part 89

^[1] Romans 12:9b (NET)

^[2] Ephesians 5:8-10 (NET)

^[3] John 7:18 (NET)

^[4] Philippians 2:13 (KJV)

^[5] http://www.kididdles.com/lyrics/c125.html

^[6] Ephesians 4:17-24 (NET)

^[7] Galatians 5:22, 23 (NET)

^[8] Romans 5:17 (NET)

^[9] Romans 12:10 (NET)

^[10] 1 John 2:12-14 (NET)

^[11] Titus 3:4-6 (NET)

^[12] Acts 17:5 (NET)

^[13] Galatians 4:17, 18 (NET)

^[14] 1 Thessalonians 4:9-12 (NET)

^[15] 2 Corinthians 11:2 (NET)

^[16] 1 Corinthians 12:31 (NET)

^[17] 1 Corinthians 14:1 (NET)

^[18] 1 Corinthians 14:39 (NET)

^[19] Galatians 4:17a (NET)

^[20] Romans 11:19, 20 (NET)

^[21] 1 Corinthians 14:13 (NET)

^[22] 1 Corinthians 14:17 (NET)

^[23] 2 Corinthians 11:4 (NET)

^[24] Galatians 4:17b (NET)

^[25] Galatians 4:18 (NET)

^[26] Romans 7:18 (NET)

^[27] Romans 12:10 (NET)

^[28] 1 Thessalonians 4:9, 10 (NET)

^[29] Acts 2:44, 45 (NET)

^[30] Ezra 10:3 (NET)

^[31] Ezra 10:7, 8a (NET)

^[32] Galatians 2:9, 10 (NET)

^[33] James 2:4 (NET)

^[34] James 2:6b, 7 (NET)

^[35] 1 Thessalonians 4:11, 12 (NET)

Condemnation or Judgment? – Part 6

Posted on April 14, 2014 by admin

I failed to come to a definitive conclusion whether the ones who have done what is evil (φαῦλα, a form of φαῦλος)^[1] come out of their tombs to the resurrection resulting in^[2] condemnation or judgment ^[3] (κρίσεως, a form of κρίσις). My faith and my knowledge of God persuade me that judgment is the correct translation, but I can see how another’s faith and knowledge might lean toward condemnation (Mark 16:14-16 NET).

Then [Jesus] appeared to the eleven themselves, while they were eating, and he rebuked them for their unbelief (ἀπιστίαν, a form of ἀπιστία)^[4] and hardness of heart, because they did not believe (ἐπίστευσαν, a form of πιστεύω)^[5] those who had seen him resurrected. He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. The one who believes (πιστεύσας, another form of πιστεύω) and is baptized will be saved, but the one who does not believe (ἀπιστήσας, a form of ἀπιστέω)^[6] will be condemned (κατακριθήσεται, a form of κατακρίνω).^[7]

Here, the one who does not believe will be condemned, clearly, without question. Is it wrong then to assume that John meant the same thing, but chose a less specific word to express it, and then correct or clarify his meaning in translation? I’m not sure that I can say that it is. I can only say that my experience with God has taught me to pay more attention to the words as written.

So who is He? Is He an angry God who barely restrains Himself from torturing sinners? Peter wrote, The Lord is not slow concerning his promise, as some regard slowness, but is being patient (μακροθυμεῖ, a form of μακροθυμέω)^[8] toward you, because he does not wish (βουλόμενος, a form of βούλομαι)^[9] for any to perish but for all to come to repentance (μετάνοιαν, a form of μετάνοια).^[10] That sounds reasonable since God is love (ἀγάπη),^[11] and Love (ἀγάπη) is patient (μακροθυμεῖ, a form of μακροθυμέω).^[12] And, He by no means leaves the guilty unpunished.^[13]

So what do I mean as I pray daily, may your will (θέλημα)^[14] be done (γενηθήτω, a form of γίνομαι; literally, become)^[15] on earth as it is in heaven^[16]? Am I praying for the equitable distribution of punishment for sin according to the law? Or am I praying that God will satisfy the desire of his heart for all to come to repentance? I think I’m praying for the latter, but I can’t say that He didn’t reveal Himself to Jonathan Edwards as an angry God who tortures sinners. I’m saying that it would be disingenuous to assert that He has revealed Himself like that to me.

So what about his salvation? Is it a judgment (κρίσις), a separating of the righteous from sinners? Or does it express the Lord’s desire to populate the earth with people who will forgive ^[17] the sins of others and love their enemies,^[18] by his grace, filled with his love, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and ἐγκράτεια,^[19] demonstrating not their own righteousness but his, enjoying what they do, filled with his joy and peace? Again, I think the latter is nearer the truth, but again, that is based entirely on my faith and my knowledge of God, as He has revealed Himself to me. Clearly, I’m trying to know Someone whose deeds are superior to [my] deeds and [whose] plans [are] superior to [my] plans.^[20]

The original question ended: “I hope the whole point is God’s going to save everybody! Am I nuts???” No, I don’t think there is anything “nuts” about that hope. In fact, I know the questioner enough to know that this is the sincere hope of a gentle heart. I also know she was born into a religion in which most people believe that Jesus answered, “Yes,” to the question, “Lord, will only a few be saved?”^[21] But Jesus actually said, “Exert (ἀγωνίζεσθε; a form of ἀγωνίζομαι)^[22] every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to.”^[23]

A form of ἀγωνίζομαι was translated fighting (John 18:36 NET), exercise (1 Corinthians 9:25 NET), struggling (Colossians 1:29; 4:12 NET), struggle (1 Timothy 4:10 NET), compete (1 Timothy 6:12 NET) and competed (2 Timothy 4:7 NET). Returning to the marriage analogy of Romans 7, trying to bear fruit alone is futile, seeking another than the One who was raised from the dead ^[24] is sinful, and lying there passively is no fun for anyone. Exercise, compete, struggle, fight, bearing fruit is important enough to do badly until one learns to do it right.

Two things here: First, though it may seem like a non sequitur^[25] to go directly to spiritual fruit from the word saved, most people who believe that Jesus answered yes to this question, believe it primarily because it confirms their observations that the fruit of salvation is lacking in many or most people around them. And secondly, though it may sound like I’m reversing my position here, I have exercised, competed, struggled and fought to bear fruit, compelled by a God-given hunger and thirst for righteousness ^[26] and empowered by the same power that raised Jesus from the dead.^[27]

These essays are often about how wrongheaded I’ve been in that exercise, competition, struggling and fighting. But if those mistakes were necessary to get from there to here, I would make them all again. If it is possible for someone to avoid some of my mistakes by reading about them, praise the Lord! If my writing discourages one from pursuing Christ and his righteousness, I apologize from the bottom of my heart! If my writing encourages one to wait passively rather than to pursue Christ and his righteousness, stop reading my writing and get to work making as many of your own mistakes as soon as possible!

My dear Gentle Heart, though you have been harried and harassed by those who would make your heart harder, [you] have competed (ἠγώνισμαι, another form of ἀγωνίζομαι) well…[you] have kept the faith!^[28] And though you haven’t budged in all these years, I want to consider at least the possibility of changing religions, to join with those who believe in universal salvation. The problem isn’t finding both the hope and promise of universal salvation in Scripture. The problem is what to make of all the “hell talk”^[29] in the Bible if universal salvation is true.

I found a website ^[30] that does a fairly effective job of eliminating “hell talk” from the Bible. I admit I didn’t read every word, just enough to grasp the basic assumptions: 1) αἰώνιος^[31] does not mean eternal^[32] but a dispensational age^[33]; 2) the book of Revelation was written before 70 A.D. so most of it refers to the fall of Jerusalem; and 3) punishment is not simply consequential but effectual in purging or purifying sin.

The benefits of believing that αἰώνιος does not mean eternal are obvious. If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire.^[34] The Greek τὸ πῦρ τὸ αἰώνιον wouldn’t mean eternal fire but “fire for a dispensational age.” The meaning isn’t altered much. It would still be better to enter life crippled or lame than to spend a dispensational age in fire. This one, since the fall of Jerusalem, is approaching two thousand years.

In, “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire that has been prepared for the devil and his angels!’”^[35] εἰς τὸ πῦρ τὸ αἰώνιον wouldn’t mean into the eternal fire but “into the fire of a dispensational age.” The Greek εἰς κόλασιν αἰώνιον wouldn’t mean into eternal punishment in, “And these will depart into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”^[36] But then, would εἰς ζωὴν αἰώνιον mean into eternal life? Here the potential cost of this assumption begins to come into focus. What becomes of Jesus’ words to Nicodemus if αἰώνιον means “a dispensational age” (John 3:14-16 NET)?

Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life (ζωὴν αἰώνιον).” For this is the way God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life (ζωὴν αἰώνιον).

I’ve placed a table of the benefits and potential costs of this assumption at the end of this essay.

The assumption that Revelation was written before 70 A.D. is not mine, but is also one I don’t know how to argue. Jesus certainly spoke before 70 A.D. and He certainly prophesied about the destruction of Jerusalem. Those prophecies confirmed Him as a prophet to be feared.^[37] Richard Wayne Garganta ^[38] wrote:^[39]

“Christ was…referring to the coming destruction of Jerusalem and the elimination of the entire Jewish system in 70 AD – the end of the age…at the end of the Jewish age when severe judgments were to come, the angels or messengers to execute God’s judgments would separate Christians from others. The bad were to suffer in the furnace of fire which was the burning city of Jerusalem. The evil were also to perish in Gehenna [γεέννῃ].^[40] Gehenna in many Bibles is wrongly interpreted ‘hell’. Gehenna was the garbage dump, the incinerator outside Jerusalem where the ‘fire was never quenched and the worm didn’t die.’ This was because garbage and the bodies of criminals were thrown there to be burned. This is exactly what happened during the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD.”

But does that mean that Jesus only prophesied about the destruction of Jerusalem? Consider his warning to his disciples that religious people would defame them and accuse them of evil, just as they accused Him of being Beelzebul.^[41] Do not be afraid of them, He counseled, for nothing is hidden that will not be revealed.^[42] For the creation eagerly waits for the revelation of the sons of God,^[43] Paul wrote the Romans. Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul (ψυχὴν),^[44] Jesus continued, speaking of those religious defamers from verse 25 and perhaps expanding his comments to others as well. Instead, He continued, fear the one who is able to destroy both soul (ψυχὴν) and body in hell (γεέννῃ).^[45]

If I limit the meaning of γεέννῃ here to “the garbage dump, the incinerator outside Jerusalem,” who was Jesus telling his disciples to fear? Roman soldiers? because the cremation of a corpse is able to destroy both soul and body? Was He reassuring them about their value above many sparrows, that the Father’s will protected their corpses from cremation? For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul (ψυχὴν)^[46] by being cremated after his death? And what about immolation? Again it seems to me that eliminating hell from the equation is a potentially costly enterprise.

I can’t say for certain whether αἰώνιος means eternal or a dispensational age only. I can only say I don’t want to stand before Jesus pretending that I can. I don’t know whether Revelation was written before 70 A.D. or not. I only know that I won’t stand before Jesus and tell Him to his face that He could not mean that γεέννῃ is a place of κόλασιν αἰώνιον (Hebrews 4:13 NET):

…no creature is hidden from God, but everything is naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must render an account.

None of this is to say anything against Richard Wayne Garganta. I don’t doubt his sincerity, only mine if I were to follow him. At this moment in my journey, my faith and my knowledge of God don’t correspond exactly with his (though I appreciate the effort he has put into sharing them). I’ll consider what I perceive as his third assumption in the next essay.

What follows is the table of benefits and potential costs if αἰώνιος means a dispensational age only.

αἰώνιος
Benefit	Potential Cost
	Would ζωὴ αἰώνιος… John 12:50; Romans 6:23; 1 John 5:20 (NET)	…mean eternal life?
	Would αἰώνιος ζωὴ… John 17:3 (NET)	…mean eternal life?

αἰώνιον, a form of αἰώνιος
Benefit		Potential Cost
τὸ πῦρ τὸ αἰώνιον… Matthew 18:8 (NET)	…would not mean eternal fire	Would ζωὴν αἰώνιον… Matthew 19:16; Luke 18:30; John 3:15, 16, 36; 4:36; 5:24, 39; 6:27, 40, 47, 54; 10:28; 12:25; 17:2; Acts 13:48; Romans 2:7; 5:21; 6:22; Galatians 6:8; 1 John 3:15; Jude 1:21 (NET)	…mean eternal life?
εἰς τὸ πῦρ τὸ αἰώνιον… Matthew 25:41 (NET)	…would not mean into the eternal fire	Would ζωὴν αἰώνιον κληρονομήσει… Matthew 19:29 (NET)	…mean will inherit eternal life?
εἰς κόλασιν αἰώνιον… Matthew 25:46 (NET)	…would not mean into the eternal punishment	Would εἰς ζωὴν αἰώνιον… Matthew 25:46 (NET)	…mean into eternal life?
τίσουσιν ὄλεθρον αἰώνιον… 2 Thessalonians 1:9 (NET)	…would not mean the penalty of eternal destruction	Would ζωὴν αἰώνιον κληρονομήσω… Mark 10:17; Luke 10:25; 18:18 (NET)	…mean inherit eternal life?
		Would ἁλλομένου εἰς ζωὴν αἰώνιον… John 4:14 (NET)	…mean springing up to eternal life?
		Would εἰς ζωὴν αἰώνιον… 1 Timothy 1:16 (NET)	…mean for eternal life?
		Would τὴν ζωὴν τὴν αἰώνιον… 1 John 1:2, 2:25 (NET)	…mean the eternal life?
		Would ζωὴν ἔχετε αἰώνιον… 1 John 5:13 (NET)	…mean you have eternal life?

αἰωνίου, a form of αἰώνιος
Benefit		Potential Cost
αἰωνίου ἁμαρτήματος… Mark 3:29 (NET)	…would not mean an eternal sin.	Would ρήματα ζωῆς αἰωνίου… John 6:68 (NET)	…mean words of eternal life?
κρίματος αἰωνίου… Hebrews 6:2 (NET)	…would not mean of…eternal judgment.	Would αἰωνίου ζωῆς… Acts 13:46 (NET)	…mean of eternal life?
πυρὸς αἰωνίου δίκην… Jude 1:7 (NET)	…would not mean the punishment of eternal fire.	Would τοῦ αἰωνίου θεοῦ… Romans 16:26 (NET)	…mean of the eternal God?
		Would τῆς αἰωνίου ζωῆς… 1 Timothy 6:12 (NET)	…mean of that eternal life?
		Would ζωῆς αἰωνίου… Titus 1:2; 3:7 (NET)	…mean of eternal life?
		Would σωτηρίας αἰωνίου… Hebrews 5:9 (NET)	…mean of eternal salvation?
		Would πνεύματος αἰωνίου… Hebrews 9:14 (NET)	…mean eternal Spirit?
		Would τῆς αἰωνίου κληρονομίας… Hebrews 9:15 (NET)	…mean the eternal inheritance?
		Would διαθήκης αἰωνίου… Hebrews 13:20 (NET)	…mean of the eternal covenant?

