Condemnation or Judgment? – Part 8

Posted on July 25, 2014 by admin

To reveal my own position and velocity ^[1] it is probably past time that I at least outline my own religious background. And here, I’ll take the lazy way out. Matt Slick has done it for me in his “Doctrine Grid”^[2] online. He acknowledged that “some of these are debatable…I do not claim absolute correctness on all points–only the essentials.” I’m not going to debate his points beyond pointing out that Mr. Slick offers them as “a layout of biblical orthodoxy” and I offer them only as an outline of my religious background, both its content and tone.

Though I live among them I don’t understand my people, those of my religious background, as it pertains to the hope and promise of universal salvation in the Scriptures. I think I understand what might motivate someone like Richard Wayne Garganta to eliminate “hell talk” from the Bible. But I can’t get a handle on what might motivate someone to eliminate the hope and promise of universal salvation from the Bible. “It’s not there!” is a form of blindness.

A puff piece^[3] about Matt Chandler in the May 2014 issue of Christianity Today caught my attention as I considered these things:

For a long time, Chandler had prayed for his dad to know Christ. “I remember being confused with the idea of [Dad having] free will, but then me asking God to save him. To me those two things were incompatible.”
He found the answer in classically reformed teachings, especially those of John Piper. Chandler embraces the view that God predestines some to heaven and others to hell.^[4]

I’m not going to say much about free will except to offer my opinion that it represents the contingent choices we make—contingent choices with a really good press agent. I will look deeper into “the view that God predestines some to heaven and others to hell.” We certainly knew of that view in my religion. Our essentially fundamentalist church had separated from the Congregationalists as they embraced “modernism.”^[5] It was joined later by others separating from the Presbyterians for similar reasons, a group who held views similar to Matt Chandler’s. My family shared a more “whosoever will may come” view.

It seemed fairer somehow. Could God be other than fair? He has given everyone on the planet an equal opportunity to choose to trust Him. Salvation, therefore, is left ultimately up to an individual’s choice. That seemed consistent enough with the Old Testament, and except for Paul’s writings and Jesus’ sayings more or less consistent with the New Testament as I understood it at the time.

So, is “God predestines some to heaven and others to hell” a fair inference from God has mercy on whom he chooses to have mercy, and he hardens whom he chooses to harden^[6]? I still don’t think so. It requires me to reject the hope and promise of universal salvation revealed in Scripture (a Christian heresy ^[7] according to Matt Slick and a host of others, my people all). Consider the context (Romans 9:17, 18 NET):

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 (ἐλεεῖ, a form of ἐλεέω) on whom he chooses (θέλει, a form of θέλω) to have mercy, and he hardens whom he chooses (θέλει, a form of θέλω) to harden.

I can say with full conviction on the authority of Scripture that the chariots of Pharaoh and his army [y^ehôvâh] has thrown into the sea, and his chosen officers were drowned in the Red Sea.^[8] I can’t say with the same confidence that Pharaoh or his army will spend eternity in hell. Y^ehôvâh, as revealed by Paul, thinks differently than Matt Chandler or Matt Slick on this subject (Romans 11:30, 31 NET).

Just as you were formerly disobedient (ἠπειθήσατε, a form of ἀπείθεια), so they too have now been disobedient (ἠπείθησαν, another form of ἀπειθέω) in order that, by the mercy (ἐλέει, a form of ἔλεος) shown to you, they too may now receive mercy (ἐλεηθῶσιν, another form of ἐλεέω).

Paul referred specifically here to his own people, my fellow countrymen, who are Israelites,^[9] and all those loved by God in Rome, called to be saints.^[10] But I can’t find any compelling reason to discriminate against an ancient Pharaoh and his army: For God has consigned all people to disobedience (ἀπείθειαν, another form of ἀπείθεια) so that he may show mercy (ἐλεήσῃ, another form of ἐλεέω) to…all.^[11] So while—it does not depend on human desire (θέλοντος, another form of θέλω)or exertion, but on God who shows mercy (ἐλεῶντος, another form of ἐλεέω )^[12]—is a potent antidote to the “whosoever will may come” religious view of my youth, it is clearly coupled with the hope of universal salvation: God has consigned all people to disobedience so that he may show mercy to…all.

