Sign from God

This is not:

Ash Wednesday Scripture Meditation, Matthew 6:17-18: “But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”

He just proved the self-attesting authority of scripture by sticking his fingers in his ears and yelling, “La la la la la…!” He has a web site (www.patcondell.net) where he has a video monologue about the evils of God and of religion. He goes on about the thing he hates, including intolerance, homophobia and a genocidal God and how he wants to declare war on them all.

His outrage is irrational because as an athiest, who decries righteousness by name, he has no basis for being upset that someone out there is being wrong, except his own sensibilities. He wants us all to look to him for their moral standard.

But the funniest thing of all is that this “God of the desert” who committed genocide, who he wants no part in, was wiping out nations that this guy would have hated even more than the ones he hates now. These people were evil. They sacrificed their children to a false god! According to his own rants, he would have done the same thing, given the power, and encouraged others to do the same!

Christians, don’t let these people fool you. They prove the scriptures which say, “A fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God!’” (Psalm 14:1, Psalm 15:1) ” and

Rom. 1:18   For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

The fact is that this man and people like him know that God is who he has revealed himself to be and they’re whistling past the graveyard hoping their intentional ignorance will get them past judgment where they will not stand unless they put their faith in what is as plain as the nose on their faces. This is not a blind faith they (we) are called to. It’s just aligning their trust into what they already know but willfully disavow. This unbelief, folks, is perversion.

The good news is that God forgives even the most intense unbeliever. He only needs to believe in his creator to whom we all owe our worship. It is in him that we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28 Probably quoted from Epimenides of Crete by Paul). We are completely dependent on him for our very breath. Does he not deserve our thanks?

This is not going to be easy for me. Brother and I do not have much in common. And I tend to tackle objectionable theology at the drop of a hat. If he says, “God told me…” again, I’ll be struggling to bite my tongue.

But more than that, I’ve been living alone for a long time. Sharing a space and going to the bathroom with the door closed will be new again. I’m not sure the dogs understand. He doesn’t have his own TV so we’ll be sharing mine. Hmm. Hopefully, it will remain off most of the time.

I was encouraged that he did go to church with me this morning. He joined the choir right off the bat, which didn’t surprise me. Our church is singing the national anthem at the next Fort Worth Cats game and he piped right up. I’m hoping that this will be an opportunity to get some good teaching away from the influences of some of the charismatic heresy he’s been listening to. I pray that we show him love and understanding. I’m thrilled with what I’ve already seen. May God be pleased to use us as instruments for good in his life.

One could say that this is a work of fiction and so it is not to be taken literally. I would disagree with that statement because the author has a definite truth he wants to tell. It is detailed and it has a definite purpose in revealing a God-like character to us. If it denies an essential doctrine, like the atonement, the deity of Christ, or something else, then it is portraying a false god.

It’s actually not terrible on the surface. It has some interesting, valid things to say about the Trinity and about our relationship to God. Aye, but there’s the rub. Satan’s lies are never far from the truth. This book tells the story of a man named Mack who lost his daughter under terrible circumstances. This causes The Great Sadness and he is understandably not the same. He gets a note from someone called Papa to meet this person at the place that is at the center of his Great Sadness. Here, Mack meets the Trinity in the form of a kindly old African American woman called Papa who represents the Father, a typical short Jewish man named Jesus whose representation is obvious, and a nearly intangible, oriental woman called Sarayu who represents the Holy Spirit.

So, why is the Father a tangible person? According to Scripture, we are explicitly forbidden to give him an image by the Second Commandment. God’s purpose in this was that any image we could conjure up would be a limited portrayal of who he is and thus it would be a false god. But God had something better in mind. He sent his Son. Philip, one of Jesus’s disciples asked him,

“Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” 9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. 11 Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves. (John 14:8-11)

Further, the writer to the Hebrews tells us of Jesus that “He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.” (Hebrews 1:3)

The Father is spirit and he cannot be seen with human eyes. Jesus was the only person that Mack needed to meet. Now, I know that the author was trying to show interactions among the Trinity and in my mind, I cut him a little slack, but he could have been Biblical about it. There were a couple of times in Jesus’s life where the Father spoke audibly to Jesus and those around him. The first was at Jesus’s baptism and the second was at his transfiguration. In both cases, a voice from heaven spoke. We didn’t see the speaker, but that didn’t make him less real.