αἰωνίαν, a form of αἰώνιος
Benefit	Potential Cost
	Would παράκλησιν αἰωνίαν… 2 Thessalonians 2:16 (NET)	…mean eternal comfort?
	Would αἰωνίαν λύτρωσιν… Hebrews 9:12 (NET)	…mean eternal redemption?

αἰωνίους, a form of αἰώνιος

Benefit

Potential Cost

Would τὰς αἰωνίους σκηνάς…

Luke 16:9 (NET)

…mean the eternal homes?

Condemnation or Judgment? Part 7

Back to Condemnation or Judgment? – Part 8

7/1/16 Addendum: J. W. Hanson, in Universalism: The Prevailing Doctrine Of The Christian Church During Its First Five Hundred Years, seemed willing to accept this limitation of eternal life. Following Philo he suggested that only ἀΐδιος means eternal in the sense of everlasting, while αἰώνιος is an indefinite period of time. It this is true only God’s power and the chains of the angels who did not keep within their proper domain are everlasting.

Mr. Hanson wrote:

Philo, who was contemporary with Christ, generally used aidion to denote endless, and aionian temporary duration. He uses the exact phraseology of Matt. xxv: 46, precisely as Christ used it: “It is better not to promise than not to give prompt assistance, for no blame follows in the former case, but in the latter there is dissatisfaction from the weaker class, and a deep hatred and æonian punishment (chastisement) from such as are more powerful.” Here we have the precise terms employed by our Lord, which show that aionian did not mean endless but did mean limited duration in the time of Christ.

From III. Origin of Endless Punishment.
Philo’s Use of the Words.

^[2] John 5:29b (NET)

^[3] http://www.biblestudytools.com/john/5-29-compare.html

^[10] 2 Peter 3:9 (NET)

^[11] 1 John 4:16 (NET) Table

^[12] 1 Corinthians 13:4 (NET)

^[13] Exodus 34:7b (NET)

^[16] Matthew 6:10b (NET) Table

^[17] Mark 11:25 (NET)

^[18] Matthew 5:43-45 (NET)

^[19] Galatians 5:22, 23a (NET)

^[20] Isaiah 55:9 (NET)

^[21] Luke 13:23 (NET)

^[23] Luke 13:24 (NET)

^[24] Romans 7:4 (NET)

^[25] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non_sequitur_(logic)

^[26] Matthew 5:6 (NET)

^[27] Ephesians 1:15-20 (NET)

^[28] 2 Timothy 4:7 (NET)

^[29] https://religiousmind.net/2013/10/27/condemnation-or-judgment-part-2/

^[30] http://richardwaynegarganta.com/Bible%20Threatenings%20Explained.htm#1

^[32] http://richardwaynegarganta.com/AION%20and%20AIONIOS.htm

^[34] Matthew 18:8 (NET)

^[35] Matthew 25:41 (NET)

^[36] Matthew 25:46 (NET)

^[37] Deuteronomy 18:22 (NET)

^[38] http://richardwaynegarganta.com/

^[39] http://richardwaynegarganta.com/Bible%20Threatenings%20Explained.htm#1

^[41] Matthew 10:24, 25 (NET)

^[42] Matthew 10:26a (NET)

^[43] Romans 8:19 (NET)

^[44] Matthew 10:28a (NET)

^[45] Matthew 10:28b (NET)

^[46] Matthew 16:26a (NKJV)

My Reasons and My Reason, Part 3

Posted on March 19, 2014 by admin

“I was really hoping that I could, um, move back in here for a while,” Linda probed her mother.

“Here?” her mother asked.

“Yeah.”

“No, you know that’s not possible.”

“Why not?” Linda asked.

“How would it look for a married woman to move in with her parents apart from her husband?”

“He hits me, Ma.”

“I can’t say I’m surprised,” her mother sighed. “What did you do?”

“What do you mean, what’d I do?”

“What did you do to make him angry? He didn’t just hit you out of the blue.”

Linda fought off her instinctive reaction to her mother’s judgment as she searched for a diplomatic answer to keep the conversation going. “I guess I didn’t do what he wanted me to,” she said finally.

“You took a vow, a very serious vow.”

“Can’t I just stay, like, a few days, Ma, please?”

“And then what? You gonna get a divorce? What do you think we are, Protestant?”

“Ma, you just don’t understand.”

“Linda, I was…I was 18 years old when I had your sister. Unmarried…and all alone…before I met your father. I’d suffered long and hard. How dare you come here and tell me I don’t understand. I understand. Now, God gave you a husband…who provides for you. And you…Look at me. Go home to Chuck. Be a good wife. Listen to him, and obey him.”

Linda’s mother thought she was sending her daughter home to be a particular kind of submissive masochist,^[1] Mrs. Chuck Traynor (or a “normal” woman, accepting his “implicit” right to hit her as she learned to “submit to his stronger will,” all while she took no pleasure in it whatsoever). She assumed that Chuck was, what I am calling, a dominant masochist (fig. 4), someone with Linda’s best interests at heart.

fig. 4

She knew what a handful Linda could be. She had no way of knowing that Chuck was much closer to a sadistic top than a dominant masochist. And she certainly had no way to know that she was sending her daughter out to become Linda Lovelace of “Deep Throat” fame.

This scene from “Lovelace,”^[2] affected me deeply. Linda’s mother, written by Andy Bellin and played compassionately by Sharon Stone, is compellingly authentic. Though her how-would-it-look line sounds crassly self-serving today, it was the effective meaning of one of the “laws of Paul” in the seventies: Abstain from all appearance of evil.^[3] Her refusal even to “appear” to support divorce by allowing her daughter to return struck home. We didn’t drink, dance or smoke to prove how much better we were than Catholics. At least that’s what I learned, which is not the same as saying that is what I was taught. (It should be obvious by now that I learned many things I wasn’t necessarily taught.)

Linda, played by Amanda Seyfried, was lying to her mother. Her line, “He hits me, Ma,” though objectively true wasn’t the reason she showed up at her mother’s door. But I understand completely why she didn’t say, “He pimps me out for money, Ma,” to the woman who became so righteously indignant when the tie-strap of Linda’s swim top was undone to avoid tan lines. And I honestly don’t know how her mother would have responded if Linda had told her the truth.

I didn’t see this film because I was interested in Linda Lovelace, but because Amanda Seyfried chose to play her. (And now I’ll have to pay more attention to Sharon Stone.) I’ll follow any actor who gives me aesthetic moments like the mother-daughter confrontation in “Mamma Mia,” especially one who can go toe-to-toe with Meryl Streep. Sophie, the daughter played by Ms. Seyfried, was troubled about the mess she had made inviting three possible fathers to her wedding. Her mother, played by Ms. Streep, thought (hoped) she didn’t want to marry. Poor Linda Lovelace thought “Deep Throat” might be her stepping stone to becoming Amanda Seyfried (or, Meryl Streep).

I’ve never seen “Deep Throat” or anything else Linda Lovelace has done. Clips I’ve seen in documentaries, and now recreations in “Lovelace,” don’t recommend the film to me. I’ve never read her book Ordeal.^[4] I do recall sneering and scoffing when I heard about it. The mother-daughter scene in “Lovelace” made me question, why? The only answer I came up with is that I had seen pictures of Ms. Lovelace smiling. I supposed she took some pleasure in sex and public attention. Thinking and writing about my own masochism I had to repent of that sneering and scoffing.

Part of me (perhaps the submissive masochistic part) would like to tell a different story, a story about an innocent boy who rescued a stash of porn from a dumpster, hid it in the woods, read it, returned again and again to look at its pictures, and became corrupted. That’s a story I could sell to my fundamentalist Christian friends. And it’s based, at least, on a true story. It’s just not mine. It was another boy’s story when he brought that stash of porn to me and asked me to keep it away from him. He lived next door while I worked on “The Tripartite Rationality Index.”^[5]

It was summer. I had no air conditioning, not even a fan. I stayed up late until the apartment cooled down enough that I could sleep. This boy came over and sat with me at night while his mother was out, or even if she was occupied at home. She wasn’t exactly a prostitute. She got all dressed up, went out to a bar or club, picked up a man, brought him home and lived with him as long as he paid the bills. “You should marry her,” the boy said to me more than once. “She’s pretty.” She was pretty, especially when she went out to hunt. I didn’t marry her. I only talked to her once, long enough to convince her I wasn’t a child molester.

I didn’t have access to porn as a child; I was quarantined. I use that word because of a story my mother told me recently on a different topic. After I was born she spent many lonely days in the hospital at Christmastime. She heard about another woman whose baby was born in the car on the way to the hospital. She asked a nurse if she could visit that woman and see her baby. The nurse told her that neither was in the general hospital population, having given birth (and being born) in such unsanitary conditions. Though it seemed harsh to my mother at the time, it became her rationale for hell, God “quarantining” the righteous from the evil.

My mother was twenty-two-years-old. She had just given birth to her first child. And this was the authoritative word of medical science. Suddenly my childhood made sense to me. I was quarantined, not to keep me in hell, but to protect her “innocent” baby from the evil world. It was 1953; discrimination was still a matter of good taste. The problem was, the porn was already in me. And I am truly sorry that I infected the pristine female world she constructed for me with my dirty male mind and desires. (I know a Freudian would have a field day with that, but I’m being as sincere as I know how to be.)

My mother, however, was not alone in her germ theory of sin, sin as an infection from without. “I feel dead inside, no, something worse than death,” reads an excerpt from nineteen-year-old Hannah’s diary, the main character in the film October Baby. “I am still a child, a child trying to find a place in this world. I have so many unanswered questions, questions I feel but can’t even begin to speak because there are no words to express them. Something is missing. Why, God, do I feel unwanted? Why do I feel I have no right to exist? Why do I spend more time wanting to end my life than live it?”

Knowing that this was a Christian film, a pretty girl who didn’t have a boyfriend, take drugs or drink or smoke and yet felt as Hannah did, seemed to recall Paul’s letter to the Romans (Romans 3:10-18 NET):

There is no one righteous, not even one, there is no one who understands, there is no one who seeks God. All have turned away, together they have become worthless; there is no one who shows kindness, not even one. Their throats are open graves, they deceive with their tongues, the poison of asps is under their lips. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood, ruin and misery are in their paths, and the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.

“Hannah, I believe that what you’re feeling is normal and is even expected,” wasn’t counsel from her Baptist minister, but from her doctor. For it was not sin that caused her to feel as if the sentence of death had been passed against^[6] her, rather it was a quasi-mystical intuition that she was a failed abortion, the truth her parents had hidden from her. They hadn’t even told her she was adopted. Once I got over that hump, it was an okay movie about a young woman dealing with an extraordinarily painful reality. And Rachel Hendrix as Hannah is a delight to watch. When the filmmaker’s finished the pro-life-message-film their financial backers paid for, Hannah, back where she started, visited a Catholic priest.

“I can’t figure out how to let go of the fact that I feel hatred for myself and others,” she told him. Another secret she had learned along the way was that she was a twin. Her elder brother was more damaged in the botched abortion and died three months after their birth. “And I feel guilty,” Hannah continued her confession. “Part of me feels like he should be alive and I shouldn’t. I wonder if he would have been a better person than me, what he would have been like. I just hate myself for feeling this way.”

So Hannah came very close to actually confessing the sin in her flesh.^[7] The priest told her about Jesus’ forgiveness, and her ability through Him to forgive others. And I should probably remember that a Christian film is intended for Christians as an audience. I’ve already written that most Christians I know don’t see themselves as “great sinners who were forgiven much and were called by God to forgive lesser sinners than themselves.”^[8] And who am I to see things so differently? For who concedes [me] any superiority? What do [I] have that [I] did not receive?^[9]

In the previous essay I quoted, “If O is willing to sustain her devotion all the way through to her own destruction, so be it. She wants to be ‘possessed, utterly possessed, to the point of death,’ to the point that her body and mind are no longer her responsibility.”^[10] To my religious mind this would have sounded (and sounds) absurd. I kept my own masochism from my first wife as a shameful secret as I resolved to follow God as Moses instructed Israel (Deuteronomy 30:15-19 NET).

Look! I have set before you today life and prosperity on the one hand, and death and disaster on the other. What I am commanding you today is to love the Lord your God, to walk in his ways, and to obey his commandments, his statutes, and his ordinances. Then you will live and become numerous and the Lord your God will bless you in the land which you are about to possess. However, if you turn aside and do not obey, but are lured away to worship and serve other gods, I declare to you this very day that you will certainly perish! You will not extend your time in the land you are crossing the Jordan to possess. Today I invoke heaven and earth as a witness against you that I have set life and death, blessing and curse, before you. Therefore choose life so that you and your descendants may live!

Preoccupied with my attempt to obey him in my own strength, I didn’t hear, I also call on you to love the Lord your God…and be loyal to him, for he gives you life and enables you to live continually…^[11] So I did not love the Lord my God, walk in his ways, or obey his commandments, statutes and ordinances. And my first wife divorced me for my religion. “I don’t want to read the Bible,” she exclaimed. “Everyone who reads the Bible turns out like you!” That’s when I began to feel as if the sentence of death had been passed against^[12] me. And that’s when I began to hear, and perhaps began to choose, death instead.

For if we are out of our minds, Paul wrote in his second letter to the Corinthians, it is for God; if we are of sound mind, it is for you. For the love of Christ controls us, since we have concluded this, that Christ died for all; therefore all have died. And he died for all so that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised.^[13]

I began to perceive in Scripture a diminished responsibility for righteousness for one led by the Spirit: For who concedes you any superiority? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you boast as though you did not?^[14] I have been crucified with Christ, Paul wrote the Galatians, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So the life I now live in the body, I live because of the faithfulness of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.^[15]

I sat silently in an adult Sunday school class as a woman was reprimanded for quoting this verse, because she hadn’t earned the right to say it by her own works of righteousness as Paul had done. And I was the one who had whispered it in her ear the night before as a possible path of righteousness. I never expected her to shout it from the rooftops in Sunday school!

But Paul wrote, I do not set aside God’s grace, because if righteousness could come through the law, then Christ died for nothing!^[16] Or do you not know that as many as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him through baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too may live a new life.^[17] How may we live a new life? …through the glory of the Father…just as Christ was raised from the dead.

