God always had a Plan

God has a coherent plan for bringing salvation to the world. Each new covenant that he established was not designed to replace the old because it had failed, but an extension of the previous covenant to gain additional benefits for him and his people. The new covenant that Jesus established by his death and resurrection was the ultimate fulfilment of his plan.

God does not make mistakes, and he knows what he is doing, so his covenants did not fail. Each one achieved what he expected it to. Each one prepared the way for the next one.

The Rainbow covenant established with Noah gave God the authority to intervene when evil got out of hand. Placing a constraint on evil was a limited gain, but it was a start.

The covenant with Abraham created a people for God, but they did not yet have a land. He lived a wandering life, so he was relatively safe from spiritual attack if he stuck with God. Abraham created one nation, but God wanted all the people of the world.

The covenant with Moses established a land for the people with laws that enabled them to live in peace with each other in close quarters. By coming together in his way, they became vulnerable to spiritual attack, but the Tabernacle offerings provided spiritual protection for them if they stayed loyal to God. This covenant was a huge advance, but Moses only got one piece of land, whereas God wanted the entire earth. The Holy Spirit was active, but only on a few special people, mostly prophets. God wanted a broader range of ministries.

Jesus' ministry achieved everything that God needed done on earth and in the spiritual realms to achieve his purposes. This covenant was complete. Nothing was lacking, and nothing still needed to be done.

1. Jesus' death on the cross defeated the spiritual powers of evil by shedding the blood that they demanded as a ransom for setting humans free. The soldier pierced his side, and the blood ran down onto the ground where they wanted it. The blood was for the powers of evil, not for God. If Jesus had to die to appease God, he would have died in the temple, and his blood would have been put on the altar, but he died outside the city, where the powers of evil controlled the situation.

   Having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross (Col 2:15).

   Once he had paid the ransom they demanded, they lost their authority over humans and over the earth.

2. God vindicated Jesus by raising him from the dead (Col 1:19). The spiritual powers of evil were happy to give up their authority over humans in return for killing the Son of God. They believed that by killing him, God’s plans would be totally defeated. However, God foiled them by raising Jesus from the dead. From their point of view, this was a massive disaster because they had given up authority over the people of the world to destroy the Son of God, which seemed like a good deal, but then Jesus was raised, so they lost out twice, and were left powerless. They can never recover from this defeat.

3. Jesus came from the tribe of Judah, so he was not allowed to be a priest while living on earth (Heb 8:4). Rising from the dead qualified Jesus to be a priest after the order of Melchizedek, who had neither beginning of days nor end of life (Heb 7:3). Having become a priest in this order, Jesus was qualified to enter the heavenly holy of holies and bring an offering to God. He did not need to cleanse the heavenly tabernacle because it was already holy.

4. Ten days after he was raised from the dead, Jesus ascended into the spiritual realms to be with God, the Father. He passed “through the heavens” (Heb 7:14) and became a High Priest who can sympathise with our weakness. In him, we can boldly approach the throne of grace and obtain mercy and forgiveness. In response to Jesus' request, God agreed to have mercy and forgive everyone who trusts in him (Heb 7:15-16). He takes away our shame by saying that we are “OK”.

   Jesus keeps on asking for mercy on our behalf. He has faced the same battles that we face and understands how difficult it is to serve God through the intense spiritual battle that is taking place on earth. He defends us from every accusation of the enemy.

5. Jesus sat down at the right hand of the Father, who appointed as King of Creation, far above all rule and every authority in both the spiritual and earthly realms (Heb 1:3; Eph 1:20-23).

6. Jesus threw the powers of evil out of their place in the spiritual realms where they had operated (Rev 12:7-12). Prior to the cross, they were able to go into God’s presence and accuse his people of sinning and demand that they be allowed to punish them. They lost that role when Jesus ascended into God’s presence. This is part of Jesus' intercession on our behalf.

7. Jesus poured the Holy Spirit out on his people. He released a much fuller manifestation of spiritual gifts. He released a broader range of ministries to strengthen the church (Acts 2:32-33; Eph 4:7-12).

