Tag Archives: Hebrews 10:26-27

Condemnation or Judgment? – Part 9

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I fell for the September 2015 prophecies on YouTube that Jesus would return or the great tribulation would begin.  So I interrupted my regular study cycle and focused exclusively on my Romans study for a time.  Be that as it may I never thought I would return to continue this study.  But as I read, especially the New York Times article, about the capital of the Islamic State I was reminded of my own thoughts about the thousand years.

About forty years ago I expected the millennial reign of Jesus Christ to look a lot like Raqa, Syria looks today—all over the planet.  I thought justice was punishment.  I thought Jesus would return to earth as a righteous, omniscient Judge who regarded anger and lust as murder and adultery, both capital offenses.  I had heard of Jimmy Carter’s Playboy confession:

“I try not to commit a deliberate sin. I recognize that I’m going to do it anyhow, because I’m human and I’m tempted. And Christ set some almost impossible standards for us. Christ said, ‘I tell you that anyone who looks on a woman with lust has in his heart already committed adultery.’

“I’ve looked on a lot of women with lust. I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times. This is something that God recognizes I will do–and I have done it–and God forgives me for it.”

And I heard the scandalized reactions of my people to his confession.  It is a major reason I pursued the woman who became my first wife.  I’m better when I can focus my sexual energies on one woman.

President Carter had much more confidence in Jesus’ forgiveness than I did (Hebrews 10:26, 27 NASB):

For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries.

I reasoned that mass executions would be a daily ritual in the millennium, at least until all of the people like me were exterminated (or raptured?).  Confronted by that memory I looked up “reign of Christ” online and found an article by John F. Walvoord.

John in his vision in Revelation does not occupy himself with the details of the millennial kingdom but only with the fact and duration of it. The character of Christ’s reign on earth is fully described in many Old Testament passages such as Isaiah 2:2-4; 11:4-9; Psalm 72, and many others.

Here is the message about Judah and Jerusalem that was revealed to Isaiah son of Amoz.  In the future the mountain of the Lord’s (yehôvâh, יהוה) temple will endure as the most important of mountains, and will be the most prominent of hills.[1]  The words translated future are ʼachărı̂yth (באחרית) yôm (הימים) in Hebrew or ἐσχάταις (a form of ἔσχατος) ἡμέραις (a form of ἡμέρα) in the Septuagint in Greek.  At present Mount Zion is 2,510 feet high and Mount Everest is 29, 029 feet tall.

Perhaps Zion’s prominence is more spiritual than literal: All the nations will stream to [the mountain of the Lord’s (yehôvâh, יהוה) temple], many peoples will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the Lord’s (yehôvih, יהוה) mountain, to the temple of the God (ʼĕlôhı̂ym, אלהי) of Jacob, so he can teach us his requirements, and we can follow his standards.”  For Zion will be the center for moral instruction; the Lord (yehôvih, יהוה) will issue edicts from Jerusalem.[2]  Or perhaps the ʼachărı̂yth yôm or ἐσχάταις  ἡμέραις comes to pass after another prophesied event (Revelation 16:17-20 NET):

Finally the seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air and a loud voice came out of the temple from the throne, saying: “It is done!”  Then there were flashes of lightning, roaring, and crashes of thunder, and there was a tremendous earthquake – an earthquake unequaled since humanity has been on the earth, so tremendous was that earthquake.  The great city was split into three parts and the cities of the nations collapsed…Every island fled away and no mountains could be found.