I began, tentatively at first, to perceive a diminished responsibility for sin for those led by the Spirit: Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer me doing it but sin that lives in me.^[18] But my religious mind (and not mine only) thinks this is a cop out. It confuses confessing sins with taking responsibility for them, though it knows full well that if we deliberately keep on sinning after receiving the knowledge of the truth, no further sacrifice for sins is left for us, but only a certain fearful expectation of judgment and a fury of fire that will consume God’s enemies.^[19]

“‘What does a Christian seek,’” Carmela Ciuraru quoted the author of Histoire d’O in her article ‘The Story of the Story of O,’ “‘but to lose himself in God,’ Aury, a devout atheist, once said. ‘To be killed by someone you love strikes me as the epitome of ecstasy.’”^[20] While it is still somewhat difficult for me to grasp exactly what Dominique Aury meant, I agree that to be killed by, or through, Someone I love and yet live by and through Him is the epitome of ecstasy.

I know these things because I have received them from his Spirit. But it is impossible for me to determine or to gainsay how much I feel these things through my masochism. And if my masochism is the wrath of God revealed from heaven, that is truly amazing, that the wrath of God…revealed from heaven against all [my] ungodliness and unrighteousness^[21] is also an aid in my enlightenment to, and salvation from, that very ungodliness and unrighteousness.

So, do I whip myself into a euphoric state of submission to obey God?

It’s a fair question, given what I’ve written. The primary meaning of the Greek word translated subdue is “to beat black and blue, to smite so as to cause bruises and livid spots” in Paul’s confession: Instead I subdue (ὑπωπιάζω)^[22] my body and make it my slave, so that after preaching to others I myself will not be disqualified.^[23] Frankly, I have no idea if I should take this literally, nor do I care. Paul also wrote (Colossians 2:20-23 NET):

If you have died with Christ to the elemental spirits of the world, why do you submit (δογματίζεσθε, a form of δογματίζω)^[24] to them as though you lived in the world? “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!” These are all destined to perish with use, founded as they are on human commands and teachings. Even though they have the appearance of wisdom with their self-imposed worship and false humility achieved by an unsparing treatment of the body – a wisdom with no true value – they in reality result in fleshly indulgence.

I have pondered this question idly from time to time: if Paul engaged in self-flagellation as a spiritual exercise before he wrote to the Romans and the Colossians, did he continue it as a fleshly indulgence after realizing it had no true value spiritually? But I don’t know the answer to either component of that question, or even how to know how to search out an answer. I suppose I could consider it the thorn in Paul’s flesh (2 Corinthians 12:7b NET):

Therefore, so that I would not become arrogant, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to trouble me – so that I would not become arrogant.

My elderly Pastor thought that thorn was failing eye sight, my Catholic friend thinks it was masturbation and Bishop Spong ^[25] thinks it was latent homosexuality. I feel a little ridiculous pronouncing it self-flagellation, though I’m intrigued by the possibilities for self-acceptance the Holy Spirit created by being non-specific here (e.g., Paul could have said precisely what he meant). I’ll probably wait and ask Paul.

But no, I don’t whip myself into a euphoric state of submission to obey God. I believe (I believe; help my unbelief!^[26]) the death He has given me in Christ Jesus and the fruit of his Spirit. I have whipped myself at times as a lonely fleshly indulgence.

My Reasons and My Reason, Part 4

Back to Condemnation or Judgment? – Part 9

^[1] http://www.herwoodshed.com/library/where.html

^[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lovelace_(film)

^[3] 1 Thessalonians 5:22 (KJV) It might still be what Paul meant. Though the NET translation is—Stay away from every form (εἴδους, a form of εἶδος) of evil—the Greek word εἴδους was also used in 2 Corinthians 5:6, 7 (NET): Therefore we are always full of courage, and we know that as long as we are alive here on earth we are absent from the Lord – for we live by faith, not by sight (εἴδους).

^[4] http://www.amazon.com/Ordeal-Linda-Lovelace/dp/0806527749

^[5] https://religiousmind.net/2012/07/27/davids-forgiveness-part-2/

^[6] 2 Corinthians 1:9 (NET)

^[7] Romans 7:18 (NET)

^[8] https://religiousmind.net/2014/01/03/torture-part-2/

^[9] 1 Corinthians 4:7a (NET)

^[10] “The Story of the Story of O,” Carmela Ciuraru, Guernica / A Magazine of Art & Politics

^[11] Deuteronomy 30:20 (NET)

^[12] 2 Corinthians 1:9 (NET)

^[13] 2 Corinthians 5:13-15 (NET)

^[14] 1 Corinthians 4:7 (NET)

^[15] Galatians 2:20 (NET)

^[16] Galatians 2:21 (NET)

^[17] Romans 6:3, 4 (NET)

^[18] Romans 7:20 (NET)

^[19] Hebrews 10:26, 27 (NET)

^[20] “The Story of the Story of O,” Carmela Ciuraru, Guernica / A Magazine of Art & Politics http://www.guernicamag.com/features/ciuraru_6_15_11/

^[21] Romans 1:18 (NET)

^[23] 1 Corinthians 9:27 (NET)

^[25] http://www.gayheroes.com/paul.htm

^[26] Mark 9:24 (NET)

Fear – Numbers, Part 2

Posted on March 16, 2014 by admin

The Lord spoke to Moses: “Send out men to investigate the land of Canaan…”^[1] To quote Dickens, “This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate.”^[2] The Lord wasn’t surprised by what happened. He knew it from the beginning.^[3]

All of [the men] were leaders of the Israelites.^[4] They returned after forty days and reported to the whole community: “We went to the land where you sent us. It is indeed flowing with milk and honey, and this is its fruit.”^[5] They had brought back a branch with one cluster of grapes, and they carried it on a staff between two men.^[6] “But,” the leaders of the Israelites continued, “the inhabitants are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large. Moreover we saw the descendants of Anak there”^[7] (the descendants of Anak came from the Nephilim).^[8]

The Nephilim used to be giants: There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.^[9] Now they are God (and human imagination) only knows what. The word occurs twice in the Old Testament, once when the leaders of the Israelites were obviously spinning the truth for their own purposes. A lot of human conjecture about the Nephilim stems from the “lost book of Enoch.”^[10]

“It happened after the sons of men had multiplied in those days,” Enoch began his tale, “that daughters were born to them, elegant and beautiful. And when the angels, the sons of heaven, beheld them, they became enamoured of them, saying to each other, Come, let us select for ourselves wives from the progeny of men, and let us beget children.”^[11] Then he filled in the details: There were “two hundred angels”^[12] led by Samyaza^[13] (Book of Enoch, Section II, Chapter 7, vv. 10-13):

Then they took wives, each choosing for himself; whom they began to approach, and with whom they cohabited; teaching them sorcery, incantations, and the dividing of roots and trees. And the women conceiving brought forth giants, Whose stature was each three hundred cubits [i.e., the same as the length of the ark, Genesis 6:15 (KJV)]. These devoured all which the labour of men produced; until it became impossible to feed them; When they turned themselves against men, in order to devour them…

There is seemingly no end to the detail Enoch supplied (Book of Enoch, Section XI, Chapter 68, vv. 3-28):

These are the chiefs of their angels, and the names of the leaders of their hundreds, and the leaders of their fifties, and the leaders of their tens. The name of the first is Yekun: he it was who seduced all the sons of the holy angels; and causing them to descend on earth, led astray the offspring of men. The name of the second is Kesabel, who pointed out evil counsel to the sons of the holy angels, and induced them to corrupt their bodies by generating mankind.

The name of the third is Gadrel: he discovered every stroke of death to the children of men. He seduced Eve; and discovered to the children of men the instruments of death, the coat of mail, the shield, and the sword for slaughter; every instrument of death to the children of men. From his hand were these things derived to them who dwell upon earth, from that period for ever.

The name of the fourth is Penemue: he discovered to the children of men bitterness and sweetness; And pointed out to them every secret of their wisdom. He taught men to understand writing, and the use of ink and paper. Therefore numerous have been those who have gone astray from every period of the world, even to this day. For men were not born for this, thus with pen and with ink to confirm their faith; Since they were not created, except that, like the angels, they might remain righteous and pure. Nor would death, which destroys everything, have affected them; But by this their knowledge they perish, and by this also its power consumes them.

The name of the fifth is Kasyade: he discovered to the children of men every wicked stroke of spirits and of demons: The stroke of the embryo in the womb, to diminish it; the stroke of the spirit by the bite of the serpent, and the stroke which is given in the mid-day by the offspring of the serpent, the name of which is Tabaet. This is the number of the Kesbel; the principal part of the oath which the Most High, dwelling in glory, revealed to the holy ones. Its name is Beka. He spoke to holy Michael to discover to them the sacred name, that they might understand that secret name, and thus remember the oath; and that those who pointed out every secret thing to the children of men might tremble at that name and oath.

This is the power of that oath; for powerful it is, and strong. And he established this oath of Akae by the instrumentality of the holy Michael. These are the secrets of this oath, and by it were they confirmed. Heaven was suspended by it before the world was made, for ever. By it has the earth been founded upon the flood; while from the concealed parts of the hills the agitated waters proceed forth from the creation to the end of the world. By this oath the sea has been formed, and the foundation of it. During the period of its fury he has established the sand against it, which continues unchanged for ever; and by this oath the abyss has been made strong; nor is it removable from its station for ever and ever. By this oath the sun and moon complete their progress, never swerving from the command given to them for ever and ever.

Enoch had yet more to say about these angels (Book of Enoch, Section II, Chapter 8, vv. 1-9):

Moreover Azazyel taught men to make swords, knives, shields, breastplates, the fabrication of mirrors, and the workmanship of bracelets and ornaments, the use of paint, the beautifying of the eyebrows, the use of stones of every valuable and select kind, and of all sorts of dyes, so that the world became altered. Impiety increased; fornication multiplied; and they transgressed and corrupted all their ways. Amazarak taught all the sorcerers, and dividers of roots: Armers taught the solution of sorcery; Barkayal taught the observers of the stars; Akibeel taught signs; Tamiel taught astronomy; And Asaradel taught the motion of the moon. And men, being destroyed, cried out; and their voice reached to heaven.

And how, according to Enoch, did God respond to the desperate men who “cried out; and their voice reached to heaven”? The “waters of a deluge shall come over the whole earth, and all things which are in it shall be destroyed.”^[14] The Bible doesn’t mention a word about these reprobate angels. In the Bible the flood came because the Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind had become great on the earth. Every inclination of the thoughts of their minds was only evil all the time.^[15] “The fallen angels made me do it,” wrote Enoch.

As I urged you when I was leaving for Macedonia, Paul wrote Timothy, stay on in Ephesus to instruct certain people not to spread false teachings, nor to occupy themselves with myths (μύθοις, a form of μῦθος)^[16] and interminable genealogies. Such things promote useless speculations rather than God’s redemptive plan that operates by faith.^[17] And, By pointing out such things to the brothers and sisters, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, having nourished yourself on the words of the faith and of the good teaching that you have followed. But reject those myths (μύθους, another form of μῦθος) fit only for the godless and gullible, and train yourself for godliness.^[18]

For there will be a time, Paul warned Timothy, when people will not tolerate sound teaching. Instead, following their own desires, they will accumulate teachers for themselves, because they have an insatiable curiosity to hear new things. And they will turn away from hearing the truth, but on the other hand they will turn aside to myths (μύθους, another form of μῦθος).^[19] For this reason rebuke them sharply, he wrote Titus, that they may be healthy in the faith and not pay attention to Jewish myths (μύθοις, a form of μῦθος) and commands of people who reject the truth.^[20]

This Enoch sounds more like a mythmaker to me than the Enoch who walked with God for 300 years.^[21] This Enoch made excuses, not unlike the leaders of the Israelites (Numbers 13:31-33 NET):

“We are not able to go up against these people, because “they are stronger than we are!” [Table] Then they presented the Israelites with a discouraging report of the land they had investigated, saying, “The land that we passed through to investigate is a land that devours its inhabitants. All the people we saw there are of great stature [Table]. We even saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak came from the Nephilim), and we seemed liked grasshoppers both to ourselves and to them” [Table].

Then all the community raised a loud cry, and the people wept that night. And all the Israelites murmured against Moses and Aaron, and the whole congregation said to them, “If only we had died in the land of Egypt, or if only we had perished in this wilderness [Table]! Why has the Lord brought us into this land only to be killed by the sword, that our wives and our children should become plunder? Wouldn’t it be better for us to return to Egypt [Table]?” So they said to one another, “Let’s appoint a leader and return to Egypt [Table].”^[22]

One of the leaders of the Israelites, Caleb, a descendant of Judah,^[23] voiced his dissent from the majority. “The land we passed through to investigate is an exceedingly good land [Table],” he said to the whole community. “If the Lord delights in us, then he will bring us into this land and give it to us – a land that is flowing with milk and honey [Table]. Only do not rebel against the Lord, and do not fear (yârêʼ)^[24] the people of the land, for they are bread for us. Their protection has turned aside from them, but the Lord is with us. Do not fear (yârêʼ) them [Table]!”^[25]

The rabbis who translated the Septuagint chose φοβηθῆτε (a form of φοβέω)^[26] here. “A disciple is not greater than his teacher,” Jesus said according to Matthew’s Gospel account, “nor a slave greater than his master. It is enough for the disciple to become like his teacher, and the slave like his master. If they have called the head of the house ‘Beelzebul,’ how much more will they defame the members of his household! Do not be afraid (φοβηθῆτε, a form of φοβέω) of them, for nothing is hidden that will not be revealed, and nothing is secret that will not be made known. What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light, and what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the housetops.^[27]

I’ll continue with Luke’s Gospel account because he chose φοβηθῆτε, too. “I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid (φοβηθῆτε, a form of φοβέω) of those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more they can do. But I will warn you whom you should fear (φοβηθῆτε, a form of φοβέω): Fear (φοβήθητε, a form of φοβέω) the one who, after the killing, has authority to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear (φοβήθητε, a form of φοβέω) him!”^[28] Ordinarily I would return to Matthew’s Gospel, So do not be afraid, Jesus concluded, you are more valuable than many sparrows.^[29] But this time I’ll let fear stand.