8. Jesus organises the holy angels to support his people in their activities and ministry for him (Heb 1:14).

Jesus ministry and the new covenant that he established, completed each of the tasks that the earlier covenants had started (1-4) and provides several additional benefits for God’s people (5-8).

Purpose of God's Law

I have just a published an article on the Purpose of God's Law on Substack. This is an important topic for all God's people.

God provided the law so that people could live together in harmony. In the modern world, people still have problems with each other and disputes over property, so this need has not disappeared. We still need the Law of Moses.

General Election

The coming general election in New Zealand when people vote for the party they want to control the nation is beginning to generate a lot of noise, but it is all a bit irrelevant. Unfortunately, the people have already made a more significant choice by giveingcontrol of the nation to the spiritual powers of evil, by rejecting God and losing the protection that he provides. They are in control, so it does not matter much which party gets elected.

Chris Hipkins, like most people in the Beehive, holds a materialistic world view, in which the physical world that we can see and touch is all that there is. The battle in the spiritual world is not on his radar, so he has no understanding of how the spiritual powers of evil influence events in the physical world that he operates in. This is why,

• Solutions to problems that he expects to work often fail.
• Good policies produce poor results
• Problems that have been solved keep re-occurring.
• Situations that are under control, keep falling apart.
• People whom he trusts, do bad things.
• Smart people keep getting things wrong.

Although Chris Luxon is a Christian, he holds the same materialistic world view as Chris Hipkins. He will discover that the political power that he wants to exercise is manipulated and controlled by the spiritual powers of evil, and he won’t know how to deal with that.

Birnham Wood (3)

More quotes from Birnham Wood by Eleanor Catton.

Any conversation on the left these days, it's always so competitive, it's always each person trying to outperform the person before them in terms of their oppression or their lack of privilege or their personal trauma or, like, the fact that actually, they're Jewish or actually they're bisexual, or guess what, they're a quarter this or that ethnicity, which gives them the right to speak or the right to take offence or whatever. It's a marketplace! Yet again! You can dress it up in the language of sensitivity and social justice and blah blah blah, but the point of intersectionality isn't to learn how to transcend our differences, or eliminate them, the point isn't solidarity, it's about shoring up your brand, cornering the market, everyone out for themselves, maximising profit and minimising risk. It locks us into our differences, it’s segregationist. And it's also just advertising. It's brand management. That's the point. We're still inside the paradigm! p.106

A marketing algorithm doesn’t see you as a human being. It sees you purely as a matrix of categories: a person who is female, heterosexual,—or whatever-sexual—and white, and university-educated, and employed, who has these kinds of friends and shares these kinds of articles and posts these kinds of pictures and makes these kinds of searches, and on and on—and the more sophisticated the algorithm, the more subcategories it's able to diagnose, and the better it's able to market whatever it is it's selling. Identity politics, intersectionality, whatever you call it—it's the exact same thing. It's the same logic. The smaller the category, the better you're able to sell yourself. The safer you are, economically.

Yes, it is cynical, but as long as we keep thinking like this, we're stuck with cynicism. There's nothing else. We'll never be able to agree to work towards a common goal, and that means the whole project of a genuine left-wing politics is fucked. How can we even get started on the project of creating and protecting public goods when within every group there's always a subgroup, and each one has their own particular agenda, and they're all in competition with each other for airtime and market share? p.108

And “identity politics " is also a propaganda term. People who are actually marginalised, people who are actually systematically oppressed, whose lives are actually in danger, they don't say, “Oh, have you heard about this great new thing, it's called identity politics?" They're talking about justice, and survival. p.109

Birnham Wood (2)

More quotes from Birnham Wood by Eleanor Catton. I found them quite perceptive.

As long as you keep treating the individual as the basis of political agency, he was saying now, you're going to be stuck with different forms of capitalism. This is my whole idea. This is what I'm trying to write about. What if we stopped talking in terms of individuals at all, and instead, we took the relationship as the base socio-economic unit? The relationships, the bonds, the connections—they're just as basic to any system as the actual individuals, the actual data. Right? And in relationships, we do all sorts of things that radically challenge the neoliberal status quo: we make sacrifices, we put the other person first, we learn to compromise, we care, we help, we listen, we give ourselves away—and fundamentally, those are different kinds of sacrifices to the kind that are all about self-discipline and following a regime. They're not individualistic; they're mutual. Like, all the stuff that you were saying before, stopping eating meat, flying less, shopping local, I mean, all power to you, for sure, but there's something so puritanical about it, like, it's a programme of asceticism, always being strict and consistent and never being lazy or whatever—and at the end of the day it's still about you as an individual. Your purity, your moral conscience, the sacrifices you've made.