Jesus’ saying—No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws (ἑλκύσῃ, a form of ἑλκύω) him, and I will raise him up at the last day^[13]—is a stronger refutation of “whosoever will may come” unless one takes ἑλκύσῃ to mean “Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling.”^[14] In that case, Jesus’ promise of universal salvation—And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw (ἑλκύσω, another form of ἑλκύω) all…to myself^[15]—becomes little more than a promise of equal opportunity: And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will softly and tenderly call all people to myself. But I’m not convinced that ἑλκύσῃ and ἑλκύσω will dance to that tune.

Then Simon Peter, who had a sword, called to it softly and tenderly, and it rose up out of its scabbard and struck the high priest’s slave, cutting off his right ear. The Scripture says, Then Simon Peter, who had a sword, pulled it out (εἵλκυσεν, another form of ἑλκύω) and struck the high priest’s slave, cutting off his right ear.^[16] The King James translators chose drew for εἵλκυσεν, making the connection to Jesus’ sayings clear even in English: Then Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it and struck the high priest’s servant, and cut off his right ear.^[17] Here any English speaking person might consider how much say the sword had regarding when, how or for what purpose it was drawn.

“Throw your net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some [fish],” Jesus told his disciples. So they threw the net, and were not able to pull (ἑλκύσαι, another form of ἑλκύω) it in because of the large number of fish.^[18] Here the net resisted, because it was too heavy for the disciples to pull up out of the water and into their boat. But it was no match for Peter dragging it ashore: So Simon Peter went aboard and pulled (εἵλκυσεν, another form of ἑλκύω) the net to shore.^[19] And again, the King James translators made the comparison to Jesus’ sayings obvious: they were not able to draw it in.^[20]

Here are a few more examples of forms of ἑλκύω from Luke and James:

“Whosoever will may come”	Bible
But when her owners saw their hope of profit was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and softly and tenderly called them into the marketplace before the authorities.	But when her owners saw their hope of profit was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged (εἵλκυσαν, another form of ἑλκύω) them into the marketplace before the authorities. Acts 16:19 (NET)
The whole city was stirred up, and the people rushed together. They seized Paul and softly and tenderly called him out of the temple courts, and immediately the doors were shut.	The whole city was stirred up, and the people rushed together. They seized Paul and dragged (εἷλκον, another form of ἑλκύω) him out of the temple courts, and immediately the doors were shut. Acts 21:30 (NET)
But you have dishonored the poor! Are not the rich oppressing you and softly and tenderly calling you into the courts?	But you have dishonored the poor! Are not the rich oppressing you and dragging (ἕλκουσιν, another form of ἑλκύω) you into the courts? James 2:6 (NET)

It does not behoove the God-predestines-some-to-heaven-and-others-to-hell folk to call out the whosoever-will-may-come folk on this point. The former are as opposed to universal salvation as the latter. Still, it seems to me if I understand Jesus’ sayings correctly—No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me [drags] him and, And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will [drag] all…to myself—I get a clearer picture of the human condition and the hope and promise of God in Christ.

The only person I want to condemn to hell is my old man, not my father, but the sin in my flesh. I have had a remarkably blessed life. No one raped and murdered my mother, my sister, my daughter or my wives. Divorce is the most difficult sin I’ve been called upon to forgive. And I love the women who divorced me. I certainly wouldn’t want to see them condemned to an eternity in hell because they found living with me unendurable. But by wishing my old man condemned to hell I have condemned the whole world.

Gentle Heart suggested that final judgment could be like the judgment of wheat and chaff: “So maybe John 5:28 and 29 can be talking about all us dead being raised and our ‘old selves’ get condemned and our ‘new selves’ live eternally with the Lord.” It’s an intriguing idea that seems to satisfy the long name of God.

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)

The main objection would be the apparent need for postmortem salvation in some (or, many) cases. But that is really only an objection from the human perspective, the impossibility of believing in Jesus for salvation when one faces Him in judgment. But from the divine perspective there is no law or rule, no circumstance of life or death that prohibits God from showing mercy: I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, I will show mercy to whom I will show mercy.^[21] Salvation does not depend on human desire or exertion, but on God who shows mercy.^[22] And, God has consigned all people to disobedience so that he may show mercy to them all.^[23] In fact this is why we work hard and struggle, Paul encouraged Timothy, because we have set our hope on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of believers.^[24]

There is a satisfying symmetry to the idea that universal salvation entails universal condemnation. But I’ve had a lifetime to identify with the new man.^[25] If God condemned the sin in my flesh to an eternity in hell, I think I could bid the old man Godspeed and good riddance. But consider one born from above by the calling of God at, or after, the final judgment.