Here I can really see how fear became a euphemism for reverence. The Israelites acted upon, obeyed and followed their fear. Learning to fear God like that would have looked a lot like faith. “How long will this people despise me,” the Lord said as the Israelites threatened to stone Moses, Aaron, Joshua and Caleb, and return to Egypt, “and how long will they not believe in me, in spite of the signs that I have done among them?”^[30]

And then I’m treated to a reprise of the conversation between God and Moses after the incident with the golden calf. “I will strike them with the pestilence,” the Lord said, “and I will disinherit them; I will make you into a nation that is greater and mightier than they!”^[31]

Moses doesn’t come off quite as clueless ^[32] this time. “When the Egyptians hear it,” he said, “for you brought up this people by your power from among them – then they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land. They have heard that you, Lord, are among this people, that you, Lord, are seen face to face, that your cloud stands over them, and that you go before them by day in a pillar of cloud and in a pillar of fire by night. If you kill this entire people at once, then the nations that have heard of your fame will say, ‘Because the Lord was not able to bring this people into the land that he swore to them, he killed them in the wilderness.’”^[33]

Then he rehearsed his knowledge of God, reciting the Lord’s long name: “So now, let the power of my Lord be great, just as you have said, ‘The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in loyal love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children until the third and fourth generations.’”^[34]

And once again he interceded with God for his people: “Please forgive the iniquity of this people according to your great loyal love, just as you have forgiven this people from Egypt even until now.”^[35]

“I have forgiven them as you asked,” the Lord said. “But truly, as I live, all the earth will be filled with the glory of the Lord.”^[36] He would not strike them with the pestilence (except those men who produced the evil report about the land, died by the plague before the Lord^[37]). Nor would He clear the guilty. “For all the people have seen my glory and my signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet have tempted me now these ten times, and have not obeyed me, they will by no means see the land that I swore to their fathers, nor will any of them who despised me see it. Only my servant Caleb, because he had a different spirit and has followed me fully – I will bring him into the land where he had gone, and his descendants will possess it.”^[38]

Communicating this knowledge of God (Jesus called it eternal life^[39]) was more urgent and important to Jehovah than fulfilling the promise ^[40] that Abraham’s descendants would inherit the land. I know this because, The Lord (Jehovah) spoke to Moses: “Send out men to investigate the land of Canaan…” knowing that the promise would be delayed another 40 years (Numbers 14:28-35 NET).

As I live, says the Lord, I will surely do to you just what you have spoken in my hearing. Your dead bodies will fall in this wilderness – all those of you who were numbered, according to your full number, from twenty years old and upward, who have murmured against me. You will by no means enter into the land where I swore to settle you. The only exceptions are Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun. But I will bring in your little ones, whom you said would become victims of war, and they will enjoy the land that you have despised. But as for you, your dead bodies will fall in this wilderness, and your children will wander in the wilderness forty years and suffer for your unfaithfulness, until your dead bodies lie finished in the wilderness. According to the number of the days you have investigated this land, forty days – one day for a year – you will suffer for your iniquities, forty years, and you will know what it means to thwart me. I, the Lord, have said, “I will surely do so to all this evil congregation that has gathered together against me. In this wilderness they will be finished, and there they will die!”

Fear – Numbers, Part 3

Back to Romans, Part 26

Back to My Reasons and My Reason, Part 3

^[1] Numbers 13:1, 2a (NET)

^[2] http://www.stormfax.com/1dickens.htm

^[3] Isaiah 46:9, 10 (NET)

^[4] Numbers 13:3b (NET)

^[5] Numbers 13:26, 27 (NET)

^[6] Numbers 13:23 (NET)

^[7] Numbers 13:28 (NET)

^[8] Numbers 13:33 (NET) Table

^[9] Genesis 6:4 (KJV)

^[10] http://book-ofenoch.com/

^[11] Book of Enoch, Section II, Chapter 7, vv. 1-2

^[12] Book of Enoch, Section II, Chapter 7, v. 7

^[13] Book of Enoch, Section II, Chapter 7, v. 9

^[14] Book of Enoch, Section II, Chapter 10, v. 4b

^[15] Genesis 6:5 (NET)

^[17] 1 Timothy 1:3, 4 (NET)

^[18] 1 Timothy 4:6, 7 (NET)

^[19] 2 Timothy 4:3, 4 (NET)

^[20] Titus 1:13b, 14 (NET)

^[21] Genesis 5:22 (NET)

^[22] Numbers 14:1-4 (NET)

^[23] Numbers 13:6 (NET)

^[25] Numbers 14:7-9 (NET)

^[27] Matthew 10:24-27 (NET)

^[28] Luke 12:4, 5 (NET)

^[29] Matthew 10:31 (NET)

^[30] Numbers 14:11 (NET) Table

^[31] Numbers 14:12 (NET)

^[32] https://religiousmind.net/2013/07/01/fear-exodus-part-6/

^[33] Numbers 14:13-16 (NET)

^[34] Numbers 14:17, 18 (NET)

^[35] Numbers 14:19 (NET)

^[36] Numbers 14:20, 21 (NET)

^[37] Numbers 14:37 (NET)

^[38] Numbers 14:22-24 (NET)

^[39] John 17:3 (NET)

^[40] Genesis 13:14, 15 (NET)

Romans, Part 51

Posted on March 16, 2014 by admin

Love must be without hypocrisy.^[1] A note in the NET explained that must be “is understood in the Greek text” Ἡ ἀγάπη ἀνυπόκριτος. I am inclined to see it more as a subject heading: The love unfeigned,^[2] as Robert Young ^[3] translated it. I think Paul’s thinking shifted naturally from the gifts of the Spirit in Romans 12:3-8 to the fruit of the Spirit in Romans 12:9-21, this unfeigned–without hypocrisy–genuine^[4]–sincere^[5] love. I don’t know Greek so I thought it best to study the translation of the words ἀγάπη and ἀνυπόκριτος to see if the NET translators had a good reason for regarding Ἡ ἀγάπη ἀνυπόκριτος as a rule rather than a subject heading.

James used ἀνυπόκριτος in exactly this form, the wisdom from above is (ἐστιν, a form of εἰμί)^[6] first pure, then peaceable, gentle, accommodating, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial, and not hypocritical (ἀνυπόκριτος).^[7] The verb of being ἐστιν (is) occurs in this sentence, while no verb occurs in Ἡ ἀγάπη ἀνυπόκριτος. The mere presence of ἀνυπόκριτος, however, did not persuade the NET translators to supply must be here: the wisdom from above [must be] first pure, then peaceable, gentle, accommodating, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial, and not hypocritical. I found over sixty occurrences of ἀγάπη in the New Testament (listed at the end of this essay). I’ll only comment on those where a verb was supplied by the translators.

There is no verb in, But the greatest of these is love,^[8] μείζων δὲ τούτων ἡ ἀγάπη. Is was supplied here and in Robert Young’s translation, and the greatest of these is love.^[9] Love [is] without hypocrisy would still be definitional rather than a rule if is had been supplied rather than must be. In, My love be with all of you in Christ Jesus,^[10] the preposition μετὰ^[11] was translated be with, as in, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with (μετὰ) you all.^[12] Young supplied is in both instances, my love is with you all in Christ Jesus,^[13] and, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, is with you all.^[14]

The clause in English—so that, because you have been rooted and grounded in love,^[15] which seems more like a phrase in Greek, ἐν ἀγάπῃ ἐρριζωμένοι καὶ τεθεμελιωμένοι—is interesting. Consider, Therefore, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted (ἐρριζωμένοι, a form of ῥιζόω)^[16] and built up in him and firm in your faith just as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.^[17] Here ἐρριζωμένοι was translated simply rooted. Young translated it being rooted: as, then, ye did receive Christ Jesus the Lord, in him walk ye, being rooted and built up in him, and confirmed in the faith…^[18] At first glance I thought the NET translators described something that happened in the past while Young described ongoing action. On closer inspection it seemed that the NET translators tried to accommodate the sense of ongoing action with the word continue. They translated περιπατεῖτε (a form of περιπατέω)^[19] continue to live, where Young translated it simply walk.

It is the same in, And you were at one time strangers and enemies in your minds as expressed through your evil deeds, but now he has reconciled you by his physical body through death to present you holy, without blemish, and blameless before him – if indeed you remain in the faith, established (τεθεμελιωμένοι, a form of θεμελιόω)^[20] and firm, without shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard.^[21] Here τεθεμελιωμένοι was translated simply established, while Young translated it being founded: if also ye remain in the faith, being founded and settled, and not moved away from the hope of the good news…^[22]

So I wondered why ἐν ἀγάπῃ ἐρριζωμένοι καὶ τεθεμελιωμένοι wasn’t translated “in love rooted and established” in the NET rather than, so that, because you have been rooted and grounded in love (Ephesians 3:14-19 NET).

For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on the earth is named. I pray that according to the wealth of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner person, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, [in love rooted and established] so that…you may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and thus to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.

Young’s translation reads, that the Christ may dwell through the faith in your hearts, in love having been rooted and founded…^[23] Obviously there is something more than the word ending that determines the tense of the verb, whether it indicates something that happened in the past or something ongoing. This exercise however has made it much clearer to me how intricately faith and love are intertwined in God’s action and mine. He strengthens me in the inner person with power through his Spirit that Christ may dwell in my heart through faith, or, that the Christ may dwell through the faith in my heart, in love having been rooted and founded, established, grounded. I for my part continue to live my life in Him just as I received Christ Jesus as Lord; that is, by faith, being rooted and built up in him, and confirmed in the faith. And so I remain in the faith, being founded and settled, and not moved away from the hope of the good news.

This is why I want Ἡ ἀγάπη ἀνυπόκριτος to be a subject heading—“This love without hypocrisy”—rather than a rule—Love must be without hypocrisy. And I’m not deaf. I hear how ridiculously pedantic that sounds. But for me it is a matter of life and death. I used to rush through Paul’s “jibber-jabber” to get to his rules, to honor my contract with God, as if the man who wrote of God’s law—For no one is declared righteous before him by the works of the law, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin^[24]—believed that adherence to his own rules could make anyone righteous.

In the thirteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians Paul described God’s love, the love that is the fruit of his Spirit, the love that is the fulfillment of the law. I believe he described that same love here in Romans 12:9-21. Abhor what is evil, he wrote, cling to what is good.^[25] In the past this “rule” only confirmed me in my folly. It was up to me, I thought, to abhor sin and keep the law, or Paul’s definition of love as if it were a law. But the word translated evil is πονηρόν, a form of πονηρός.^[26]

Frankly, I can think of nothing more “1) full of labours, annoyances, hardships 1a) pressed and harassed by labours 1b) bringing toils, annoyances, perils; of a time full of peril to Christian faith and steadfastness; causing pain and trouble 2) bad, of a bad nature or condition 2a) in a physical sense: diseased or blind 2b) in an ethical sense: evil wicked, bad” than the belief that I should or could make myself righteous by obeying the law or Paul’s definition of love as if it were a law.

Whenever I attempted it I wasn’t living my life in Him just as I received Christ Jesus as Lord. I wasn’t remaining in the faith, being founded and settled, and not moved away from the hope of the good news. I wasn’t even clinging to what is good (ἀγαθῷ, a form of ἀγαθός).^[27]

No one is good (ἀγαθὸς) except God alone,^[28] Jesus said.