But the author chose to portray the Father as a kindly black woman named Papa to wash our stereotype of a gray haired old man from our minds. That’s just racial profiling if you ask me. This portrayal is no more accurate than the other. A friend of mine called her ‘Oprah-mima’ and I think the name is perfect.

The reason Papa says she does this is, “For me to appear to you as a woman and suggest that you call me ‘Papa’ is simply to mix metaphors, to help you keep from falling so easily back into your religious conditioning.” All the author is doing is exchanging one conditioning, one picture, for another while giving a cheap shot at the supposed “conditioners”. The author doesn’t have a single kind word to say for the institution of the church. In fact, he says that all institutions, including the church, are a result of Adam’s and Eve’s power struggle after they eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. According to the book, God doesn’t set up authority structures. These are all man’s ideas. He says that the earth would have been a more peaceful place had woman assumed authority, but that would have been less than ideal as well. That’s just more theorizing.

For the author, the ideal is that we all exist in relationship with no hierarchies. Even the word “Lord” that we use to refer to God is less than pleasing. He wants us to “relate” to him and just be ourselves. Of course, the Bible would disagree. Yes, God did set up powers and authorities. Romans 13 is a testament to that. God calls Moses to lead his people out of Egypt and he set up hierarchies for the governing of the nation of Israel. But most important, God is our Lord. He is to be obeyed. He makes commands because he has the right to and we, his creatures, are obligated, to obey, yet it is a happy duty! It is because he is a good God that we can trust him to obey him happily.

The thing that struck me most about Mack’s meeting with God is that at no time is he struck with awe. Papa is not a holy God. He’s a kindly old lady that is sometimes a little sad at the choices we make. But the God of the Bible is a consuming fire. Every person that ever met him fell on his face in worship. Even Jesus, when he appeared to John, the disciple he loved affectionately, at the beginning of the book of Revelation was a terrible sight that made John fall at his feet as though dead. (Revelation 1:12-18) Brothers and sisters, this is the Jesus who is alive right now. Make no mistake. If we love him, we need not fear him, but he is not the folksy guy we meet in The Shack.

The Shack has a parallel tale in the Bible called the Book of Job. It’s interesting that it is most likely the first book written in the Old Testament. But in that book, Job is stricken with far worse. The Lord points Job out to Satan as a righteous man. Satan (a character not mentioned at all in The Shack) asks to test him to prove that he would curse God if all his riches were taken away. God grants him permission, which is a much more active role than the book gives him, He loses his seven sons and three daughters and all his riches in one attack. Following that, Satan attacks him again and makes him miserably sick. At no time did Job curse God. Interestingly, three foolish friends come to comfort Job and in all that conversation, Job asks to be put on trial before God as to why he deserves this.

Once Job has had his say, God answers. First, God reveals his command over nature and this is enough to undo Job. He says, “Behold, I am of small account; what shall I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth. I have spoken once, and I will not answer; twice, but I will proceed no further.” (Job 40:4-5)

God answers him with a challenge:

6 Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said:

7 “Dress for action like a man;
I will question you, and you make it known to me.
8 Will you even put me in the wrong?
Will you condemn me that you may be in the right?
9 Have you an arm like God,
and can you thunder with h a voice like his?

10 “Adorn yourself with majesty and dignity;
clothe yourself with glory and splendor.
11 Pour out the overflowings of your anger,
and look on everyone who is proud and abase him.
12 Look on everyone who is proud and bring him low
and tread down the wicked l where they stand.
13 Hide them all in n the dust together;
bind their faces in the world below.
14 Then will I also acknowledge to you
that your own right hand can save you.…” (Job 40)

You see here that God not only shows his own majesty, a characteristic that Papa simply does not possess, but he addresses Job with the dignity with which He created him. Job answers out of awe and respect and God restores him. Mack, on the other hand, is tested and passes with flying colors. From beginning to end, whenever something bad happened to him, he was always the innocent victim of circumstance. His only flaws were errors of misconception mainly brought about by evil institution makers and authoritarians. Job, on the other hand, is a more believable character and was actually innately guilty of unrighteousness and was tested until his sin could be found and dealt with.