I know how often I have oscillated between the old and new man when they were in the same geographical and space/time location. Imagine the trauma of oscillating between the more familiar old man and the relatively strange new man when one is in hell and the other is face to face with God. Still, the Holy Spirit has seen, and sees, me through my conflict and confusion. I don’t doubt that He could comfort one in the throes of that terror.

I can’t say this is the way God fulfills his desire to be merciful while He by no means leaves the guilty unpunished. I can only say, Gentle Heart, in the spirit of Jonathan Edwards’ argument for God as the Superlative Torturer, that if we can imagine this wheat and chaff solution to the dilemma of universal salvation, how many more solutions can the living God conceive and execute to satisfy the desire of his, and your, gentle heart.

Condemnation or Judgment? – Part 9

Back to Romans, Part 58

Back to Condemnation or Judgment? – Part 16

Back to Romans, Part 84

Back to Will, Areté and Troy

Back to Father, Forgive Them – Part 5

Back to A Monotonous Cycle Revisited, Part 3

Back to Peter’s First Gospel Proclamation Revisited, Part 3

Back to Patterns of Evidence: Exodus

Back to Westworld, Part 4

Back to Who Am I? Part 14

^[1] Who Am I? Part 1

^[2] Doctrine Grid

^[3] I call it a puff piece because I have no doubt that the editors will publish a hatchet job about the very same preacher if he slips financially or sexually, or strays doctrinally too far from what the editors feel they can sell as Christianity Today.

^[4] “The Joy-Stung Preacher,” Joe Maxwell, Christianity Today, May 2014, p. 39

^[5] Theological Liberalism

^[6] Romans 9:18 (NET)

^[7] Can a Christian be a universalist?

^[8] Exodus 15:4 (NET)

^[9] Romans 9:3, 4 (NET)

^[10] Romans 1:7 (NET)

^[11] Romans 11:32 (NET) A note in the NET acknowledges that “them” was added for stylistic reasons.

^[12] Romans 9:16 (NET) Table

^[13] John 6:44 (NET)

^[14] Softly and Tenderly

^[15] John 12:32 (NET) NET note: “Grk ‘all.’ The word ‘people’ is not in the Greek text but is supplied for stylistic reasons and for clarity (cf. KJV ‘all men’).” See: Colossians 1:15-20 (NET)

^[16] John 18:10a (NET) Table

^[17] John 18:10a (NKJV) Table

^[18] John 21:6 (NET)

^[19] John 21:11a (NET)

^[20] John 21:6 (NKJV)

^[21] Exodus 33:19b (NET) Table

^[22] Romans 9:16 (NET)

^[23] Romans 11:32 (NET)

^[24] 1 Timothy 4:10 (NET)

^[25] Ephesians 4:22-24; Colossians 3:9, 10 (NET)

Fear – Exodus, Part 5

Posted on June 5, 2013 by admin

The next occurrence of yârêʼ^[1] in Exodus is found in the song Moses and the Israelites sang…to the Lord.^[2] It was a song of praise and thanksgiving, looking back to the events when the Egyptian army chased them through the sea: I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously, the horse and its rider he has thrown into the sea.^[3] The chariots of Pharaoh and his army he has thrown into the sea…^[4] The depths have covered them, they went down to the bottom like a stone.^[5] Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like you? – majestic in holiness, fearful (yârêʼ) in praises, working wonders?^[6]

The rabbis who translated the Septuagint chose θαυμαστὸς.^[7] One of the definitions of θαυμαστὸς in the NET online Bible is “1c) causing amazement joined with terror.” So the word is a legitimate choice, but something in me still wonders if “marvelous in expectation” (θαυμαστὸς ἐν δόξαις^[8]) carries any of the sense of the costliness of Israel’s salvation that I perceive in the linkage of fear (yârêʼ) and praise (t^ehillâh).^[9] I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked (râshâʽ),^[10] the Lord told Ezekiel. How much less in the death of those He had hardened and those who followed them into battle?