There's something so joyless about the left these days that is so forbidding and self-denying. And policing. No one's having any fun, we're all just sitting around scolding each other for doing too much or not enough—and it's like, what kind of vision for the future is that? Where's the hope? Where's the humanity? We're all aspiring to be monks when we could be aspiring to be lovers. p.102

Take the concept of equality. You could argue that it's only really meaningful on a human scale. In large numbers, all it means is homogeneity, or conformity—huge numbers of people who are exactly the same—I mean, who would want that? It's oppressive, it's inhuman, it's boring. It's everything everyone says about communism and how deadening it is. But between two people, equality is a totally radical idea. I mean, how amazing that two different people, with different values, and different experiences, and abilities, and needs, that they could see eye to eye, and live in such a way that brings out the best in both of them, right, and allows both of them to flourish! That's symbiosis, it's mutuality, it's love—that's just the kind of relation to the world that the left should be aiming for. Not where you have to help someone other than yourself, but where you want to. Romantic love could be our ideal. Our political ideal. p.103

Birnham Wood (1)

I recently read the novel called Birnham Wood, which is set in New Zealand, by Eleanor Catton. I really enjoyed the story, although the ending was a bit too dark for me. I liked the way that she interspersed the novel with the philosophical and political reflections of her characters.

Here are a couple of examples from one called Tony.

You're still inside the paradigm. You're still treating people as consumers, you're just saying that they should consume more responsibly and consume less. But as long as you keep talking in the language of the market, you're never going to address the root cause of the problem, which is the market itself— and how we've all become so individualistic and consumeristic that we can't even conceive of anything anymore except in market terms. If we want to mount y kind of serious challenge to neoliberalism at all, we have to go way deeper than just changing our spending habits. We have to change the way we actually think.

Think about the fact that nobody's willing to use the language of morality anymore. We can talk about power—all we talk about is power, who's got it and who wants it—and we can talk about privilege, which is basically the same thing, entrenched power, but to use words like good and evil, or not even evil, just good and bad, when it comes to people's behaviour, or their lifestyle choices, or their forms of self-expression—their freedom—that's, like, totally taboo. Especially on the left. Where do you think we got that from? It's the market. The idea that human choices can ever be without morality, without a moral dimension—that's pure capitalism, seeing the market as a value-neutral space, where morality doesn't exist and people are free to compete on equal terms and there are, like, natural laws of supply and demand or whatever—and, of course, it's all bullshit, markets are created, they're always created, they're always policed and regulated and interfered with by the state. But we totally repeat that same logic. Don't you see? We treat power both as an absolute, as a natural law, and as something that's completely relativised in terms of moral value—so basically, exactly the same as how we think about so-called market forces. There's no difference. And the sad thing is that we can't even see we're doing it. We think we're above this shit. We're inside it. p.100

The term “free market" is totally a propaganda term, and yet we all use it, even on the left. It's insane. We should be asking ourselves, why are we using their words and their logic? Why are we doing their job for them? p. 101.

Extractive Politics

Rent-seeking and extraction are fundamental characteristics of a Liberal society, which is precisely about reducing (and complexifying) all aspects of life into a series of rules and regulations that require specialist educated groups to interpret and argue about them. Indeed, a Liberal society can be defined as one which replaces simple and well-understood rules with highly-complex and difficult procedures that require learned specialists to interpret them. And it is such interpreters, rather than mere producers, who have the higher social and economic status.

This is the fundamental logic of extractive politics. Find a problem that is insoluble but sounds bad, and that is often poorly defined and not well understood. Set yourself vague objectives that are impossible to measure, and which in any case depend on people other than you doing the actual work. Organise a few publicity-seeking events, cultivate the media and watch the money roll in and the jobs be created. Issue statements about the failures of others and demands for action from a position of moral superiority which you claim, but have done nothing to earn.

