I’d like to throw the fruit of [Greg] Boyd, Rob Bell, Gorden Fee and Eugene Peterson into a big Christian Life blender and see what comes out – that ought to be a big time Spirit-led, prayer-driven smoothie of a life!

What about you? What combination of pastoral, theological or authorial fruit would you like to mix together?

“Election is not about who gets to go to heaven; election is about who God chooses [...] to bring healing to the world.”

– Brian McLaren, Christianity Today (2004)

I learned long ago that sitting down and reading a book about something is an ineffective way for me to learn a new skill. I need to be hands on, working the skill and learning from what I can and can’t do. There is a lot of trial and error this way, of course, as I struggle with unlearning old programs while exploring new and different options. As I’ve been thinking about and working through this process, I was struck by some similarities in my Bible reading – or should I say, lack thereof.

We’ve all been taught that the Bible is a massive compendium of God’s divine wisdom and moral revelation, and that it holds the answers to the whats and whys of Life. But how is someone who doesn’t naturally click with reading as a form of instruction supposed to interact with this massive ediface?

Sometimes I open the Bible and am faced with a swarm of sentences, a wilderness of words – yes, I can see that they have meaning, but finding meaningful application is like Indiana Jones staring across the chasm at the chamber of the Holy Grail, knowing that there is an invisible bridge, but so hesitant to take that first step. How do you learn to apply? How do you find the motivation to read when there is no application?

If our works of faith are rooted in Biblical wisdom, what other ways does a Christian have of gaining knowledge? Sermons are good, but 30-45 minutes a week of oral learning seems limited. Small groups certainly engender learning through discussion, though laced with personalities and other restrictions. How else can the Bible be presented to facilitate learning? Oral recordings are perhaps one approach, though I just can’t shake the bleary eyed image of a college lecture hall from my mind. Or perhaps dramatic resettings like The Voice or the work of Calvin Seerveld? Yet the remonstrations of blogdom’s scholars against such so-called pornifications of the sacred texts rings loud in one’s ears. Still – I happen to like them.

If I cannot read the Bible and learn in a manner effective to me, then I must be defective. I must be hard of heart. I must not be regenerate. The text is holy and if it is inaccessible to me, then I have no hope. If I have no hope, I have no faith and the Bible is a dusty book that is interesting, but ultimately useless…

Or. An alternative. A thought, a revelation. We are called Christians, not Biblicans. Christ is who we serve. Not the Bible. Those who study the Bible must remember that. Study to serve. How do we serve? Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and strength – and love your neighbor as yourself. Apply that. Only that. All the rest comes from that. Do that. First.

If you believe in heaven and hell, how much do you have to hate someone to not proselytize them?

The idea of being spiritual without a social aspect bothers me. The more I study, the more I see the command to love God and to love one’s neighbor as almost identical. This week’s lectionary text, Matthew 25:31-46 (The Sheep and the Goats), brings that more to the fore. Jesus is appearing in the form of people who need my help, and my love for Him is manifested in what I do for them.

Does your faith allow you to do works for other people who need your help, or is it all about you?

• Creeds and Freedom or The Jazz Rhythm Section and the Soloist
• When We Play Wrong Notes

What?! Judged on works? Isn’t accepting Christ by faith enough for admittance into heaven and the joys of paradise? I’m going to suggest that the first part, admittance into “heaven”, or the New Heavens/Earth if you will, is based on faith, but that the joys and reward we find there are based on something different, namely our works done “in Christ”.

Our starting point is 1 Peter 1.17-19:

Since you call on a Father who judges each person’s work impartially, live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear. For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.

When we read about the Father’s judgment, we tend to jump to Revelation 20.11-15:

Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. [...] All whose names were not found written in the book of life were thrown into the lake of fire.

This is the separation of the sheep and goats, the eternal division of those who accepted the message and authority of Jesus Christ from those who did not. Once the sheep have been set aside, I’m suggesting that there is an additional “judgment”, based on these passages from Paul:

Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life. (1 Timothy 6:18-19)

For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that everyone may receive what is due them for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad. (2 Cor 5.10)

Each one should build with care. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved-even though only as one escaping through the flames. (1 Cor 3.10b-15)

That is, once we have been admitted to heaven as sheep in the Father’s judgment, we then face Christ’s judgment for our eternal reward, e.g. the treasure stored up for us based on our conduct and actions “in the body”. This is what I believe John is referring to in Revelation 20:10, where he notes that “the dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books.”

If admittance to heaven is based solely on our proclamation of faith, then nothing else we have done matters in the first judgment of the sheep and goats. Instead, works are only after we have been saved and admitted to heaven.

In a sense, there *is* a properity gospel, but it’s not the one preached by Osteen et al. It is, instead, one of eternal prosperity: work out the fact of your salvation with good deeds, in fear and trembling, and you not only improve the lot of those around you, but you build up the reward for yourself in the life to come. Those who enjoy riches now to their own pleasure may pass through the fire, but they will lose everything and will be the poorest people in Heaven, while those who forsake pleasure in the body for the work of the Kingdom will be rewarded and elevated to the highest status.

Here are some excerpts:

Thirty years of trying to use government to stop abortion, preserve opposite-sex marriage, improve television and movie content and transform culture into the conservative Evangelical image has failed. The question now becomes: should conservative Christians redouble their efforts, contributing more millions to radio and TV preachers and activists, or would they be wise to try something else? [...]