Translation in NET	Greek Text	Verb
…the love of many will grow cold. Matthew 24:12 (NET)	ψυγήσεται ἡ ἀγάπη τῶν πολλῶν	ψυγήσεται (will grow cold)
…remain in my love. John 15:9 (NET)	μείνατε ἐν τῇ ἀγάπῃ τῇ ἐμῇ	μείνατε (remain)
…you will remain in my love… John 15:10 (NET)	μενεῖτε ἐν τῇ ἀγάπῃ μου	μενεῖτε (you will remain)
…and remain in his love. John 15:10 (NET)	καὶ μένω αὐτοῦ ἐν τῇ ἀγάπῃ	μένω (remain)
…so that the love you have loved me with may be in them… John 17:26 (NET)	ἵνα ἡ ἀγάπη ἣν ἠγάπησας με ἐν αὐτοῖς	ἠγάπησας (you have loved)
…because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts… Romans 5:5 (NET)	ὅτι ἡ ἀγάπη τοῦ θεοῦ ἐκκέχυται ἐν ταῖς καρδίαις ἡμῶν	ἐκκέχυται (has been poured out)
Love does no wrong to a neighbor. Romans 13:10 (NET)	ἡ ἀγάπη τῷ πλησίον κακὸν οὐκ ἐργάζεται	ἐργάζεται (does)
Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. Romans 13:10 (NET)	πλήρωμα οὖν νόμου ἡ ἀγάπη	πλήρωμα (is the fulfillment)
Shall I come to you with a rod of discipline or with love and a spirit of gentleness? 1 Corinthians 4:21 (NET)	ἐν ράβδῳ ἔλθω πρὸς ὑμᾶς ἢ ἐν ἀγάπῃ πνεύματι τε πραΰτητος	ἔλθω (Shall I come)
…but love builds up. 1 Corinthians 8:1 (NET)	ἡ δὲ ἀγάπη οἰκοδομεῖ	οἰκοδομεῖ (builds up)
Love is patient… 1 Corinthians 13:4 (NET)	Ἡ ἀγάπη μακροθυμεῖ	μακροθυμεῖ (is patient, i.e., perseveres)
…love is kind… 1 Corinthians 13:4 (NET)	χρηστεύεται ἡ ἀγάπη	χρηστεύεται (is kind, i.e., full of service to others)
Love never ends. 1 Corinthians 13:8 (NET)	Ἡ ἀγάπη οὐδέποτε πίπτει	πίπτει (ends)
And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. 1 Corinthians 13:13 (NET)	Νυνὶ δὲ μένει πίστις, ἐλπίς, ἀγάπη, τὰ τρία ταῦτα	μένει (remain)
But the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13:13 (NET)	μείζων δὲ τούτων ἡ ἀγάπη	None (is was supplied)
Everything you do should be done in love. 1 Corinthians 16:14 (NET)	πάντα ὑμῶν ἐν ἀγάπῃ γινέσθω	γινέσθω (do should be done)
My love be with all of you in Christ Jesus. 1 Corinthians 16:24 (NET)	ἡ ἀγάπη μου μετὰ πάντων ὑμῶν ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ	None (be was supplied)
For the love of Christ controls us… 2 Corinthians 5:14 (NET)	ἡ γὰρ ἀγάπη τοῦ Χριστοῦ συνέχει ἡμᾶς	συνέχει (controls)
…by genuine love… 2 Corinthians 6:6 (NET)	ἐν ἀγάπῃ ἀνυποκρίτῳ	None
…and in the love from us that is in you… 2 Corinthians 8:7 (NET)	καὶ τῇ ἐξ ἡμῶν ἐν ὑμῖν ἀγάπῃ	None
…and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. 2 Corinthians 13:13 (NET)	καὶ ἡ ἀγάπη τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ ἡ κοινωνία τοῦ ἁγίου πνεύματος μετὰ πάντων ὑμῶν	None (be was supplied)
But the fruit of the Spirit is love… Galatians 5:22 (NET)	ὁ δὲ καρπὸς τοῦ πνεύματος ἐστιν ἀγάπη	ἐστιν (is)
…that we may be holy and unblemished in his sight in love. Ephesians 1:4 (NET)	εἶναι ἡμᾶς ἁγίους καὶ ἀμώμους κατενώπιον αὐτοῦ ἐν ἀγάπῃ	εἶναι (may be)
…so that, because you have been rooted and grounded in love… Ephesians 3:17 (NET)	ἐν ἀγάπῃ ἐρριζωμένοι καὶ τεθεμελιωμένοι	ἐρριζωμένοι καὶ τεθεμελιωμένοι (rooted and grounded; so that [ἵνα v. 18], because you have been was supplied) In Colossians 2:7 (NET) ἐρριζωμένοι is translated rooted. In Colossians 1:23 (NET) τεθεμελιωμένοι is translated simply established.
…bearing with one another in love… Ephesians 4:2 (NET)	ἀνεχόμενοι ἀλλήλων ἐν ἀγάπῃ	ἀνεχόμενοι (bearing, i.e., to hold up, to sustain, to endure)
But practicing the truth in love… Ephesians 4:15 (NET)	ἀληθεύοντες δὲ ἐν ἀγάπῃ	ἀληθεύοντες (practicing the truth, i.e., speaking, teaching, professing truth)
As each one does its part, the body grows in love. Ephesians 4:16 (NET)	ἑνὸς ἑκάστου μέρους τὴν αὔξησιν τοῦ σώματος ποιεῖται εἰς οἰκοδομὴν ἑαυτοῦ ἐν ἀγάπῃ	(as each one its part grows the body does into building up himself in love)
…and live in love… Ephesians 5:2 (NET)	καὶ περιπατεῖτε ἐν ἀγάπῃ	περιπατεῖτε (live, lit. to walk)
…and love with faith… Ephesians 6:23 (NET)	καὶ ἀγάπη μετὰ πίστεως	None (nothing supplied)
…that your love may abound even more and more… Philippians 1:9 (NET)	ἵνα ἡ ἀγάπη ὑμῶν ἔτι μᾶλλον καὶ μᾶλλον περισσεύῃ	περισσεύῃ (may abound)
…having been knit together in love… Colossians 2:2 (NET)	συμβιβασθέντες ἐν ἀγάπῃ	συμβιβασθέντες (having been knit together)
And may the Lord cause you to increase and abound in love… 1 Thessalonians 3:12	ὑμᾶς δὲ ὁ κύριος πλεονάσαι καὶ περισσεύσαι τῇ ἀγάπῃ	πλεονάσαι καὶ περισσεύσαι (cause to increase and abound)
…and to esteem them most highly in love because of their work. 1 Thessalonians 5:13 (NET)	καὶ ἡγεῖσθαι αὐτοὺς ὑπερεκπερισσοῦ ἐν ἀγάπῃ διὰ τὸ ἔργον αὐτῶν	ἡγεῖσθαι (to esteem)
…and the love of each one of you all for one another is ever greater. 2 Thessalonians 1:3 (NET)	καὶ πλεονάζει ἡ ἀγάπη ἑνὸς ἑκάστου πάντων ὑμῶν εἰς ἀλλήλους	πλεονάζει (is ever greater)
But the aim of our instruction is love… 1 Timothy 1:5 (NET)	τὸ δὲ τέλος τῆς παραγγελίας ἐστὶν ἀγάπη	ἐστὶν (is)
…if she continues in faith and love and holiness with self-control. 1 Timothy 2:15 (NET)	ἐὰν μείνωσιν ἐν πίστει καὶ ἀγάπῃ καὶ ἁγιασμῷ μετὰ σωφροσύνης	μείνωσιν (she continues, literally, they continue)
…but set an example for the believers in your speech, conduct, love, faithfulness, and purity. 1 Timothy 4:12 (NET)	ἀλλὰ τύπος γίνου τῶν πιστῶν ἐν λόγῳ, ἐν ἀναστροφῇ, ἐν ἀγάπῃ, ἐν πίστει, ἐν ἁγνείᾳ	γίνου (set, literally, to become – τύπος γίνου: become the mark or image)
Hold to the standard of sound words that you heard from me and do so with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. 2 Timothy 1:13 (NET)	῾Υποτύπωσιν ἔχε ὑγιαινόντων λόγων ὧν παρ᾿ ἐμοῦ ἤκουσας ἐν πίστει καὶ ἀγάπῃ τῇ ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ	ἔχε (hold, literally to have)
You, however, have followed my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, my faith, my patience, my love, my endurance… 2 Timothy 3:10 (NET)	Σὺ δὲ παρηκολούθησας μου τῇ διδασκαλίᾳ, τῇ ἀγωγῇ, τῇ προθέσει, τῇ πίστει, τῇ μακροθυμίᾳ, τῇ ἀγάπῃ, τῇ ὑπομονῇ	παρηκολούθησας (have followed)
Older men are to be temperate, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in endurance. Titus 2:2 (NET)	Πρεσβύτας νηφαλίους εἶναι, σεμνούς, σώφρονας, ὑγιαίνοντας τῇ πίστει, τῇ ἀγάπῃ, τῇ ὑπομονῇ	εἶναι (are to be)
I have had great joy and encouragement because of your love… Philemon 1:7 (NET)	χαρὰν γὰρ πολλὴν ἔσχον καὶ παράκλησιν ἐπὶ τῇ ἀγάπῃ σου	ἔσχον (I have had)
…because *love covers a multitude of sins*. 1 Peter 4:8 (NET)	ὅτι ἀγάπη καλύπτει πλῆθος ἁμαρτιῶνSeptuagint: δὲ τοὺς μὴ φιλονεικοῦντας καλύπτει φιλία (Proverbs 10:12)	καλύπτει (covers)
…truly in this person the love of God has been perfected. 1 John 2:5 (NET)	ἀληθῶς ἐν τούτῳ ἡ ἀγάπη τοῦ θεοῦ τετελείωται	τετελείωται (has been perfected)
…the love of the Father is not in him… 1 John 2:15 (NET)	οὐκ ἔστιν ἡ ἀγάπη τοῦ πατρὸς ἐν αὐτῷ	ἔστιν (is)
…how can the love of God reside in such a person? 1 John 3:17 (NET)	πῶς ἡ ἀγάπη τοῦ θεοῦ μένει ἐν αὐτῷ	μένει (can reside)
…because love is from God… 1 John 4:7 (NET)	ὅτι ἡ ἀγάπη ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ ἐστιν	ἐστιν (is)
…because God is love. 1 John 4:8 (NET)	ὅτι ὁ θεὸς ἀγάπη ἐστίν	ἐστιν (is)
By this the love of God is revealed in us… 1 John 4:9 (NET)	ἐν τούτῳ ἐφανερώθη ἡ ἀγάπη τοῦ θεοῦ ἐν ἡμῖν	ἐφανερώθη (is revealed)
In this is love… 1 John 4:10 (NET)	ἐν τούτῳ ἐστὶν ἡ ἀγάπη	ἐστιν (is)
…and his love is perfected in us. 1 John 4:12 (NET)	καὶ ἡ ἀγάπη αὐτοῦ \|ἐν ἡμῖν\| τετελειωμένη ἐστίν	τετελειωμένη ἐστίν (is perfected)
God is love… 1 John 4:16 (NET)	Ὁ θεὸς ἀγάπη ἐστίν	ἐστιν (is)
…and the one who resides in love resides in God… 1 John 4:16 (NET)	καὶ ὁ μένων ἐν τῇ ἀγάπῃ ἐν τῷ θεῷ μένει	μένων (resides); μένει (resides)
By this love is perfected with us… 1 John 4:17 (NET)	Ἐν τούτῳ τετελείωται ἡ ἀγάπη μεθ᾿ ἡμῶν	τετελείωται (is perfected)
There is no fear in love… 1 John 4:18 (NET)	φόβος οὐκ ἔστιν ἐν τῇ ἀγάπῃ	ἔστιν (is, literally, “fear is not in love”)
…but perfect love drives out fear… 1 John 4:18 (NET)	ἀλλ᾿ ἡ τελεία ἀγάπη ἔξω βάλλει τὸν φόβον	βάλλει (drives; i.e., “to throw or let go of a thing without caring where it falls”)
The one who fears punishment has not been perfected in love. 1 John 4:18 (NET)	ὁ δὲ φοβούμενος οὐ τετελείωται ἐν τῇ ἀγάπῃ	τετελείωται (has been perfected); οὐ τετελείωται (has not been perfected)
For this is the love of God… 1 John 5:3 (NET)	αὕτη γάρ ἐστιν ἡ ἀγάπη τοῦ θεοῦ	ἐστιν (is)
Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us … in truth and love. 2 John 1:3 (NET)	ἔσται μεθ᾿ ἡμῶν χάρις ἔλεος εἰρήνη … ἐν ἀληθείᾳ καὶ ἀγάπῃ	ἔσται (will be)
Now this is love… 2 John 1:6 (NET)	καὶ αὕτη ἐστὶν ἡ ἀγάπη	ἐστὶν (is)
They have testified to your love before the church. 3 John 1:6 (NET)	οἳ ἐμαρτύρησαν σου τῇ ἀγάπῃ ἐνώπιον ἐκκλησίας	ἐμαρτύρησαν (They have testified)
May mercy, peace, and love be lavished on you! Jude 1:2 (NET)	ἔλεος ὑμῖν καὶ εἰρήνη καὶ ἀγάπη πληθυνθείη	πληθυνθείη (May be lavished)
…maintain yourselves in the love of God… Jude 1:21 (NET)	ἑαυτοὺς ἐν ἀγάπῃ θεοῦ τηρήσατε	τηρήσατε (maintain, i.e., “1) to attend to carefully, take care of 1a) to guard 1b) metaph. to keep, one in the state in which he is 1c) to observe 1d) to reserve: to undergo”

Romans, Part 52

Back to Romans, Part 68

Back to Romans, Part 77

^[1] Romans 12:9a (NET)

^[2] Romans 12:9a (YLT)

^[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young’s_Literal_Translation

^[4] 2 Corinthians 6:6 (NET)

^[5] 1 Timothy 1:5; 2 Timothy 1:5; 1 Peter 1:22 (NET)

^[7] James 3:17 (NET)

^[8] 1 Corinthians 13:13b (NET)

^[9] 1 Corinthians 13:13b (YLT)

^[10] 1 Corinthians 16:24 (NET)

^[12] 2 Corinthians 13:13b (NET)

^[13] 1 Corinthians 16:24b (YLT)

^[14] 2 Corinthians 13:14 (YLT)

^[15] Ephesians 3:17b (NET)

^[17] Colossians 2:6, 7 (NET)

^[18] Colossians 2:6, 7 (YLT)

^[21] Colossians 1:21-23a (NET)

^[22] Colossians 1:23 (YLT)

^[23] Ephesians 3:17 (YLT)

^[24] Romans 3:20 (NET)

^[25] Romans 12:9b (NET)

^[28] Luke 18:19b (NET)

Torture, Part 4

Posted on February 19, 2014 by admin

Suspecting that my antipathy (and objections) to Jonathan Edwards’ contention that God is the Superlative Torturer are rooted in my personal history, I need to revisit the long name of God for perspective.

The Long Name of God

The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, and abounding in loyal love and faithfulness, keeping loyal love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.

Exodus 34:6, 7a (NET)

But he by no means leaves the guilty unpunished, responding to the transgression of fathers by dealing with children and children’s children, to the third and fourth generation.

Exodus 34:7b (NET)

Intellectually, I can see that the things I’ve been looking into in Revelation fall under the heading of not leaving the guilty unpunished. Rationally, I can see that this long name is an accurate description of who God is, one unified God. But I don’t know the One who by no means leaves the guilty unpunished, responding to the transgression of fathers by dealing with children and children’s children, to the third and fourth generation, not experientially. I deserve to know Him that way. I’ve earned the right, so to speak. But I don’t know Him like that. I know the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, and abounding in loyal love and faithfulness, keeping loyal love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.

Asaph ^[1] apparently knew God as the One who by no means leaves the guilty unpunished. I suffer all day long, he wrote, and am punished every morning.^[2] Of course he acknowledged that he felt that way when: my feet almost slipped; my feet almost slid out from under me (Table). For I envied those who are proud, as I observed the prosperity of the wicked (Table).^[3] And I most felt like Asaph as “a philosophical and legalistic young man fighting my way back from atheism,”^[4] obsessed with disputes and arguments over words, from which come envy, strife, reviling, evil suspicions, useless wranglings of men of corrupt minds and destitute of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain.^[5]

I don’t think I was particularly obsessed with money. I was giving money and continually amazed that I always had enough. I wanted some fame or power or prestige or position, and thought that “obeying” God by striving to keep the law, or the love that is the fulfillment of the law^[6] as if Paul’s definition were a list of laws, was a means to that end. I was “punished” constantly then. But all I really meant by God’s “punishment,” or his “blessing” for that matter, was how things worked out according to my hopes, my dreams, my plans or my schemes. When things went my way I was “blessed,” and I was “punished” when they didn’t.

This wasn’t always the case, however. Though I didn’t think in these terms then, at seventeen He who by no means leaves the guilty unpunished, responding to the transgression of fathers by dealing with children and children’s children, to the third and fourth generation was the One I worshiped and loved as much as it is possible to love such a One. Punishment is the currency of childhood. It’s how one pays for what he wants. I didn’t actually know this God in any experiential way. I believed in Him. He made sense to me. I claimed to believe in Jesus’ salvation. And I suppose I did to some degree, but that was heaven. Heaven was as far away as Disneyland. And my family couldn’t afford Disneyland either.

I don’t recall knowing the long name of God, but I knew the Ten Commandments: I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me [Table], but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments [Table].^[7] I had no clue that the ones who loved Him and kept his commandments were the ones He had shown mercy. If you had told me it does not depend on human desire or exertion, but on God who shows mercy,^[8] I wouldn’t have believed you, not by seventeen. I “knew” I didn’t love God enough or keep his commandments enough to “earn” his mercy. That’s why I trusted Jesus for a place in heaven rather than in hell. But as for the rest of it, I “knew” I would pay in punishment.

At seventeen I don’t think I knew the law that reads, If a man entices a virgin who is not betrothed, and lies with her, he shall surely pay the bride-price for her to be his wife. If her father utterly refuses to give her to him, he shall pay money according to the bride-price of virgins.^[9] I would be hard-pressed to confirm that anyone I knew had ever heard of this law. We believed in the sin of premarital sex. I knew the law about rape (Deuteronomy 22:28, 29 NKJV).

If a man finds a young woman who is a virgin, who is not betrothed, and he seizes her and lies with her, and they are found out [Table], then the man who lay with her shall give to the young woman’s father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife because he has humbled her; he shall not be permitted to divorce her all his days [Table].

