I am beginning to think that one of the first things we need to do is to convert the musicians of the Christian world. The Christian churches spend so much time singing their lyrics, which in general reinforce a foolish variety of Christianity. Oh it is the dominate view no doubt but it is filled with meaningless trivialities and downright contradictory statements. Consider the following which I recently saw while visiting a church.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGlx11BxF24



Notice this quote towards the end at 2:30 min:

"I came to save you from so many sins
But they have a cost
Someone has to die
You...or Me
So I took on your sin
And traded in my life for yours
And I died in your place
Because I love you"


Over all the message is fairly good. But it makes so little sense to say that "Someone has to die You or me". We all still die by the way...And who says that someone has to die because of sin? God? Why did He make that rule in the first place if it is a rule and why not tell us about this rule in the Bible? (you say surely die is a consequence of sin not an act of God). How did Jesus take my sin? I still sin don't I, I bet you do too. So He hardly took my sin as I still am busy committing it. Who did He trade His life for mine? Is God not in control? Is God doing the trading...because he says you sin and you must die...I have to kill someone because of sin!? So then Jesus comes along and shows us forgiveness...something that God would not do because God demands somebody die.

The conclusion is:
"I am the way, the truth and the life
I am Jesus
I am not here to condemn you
I came to bring you back to life
Rely on me
I will forgive you
And give you eternal life
I love you 
And I did all of this for you
To have a relationship with you
Will you follow me?"

Would not the more appropriate method be to express the love of God revealed through Jesus that He would come and show us what love is, what forgiveness is and to what length love goes in that greater love hath no man then to lay down their life. That even though evil kills and destroys it is no match for God who raises and gives life. That is the message of the cross. Not a trade, not a God that demands someone has to die. 

Yet when I saw this video at church I had just sat through the singing of 3 songs, which held that Christ paid out penalty or as the lyrics from "In Christ Alone" say:  

"Til on that cross as Jesus died
The wrath of God was satisfied
For every sin on Him was laid
Here in the death of Christ I live, I live"

Or this from the "Scandal of Grace" from Hillsong united:

"Too much to make sense of it all

I know that Your love breaks my fall

The scandal of grace, You died in my place 

So my soul will live"

 

The "wrath" of God was satisfied because Jesus is killed on the cross? Really is that the gospel?
It is not too much to make sense of if you simply remove the tradition of Penal substitutionary atonement. Which was never even part of the Bible or the early church but a church tradition built upon a misrepresentation of God.

Catchy tunes carry on a message that is contrary to the gospel. It is contrary to the nature of God and is completely foreign to the message of Jesus. And we keep it alive because we don't take time to think about what our religion is saying. It is time to reclaim the God of love and leave the god of paganism behind.

Christianity Growing Up

I just read an provocative article on Atoday.com. Since it is short here it is:

I tried to heal someone this week.

I have a friend who is extremely sick, as in die-any-day type of sick.  Furthermore, he doesn’t believe salvation is for him and rejects Jesus as his Savior and Friend.  Lately it has become nearly impossible for him to feel any type of love from God, his family, or his friends because his sickness is clouding his thoughts.

I have done, quite literally, everything I can think of in order to show him the love of God.  I have prayed the tears out of my eyes.  I’ve tried Bible studies.  Prayer circles.  Different doctors.  Just being a listener.  Pastoral counseling.  I can’t list all the things I’ve tried.  But he got worse, not better.  With every change in tactic I expected some type of improvement, yet there has been no change in his sickness or in his soul.

There is no prayer like a desperate prayer.  At one point I got so downcast that I asked God to violate his free will and save him no matter what he wants.   I was, and kinda-sorta-but-not-really still am dead serious about that despite how I know that the destruction of free will precedes the destruction of true love.

Lately, my best friend and I have been talking about miracles.  About how Jesus essentially said that even a little faith could move a mountain if it was hindering the work of God.  About how Jesus said His disciples would do greater and more things than He ever did.  About whether these and other statements were meant specifically for His 12 disciples in that cultural context or if they are timeless principles.