Though θαυμαστὸς does not appear in the New Testament in its root form, the first occurrence was Jesus’ question to the chief priests and elders. “Have you never read in the scriptures: ‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This is from the Lord, and it is marvelous (θαυμαστὴ, a form of θαυμαστός) in our eyes’”?^[11] Whatever my concern about the costliness of Israel’s salvation, as well as my own, it is harder to miss when Yahweh Himself—not Egyptian military officers and soldiers—died for us, in our place.

After writing that I walked away. It felt like I was straining at gnats and still not getting to the root of what was gnawing at me. I did other things.

When I walked to the Redbox to satisfy my daily movie fix I had already decided to rent “Killing Them Softly.” I didn’t know why. I had avoided it because I heard it was excessively violent, and because I had worked for Linara (the only woman in the cast) on another film she co-produced with her husband. Ordinarily, I would have run to see a movie with someone I knew in it. But I had overheard her talking about being topless in the scene with James Gandolfini. Between the violence and my own indecision (whether I wanted to see Linara or her breasts in action) I had put it off until that evening.

It was an underworld crime story set in the turmoil of the 2008 economic crisis and presidential election. Brad Pitt played a mob enforcer. Linara’s topless work had been cut, but she played well with the big boys, Pitt and Gandolfini. There was a heavy-handed capitalists-are-like-gangsters theme, and no real ending. It seemed primed for “Killing Them Softly 2” where the mysterious “corporate types,” who hired Brad Pitt’s character Jackie through an intermediary, would be revealed as they hired someone to kill Jackie, and possibly their intermediary. I don’t think the movie did well enough financially to warrant a sequel however. And then I went to bed. But when I awoke the next morning lines from the movie were buzzing around in my head. They actually helped me clarify what I was thinking about cultivating fear in Exodus the day before.

This is a spoiler alert for anyone who finds a movie ruined by knowing its story.

The story got started when John Amato (aka Squirrel) hired Frank and Russell to rob a mob card game run by Markie Trattman. They thought they could get away with it because Trattman had robbed his own card game years earlier. He withstood the enhanced interrogation techniques Dillion the enforcer used on him, but when the subject came up in another card game with his cronies he couldn’t stop laughing, and confessed the whole thing. Everybody liked Markie so they let it slide. Squirrel assumed that Trattman would be the primary suspect if his own card game was robbed again, that he would be killed, and then that would be the end of it. He rightly perceived that cultivating a righteousness based on fear was more important to the powers-that-be than recovering the money.

Squirrel had an insight into mob righteousness. He didn’t want Russell on the job because his attitude and manner would invite confrontation. “Then you gotta…shoot somebody,” he told Frank, “and I don’t want that. There’s no reason for that, you know? You don’t get any more money…” What he failed to realize was that Jackie (Dillion’s replacement as mob enforcer) was smart enough to know that Markie Trattman was too smart to think that he could get away with it twice. Jackie immediately suspected other culprits. And he had a firm grasp on fear based righteousness, too.

Jackie lobbied with the Counselor (the intermediary for the corporate types running things) to kill Trattman anyway and correct the real issue: “It don’t make a bit of difference if Trattman did it or someone did it to Trattman,” Jackie explained. “If people think he did it and he’s still walking around, you’re gonna have kids waiting in line to knock them…games over.”

Jackie even had a fear based redemption scheme for Frank. Frank had to confess where Squirrel would be and then witness the execution, or be executed himself. “I got to be there and everything?” Frank whined. “Frank, you made a mistake,” Jackie explained patiently. “Now you gotta show you understand you made a mistake. And you gotta make things right…”

As they waited in the car for Squirrel to arrive, Frank tried to intercede for him: “Look, Jackie, he’s not a bad guy, you know? I mean, he’s not a bad guy at all.”

“None of them are, kid. They’re all nice guys.”

Then Jackie got out of the car and shot Squirrel with a shotgun from across the parking lot, because he liked “killing them softly…from a distance, not close enough for feelings.” Of course, he did walk across the parking lot and finish the job up close. And he wasn’t that far from Frank when he shot him in the head. Ultimately, Jackie’s fear based redemption scheme didn’t fare well against the necessities of fear based righteousness.

None of this is to say that I think God is, or was, like a mob enforcer. My question is, why did One with foreknowledge put Himself in the position to be mistaken for a mob enforcer by wicked people? (Who among us hasn’t wished for God to get those guys, those evildoers, or wondered incredulously why He waits so long?) The answer that comes to me is that God risked it for my benefit, that I might know the difference between fear based righteousness and Holy Spirit based righteousness (faith is integral to both: When Israel saw the great power that the Lord had exercised over the Egyptians, they feared the Lord, and they believed in the Lord…^[12]).