He [yehôvih] will judge disputes between nations, Isaiah’s prophecy continued, he will settle cases for many peoples.  They will beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks.  Nations will not take up the sword against other nations, and they will no longer train for war.  O descendants of Jacob, come, let us walk in the Lord’s (yehôvâh, יהוה) guiding light.[3]

A shoot will grow out of Jesse’s root stock, Isaiah prophesied, a bud will sprout from his roots.  The Lord’s spirit (rûach yehôvâh, רוח יהוה) will rest on him – a spirit (rûach, רוח) that gives extraordinary wisdom, a spirit (rûach, רוח) that provides the ability to execute plans, a spirit (rûach, רוח) that produces absolute loyalty to the Lord (yehôvâh, יהוה).  He will take delight in obeying the Lord (yehôvâh, יהוה).  He will not judge by mere appearances, or make decisions on the basis of hearsay.  He will treat the poor fairly, and make right decisions for the downtrodden of the earth.[4]

I’m being a bit subversive quoting the first three verses of this chapter.  My people believe they apply to Jesus’ first appearance on earth.  Only verses 4-9 apply to the thousand years.  My only point is that it is difficult to make that distinction in this passage alone, except perhaps for the next part of verse 4:  He will strike the earth with the rod (shêbeṭ, בשבט) of his mouth, and order the wicked to be executed.[5]  And that brings me back to Raqa, Syria:

It’s called Heaven Square, but after the Islamic State group started using the roundabout in Raqa for gruesome public executions it earned a new name: Hell Square.
In the year since the jihadist group announced its “caliphate” last June, its de facto Syrian capital of Raqa has been transformed into a macabre metropolis.
Human heads are displayed on spikes at the central roundabout and crucified bodies hang for days to terrorise local residents, said Abu Ibrahim Raqqawi, a Raqa resident and anti-IS activist.

“From the first moment of its control over Raqa, IS adopted a policy of horror and terror, resorting to executions, beheadings, cutting off hands and legs, and crucifixion,” said Raqqawi, who uses a pseudonym…

It touts the implementation of its version of Islam, with life coming to a halt five times every day for prayers and all residents required to declare their assets and pay “zakat”, Islamic alms.
It also revels in meting out punishments for crimes ranging from collaboration with Syria’s regime and theft to “witchcraft” and homosexuality.
The group regularly carries out beheadings, but also stones victims to death or throws them from building tops.

I’m not particularly concerned with cosmetics here.  Whether Jesus orders the wicked to be executed in “gruesome public executions,” or secretly in concentration camps or antiseptic hospitals, is immaterial.  What concerns me is whether this is the Justice [that] will be like a belt around his waist, the integrity [that] will be like a belt around his hips.[6]  Consider by contrast the impact of his presence on animals (Isaiah 11:6-9a NET):

A wolf will reside with a lamb, and a leopard will lie down with a young goat; an ox and a young lion will graze together, as a small child leads them along.  A cow and a bear will graze together, their young will lie down together.  A lion, like an ox, will eat straw.  A baby will play over the hole of a snake; over the nest of a serpent an infant will put his hand.  They will no longer injure or destroy on my entire royal mountain.

Why?  For there will be universal submission to the Lord’s (yehôvih, יהוה) sovereignty, just as the waters completely cover the sea.[7]  To order the wicked to be executed sounds strangely incongruous to me.  But I’m biased.  I’m not an ancient widow descended from Israel, plagued by an adversary and an unrighteous judge.  I’m an old white American male, one of the most privileged people on the planet.

So, “my persistent prayer for justice is for the mercy on which everything depends, for it does not depend on human desire or exertion, but on [You] who shows mercy (ἐλεῶντος, a form of ἐλεέω),[8] and, [You have] consigned all people to disobedience (ἀπείθειαν, a form of ἀπείθεια) so that [You] may show mercy (ἐλεήσῃ, another form of ἐλεέω) to them all.”[9]

I don’t believe I am, or have been, free to disregard his mercy.  I can see how those who believe they are free to disregard it, but have not, could distinguish themselves from those who do not yet rely on his mercy, and approve of their deaths.  I did, too, when I believed in that freedom.  Now when I realize that the words translated order are rûach śâphâh (וברוח שׁפתיו; “wind” or “breath of the lip,” or “spirit of the language” or “speech”) I wonder if Jesus is returning to order the wicked to be executed or to preach the Gospel to them—very effectively.  Or do you not know that as many as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?[10]