This law was impossible to avoid. I read it on different occasions in anti-God and antinomian polemics. I even checked the reference in the Bible to see if it was true; that is, that it was actually in the Bible as the polemicists claimed. One might argue that I should have inferred the former law from the latter. I can’t disagree. I wrote^[10] that I had a “philosophical bent of mind.” While true, it doesn’t mean that I was any good necessarily at doing philosophy. I was embarrassed and frustrated by this law. Why did God force women to marry their rapists?! But neither my embarrassment nor my frustration raised a single question in my mind regarding the validity of the sin of premarital sex. I believed in the sin of premarital sex with all my heart, the laws of God notwithstanding.

Such was the state of my “faith” when my highschool girlfriend and I fucked^[11] for the first time. I don’t use the term fucked to be insulting, demeaning or derogatory but in the hope of finding a word in English that will carry the weight of eros in Greek. Sexual intercourse is about inserting an erect penis into a vagina and thrusting and relaxing to stimulate the nerves in the head of the penis and the clitoris until an explosive pleasure sensation called an orgasm is achieved. What I mean by fuck, fucked or fucking has everything to do with sexual intercourse, and nothing to do with it except as an entry portal or an ongoing celebration of a wondrous and unimaginable relationship with another person of the opposite sex, a relationship that artists have spent their lifetimes attempting to capture, celebrate or recreate in music, dance, art, sculpture, poetry and drama.

Before we fucked, my girlfriend and I were two teenagers too shy to remove our underwear as we crawled under the covers. Afterward in the bath together a Bible verse came to mind, And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.^[12] I felt like I understood that verse for the first time. But it didn’t dissuade me that I would be punished for the sin of premarital sex.

I had some very specific punishments in mind. Pregnancy was top of that list. Obviously children were God’s primary punishment for fucking. My Dad had warned me to watch out for women who would trick me into caring for their children.^[13] Protestants were a little wishy-washy on the sin of birth control as a way to avoid God’s punishment for fucking, but Catholics were strong and on target on this issue. My girlfriend and I were well-versed in the “Brave New World”^[14] and had our Malthusian drill ^[15] down pat. We never fucked without at least one method of contraception, and often two. The idea that a couple might become so impassioned they forgot their Malthusian drill was inconceivable to us.

Venereal disease was number two on God’s list of punishments for fucking. But we were both virgins when we started fucking. I had the desire to expand this fucking relationship to others, until I actually tried to initiate it. Though I didn’t know the law about seducing virgins intellectually, I felt that law written in my heart when I attempted to fuck another virgin. “I returned to [my girlfriend] quite contrite actually, confessed my sin and asked for her hand in a much more traditional marriage.”^[16] But even that didn’t alert me that I might not be punished for the sin of premarital sex. I really don’t think I recognized my aversion to committing adultery as God’s law written in my heart anyway. I probably just thought it was my idea, or that I “loved” my first girlfriend more.

Finally, death was the punishment I thought most likely for the sin of premarital sex, given that we had outsmarted God twice before. I didn’t think God would, or maybe could, kill me outright. Miracles, God breaking the laws of science, were kind of a sketchy issue in my thinking at the time. But Vietnam was a very real possibility. And it would be quite easy for Him to kill me there. When the draft lottery all but guaranteed that I would never be drafted, I still didn’t suspect that God had no intention of punishing me for the sin of premarital sex.

One more opportunity comes to mind. Every time we fucked in my girlfriend’s bedroom she put three albums on the stereo: Every Picture Tells a Story,^[17] Rod Stewart; Who’s Next,^[18] The Who; and Aqualung,^[19] Jethro Tull. I tolerated Rod Stewart because I loved her. Secretly, I called the album “Every Picture Tells a Story Donut,” after the repeated line in the title track. Who’s Next became more important after she left me for someone else. Aqualung made a deep and immediate impression.

The song “Wind-Up” spoke particularly to me. I learned years later that the only required subject in English public schools was the Bible. That explained why British progressive rock was obsessed with biblical themes. It also made more sense to me why Ian Anderson ^[20] left school with “their God tucked underneath my arm.”^[21]

So I left there in the morning
with their God tucked underneath my arm —
their half-assed smiles and the book of rules.
So I asked this God a question
and by way of firm reply,
He said — I’m not the kind you have to wind up on Sundays.
So to my old headmaster (and to anyone who cares):
before I’m through I’d like to say my prayers —
I don’t believe you:
you had the whole damn thing all wrong —
He’s not the kind you have to wind up on Sundays.

Looking back now, I clearly had everything “all wrong.” I remember entertaining the notion that God was trying to communicate to me through the words of this song. I even went back to the Bible to see if I could find what I had gotten “all wrong.” But the Bible said the same thing to me it always said: “God’ll getcha if you don’t watch out!” I decided that there was no way anyone who looked like Ian Anderson could possibly know anything that could stand up to two thousand years of Christian theology (no matter how catchy the tune). And there was no way I was going to get out of being punished for the sin of premarital sex.

Nothing could persuade me otherwise. Even when I wasn’t punished for the sin of premarital sex, nothing clicked, no light bulbs went off. Instead, I felt rationally obligated to become an atheist because God would have punished me for the sin of premarital sex.

Torture, Part 5

Back to Solomon’s Wealth, Part 2

Back to Fear – Numbers, Part 2

Back to Fear – Deuteronomy, Part 8

Back to Who Am I? Part 8

Back to Atonement, Part 2

Back to Hannah’s Prayer, Part 1

Back to Fear – Deuteronomy, Part 14

Back to Who Am I? Part 3

Back to Fear – Deuteronomy, Part 15

Back to A Shadow of the Good Things, Part 7

Back to The Lost Son of Perdition, Part 5

Back to Westworld, Part 4

Back to The New Covenant, Part 2

Back to The Day of the Lord, Part 1

Back to Who Am I? Part 14

Back to A Shadow of the Good Things, Part 10

Back to Christ-Centered Preaching, Chapter 4, Part 3

Back to Introduction-Section Seven

^[1] 1 Chronicles 15:16-19

^[2] Psalm 73:14 (NET) Table

^[3] Psalm 73:2, 3 (NET)

^[4] A Monotonous Cycle, Part 3

^[5] 1 Timothy 6:4b, 5 (NKJV)

^[6] Romans 13:10b (NET)

^[7] Exodus 20:5b, 6 (NKJV)

^[8] Romans 9:16 (NET) Table

^[9] Exodus 22:16, 17 (NKJV)

^[10] Jesus’ Artifacts, Part 1; Jesus’ Artifacts, Part 5; Jesus’ Artifacts, Part 7; Jedidiah, Part 3; Romans, Part 1

^[11] Antichrist, Part 1

^[12] Genesis 2:25 (NKJV)

^[13] David’s Forgiveness, Part 2

^[14] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World

^[15] http://www.bookdrum.com/books/brave-new-world/9780099518471/glossary.html

^[16] https://religiousmind.net/2012/06/23/who-am-i-part-3/

^[17] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Every_Picture_Tells_a_Story

^[18] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who’s_Next

^[19] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aqualung_(Jethro_Tull_album)

^[20] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Anderson

^[21] http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/jethrotull/windup.html

Torture, Part 3

Posted on February 18, 2014 by admin

Then a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and with the moon under her feet, and on her head was a crown of twelve stars. She was pregnant and was screaming in labor pains, struggling (βασανιζομένη, a form of βασανίζω)^[1] to give birth.^[2] A note in the NET acknowledged that the word translated struggling means being tortured: “Grk ‘and being tortured,’ though βασανίζω in this context refers to birth pangs.” If this is what Jonathan Edwards had in mind when he declared God the Superlative Torturer I must concede the point. Edwards preached:

“The wrath of kings is very much dreaded, especially of absolute monarchs, that have the possessions and lives of their subjects wholly in their power, to be disposed of at their meer will….The subject that very much enrages an arbitrary prince, is liable to suffer the most extreme torments, that human art can invent or human power can inflict. But the greatest earthly potentates, in their greatest majesty and strength, and when clothed in their greatest terrors, are but feeble despicable worms of the dust, in comparison of the great and almighty creator and king of heaven and earth…”^[3]

I will greatly increase your labor pains, the Lord cursed Eve after the incident with the forbidden fruit, with pain you will give birth to children.^[4] No absolute monarch or arbitrary prince could inflict this torment on all women if and only if they have children. God is uniquely qualified to administer this βασανίζω so thoroughly and yet so selectively. (As I began to study this I called my mother and thanked her.)

And the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet are too, and they will be tormented (βασανισθήσονται, a form of βασανίζω) there day and night forever and ever.^[5] The beast and the false prophet were thrown alive into the lake of fire burning with sulfur in Revelation 19:20 (NET):

Now the beast was seized, and along with him the false prophet who had performed the signs on his behalf – signs by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image. Both of them were thrown alive into the lake of fire burning with sulfur.

So I have a measure now of that torment, like the pains of childbirth. However, When a woman gives birth, she has distress (λύπην, a form of λύπη)^[6] because her time has come, but when her child is born, she no longer remembers the suffering because of her joy (χαρὰν, a form of χαρά)^[7] that a human being has been born into the world.^[8] The torture of the devil, the beast and the false prophet is like the pains of childbirth day and night forever and ever.

The two witnesses with authority to prophesy for 1,260 days, dressed in sackcloth^[9] have the power to close up the sky so that it does not rain during the time they are prophesying. They have power to turn the waters to blood and to strike the earth with every kind of plague whenever they want.^[10]

When they have completed their testimony, the beast that comes up from the abyss will make war on them and conquer them and kill them. Their corpses will lie in the street of the great city that is symbolically called Sodom and Egypt, where their Lord was also crucified. For three and a half days those from every people, tribe, nation, and language will look at their corpses, because they will not permit them to be placed in a tomb.^[11]

In response to the death of the two witnesses those who live on the earth will rejoice over them and celebrate, even sending gifts to each other, because these two prophets had tormented (ἐβασάνισαν, a form of βασανίζω) those who live on the earth.^[12] I am inclined to regard this torment as something more like the battering of waves—the boat…was taking a beating (βασανιζόμενον, a form of βασανίζω) from the waves because the wind was against it^[13]—or straining at the oars in contrary winds—He saw them straining (βασανιζομένους, a form of βασανίζω) at the oars, because the wind was against them.^[14] (The two witnesses also have a defense against anyone who wants to harm them, fire comes out of their mouths and completely consumes their enemies.^[15] But I am assuming that lethal force defeats the purpose of, and is thereby distinguished from, torture.)

After the celebration, a breath of life from God entered [the two witnesses], and they stood on their feet, and tremendous (μέγας)^[16] fear (φόβος)^[17] seized those who were watching them. Then they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them: “Come up here!” So the two prophets went up to heaven in a cloud while their enemies stared at them. Just then a major earthquake took place and a tenth of the city collapsed; seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the rest were terrified (ἔμφοβοι, a form of ἔμφοβος)^[18] and gave glory to the God of heaven.^[19]

This is rare in John’s vision on Patmos. Perhaps it was the result of the torment, the miraculous resurrection and ascension, the deadly earthquake or the character of the people who witnessed all of this in Jerusalem, where their Lord was also crucified. But I am inclined to believe that the two witnesses prophesying the word of God in the authority of God causes people to repent of their celebration and glorify God when they see his word confirmed by miraculous signs and wonders (if and only if God has mercy on them).

When the fifth angel blew his trumpet, a star fell from the sky, and opened the shaft of the abyss.^[20] Smoke and locusts billowed out. The locusts were given power like that of the scorpions of the earth. They were told not to damage the grass of the earth, or any green plant or tree, but only those people who did not have the seal of God on their forehead. The locusts were not given permission to kill them, but only to torture (βασανισθήσονται, a form of βασανίζω) them for five months, and their torture (βασανισμὸς, a form of βασανισμός)^[21] was like that (βασανισμὸς, a form of βασανισμός) of a scorpion when it stings a person. In those days people will seek death, but will not be able to find it; they will long to die, but death will flee from them.^[22]

Again, if this is what Jonathan Edwards had in mind about God as the Superlative Torturer, I must concede the point. I don’t see how an absolute monarch or arbitrary prince could either create locusts that sting like scorpions, or direct them to select only those who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads for torture.

If anyone worships the beast and his image, an angel declared, and takes the mark on his forehead or his hand, that person will also drink of the wine of God’s anger that has been mixed undiluted in the cup of his wrath, and he will be tortured (βασανισθήσεται, a form of βασανίζω) with fire and sulfur in front of the holy angels and in front of the Lamb. And the smoke from their torture (βασανισμοῦ, a form of βασανισμός) will go up forever and ever, and those who worship the beast and his image will have no rest day or night, along with anyone who receives the mark of his name.^[23]

Here the Lamb officiates at the eternal torture of those who worship the beast and take the mark. And here again, if this is what Jonathan Edwards had in mind I must concede the point. My objections to considering God the Superlative Torturer may not be entirely rational. Quite aside from even Edwards’ point that I repent and trust this Superlative Torturer for eternal life, is my instinct that the image of the Lamb officiating at this scene of torture is hyperbole to highlight how evil worshipping the beast and his image, and taking his mark actually are. The “Superlative Torturer” who tortures all sinners dulls that distinction some. I’ll look for these objections in my own personal history in the next essay.

Torture, Part 4

Back to Condemnation or Judgment? – Part 5

^[2] Revelation 12:1, 2 (NET)

^[3] http://voicesofdemocracy.umd.edu/edwards-sinners-in-the-hands-speech-text/

^[4] Genesis 3:16a (NET)

^[5] Revelation 20:10 (NET)

^[8] John 16:21 (NET)

^[9] Revelation 11:3 (NET)

^[10] Revelation 11:6 (NET)

^[11] Revelation 11:7-9 (NET)

^[12] Revelation 11:10 (NET)

^[13] Matthew 14:24 (NET)

^[14] Mark 6:48a (NET)

^[15] Revelation 11:5a (NET)

^[19] Revelation 11:11-13 (NET)

^[20] Revelation 9:1, 2a (NET)

^[22] Revelation 9:3-6 (NET)

^[23] Revelation 14:9-12 (NET)

Condemnation or Judgment? – Part 5

Posted on February 16, 2014 by admin

I want to continue considering the eternal gospel the angel flying directly overhead “evangelized” (εὐαγγελίσαι, a form of εὐαγγελίζω)^[1] in its context. It is one of three messages by three different angels: one “evangelized,” another declared (λέγων, a form of λέγω),^[2] and another declared (λέγων, a form of λέγω) in a loud voice.