Israel, like Frank, was compelled to participate in and witness the destruction of the Egyptian army. Then at Sinai they experienced a non-lethal fear as they stood at the base of a mountain, described as something like a volcano in full ash eruption,^[13] and lived to tell the tale: All the people were seeing the thundering and the lightning, and heard the sound of the horn, and saw the mountain smoking – and when the people saw it they trembled with fear (nûaʽ)^[14] and kept their distance.^[15] The word translated fear here was φοβηθέντες (a form of φοβέω)^[16] in the Septuagint. After Jesus calmed the storm with a word his disciples were afraid (φοβηθέντες) and amazed, saying to one another, “Who then is this? He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him!”^[17]

Do not fear (yârêʼ), Moses said, for God has come to test you, that the fear (yirʼâh)^[18] of him may be before you so that you do not sin.”^[19] The rabbis who translated the Septuagint chose θαρσεῖτε (a form of θαρσέω)^[20] for Do not fear. It is the same Greek word Jesus used when the disciples saw Him walking on the water and were terrified that he was a ghost: Have courage (θαρσεῖτε)! It is I.^[21] For yirʼâh, the fear of him, the rabbis chose φόβος.^[22] And Zechariah, visibly shaken when he saw the angel, was seized with fear (φόβος).^[23]

When I began this study I hoped to find a clear delineation between the fear that puts to flight and the reverence that binds and draws one to God. A cursory look at the concordance seemed to justify that hope in the words yârêʼ and yirʼâh. The first occurrence of yirʼâh in Abraham’s explanation to Abimelech—I thought that there would be no one here who has reverence (yirʼâh) for God^[24]—was translated θεοσέβεια^[25] in the Septuagint and I thought I was on the way. It is a compound of θεός^[26] and σέβομαι,^[27] the reverence or worship that is negated by the ἀσέβειαν (a form of ἀσέβεια)^[28] of people that brought the wrath of God in Romans 1:18.

I also expected to find that the fear of the Lord was something different, something other than a conviction to act in accordance with the word of the Lord, the functional equivalent in the Old Testament of the fruit of the Spirit,^[29] the desire and the effort brought forth by God for the sake of his good pleasure,^[30] because it does not depend on human desire or exertion, but on God who shows mercy,^[31] and the love of God^[32] that is the fulfillment of the law.^[33] That equivalence took me by surprise and has colored everything. The Good News Translation of the Bible captured the essence of fear based righteousness when the translators (paraphrasists?) skipped the middle man as it were in their paraphrase of yirʼâh. Don’t be afraid (yârêʼ); Moses said, God has only come to test you and make you keep on obeying (yirʼâh) him, so that you will not sin.^[34]

So this alchemist’s notion of deriving reverence (σέβομαι) for God from the human fear (φόβος) of death or punishment seems like a doomed enterprise from the very beginning, a folly of the religious mind. It was difficult enough to title an essay “Paul’s Religious Mind,” so I did not and will not call this “God’s Religious Mind.” But that is what I’m thinking.

Why would an Omniscient One with foreknowledge embark on such a futile course? Again, I can only assume that it was for my benefit. I am the one, after all (and probably not the only one), whose knee-jerk reaction to the way of righteousness (for other evildoers, of course) is swifter “justice,” harsher punishment and longer prison sentences. But does anyone really believe that those things produce righteousness? (Does anyone really believe that our municipal, county, state or federal governments can afford to do this anymore?)

In that light I can’t help but see the giving of the law at Sinai as a massive psychological experiment to test the power and potential of fear based righteousness. The finding of this particular experiment was forty days.^[35] After forty days the descendants of Israel returned to the worship practices^[36] they learned in Egypt.^[37] And they did this 1) after witnessing the destruction of the Egyptian army; 2) after seeing Mount Sinai…completely covered with smoke because the Lord had descended on it in fire, and its smoke went up like the smoke of a great furnace, and the whole mountain shook violently;^[38] and 3) after agreeing to abide by a covenant^[39] that they would not sacrifice to a god other than the Lord alone [or] be utterly destroyed.^[40]