From The Rise of Extractive Politics by Aurelien.

Civilisational States

In a recent Substack post called We Are All Civilisational States, Aurelien has some interesting comments on the concept of a civilisational State.

Liberalism has always tended towards a kind of blank, managerial efficiency, bereft of any of the characteristics that make us human. It regards beliefs, loyalties, friendship, and social bonds of any kind as at best inefficient, preventing the smooth functioning of the market economy, and at worst as symbols of darkness and superstition, to be driven away by the pure light of reason... Such a society is actually already present in outline in the assumptions of the European Union. Religion, history, culture, language and belief divide people against each other, and so (it is argued) cause conflicts and even wars. Consequently, every effort must be made to extinguish national differences by discouraging the teaching and invocation of separate histories and cultures, except for warnings against their negative aspects, whilst promoting a tasteless, grey Brussels soup, largely distinguished by the ingredients that are missing. History, insofar as its existence is acknowledged, has gone from being a national story to a field of vicious debate and struggle where groups seek to impose their interpretations of history on each other, like family members fighting each other in front of a judge over inheritance rights.

Brussels today is, effectively, Nowhere: no history, no culture, no common heritage, and an ideology constructed entirely out of clichés, where difficult subjects are just not discussed. (Religion is considered a purely cultural artefact, and any criticism of practitioners of non-European religions for any reason is considered racism). History, in the form of buildings and monuments, is acceptable only insofar as it encourages the tourism industry or represents a business opportunity. Even the official language is artificial: a kind of simplified English, with a large influence from French legal vocabulary, often called Globisch.

"Free speech” used to be a Liberal principle, and in theory still is. Yet of course its origins lie in the struggle by Liberals to express themselves freely under absolutist or authoritarian regimes from the eighteenth century onward. Once they had achieved these freedoms, Liberals inevitably began to notice the inconveniences associated with free speech which they did not agree with. And because theirs was an ideology based essentially on a series of unsupported assertions about the world, free enquiry and rational questioning, ironically, were inimical to it. So it’s not surprising that support for freedom of expression has been falling sharply recently among people who identify as liberal.

American Prophets

In a facebook post below, Dan Hawk has some interesting comments about what he calls Dominionist Prophets. I agree with most of his points, although they do not all apply in every case. However, I don’t think that you have not gone far enough to get to the main issue. Dan sees the issue as a problem with biblical interpretation, particularly eschatological passages. I see the issue as a problem with the way the prophetic ministry has developed in the United States.

The recovery of the gift of prophecy has been an incredible blessing for the church. The three or four personal prophesies that I have received over my lifetime (through Christian friends, not travelling ministries) have been a huge blessing and encouragement in my walk with Jesus.

Unfortunately, there has been no room for the development of prophetic ministries within the structures of the pastor-leader-controlled churches that predominates the western church, so the ministry of the prophet to the church and the prophet to the nation have not emerged, despite being urgently needed. Instead, prophetic people have moved onto the internet, where there is no discipline and very little testing, so the few bits of gold released in that environment have been overwhelmed by prophetic mush.

Worse still, it has become a breeding ground for false prophets.

The appeal of the so-called dominion prophets arises out of disappointment and hunger. The scriptures are full of promises about God’s victory on earth, but modern evangelicalism has not explained how this victory will come to pass. Careful exegesis has been essential for challenging crazy ideas, but unfortunately, it has sucked the life of eschatology.

Defeating false teachings is important, but it leaves a vacuum, if something equally viable and inspiring is not put in its place. We have now arrived at a point where the evangelical church does not have a feasible and motivating eschatology. Consequently, most Christians have grabbed onto the only serious option, which is dispensationalism. The evangelical movement does not have an inspirational vision of the Kingdom of God, or an explanation of how it will come to fulfilment. Instead, “Kingdom” has become a popular adjective to attach to whatever the church is doing, so the term has become an empty concept.