Three Angels

Then I saw another angel flying directly overhead, and he had an eternal gospel (εὐαγγέλιον)^[3] to proclaim (εὐαγγελίσαι, a form of εὐαγγελίζω) to those who live on the earth – to every nation, tribe, language, and people. He declared in a loud voice:

Revelation 14:6, 7a (NET)

A second angel followed the first, declaring (λέγων, a form of λέγω):

Revelation 14:8a (NET)

A third angel followed the first two, declaring (λέγων, a form of λέγω) in a loud voice:

Revelation 14:9a (NET)

“Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment (ἡ ὥρα τῆς κρίσεως αὐτοῦ) has arrived, and worship the one who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water!”

Revelation 14:7b (NET)

“Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great city! She made all the nations drink of the wine of her immoral (πορνείας, a form of πορνεία)^[4] passion.”

Revelation 14:8b (NET)

“If anyone worships the beast and his image, and takes the mark on his forehead or his hand, that person will also drink of the wine of God’s anger that has been mixed undiluted in the cup of his wrath, and he will be tortured with fire and sulfur in front of the holy angels and in front of the Lamb. And the smoke from their torture will go up forever and ever, and those who worship the beast and his image will have no rest day or night, along with anyone who receives the mark of his name.”

Revelation 14:9b-11 (NET)

This requires the steadfast endurance of the saints – those who obey God’s commandments and hold to their faith in Jesus.

Revelation 14:12 (NET)

At first I included the final statement with the declaration of the third angel only. Then I realized that the eternal gospel the first angel “evangelized” was not exactly “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ before you die or burn in hell for all eternity.” Nor was it 1 Corinthians 15:1-8. In fact, it didn’t mention Jesus at all. It occurred to me that seeing and hearing an angel evangelize an eternal gospel like this might also require some steadfast endurance of those who hold to their faith in Jesus (Galatians 1:8 NET).

But even if we (or an angel from heaven) should preach a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be condemned to hell (ἀνάθεμα)!^[5]

I assumed that the fall of Babylon might require the same endurance for reasons that were not yet clear. And at present I don’t know whether—those who obey God’s commandments and hold to their faith in Jesus—define the word saints or qualify which saints are under consideration here. I’ll consider the torture of those who worship the beast in its own essay.

I related the two judgments to the three angels like this:

Three Angels

Then I saw another angel flying directly overhead…

Revelation 14:6, 7 (NET)

A second angel followed the first…

Revelation 14:8 (NET)

A third angel followed the first two…

Revelation 14:9-11 (NET)

Then I looked, and a white cloud appeared, and seated on the cloud was one like a son of man! He had a golden crown on his head and a sharp sickle in his hand.

Revelation 14:14 (NET)

Then another angel came out of the temple in heaven, and he too had a sharp sickle.

Revelation 14:17 (NET)

Then another angel came out of the temple, shouting in a loud voice to the one seated on the cloud, “Use your sickle and start to reap, because the time to reap has come, since the earth’s harvest is ripe!”

Revelation 14:15 (NET)

Another angel, who was in charge of the fire, came from the altar and called in a loud voice to the angel who had the sharp sickle, “Use your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of grapes off the vine of the earth, because its grapes are now ripe.”

Revelation 14:18 (NET)

So the one seated on the cloud swung his sickle over the earth, and the earth was reaped.

Revelation 14:16 (NET)

So the angel swung his sickle over the earth and gathered the grapes from the vineyard of the earth and tossed them into the great winepress of the wrath of God. Then the winepress was stomped outside the city, and blood poured out of the winepress up to the height of horses’ bridles for a distance of almost two hundred miles.

Revelation 14:19, 20 (NET)

Despite everything I’ve been through I wanted to relate the outcome of the two judgments to the messages of the three angels like this:

Then I saw another angel flying directly overhead, and he had an eternal gospel (εὐαγγέλιον) to proclaim (εὐαγγελίσαι, a form of εὐαγγελίζω) to those who live on the earth – to every nation, tribe, language, and people. He declared in a loud voice: “Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment (ἡ ὥρα τῆς κρίσεως αὐτοῦ) has arrived, and worship the one who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water!”

Revelation 14:6, 7 (NET)

A second angel followed the first, declaring (λέγων, a form of λέγω): “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great city! She made all the nations drink of the wine of her immoral (πορνείας, a form of πορνεία) passion.”

Revelation 14:8 (NET)

A third angel followed the first two, declaring (λέγων, a form of λέγω) in a loud voice: “If anyone worships the beast and his image, and takes the mark on his forehead or his hand, that person will also drink of the wine of God’s anger that has been mixed undiluted in the cup of his wrath, and he will be tortured with fire and sulfur in front of the holy angels and in front of the Lamb. And the smoke from their torture will go up forever and ever, and those who worship the beast and his image will have no rest day or night, along with anyone who receives the mark of his name.”

Revelation 14:9-11 (NET)

They sang the song of Moses the servant of God and the song of the Lamb: “Great and astounding are your deeds, Lord God, the All-Powerful! Just and true are your ways, King over the nations!”

Revelation 15:3 (NET)

…they blasphemed the name of God…and they would not repent and give him glory.

Revelation 16:9b (NET)

“Who will not fear you, O Lord, and glorify your name, because you alone are holy? All nations will come and worship before you for your righteous acts have been revealed.”

Revelation 15:4 (NET)

…they blasphemed God because of the plague of hail, since it was so horrendous.

Revelation 16:21b (NET)

They blasphemed the God of heaven because of their sufferings and because of their sores, but nevertheless they still refused to repent of their deeds.

Revelation 16:11 (NET)

Then I looked, and a white cloud appeared, and seated on the cloud was one like a son of man! He had a golden crown on his head and a sharp sickle in his hand. Then another angel came out of the temple, shouting in a loud voice to the one seated on the cloud, “Use your sickle and start to reap, because the time to reap has come, since the earth’s harvest is ripe!” So the one seated on the cloud swung his sickle over the earth, and the earth was reaped.

Revelation 14:14-16 (NET)

Then another angel came out of the temple in heaven, and he too had a sharp sickle. Another angel, who was in charge of the fire, came from the altar and called in a loud voice to the angel who had the sharp sickle, “Use your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of grapes off the vine of the earth, because its grapes are now ripe.” So the angel swung his sickle over the earth and gathered the grapes from the vineyard of the earth and tossed them into the great winepress of the wrath of God. Then the winepress was stomped outside the city, and blood poured out of the winepress up to the height of horses’ bridles for a distance of almost two hundred miles.

Revelation 14:17-20 (NET)

Then I saw something like a sea of glass mixed with fire, and those who had conquered the beast and his image and the number of his name. They were standing by the sea of glass, holding harps given to them by God.

Revelation 15:2 (NET)

Then I saw another great and astounding sign in heaven: seven angels who have seven final plagues (they are final because in them God’s anger is completed).

Revelation 15:1 (NET)

Judgment and condemnation would be easier for me to grasp if:

1) The first angel said, “Fear God and give him glory…and worship the one who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water!”
2) Then in response to that people said, “Great and astounding are your deeds, Lord God, the All-Powerful! Just and true are your ways, King over the nations! Who will not fear you, O Lord, and glorify your name, because you alone are holy? All nations will come and worship before you for your righteous acts have been revealed.”
3) Then in response to that one like a son of man…swung his sickle over the earth, and the earth was reaped; that is, those who feared God and gave Him glory.
4) Then those who feared God and gave Him glory were standing by the sea of glass, holding harps given to them by God.

Or conversely that:

1) Those who did not fear God but worshipped the beast and his image…
2) Were those who blasphemed the name of God, who would not repent and give Him glory…
3) And they were tossed…into the great winepress of the wrath of God…
4) To face the seven final plagues.

But that isn’t what’s revealed here, is it? Those who sang the song of Moses and the song of the Lamb probably conquered the beast and his image and the number of his name^[6] by refusing to worship him, his image or take the mark. What looked to John like their “reaping” by one like a son of man, will probably look like mass executions to their contemporaries on earth. Their “reaping” is immediately preceded by Revelation 14:13 (NET):

Then I heard a voice from heaven say, “Write this: ‘Blessed are the dead, those who die in the Lord from this moment on!’” “Yes,” says the Spirit, “so they can rest from their hard work, because their deeds will follow them.”

It is after they find themselves standing by the sea of glass, holding harps given to them by God^[7] that they give glory^[8] to God—Great and astounding are your deeds, Lord God, the All-Powerful! Just and true are your ways^[9]—and can’t imagine how or why anyone would not fear Him—Who will not fear you, O Lord, and glorify your name, because you alone are holy?^[10]

Meanwhile, back on the earth, those who worshiped the beast, and were tossed…into the great winepress of the wrath of God,^[11] when the fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and it was permitted to scorch people with fire, and they were scorched by the terrible heat, yet (καὶ)^[12] they blasphemed the name of God, who has ruling authority over these plagues, and they would not repent and give him glory.^[13] When the fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast so that darkness covered his kingdom, and people began to bite their tongues because of their pain, they blasphemed the God of heaven because of their sufferings and because of their sores, but nevertheless^[14] (καὶ) they still refused to repent of their deeds.^[15] And finally, when Babylon the great was remembered before God, and was given the cup filled with the wine made of God’s furious wrath,^[16] gigantic hailstones, weighing about a hundred pounds each, fell from heaven on people, but (καὶ) they blasphemed God because of the plague of hail, since it was so horrendous.^[17]

The Greek word καὶ is usually translated and (see the KJV, NKJV, ASV, DNT, and YLT). Three times the translators of the NET tried to create a contrast that may not be there in the text. Without that contrast there is a very simple and obvious story here. All deserved God’s wrath. Those who received his mercy (albeit through refusing the mark of the beast and suffering execution) feared Him and glorified Him. Those who received the wrath they deserved cursed Him and would not repent of their deeds.

God’s judgment is not about my righteousness. It does not reflect or demonstrate my righteousness, but his. The key here is in the song of Moses and the Lamb: you alone are holy.^[18] Why do you call me good? Jesus answered a question with another. No one is good except God alone.^[19] For a long time I’ve thought that Jesus was asserting his divinity here in a backhanded, double reverse sort of way. Now it seems so clear that He was fully embracing his humanity, walking humbly, led by the Spirit, dependent on the Holy Spirit’s love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.^[20] No one is good except God alone, Jesus said.

We are told explicitly who will worship the beast (Revelation 13:7, 8 NET):

The beast was permitted to go to war against the saints and conquer them. He was given ruling authority over every tribe, people, language, and nation, and all those who live on the earth will worship the beast, everyone whose name has not been written since the foundation of the world in the book of life belonging to the Lamb who was killed.

In other words, the judgment (and the condemnation, for that matter) was made even before they were born or had done anything good or bad (so that God’s purpose in election would stand, not by works but by his calling).^[21] So John on Patmos had a vision confirming the most difficult words Paul wrote (Romans 9:14-18 NET):

What shall we say then? Is there injustice with God? Absolutely not! For he says to Moses: “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” So then, it does not depend on human desire or exertion, but on God who shows mercy. For the scripture says to Pharaoh: “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may demonstrate my power in you, and that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.” So then, God has mercy on whom he chooses to have mercy, and he hardens whom he chooses to harden.

My religious mind screams, “That’s not fair!” But Paul heard my religious mind, or maybe his own (Romans 9:19-21 NET):

You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who has ever resisted his will?” But who indeed are you – a mere human being – to talk back to God? Does what is molded say to the molder, “Why have you made me like this?” Has the potter no right to make from the same lump of clay one vessel for special use and another for ordinary use?

And my religious mind says, “No! Hell, no!” But the new man following the Spirit, hears the Lord Jesus say, “deny [your]self, take up [your] cross, and follow me,”^[22] and listens as He prays to our Father in heaven, “not my will but yours be done.”^[23] Let God be proven true, Paul wrote, and every human being shown up as a liar, just as it is written: “so that you [i.e., God, Paul quoted David at prayer here] will be justified in your words and will prevail when you are judged.”^[24] And as I fully embrace my humanity and truly believe that it does not depend on [my] desire or exertion, but on God who shows mercy, I can hear something else in a fresh and new way (Romans 11:32-36 NET):

For God has consigned all people to disobedience so that he may show mercy to them all. Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how fathomless his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor? Or who has first given to God, that God needs to repay him? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever! Amen.

They sang the song of Moses the servant of God and the song of the Lamb (Revelation 15:3, 4 NET):

“Great and astounding are your deeds, Lord God, the All-Powerful! Just and true are your ways, King over the nations! Who will not fear you, O Lord, and glorify your name, because you alone are holy? All nations will come and worship before you for your righteous acts have been revealed.”

Condemnation or Judgment? – Part 6

Back to Torture, Part 3

Back to Torture, Part 5

Back to Cult Prostitutes

^[6] Revelation 15:2 (NET)

^[7] Revelation 15:2 (NET)

^[8] Revelation 14:7 (NET)

^[9] Revelation 15:3 (NET)

^[10] Revelation 15:4a (NET)

^[11] Revelation 14:19 (NET)

^[12] NET Note: “Here καί (kai) has been translated as ‘yet’ to indicate the contrast present in this context.”

^[13] Revelation 16:8, 9 (NET)

^[14] NET Note: “Grk ‘and they did not repent.’ Here καί (kai) has been translated as ‘but nevertheless’ to express the contrast here.”

^[15] Revelation 16:10, 11 (NET)

^[16] Revelation 16:19b (NET)

^[17] Revelation 16:21 (NET)

^[18] Revelation 15:4 (NET)

^[19] Mark 10:18; Luke 18:19 (NET)

^[20] Galatians 5:22, 23 (NET)

^[21] Romans 9:11 (NET)

^[22] Matthew 16:24 (NET)

^[23] Luke 22:42b (NET)

^[24] Romans 3:4 (NET)

My Reasons and My Reason, Part 2

Posted on February 8, 2014 by admin

I took my mother to see “Saving Mr. Banks” after Christmas. We enjoyed it. It was a well-done adult Disney movie. (I wouldn’t recommend it for children.) We’re both interested in the creative process so a movie about making a movie didn’t seem too masturbatory. It was interesting to consider how P.L. Travers’ reservations about Walt Disney making “Mary Poppins” impacted the final project. And it was enlightening to me that the “Let’s Go Fly a Kite” ending was born not of an idyllic childhood but of a troubled and conflicted relationship with fathers, both Disney’s and Travers’.

My mother and I hadn’t seen a movie together in a theater since “The Sound of Music.” We almost didn’t see that. She read a blurb in the paper that indicated it was about a “young prostitute.” Later she read another that described Maria as a “young postulant” and chided herself for misreading the word. Knowing my mother and her voracious reading habits, I doubt she mistook “postulant” for “prostitute.” I suspect a typo in the first blurb.

