With God every day

I want to live a life where I am truly with God every day. I try to reach out to God everyday, but it's rare that I feel that I can see God's revelation in the world around me. So often I let me stress and anger block my vision. More often, I am overwhelmed by life's little distractions.

Lord, I pray that I may see the many ways you answer me and reach out to me everywhere, everyday.

Freedom from sin

The mission of Jesus was from the same source and with the same object as the punishment of our sins. He came to work along with our punishment. He came to side with it, and set us free from our sins. -- George MacDonald, Hope of the Gospel

Why did Jesus die upon the cross? Why did he take on human form and come to earth? The common answer is that he died to accept punishment for our sins. George MacDonald, whose Hope of the Gospel I have been working through, dismisses that idea:

Unable to believe in the forgiveness of their Father in heaven, imagining him not at liberty to forgive, or incapable of forgiving forthright; not really believing him God our Saviour, but a God bound, either in his own nature or by a law above him and compulsory upon him, to exact some recompense or satisfaction for sin, a multitude of teaching men have taught their fellows that Jesus came to bear our punishment and save us from hell.

As MacDonald alludes to, this theory supposes the God was unable to forgive without extracting punishment. It forces us to accept that an innocent death can somehow replace the punishment of the guilty. What a ridiculous idea! We would not accept an innocent person's death as replacing the punishment of a murderer, even if that person gave their life voluntarily.

The opening quote from MacDonald points to a more radical explanation. Jesus did not come and die so that we could be forgiven for our sins. Jesus came and died so that we could be freed from our sins. God does not need some great sacrifice to forgive us. Rather, God needs us to renounce our sinful nature. It is not the sins that we have committed in the past that separate from God. We are separated by the nature which causes us to sin again and again.

Jesus came to reshape our nature. He came to teach us about love and hope. Jesus did not die to even out some cosmic score card. He died because his message was too radical (and still is). By living a human life, Jesus showed what no mere human can show: we can live life separate from our sinful nature. And by sending the Holy Spirit, he gave us the guidance we need to reject that sinful nature day after day.

Related posts:

• Jesus, our representative

The Bible is about people

If I believe that God has revealed himself to different people in different ways, what does that due to my faith in the Bible as God's word?

When it comes down it it, I don't believe that the Bible is God's direct word. God did not dictate the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek to the authors of the Bible who wrote it down. I believe many of the Biblical authors were inspired by God and wrote in response to that inspiration, but that relationship with God was filtered through their experiences, personality, and perspective. Thus, they got the big message: there is one true God, but they then assumed that since their neighbors did not worship Yahweh, they worshiped different gods.

I believe many of the Biblical authors were not directly inspired. Most of the histories are just that: histories. They were written by people who wanted to understand the events that had happened to Israel through their knowledge that they were God's chosen people.

None of this impacts my belief that the Bible is a great source of truth. I just belief that the truth is not to be found at the surface level. The Bible is a tool God uses to teach us about the big picture ideas: his oneness, the importance of love, the balance between mercy and justice. However, if we take it too literally, we risk conflating God's message with the messages of a bunch of ancient prophets.

Most of all, the Bible is about people and relationships, not facts. I believe the purpose of the Bible is to help us understand how people have related to God and grown in their relationship with God. Isaiah's willingness to do what he felt God ask of him is more important than the fact that many of his prophecies did not come to pass. Abraham's willingness to change his life to follow God's plan is more important than knowing whether or not he literally hosted angels.

The Bible is about our relationships with God, as individuals and as a group, and our relationships with each other. It contains deep truths, but to understand the deep truths, we must move beyond debating about the shallow facts.

Jesus, our representative

Hebrews is a really challenging book. Two parts stuck out to me (always two!).

1 Every high priest is a man chosen to represent other people in their dealings with God. He presents their gifts to God and offers sacrifices for their sins. 2 And he is able to deal gently with ignorant and wayward people because he himself is subject to the same weaknesses. 3 That is why he must offer sacrifices for his own sins as well as theirs.

and

7 While Jesus was here on earth, he offered prayers and pleadings, with a loud cry and tears, to the one who could rescue him from death. And God heard his prayers because of his deep reverence for God. 8 Even though Jesus was God’s Son, he learned obedience from the things he suffered. 9 In this way, God qualified him as a perfect High Priest, and he became the source of eternal salvation for all those who obey him

I have always had a hard time understanding why Jesus had to die. If God is all powerful and if God is merciful, why would anyone have to die for him to forgive us?

I know this idea won't be popular with most people, but maybe Jesus had to die because God, despite being all powerful and all knowing (or maybe because of it), is incapable of understanding people. Really understanding them, I mean. He might know everything we think and see all our motivations, but he cannot, in his perfection, emphasize with us.

But Jesus is our heavenly High Priest. He acts as both our representative before God and as the one who deals gently with us. And he can do this because he lived among us and was one of us. Even though he lived a perfect life free of sin, Jesus experience human emotions and human passions. He experienced love, despair, rage, hesitation, and friendship. Because of these experiences, he can understand us and teach us gently, in ways that we can understand.