I thought to myself:  If only my friend wasn’t sick, he still might not choose God, but at least the choice would be clearer.  If only my friend wasn’t sick, maybe he could feel love again.  If only my friend wasn’t sick, his judgment would be normal…

I asked God to give me the authority over this type of disease.  I told God He could take the authority away from me after the disease was gone.  I had almost asked God that question earlier this month, but I didn’t yet trust myself to ask not out of caring for my friend, but out of doubt that God would do it on His own.  I just wanted to give him a clear mind, so that maybe, possibly, prayerfully, he will choose to follow Christ.

So I tried to heal someone this week.

Didn’t work.  And I feel dumb.

Thy will be done……so easy to say.  So difficult to mean.

Go ahead and read through the comments as they are about as provocative in what they say and don't say. The author in the comments states that his main concern is the salvation of his friend.

What I have come to think is that we have as Christians taken a view that it is all about coming to believe in God as we ourselves believe. The author of the article wants his friend to view God the same way he does. But his friends mind is cloudy or sick or whatever he does not see God the same way. In fact this is the problem we all face. We want people to think just as we do. If they think like us then they will see the truth. But many Christians have created a religion where that truth...that specific knowledge is what everyone must have to be saved. Salvation then becomes the product of correct knowledge.

Yet none of us actually have correct knowledge or really any method of determining correct knowledge. We like others have a set of beliefs some of which are based upon reason and suppositions and some of which are based upon tradition and upbringing. But we do not “know”.

In many Christian churches they are dealing with how they can deal with science which presents a view of an ancient earth and constant change. Evolution may not tell us where we came from but it presence is pretty well established and it is at odds with a young earth creation as interpreted by many in the book of Genesis. If the story of Genesis is alluded to by Jesus then many Christians will interpret that to mean that it is a divine expression that the Genesis stories are literal truth. Much the same as many look at New Testament verses about woman and authority in the church. How does the church deal with such things when the culture is more equitable and more knowledgeable.

Churches develop their structure and form by their claims to knowledge of revealed truth. When one church finds different truth in their Bibles then they form a new church based upon their new revealed truth. Thousands and thousands of differing versions of truth. Yet often to be saved you have to acquire the correct view of truth. Which often finds itself revealed in my version of truth. Insert your own views as the “my” in that sentence.

I think there is a growing movement of people who find this troubling and who can't grant themselves the privilege of the belief that their version of beliefs represents the truth. If only others could be freed from their delusions and upbringing or traditions they could realize the truth and be saved by God. But this view seems to not work with that of a God of love. Salvation based upon what you know or what you live up to because you believe it seems different from a salvation based upon a love of God that seeks to save the lost.

We often suspect that if there were miracles all the time that might make us believe in the presence of God. Just look at the miracles the legs amputated regrown etc. Yet all it would suggest is that there is supernatural forces in the world. It would not be evidence of a God of love unless all legs were regrown or no one died. Even supernatural experiences would not give us knowledge of truth. We are in a very weak and limited state when it comes to truth. Science has to slowly build it's knowledge and it is forced to regularly redefine its propositions. Religion is far slower to redefine its propositions. But it seems we are way past time to begin redefining what our knowledge of truth is. A little more humility and a lot less surety are in order.

God could very well save every living creature for a new life, would that be out of the character of love to be accepted. What may be the future of Christianity is not the traditions of the past but a new view of what religion can do for us in the now. How can it be used to encourage better and fuller lives for people. Whether they believe in Christ or God or the supernatural. Leaving salvation entirely up to God the Christian would then focus on helping others here and now. No longer soul winning as we have no ability to win a soul anyway even if we knew what it was. Perhaps Christianity is really as easy as the story of caring for people that Jesus taught*. Perhaps the idea of damnation was just sticks to prod people into doing something that they were reluctant to do. Rather like the promises or threats a parent gives to a child for doing what the child should do. But at some point the promises and the threats don't become the impetus to action. Can Christianity actually grow up?

*Matthew 25:34  NIV“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

God is Love, The Law

Submitted for your consideration; there is little written about the conditions which produced our world in the state it is in. The following is my theory as to the role played in this story by God’s Law. It is based largely on my understanding of the entire Bible beginning to end.