Sound exegesis will not expose false prophets and prophecies. Academic methods will not expose them. The only antidote to false prophets is true prophets, like Miciah and Jeremiah. They will often be ignored, but when history works its course, they will be proved right and the mistakes of the false prophets will be exposed.

A related problem is that the people of the United States have made an idol of their constitution, and the system of government that it purports to define, even though it is not clear what it is. This idolatry has left the nation vulnerable to spirits of deception, pride, violence and control. Consequently, the nation has been dogged by American exceptionalism and a belief in using military power to achieve their nation’s goals, which has created a heady environment for false prophets to work in.

The dominionist prophets are committed to the use of political and military power to achieve God’s purposes on earth. This aligns exactly with the values of most Americans. Therefore, not surprisingly, the most popular prophets in the United States are those who preach Christian nationalism, and especially the use of political and military power to achieve God’s purposes on earth. I call them horned prophets. The Bible calls them false prophets.

This is the critical issue. The United States has a serious false prophet problem. The number is far greater than the two hundred confronted by Miciah. Unfortunately, the US church and nation do not have a true prophet like Jeremiah or Miciah to confront the false prophets that are leading it astray.

According to the Psalms, the lack of a true prophet was part of the curse on a disobedient Israel.

We are given no signs from God; no prophets are left, and none of us knows how long this will be" (Psalm 74:9).

I wonder if this lack of true prophets is actually a curse on the United States.

Poltical and Social Change

In his latest post on Substack, Aurelien makes some interesting comments about the things necessary to bring about political and social transformation.

If we look at history, we see that bringing about fundamental, discontinuous political change requires three things. One is a group of individuals with a common (though not necessarily identical) purpose. The second is a clear vision of what is wanted, either in terms of ideology or at least of defined political objectives. And the third is the resources and organisation capable of bringing it about. Having only two of these is not enough. This may seem mundane, but then quite a lot of the nuts and bolts of history are. And it reminds us that history is not, in fact, entirely the product of blind forces, but rather of a complex interaction between individuals, groups and society.

He explains how these things are lacking in the modern world, as political parties become technocratic and difference between them have blurred. Public interest and trust in existing political systems is reducing all over the western world. This is a huge risk.

As I read the word in the quotes above, I thought about the role of the church in society. Once it would have met these requirements, but I am not sure if it is true anymore. It seems to be divided and lacking a common purpose. The church has no clear vision of what is needed. There is no evidence that it can work together to bring about change.

One Baptism

A commenter asked if/argued that I teach two separate baptisms. I don’t.

Paul was emphatic that there is one baptism (Eph 4:5). Jesus’ baptism is the ideal. He was baptised in water and the Spirit in one event. That should be the norm for all those who trust in Jesus. Peter knew this, because when the Holy Spirit came upon Cornelius and his household, he realised that they needed to be baptised in water at the same time (Acts 10:47; 11:15-16).

Unfortunately, for various reasons, some people who are baptised in water do not receive the Holy Spirit at that time. In the case of Philip at Samaria the reason was that the believers had “only been baptised in Jesus name”. The word “only” suggests the baptism was incomplete. To remedy the situation, Peter and John came down and laid hands on the Samaritans to receive that Holy Spirit (Acts 8:14-17). However, this was not a normative situation. It was a remedy for a situation where baptism had not been done properly in the first place.

Most of my generation received the gift of the Holy Spirit well after they were baptised in water, because we did not know about the fullness of the Spirit when we were baptised. At a later date, when we knew more about his activity, we were prayed over to receive the Spirit. However that was remedying a problem with our initiation into the faith. Praying for baptism in the Spirit separate from baptism in water from was remedying this mistake.

We must be careful not to make a remedial practice normative. Receiving the fullness of the Spirit after coming out of the water is the norm, as per Jesus example.

Moreover, receiving the fullness of the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential for every follower of Jesus. If for some reason, the Holy Spirit has not come upon the person being baptised, the situation should be remedied by laying on hands and praying for the Spirit to come upon them (as Peter and John did at Samaria).

Teaching that there are two baptisms, one in water and a subsequent one in the Holy Spirit is dangerous, because it makes a problem that needs remedial action into the norm for everyone. It is better for baptism to be done in the way it happened for Jesus. But we must also correct any problems that arise, as quickly as possible.