The Septuagint reads: καὶ πατάξει γῆν τῷ λόγῳ τοῦ στόματος αὐτοῦ καὶ ἐν πνεύματι διὰ χειλέων ἀνελεῖ ἀσεβῆ; “and he shall strike the earth with the word of his mouth, and with the breath through his lips he shall do away with the impious.”[11]  To realize that the rabbis translated the wicked (râshâʽ, רשע) ἀσεβῆ (a form of ἀσεβής) led me inexorably to, But to the one who does not work, but believes (πιστεύοντι, a form of πιστεύω) in the one who declares the ungodly (ἀσεβῆ) righteous, his faith (πίστις) is credited as righteousness.[12]

I believe in the one who declares the ungodly (ἀσεβῆ) righteous; again, my bias.  I don’t know when to believe He ceases to be the one who declares the ungodly (ἀσεβῆ) righteous.  I don’t know how to stop believing He is the one who declares the ungodly (ἀσεβῆ) righteous, as long as He fills me with the faithfulness (πίστις) of the fruit of his Spirit.  If we live by the Spirit (πνεύματι, a form of πνεῦμα), let us also behave in accordance (στοιχῶμεν, a form of στοιχέω) with the Spirit (πνεύματι, a form of πνεῦμα).[13]

Given my bias I’ll look into the meaning of râshâʽ next, just who the wicked are.

Condemnation or Judgment? – Part 10

Back to Condemnation or Judgment? – Part 11

Back to Condemnation or Judgment? – Part 12

Back to Romans, Part 89

[1] Isaiah 2:1, 2a (NET)

[2] Isaiah 2:2b, 3 (NET)

[3] Isaiah 2:4, 5 (NET)

[4] Isaiah 11:1-4a (NET)

[5] Isaiah 11:4b (NET)

[6] Isaiah 11:5 (NET)

[7] Isaiah 11:9b (NET)

[8] Romans 9:16 (NET) Table

[9] Romans 11:32 (NET)

[10] Romans 6:3 (NET)

[11] http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/nets/edition/33-esaias-nets.pdf

[12] Romans 4:5 (NET)

[13] Galatians 5:25 (NET)

My Reasons and My Reason, Part 3

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“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

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

[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).

[6] 2 Corinthians 1:9 (NET)

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

[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)

Fear – Genesis, Part 3

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When there was a famine in the land Abraham’s son Isaac went to Abimelech king of the Philistines at Gerar.[1]  The Lord appeared to Isaac and said (Genesis 26:2-5 NET):

Do not go down to Egypt; settle down in the land that I will point out to you.  Stay in this land.  Then I will be with you and will bless you, for I will give all these lands to you and to your descendants, and I will fulfill the solemn promise I made to your father Abraham.  I will multiply your descendants so they will be as numerous as the stars in the sky, and I will give them all these lands.  All the nations of the earth will pronounce blessings on one another using the name of your descendants.  All this will come to pass because Abraham obeyed me and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.

When the men of that place asked him about his wife, he replied, “She is my sister.”  He was afraid (yârêʼ) to say, “She is my wife,” for he thought to himself, “The men of this place will kill me to get Rebekah because she is very beautiful.”[2]  The rabbis who translated the Septuagint chose ἐφοβήθη (a form of φοβέω)[3] here.

Peter and Jesus’ other disciples were in a boat that was taking a beating from the waves because the wind was against it.  As the night was ending, Jesus came to them walking on the sea.  When the disciples saw him walking on the water they were terrified and said, “It’s a ghost!” and cried out with fear (φόβου, a form of φόβος).[4]  But immediately Jesus spoke to them: “Have courage!  It is I.  Do not be afraid (φοβεῖσθε, another form of φοβέω).”[5]  Peter said to him, “Lord, if it is you, order me to come to you on the water.”  So he said, “Come.”  Peter got out of the boat, walked on the water, and came toward Jesus [Table].  But when he saw the strong wind he became afraid (ἐφοβήθη, a form of φοβέω).[6]