Sometime ago undoubtedly before the creation of Earth, there existed a Law. A law I will refer to as the Law of God. This law in its basic nature was extremely simply yet profound. The Law is "God is Love". Like the law of gravity this law can’t be broken. It is a fact, it is just the way things are, it exists because that is what the character of God is. Nothing anyone can do can change this law, however someone could distort, or misrepresent the law. To use and old English word, the law can be transgressed. Say I am a cleverly deceptive person and I try to tell you that gravity is not a result of the mass of an object, but the result of a giant gopher who is trapped in the center of the earth and by his animal magnetism he draws all objects toward him. Lets say I got a lot of people to believe my explanation of gravity. In fact in doing all this I have not changed the law of gravity, it still exists as it always did. However I have gone beyond the bounds of the law (transgression). I have violated it by my bizarre reinterpretation of the law of gravity.

Now lets move from earth to heaven in the beginning (whenever that was). There is a law in heaven, not a set of written precepts, but one based on the nature of the author of the universe. That law is "God is Love". Like the law of gravity on earth, this law can’t be broken, it exists and it is true. But this Law of God can be reinterpreted in such a way that it is violated. Say there was a cleverly deceptive person, lets say Satan. Now if Satan were to say that God is not really loving, that He is hiding important information from us, information that could make us just like God. And that basically God is not a truthful person, Satan’s reinterpretation of the Law of God would violate the true Law of God. The law that "God is love" still exists and is still true, but Satan’s transgressed against the law, his redefining what God is, has confused other persons.

At this point it is important to note that God has no law that says you must love Him. He wants us to love Him but love can never be forced, in fact to force love would be against God’s Law, i.e. "God is Love". It is His kindness which leads us to repentance, and repentance leads us back to loving God. Do what I say or else, is one of the deceptions. Because of Satan’s distortions of God, Satan is removed from Heaven and God proceeds with His plan to answer Satan’s inaccurate and slanderous view of God. Because God is love and love answers questions though not necessarily in the way we may want, love is not defined by what we want as that is selfishness.

The Law "God is love" is the foundation upon which all other laws dealing with humans is based. It is to what all other laws point. The laws given in the Old Testament are intended as our school master to point us to the one supreme law of God. This is why on the Sermon on the Mount Jesus points out that even our thoughts quite apart from actions can be counted as sin. Or as Paul tells us even good things done, if done apart from faith in God are sins. We violate the law when we misrepresent, or ignore "God is love". If someone says God loves good little children but He cannot love naughty little children. That is as much a violation of the law of God as to say that we are gods. The law of God stands not on written instructions on how to live and what not to do, but upon the very nature of God Himself.

Many in our church today will say that the 10 commandments are a transcript of God’s character. I pity anyone who reads the 10 commandments as God’s character. What a distorted view they must have of God. He would be seen as someone demanding human worship, punishing those who reject Him and showing mercy to only those who obey Him. Not a particularly loving God, rather one who loves you only after you first love and obey Him. This is not to disparage the 10 commandments, there is nothing wrong with them, they are good. However they must be viewed in the context derived from the entire Bible, that is that "God is love". They are instructions on how to live toward God and man. They point to the one law, "God is love". They do not provide anyone with salvation, rather they instruct the reader as to how to live in harmony with the supreme law of God. They are as Paul says, our school master teaching us of our need to return to God.

In the Genesis story Abraham acting out of a close relationship with God, and guided by the Law of God, followed God’s instructions to offer up Isaac. Realizing that God’s actions are out of love, Abraham trusted that whatever was going to happen would be for his own families good. And true to the law of God the ending was good just as he expected. When a person comes to this point in their lives, that is, they know that "God is love" they are meeting all the requirements of Gods law. No other laws are needed in their lives.. Because this one law is the summation of all others. Their faith is counted as righteousness. This is why Paul could say:

Col 2:14 having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. (NIV)

Because the Law of God’s love was so completely revealed to us through Christ’s life death and resurrection, the written code is no longer the best method of bring us back to repentance. Gods kindness is shown so perfectly through Jesus Christ that He is now the central point of the gospel message. If there remains any reason to teach the law, let it be the law of Love.