We recalled how we had seen “Mary Poppins” at a matinee together with my younger brother and sister in the summer of 1965. We liked it so much we stayed to watch it again. We forgot about (and I missed) my ballgame that evening. That was not easy to live down with my teammates. Missing a game for “Goldfinger,” maybe, but “Mary Poppins” was definitely not cool. I wasn’t permitted to see movies like “Goldfinger.” I didn’t tell my teammates how I spent my time viewing the movie the second time. Almost fifty years later I didn’t tell my mother either.

I was young enough that I still couldn’t predict a storyline. The first time through I thought the movie was ending when Bert and Mary and Jane and Michael looked out over the city after climbing the stairs made of smoke. All movies ended too soon to my childish mind. I did feel the pathos of Mr. Banks’ situation and rejoice at his redemption once I saw it. I just had no idea that it was coming. Of course, “Saving Mr. Banks” informed me that his redemption was a late idea anyway.

What troubled me the second time through the film was Mary Poppins’ righteous indignation over the children’s concern that she had been “sacked.” I didn’t know what “sacked” meant, but could glean from the context that it had something to do with losing her job. But her reaction seemed too over-the-top for something so trifling. (I was eleven.) Before the movie ended the second time, I had satisfied myself with a definition for “sacked” that included Mary Poppins, naked, tied spread-eagle between the pillars in the entry foyer of the Banks’ home, and soundly whipped by Mr. Banks with a buggy whip. That seemed sufficient to justify her reaction.

I laughed rather inappropriately a decade or so later watching the “The Story of O,” when the door at the top of the stairs opened to reveal the scene I had imagined as a child. O had recreated it with the maid to educate a young man who wanted to rescue her from her slavery. He gazed from her sweaty beaten body to the inexplicable look of her face. The disheveled maid regarded him as an unwelcome intruder. Obviously, she would resume beating O the moment he left. This “harsh reality” was just too much for O’s would-be rescuer, so he fled.

I thought I might be dragged off in handcuffs from the Fine Arts Theater for watching “The Story of O.” I thought maybe I deserved to be arrested and charged with something for enjoying it so much. And I felt like that every time I saw it. I saw it three different times with three different male friends. But I was the only one who got it. I knew something at twenty-two I didn’t know at eleven. I didn’t want to beat O, necessarily, I wanted to be her. We shared an intimate secret by then courtesy of my highschool girlfriend; namely, that we could be whipped into a euphoric state of submission.

O was the fictional creation of French author Anne Desclos, a.k.a. Dominique Aury, a.k.a. Pauline Réage. She wrote it for her married lover, twenty-three years her senior. “I wrote it alone, for him, to interest him, to please him, to occupy him….I wasn’t young, I wasn’t pretty, it was necessary to find other weapons…The physical side wasn’t enough. The weapons, alas, were in the head….You’re always looking for ways to make it go on….The story of Scheherazade,^[1] more or less.”^[2] Histoire d’O, its title in French, was first published in 1954.^[3]

“The author said later,” according to Carmela Ciuraru,^[4] “that Story of O, written when she was forty-seven, was based on her own fantasies…Some twenty years after the book came out, she admitted that her own joys and sorrows had informed it, but she had no idea just how much, and did not care to analyze anything. ‘Story of O is a fairy tale for another world,’ she said, ‘a world where some part of me lived for a long time, a world that no longer exists except between the covers of a book.’” Earlier, she had quoted the author, “‘By my makeup and temperament I wasn’t really prey to physical desires…Everything happened in my head.’”^[5]

Ms. Ciuraru also quoted Susan Sontag, “the first major writer to recognize the novel’s merit and to defend it as a significant literary work….In her 1969 essay ‘The Pornographic Imagination,’ Sontag…compared sexual obsession (as expressed by Réage) with religious obsession: two sides of the same coin. ‘Religion is probably, after sex, the second oldest resource which human beings have available to them for blowing their minds,’ she wrote.”

I can’t help but see the relationship to πορνεία ^[6] here as Ms. Ciuraru continued to highlight Sontag’s contribution: “In her disciplined effort toward transcendence, O is not unlike a zealot giving herself to God. O’s devotion to the task at hand takes the form of what might be described as spiritual fervor. She loses herself entirely…”^[7] Then she connected this kind of πορνεία to death.

“If O is willing to sustain her devotion all the way through to her own destruction, so be it. She wants to be ‘possessed, utterly possessed, to the point of death,’ to the point that her body and mind are no longer her responsibility.”^[8] I’ve not read the book, and this particular concept of possession was not clear to me from the movie I saw almost forty years ago. One of the friends who saw it with me had a more filmic eye than mine and recognized the genre as horror, a monster movie. Then I saw it as a tale of a damsel in distress who became a monster.

As O questioned whether her master could or would endure for her what she had endured for him, she branded him with an ‘O’ from a hot cigarette holder. (She had been branded for him earlier in the film.) She was both dominant and submissive, top and bottom, and I would be hard-pressed to decide if she was more masochistic or sadistic by my own understanding of the terms (fig. 4).

fig. 4

But in the above description—“She wants to be ‘possessed, utterly possessed, to the point of death,’ to the point that her body and mind are no longer her responsibility”—I perceive some insight from “The Story of O” into πορνεία as an ancient religion of the flesh, primarily as ironic contrast to being led by the Spirit.

Writing to the Corinthians about ancient Israel at Sinai, Paul said, God was not pleased with most of them, for they were cut down in the wilderness. These things happened as examples for us, so that we will not crave evil things as they did. So do not be idolaters, as some of them were. As it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.” And let us not be immoral (πορνεύωμεν, a form of πορνεύω),^[9] as some of them were (ἐπόρνευσαν, a form of πορνεύω), and twenty-three thousand died in a single day.^[10] Paul was fairly explicit here that the Israelites’ play to celebrate the golden calf was πορνεία, the noun which signifies what those who engage in πορνεύω do.

In college, the second time after I gave up writing “The Tripartite Rationality Index,” I read “The Sacred Fire, the story of sex in religion”, by B.Z. Goldberg ^[11] (the pen name of Benjamin Waife). Goldberg, a journalist and managing editor of the Yiddish “the Day…found time to research in the field of psychology of religion” as he wrote a daily column on foreign affairs. Of Baal, he wrote:

Baal was the one great abstract god of antiquity.^[12]

On the summit of every hill and under every green tree Baal is worshipped—the god whom people knew long before they had heard of Jehovah, the divinity whom they loved long after they had learned of the one and true God.^[13]

Baal was the greatest god of all, but what was Baal? How could one fathom this infinite mystery? Primitive man, limited in his thinking and circumscribed in his imagery, sought a concrete form for the mightiest of the gods. So he looked into the mirror of life and in the image of what he saw therein he created his Baal.^[14]

The consummation, if you will, of this man-made religion, according to Goldberg, is “in the union of the sexes.”^[15]

The songs grow wilder, the contortions of the bodies more frenzied, while the drum and the flute fill the air with passionate tones that steal into the hungry hearts of dancer and worshipper. The dances break up in chaotic revelry. Priestess and worshipper join in the merry-making. Tired, drunk, half-swooning, the dancer is still conscious of one thing: somebody will touch her navel—she must follow—but the coin; he must first give her a coin, the coin that is sacred to Baal. As she is trying to seat herself, hardly able to stand upon her feet, a worshipper touches her. She rises as if awakened from sleep. She follows him blindly into a tent, where both priestess and worshipper consummate the final crying prayer to Baal, the prayer of love.^[16]

The instructor who employed me as a TA was a neo-pagan, a witch in his own words, who worshipped Celtic Baal. The ligature marks on his wrists after a Samhain ^[17] celebration alerted me that πορνεία might be kinkier than Goldberg let on. I didn’t call it πορνεία yet. I only saw the relationship to ancient Israelite religion in the Old Testament.

O as a slave was naked. When worshippers “entered the most sacred chamber and faced the statue of Baal, they would have to present themselves naked before their god.”^[18] (“Only a few laymen ever entered this vestibule, the holy of holies of the great god.”)^[19] Though the translations are disputed by the translators of the NET, the sight Moses witnessed according to the King James translators was that the people were naked; (for Aaron had made them naked unto their shame among their enemies).^[20] Or as John Nelson Darby (known as the father of Dispensationalism^[21]) translated the verse: And Moses saw the people how they were stripped; for Aaron had stripped them to [their] shame before their adversaries.^[22]

So in contradistinction to the nakedness of πορνεία as a religion of the flesh, God said, And you must not go up by steps to my altar, so that your nakedness is not exposed.^[23] Beyond that He told Moses to make undergarments for the priests to cover their naked bodies; they must cover from the waist to the thighs.^[24] Consider Leviticus 18:6-18 (NKJV) in this context:

None of you shall approach anyone who is near of kin to him, to uncover his nakedness: I am the Lord [Table].
The nakedness of your father or the nakedness of your mother you shall not uncover. She is your mother; you shall not uncover her nakedness [Table].
The nakedness of your father’s wife you shall not uncover; it is your father’s nakedness. [Table]
The nakedness of your sister, the daughter of your father, or the daughter of your mother, whether born at home or elsewhere, their nakedness you shall not uncover [Table].
The nakedness of your son’s daughter or your daughter’s daughter, their nakedness you shall not uncover; for theirs is your own nakedness [Table].
The nakedness of your father’s wife’s daughter, begotten by your father—she is your sister—you shall not uncover her nakedness [Table].
You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father’s sister; she is near of kin to your father [Table].
You shall not uncover the nakedness of your mother’s sister, for she is near of kin to your mother [Table].
You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father’s brother. You shall not approach his wife; she is your aunt [Table].
You shall not uncover the nakedness of your daughter-in-law—she is your son’s wife—you shall not uncover her nakedness [Table].
You shall not uncover the nakedness of your brother’s wife; it is your brother’s nakedness [Table].
You shall not uncover the nakedness of a woman and her daughter, nor shall you take her son’s daughter or her daughter’s daughter, to uncover her nakedness. They are near of kin to her. It is wickedness [Table].
Nor shall you take a woman as a rival to her sister, to uncover her nakedness while the other is alive [Table].

The note in the NET claimed that to uncover nakedness “is clearly euphemistic for sexual intercourse,” and the translators translated the phrase have sexual intercourse. They may be correct. Consider, Nor shall you take a woman as a rival to her sister, to uncover her nakedness while the other is alive. But the more literal translation seems pointedly addressed to familial Baal worship.

For the submissive masochist, however, nudity is the preferred state of being. Even the humiliation of nakedness is a pleasure. The wrath of God…revealed from heaven,^[25] as Paul described it was, God gave [those who exchanged the glory of the immortal God for an image resembling mortal human beings or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles^[26]] over in the desires of their hearts to impurity, to dishonor their bodies among themselves.^[27] Even in wrath there is mercy.

For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any double-edged sword, the writer of the letter to the Hebrews wrote, piercing even to the point of dividing soul from spirit, and joints from marrow; it is able to judge the desires and thoughts of the heart. And no creature is hidden from God, but everything is naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must render an account.^[28] The truth of this image, being naked and accountable to God, that so horrifies my religious mind, is warm, familiar and comforting to my masochism.

My Reasons and My Reason, Part 3

Back to Adultery in the Prophets, Part 1

Back to Adultery in the Prophets, Part 2

Back to Adultery in the Prophets, Part 3

Back to Paul’s Religious Mind

Back to What is Sexual Immorality?

Back to Romans, Part 64

Back to Romans, Part 65

Back to Sexual Immorality Revisited, Part 3

^[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheherazade

^[2] “The Story of the Story of O,” Carmela Ciuraru, Guernica / A Magazine of Art & Politics http://www.guernicamag.com/features/ciuraru_6_15_11/

^[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Story_of_O

^[4] http://www.carmelaciuraru.com/

^[5] “The Story of the Story of O,” Carmela Ciuraru, Guernica / A Magazine of Art & Politics http://www.guernicamag.com/features/ciuraru_6_15_11/

^[6] https://religiousmind.net/2012/06/08/conclusion/

^[7] “The Story of the Story of O,” Carmela Ciuraru, Guernica / A Magazine of Art & Politics http://www.guernicamag.com/features/ciuraru_6_15_11/

^[8] “The Story of the Story of O,” Carmela Ciuraru, Guernica / A Magazine of Art & Politics http://www.guernicamag.com/features/ciuraru_6_15_11/

^[10] 1 Corinthians 10:5-8 (NET)

^[11] http://www.library.upenn.edu/cajs/goldberg.html

^[12] “The Sacred Fire, the story of sex in religion”, B.Z. Goldberg, (1930) Book II, Chapter I, p. 145 http://www.sacred-texts.com/sex/tsf/tsf08.htm

^[13] “The Sacred Fire, the story of sex in religion”, B.Z. Goldberg, (1930) Book II, Chapter I, p. 144 http://www.sacred-texts.com/sex/tsf/tsf08.htm

^[14] “The Sacred Fire, the story of sex in religion”, B.Z. Goldberg, (1930) Book II, Chapter I, p. 145 http://www.sacred-texts.com/sex/tsf/tsf08.htm

^[15] “The Sacred Fire, the story of sex in religion”, B.Z. Goldberg, (1930) Book II, Chapter I, p. 147 http://www.sacred-texts.com/sex/tsf/tsf08.htm

^[16] “The Sacred Fire, the story of sex in religion”, B.Z. Goldberg, (1930) Book II, Chapter IV, p. 158 http://www.sacred-texts.com/sex/tsf/tsf08.htm

^[17] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samhain

^[18] “The Sacred Fire, the story of sex in religion”, B.Z. Goldberg, (1930) Book II, Chapter III, p. 152 http://www.sacred-texts.com/sex/tsf/tsf08.htm

^[19] “The Sacred Fire, the story of sex in religion”, B.Z. Goldberg, (1930) Book II, Chapter IV, p. 154 http://www.sacred-texts.com/sex/tsf/tsf08.htm

^[20] Exodus 32:25 (KJV)

^[21] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEGe8EzygwM In this YouTube clip a preacher condemned Darby to hell “according to the Bible” for modern biblical scholarship (deleting or changing words from the KJV). The verses cited in his sermon (1 John 5:7; Acts 8:37; Luke 2:33; Colossians 1:14) are annotated in the NET. Anyone can decide whether the arguments are valid or not. I’m only concerned when changes are made without including the argument in a footnote. I suppose my point here is that Darby and the translators of the KJV were in closer agreement with each other than with the translators of the NET.

^[22] Exodus 32:25 (DNT)

^[23] Exodus 20:26 (NET)

^[24] Exodus 28:42 (NET)

^[25] Romans 1:18 (NET)

^[26] Romans 1:23 (NET)

^[27] Romans 1:24 (NET) Table

^[28] Hebrews 4:12, 13 (NET)

The Gospel and the Religious Mind

An attempt to distinguish the mind of Christ from the ordinary religious mind.

Category Archives: Introduction