After Isaac had been in Gerar a long time Abimelech looked out a window and saw him caressing Rebekah in a way that caused him to doubt that she was Isaac’s sister.  So Abimelech summoned Isaac and said, “She is really your wife!  Why did you say, ‘She is my sister’?”  Isaac replied, “Because I thought someone might kill me to get her.”[7]  Then Abimelech rebuked Isaac, What in the world have you done to us?  One of the men might easily have had sexual relations with your wife, and you would have brought guilt on us![8]

As Peter started to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!”  Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”[9]

Eventually Isaac left Gerar and journeyed to Beer Sheba.  The Lord appeared to him that night and said, “I am the God of your father Abraham.  Do not be afraid (yârêʼ), for I am with you.  I will bless you and multiply your descendants for the sake of my servant Abraham.”[10] The rabbis chose φοβοῦ (a form of φόβος) here.

In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy [John the Baptist’s mother], the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town of Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, a descendant of David, and the virgin’s name was Mary.  The angel came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one, the Lord is with you!”  But she was greatly troubled by his words and began to wonder about the meaning of this greeting.  So the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid (φοβοῦ, a form of φόβος), Mary, for you have found favor with God![11]

Then Isaac built an altar there and worshiped the Lord.  He pitched his tent there, and his servants dug a well.[12]  So Mary said, “Yes, I am a servant of the Lord; let this happen to me according to your word.”[13]  Both Isaac and Mary responded admirably to the Lord’s encouragement, Do not be afraid (φοβοῦ, a form of φόβος).

As Isaac’s son Jacob fled (from his elder brother Esau’s threat to kill him) to his mother Rebekah’s brother Laban, he stopped for the night and had a dream (Genesis 28:12-15 NET).

He saw a stairway erected on the earth with its top reaching to the heavens.  The angels of God were going up and coming down it and the Lord stood at its top.  He said, “I am the Lord, the God of your grandfather Abraham and the God of your father Isaac.  I will give you and your descendants the ground you are lying on.  Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west, east, north, and south.  All the families of the earth will pronounce blessings on one another using your name and that of your descendants.  I am with you!  I will protect you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land.  I will not leave you until I have done what I promised you!”

Then Jacob woke up and thought, “Surely the Lord is in this place, but I did not realize it!”  He was afraid (yârêʼ) and said, “What an awesome (yârêʼ) place this is!  This is nothing else than the house of God!  This is the gate of heaven!”[14]  The word translated afraid above was ἐφοβήθη in the Septuagint.  The next occurrence of ἐφοβήθη (a form of φοβέω) in the New Testament was in John’s Gospel.  When Pilate heard what [the Jewish leaders] said, he was more afraid (ἐφοβήθη, a form of φοβέω) than ever…[15]

We have a law, the Jewish leaders had said, and according to our law [Jesus] ought to die, because he claimed to be the Son of God![16]  Pilate went back inside and said to Jesus, “Where do you come from?” But Jesus gave him no answer.  So Pilate said, “Do you refuse to speak to me?  Don’t you know I have the authority to release you, and to crucify you?”  Jesus replied, “You would have no authority over me at all, unless it was given to you from above.  Therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of greater sin.”[17]

Pilate’s fear did not prompt him to fall down at Jesus’ feet and plead for mercy.  But, From this point on, Pilate tried to release him.[18]  In a similar way Jacob’s fear prompted him to make a deal (Genesis 28:18-22 NET).

Early in the morning Jacob took the stone he had placed near his head and set it up as a sacred stone.  Then he poured oil on top of it.  He called that place Bethel, although the former name of the town was Luz.  Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God is with me and protects me on this journey I am taking and gives me food to eat and clothing to wear, and I return safely to my father’s home, then the Lord will become my God.  Then this stone that I have set up as a sacred stone will be the house of God, and I will surely give you back a tenth of everything you give me.”

The word translated awesome in Genesis 28:17 (NET) was φοβερὸς[19] in the Septuagint.  It does not occur in this form in the New Testament.  It was only used three times by the writer of Hebrews (10:26, 27, 28-31; 12:18-21) :

1) For 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 (φοβερὰ, a form of φοβερός) expectation of judgment and a fury of fire that will consume God’s enemies.