What is the answer, then, for conservative Evangelicals who are rightly concerned about the corrosion of culture, the indifference to the value of human life and the living arrangements of same- and opposite-sex couples? The answer depends on the response to another question: do conservative Evangelicals want to feel good, or do they want to adopt a strategy that actually produces results? [...]

If results are what conservative Evangelicals want, they already have a model. It is contained in the life and commands of Jesus of Nazareth. Suppose millions of conservative Evangelicals engaged in an old and proven type of radical behavior. Suppose they followed the admonition of Jesus to “love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit those in prison and care for widows and orphans,” not as ends, as so many liberals do by using government, but as a means of demonstrating G-d’s love for the whole person in order that people might seek Him?

Thomas concludes:

Evangelicals are at a junction. They can take the path that will lead them to more futility and ineffective attempts to reform culture through government, or they can embrace the far more powerful methods outlined by the One they claim to follow. By following His example, they will decrease, but He will increase. They will get no credit, but they will see results. If conservative Evangelicals choose obscurity and seek to glorify G-d, they will get much of what they hope for, but can never achieve, in and through politics.”

Amen!

* * * * *

Update: thanks to Steve, it appears that the main argument of this article is the same premise as Thomas’ and Ed Dobson’s book, Blinded by Might.

One suspects that for the OT writers, it was not so much that Satan was thrown out of Heaven by God, but that Satan was an agent of God, the one willing to do the dirty work of tempting and enticing humans. The Zechariah passage depicts Satan as standing at the right hand of Joshua the high priest, waiting to accuse him before the angel of the Lord (Jesus?) Clearly Satan seems to have had God-granted authority to affect human action and then accuse them in the courtrooms of Heaven.

We then come to Luke 10.18-20, which records Jesus’ reply to his disciples’ reports of success as witnesses to the Kingdom of Heaven:

I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you. However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.

Which parallels Revelation 12.7-9:

And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down-that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.

But what’s of interest to me is what’s is recorded in the next verse in the Revelation passage:

Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say:
“Now have come the salvation and the power
and the kingdom of our God,
and the authority of his Messiah.
For the accuser of our brothers and sisters,
who accuses them before our God day and night,
has been hurled down.

John goes on to record that when Satan saw that “he had been thrown down to the earth” (Rev. 12.13), he “went off to make war against [...] those who keep God’s commands and hold fast their testimony about Jesus.” (Rev. 12.17)

Satan, the accuser, has had his access to Heaven’s courtroom revoked! He was cast out of Heaven and lost his authority over humankind when Jesus became a mortal man and established the beachheads of the Kingdom of Heaven. Where before he was free to roam through the earth and go back and forth to Heaven, presenting himself to God whenever he had evidence to accuse humans with, now he is permanently stuck on earth as “the prince of this world”, an impotent potentate without access to Heaven.

Satan has lost his place in the grand courtroom of the Sovereign God. This means that we do not have an Accuser, a Lawyer, a Prosecutor who is constantly seeking to convict us for every misdeed and unrighteous act. We have a temptor who seeks to deceive us and lead us astray from the Kingdom of Heaven, but we are not living in a present state of being accused and convicted of those temptations.

In an earlier post on a modern representation of Satan as the spirit of negation rather than of creation, I included a quote by Ligon Duncan, who sees “a simultaneously increasing opposition to the kingdom [of Heaven] growing alongside an ever advancing and expanding kingdom [of Heaven].” That is, as the Kingdom of Heaven grows and expands from its initial beachhead in the humanity of Jesus Christ, Satan’s kingdom here on earth must also advance and expand. The kingdom of earth feeds on the fruit of the Kingdom of Heaven, poisoning wherever it can gain a hold, but always dependent on a renewing Creation for the substance of its negation. The kingdom of earth is truly impotent.

There will come a time when we are judged as to which kingdom we belong to, but we have the assurance that our sentencing will be by the Just Judge, not a Double-dyed Deceiver, and that we have the Great Defender available, Jesus Christ himself.

* * * * *

HT: Brent Kercheville

1. Because Jesus has come as the promised son (Isa. 9.6), there is no longer any need for religious or legal privilege to be given to fathers and sons. “Daughters are equally endowed with the Spirit and receive the same baptism,” as well as “the right to inherit the future of God’s kingdom”.
2. There is no longer a need for a child to be born who will usher in God’s kingdom, so procreation is no longer a justification for a relationship or marriage. “There is no religious duty to have a child.”
3. As a result of the previous consequence, “there is in principle no longer any need for men and women to marry [...]. Voluntary celibacy and voluntary virginity [are not] deficient ways of living.”
4. However, every new child is born for the future of God’s creation and represents a renewal of hope in the kingdom of heaven “among fallen men and women”.

Presumably, Moltmann believes that the Genesis 1 mandate to fill the earth and have dominion over it was fulfilled by Christ, the perfect human, establishing his reign over creation.

I wonder if some of these thoughts are reflected in Jesus’ comment that in the age to come, men and women “do not marry, for they are no longer subject to death. They are like angels; they are children of God, because they share in the resurrection.” (Lk. 20.35-36) Christ fulfilled the prophecy of the promised son, so procreation is no longer needed in this age or the age to come.

See also: “Grokked, not yoked?“