This brings us to how the book deals with sin. This is the most obvious heresy of the book. Papa says of sin, “I don’t need to punish people for their sin. Sin is its own punishment, devouring you from the inside. It’s not my purpose to punish it; it’s my joy to cure it.”

Jesus, the real one, talked about punishing sin all of the time. The apostle John testifies, “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.” (John 3:36) The unholy nature of sin runs thick and heavy throughout scripture. Nations were overthrown because of their sin. Judgments were pronounced because of people’s sin. Hell is revealed as the place of eternal punishment for sin. You can’t deny sin and God’s wrath towards unrepentant sinners and claim to believe God’s revelation about it.

Furthermore, this view makes a mockery of the cross. In the book, when it comes to why Jesus had to die on the cross, we are told that it was simply to reconcile man to God. It’s all explained on one page and that’s it. It’s as if the author doesn’t even know what man is reconciled from and to. He just knows that Jesus wasn’t punished on our behalf. In the book there is a parallel story that the little child, Missy, likes about an Indian princess who dies by jumping off a cliff so that the people in her tribe can be healed of a sickness which is killing them. Jesus’s death was no sentimental show of love, nor was it a mere pagan ritual that delights a deity because of the costliness of the sacrifice. Any one pleased with such sacrifices would be a cruel beast.

The cross wasn’t Jesus simply saying, “I love you this much,” opening his arms wide and dying. That would be as pointless and cruel as Indian princess’s death. No, when God sent Jesus to the cross, he did it to satisfy his own justice for the sinners he was sent to save. God is just and the only way he could satisfy his justice and offer mercy was to take his own wrath upon himself. Jesus took the wrath God had in reserve for us on his own head so that we would not have to receive it. In exchange for the sin that Jesus became, we became his righteousness, a righteousness proved by Jesus’s life of perfect obedience to the Father. (2 Corinthians 5:21) If Jesus was portrayed by that poor Indian princess, then he is indeed a pitiful character. God’s love is no mere sentimental warm fuzzy that the book portrays. It is that and also a fierce, heroic love that can break down our own walls, and also protect us from evil.

I have many more complaints. I even have a couple of praises. As much as giving form to the Father offends me, I did like the portrayal of the love within the Trinity a little. In my pre-Reformed days, I never heard about this from the pulpit and I’d like to see the doctrine of the Trinity talked about more often. But at the same time, this is one man’s imagination of that love that exists and it is highly anthropomorphized (spoken of in man’s terms). What the Bible is silent about, we should be silent.

God has revealed himself clearly in his word and in the person of Jesus Christ. I think it is a grave injustice to imagine what God has not revealed and hold it out as a truth. The pictures in this book are very seductive. I found myself worshiping this idol and had to repent. So, in that regard, this book is dangerous. It can only do one harm if he, as millions have done, takes this to be a life changing work. The Bible is God’s revelation of himself, man’s condition, and his plan for redeeming man and bringing him back to covenant relationship. It is a far deeper and wonderful tale than this cheap knock-off. Let it define the essentials of faith and you will be far less confused and on much more solid and holy ground.

I think this book has shown that the modern church-goer is hungry to hear more about God from the pulpit. The evangelical church needs to stop pumping out this therapeutic crud where we are taught how to live more successful, happy lives and get on with knowing God for who he is. If this book starts that discussion again, then thank God for it. But let’s hope we can leave it in the dust and pursue the Truth.