2) Someone who rejected the law of Moses was put to death without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses.  How much greater punishment do you think that person deserves who has contempt for the Son of God, and profanes the blood of the covenant that made him holy, and insults the Spirit of grace?  For we know the one who said, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay,” and again, “The Lord will judge his people.”  It is a terrifying (φοβερὸν, another form of φοβερός) thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

3) For you have not come to something that can be touched, to a burning fire and darkness and gloom and a whirlwind and the blast of a trumpet and a voice uttering words such that those who heard begged to hear no more.  For they could not bear what was commanded: “If even an animal touches the mountain, it must be stoned.”  In fact, the scene was so terrifying (φοβερὸν, another form of φοβερός) that Moses said, “I shudder with fear (ἔκφοβος).”[20]

Twenty years later, when Jacob fled from Laban with his wives, his children, his flocks, herds, and camels, he explained, “I left secretly because I was afraid (yârêʼ)!” Jacob replied to Laban.  “I thought you might take your daughters away from me by force.[21]  The phrase because I was afraid was not translated in the Septuagint.  But later as he approached his former home and learned that his brother Esau was coming out to meet him with four hundred men, Jacob was very afraid (yârêʼ) and upset.  So he divided the people who were with him into two camps, as well as the flocks, herds, and camels.  “If Esau attacks one camp,” he thought, “then the other camp will be able to escape.”[22]

After he made these rudimentary preparations he prayed:  “O God of my father Abraham, God of my father Isaac, O Lord, you said to me, ‘Return to your land and to your relatives and I will make you prosper.’”[23]   He did not yet claim God as his own, but that is the only reference I see to his former oath.  Gone is the pride that made that oath.  In its place was an humble acknowledgement and request, “I am not worthy of all the faithful love you have shown your servant.  With only my walking stick I crossed the Jordan, but now I have become two camps.  Rescue me, I pray, from the hand of my brother Esau, for I am afraid (yârêʼ) he will come and attack me, as well as the mothers with their children.”[24]

Twenty years on his own with God taught Jacob something about dealing with fear.  Faithfully, he reminded God (and perhaps himself) of God’s own words, “But you said, ‘I will certainly make you prosper and will make your descendants like the sand on the seashore, too numerous to count.’”[25]

Jacob’s fear of Esau’s approach was ἐφοβήθη in the Septuagint.  The fifth and final occurrence of ἐφοβήθη was in Luke’s account of Paul’s arrest in Jerusalem.  The Roman commander probably saved Paul’s life but was about to have him interrogated with torture.  Then those who were about to interrogate him stayed away from him, and the commanding officer was frightened (ἐφοβήθη, a form of φοβέω) when he realized that Paul was a Roman citizen and that he had had him tied up.[26]  The Roman commander feared retribution for his own violation of Roman law.  It makes me wonder if Jacob did not sense something of the justice of Esau’s cause despite the overbearing nature of the imagined reprisal.  As it turned out Esau had forgotten or forgiven his grievance against Jacob.  He welcomed his brother’s homecoming.[27]

[1] Genesis 26:1 (NET)

[2] Genesis 26:7 (NET)

[6] Matthew 14:24-30a (NET)

[7] Genesis 26:9 (NET)

[8] Genesis 26:10 (NET)

[9] Matthew 14:30, 31 (NET)

[10] Genesis 26:24 (NET)

[11] Luke 1:26-30 (NET)

[12] Genesis 26:25 (NET)

[13] Luke 1:38 (NET)

[14] Genesis 28:16, 17 (NET)

[15] John 19:8 (NET)

[16] John 19:7 (NET)

[17] John 19:9-11 (NET)

[18] John 19:12 (NET)

[21] Genesis 31:31 (NET)

[22] Genesis 32:7, 8 (NET)

[23] Genesis 32:9 (NET)

[24] Genesis 32:10, 11 (NET)

[25] Genesis 32:12 (NET)

[26] Acts 22:29 (NET)