A New Law

(vs. 1)
don’t teach me about politics and government
just tell me who to vote for

don’t teach me about truth and beauty
just label my music

don’t teach me how to live like a free man
just give me a new law

(pre-chorus)
i don’t wanna know if the answers aren’t easy
so just bring it down from the mountain to me

(chorus)
i want a new law
i want a new law
gimme that new law

(vs. 2)
don’t teach me about moderation and liberty
i prefer a shot of grape juice

don’t teach me about loving my enemies

don’t teach me how to listen to the Spirit
just give me a new law

(pre-chorus/chorus)

(bridge)
what’s the use in trading a law you can never keep
for one you can that cannot get you anything
do not be afraid
do not be afraid
do not be afraid

The ironic thing is that Paul in the letter to the Galatians anathematizes anyone who denies justification apart from works. It’s the only place in all his letters that he anathematizes anyone and the Catholics of that time were foolish enough to take the opposing view. And now, because of their view of the infallibility of the church regarding these councils, they are stuck with it or they lose their legitimacy.

My sister converted to Eastern Orthodoxy a few years back. Their views on justification seem similar, but at least they don’t have the Council of Trent hanging over their heads. She wrote in her blog, “Christ lined up our human nature with His. When we are united with Him personally and synergistically through grace and our free will, we learn habits of virtue that make us Christ-like, justified.” In other words, our justification is based on our Christ-likeness or our deification as the Orthodox put it. (The Orthodox do not look at Scripture with a juridical eye and there is some value in the West in thinking outside the box this way. But Paul uses judicial language in speaking of our salvation, especially in the book of Romans and you can’t get away from the idea of a final judgment that awaits us all.)

The Reformed Protestant’s question to them is, “At what point in this life do we ever reach Christ likeness?” Do we ever in this life attain to it perfectly? The scriptural answer to this is a flat no! If they answer the same, then God must accept us on our intention to be like Christ. But God is a just God and if our righteousness does not exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees, we will not enter the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:20). These scribes and Pharisees were held to be the most righteous people of their days. When Jesus said this, he was showing the people that even their best ideals of righteousness couldn’t possibly attain a pleasing attitude of God towards them as he proceeded to demonstrate in the Sermon on the mount which this verse introduces.

One means of their reaching this deification according to her and her bretheren is by asceticism. By withdrawing from the world they hope to be relieved of the temptations to sin, but they ignore the fact that they bring their own fallenness into the picture. Jesus, in redeeming us, put himself in the way of temptation when the devil appeared to him those three times before his public ministry started. He passed the tests that Adam and Eve failed in the Garden of Eden. (This is an example of what we call the active obedience of Christ. More on that later.) Jesus said that it is not what comes from outside, but what is already in a man that defiles him (Matthew 15:8-20, Mark 7:14-23).

Paul pointing directly to this asceticism says in Colossians 2:18-19, “ Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind, 19 and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.” and in Colossians 2:23, “These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.”

So my point is this: If our best intentions and righteousness cannot save us, what can? I mentioned it before on the Council of Trent. It is a righteousness that Jesus alone can give us. His active obedience in living a perfect life, passing all the tests that Adam, Eve, Abraham, Noah, David, etc. failed, proved that he was the perfect prophet and king than these. Then his passive obedience in subjecting himself the the false justice of man and receiving the full wrath of God for our sins made him our perfect priest and advocate. By his active obedience he earned a righteousness for us that could be exchanged for our unrighteousness by his passive obedience dying a criminal’s death on the cross.

It’s not magical fiat, as my sister would claim. (The Anglican bishop N. T. Wright is similarly mistaken when he says imputation cannot happen because in court rooms righteousness isn’t transferred from one person to another. Man’s court rooms bear no resemblance to God’s Judgment Seat.) Real justice was meted on on Jesus’s head and he willingly took it. His real righteousness, the righteousness that God declared at his baptism where he identified with sinful man and his transfiguration when his glory was revealed, when he said, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased,” is exchanged for our unrighteousness.

It is by being united in Christ when we believe that we become sons and daughters with whom he is well pleased. So, the only way to be saved on Judgment Day is for us as we stand accused of every sin and shortcoming is to stand on Jesus’s righteousness knowing that he took the punishment for us so that we can be declared, “Not guilty” or “Justified”. If we stand on our Christ likeness, we will only fail. The apostle John, the apostle that the Orthodox seem to identify with most, says that we will only be like him when we see him and not before:

Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. (1 John 3:2)

These people cannot believe what they espouse and remain uncondemned. If one denies justification by faith alone, they first, have no conception of the holiness of God and second, they do not understand how sinful we are. God’s wrath is real towards sin and it is demonstrated by Christ’s own horrible death and the separation of the Father and the Son that caused him such agony. I implore them as I implore my sister, in your denial, you will fall. Only by believing in Jesus’s perfect person and work will you be saved. Otherwise, you only fall in your pride.

But now I have a Mac Mini connected to my home stereo and HDTV. Added to that, iTunes’ visualizations are amazing and are much better attuned to the music than they used to be. All of this makes it much easier to sit down in one’s comfortable living room and just listen to music without doing anything else. It’s an extremely worthy pursuit, dear reader.

I just finished listening to Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3, the “Eroica” (German for Heroic). Aside from its being one of the  most revolutionary pieces of music ever played in any period, I can hear the gospel story of Christ’s heroic life, death and resurrection in its various movements. I know that’s not what Beethoven had in mind, but it’s in there nonetheless. The second movement, the funeral march, is probably the darkest music ever composed, but the symphony ends triumphantly with all enemies put under our Hero’s feet and his chosen ones gathered together from every tribe, tongue and nation. It’s my favorite of all time.

(Wow, what a cleansing experience!)

Begone Unbelief

Lest  you think I’m drinking the juice of sour grapes: Later I watched the beautiful and talented Gweneth Paltrow beat Meryl Streep with her performance in Shakespeare in Love. I didn’t see Meryl Streep that year, but I did see Gweneth Paltrow and as lovely as I thought she was, there’s no way you can tell me she displayed more talent than Ms. Streep on her worst day. Folks, it’s all decided by invisible campaigns and politics. I doubt that most voters even saw the movies they judged.

So I ask why anyone cares how Hollywood judges itself? Tonight I hit the Live TV button on my TiVo remote and there was Oscar. What became immediately obvious was that this was the most self-important, self-admired, deluded bunch of people on the face of the earth. Their whole identities were wrapped up in the opinions of their peers about their work and lives. They reached these heights of delusion for a couple of big reasons. One is that their profession is to create a delusion for their audiences. The other is that their audience has bought the illusion and has lifted these poor folks who are typically flops in every other facet of their lives up on pedestals of grandeur and glory unmatched since Louis XIV or Marie Antoinette (“Let them eat cake.”).

So is it any wonder that Sean Penn won the Oscar for best Actor and stood up and insulted the majority of Americans who do not believe in gay marriage? We are so obsessed with the goings on of these lunatics that they feed off our worship thinking they have the authority of gods on high to dictate morality, justice and right.

Folks, why do we care so much? What does an awards show mean to us? These people don’t care what we think of them. They only care what their peers think of them. That’s all the Oscars are is a peer review. And we gobble it up. Or at least we used to. It’ll be interesting to see what the ratings are for tonight’s show.

I think it would be so cool if the Oscars disappeared from TV followed by all of the Hollywood gossip shows. Our obsession with these professional liars needs to end. They have no special knowledge or standing that makes their opinions on anyting viable or worthwhile. Personally, I don’t care one wit about any of them beyond what they put on screen. Their politics, religion, romances, sexual orientation, the clothes they wear or the cars they arrive in can only detract from their real jobs: fakery. Let them and us be satisfied with that.

Still, that’s what God calls us to. In 2 Peter 2, the apostle exhorts us to submit to authority, calling slaves to obey their masters and for Christians to honor the emperor knowing the evil in those institutions. It would be fool-hardy for me to expect my boss to be a godly boss, but what I am responsible to be is a good, submissive employee. I’ve given him the respect his office deserves and have been faithful to point out where he “might” be in error, yet to do what he says should be done.

But that’s all done as of today. I don’t have a solid prospect for Monday or thereafter. I’ve been through this particular Red Sea before and I know that the God of Israel is still in charge and will bring me through the other side. There is peace in that and I cling to the one who gives it. May he preserve all his saints in these hard times for the sake of his name and to his praise.