Sinner's Prayer

Neither Jesus nor the apostles used anything like the sinner’s prayer.

Jesus announced that he had come from God and called people to follow him (serve and obey him), He challenged them to become his disciples (follower-learners).

Paul preached that Jesus is the Messiah/Rescuer and Lord/King (in charge of the world). He did not ask people to say a sinner’s prayer. He challenged them to give allegiance to Jesus, by being baptised and receiving the Holy Spirit.

• Baptism is a public declaration of allegiance to Jesus.
• Baptism is a sign to the spiritual powers of evil that you belong to Jesus and that they should stay away from the disciple.
• Baptism is the process by which we receive the Holy Spirit, to set us on the right track.

More at Baptism.

Resurrection is Good News

Reading through early chapters of the Acts of the Apostles, I havebeen struck that the apostles tended to preach the “resurrection of Jesus” rather than his crucifixion. Their good news was that Jesus had been raised.

God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him (Acts 2:24).

God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of it (Acts 2:38).

God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this (Acts 3:15).

Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead (Acts 4:10).

God exalted him to his own right hand as Prince and Saviour to give... forgiveness of sins (Acts 5:35).

This emphasis is quite different from modern evangelistic preaching, which tends to focus on the cross.

I think there are a couple of reasons for this difference.

• His resurrection confirmed that Jesus really is the Messiah/Christ. He is the only genuine deliverer.

• The resurrection confirmed the defeat of the spiritual powers of evil. When they organised the death of Jesus on the cross, they assumed that they had foiled God’s plans by destroying his son. The resurrection totally surprised them. When Jesus came back to life, their evil plans were defeated. Their power over humans was totally destroyed.

• Paul explained in his letter to the Romans that Jesus,

  “raised to life for our justification/being put right” (Rom 4:25).

  The cross and the resurrection achieve our salvation and restoration. The cross alone was not sufficient.

The resurrection of Jesus was the heart of the good news for the first gospel preachers.

I wonder if there is more emphasis on the cross and less on the resurrection, because modern evangelists are less confident in the truth of the resurrection?

Sin (4) Jesus' Message

After Jesus rose from the dead, he explained to his disciples the message that would be preached to the entire world.

Repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations (Luke 24:47).

To understand this message, we need to think a bit more about the Greek words used. We have already covered “amartia”.

Repent
The Greek word usually translated as “Repent” is metanoeo”. “Turn from sin” is a distorted and very narrow translation. The literal meaning of “metanoeo” (verb) and “metanoia” (noun) is to “change your mind, think differently, reconsider”. The modern English word repent does not really do it justice. It is not grovelling in tears before God, pleading for him to accept us.

“Metanoeo” is a much broader concept. It means a complete change of thinking, including getting a better knowledge of God, changing your attitude toward him, understanding how the spiritual powers of evil have deceived and enslaved you, and understanding how Jesus has defeated them and set them free. It includes regret for mistakes made in the past, but that is only a small part of what is encompassed by “metanoeo”.

Jesus explained the gospel clearly to Paul when he called him to ministry. “I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me” (Acts 26:17-18). This is much broader than just remorse for sins. It includes an understanding that we need to be rescued from the power of the spiritual powers of evil.

Aphesis
The Greek word usually translated “forgiveness” in Luke 24:47 means ‘freedom, liberty, deliverance’. It can also mean forgiveness or pardon, but that is an additional metaphorical meaning imposed on the word by religious people. The core meaning of the word is freedom from bondage or imprisonment. It comes from a verb meaning “send away”.

Once we understand that the human problem is being slaves of darkness trapped by the spiritual powers of evil, it becomes clear that our greatest need is to be set free. They would like us to think our problem is that God is antagonistic to us, but that is distortion of the truth. We need to be set free from the powers of evil far more than we need to be forgiven by God. Romans 3:25 explains that God had already “passed over sins previously committed” when he sent Jesus to die on the cross to pay the ransom demanded by the spiritual powers of evil.

In this context, it would make more sense to translate aphesis as freedom. We have missed the mark because we became slaves of the spiritual powers of evil. We need to be set free from their power so we can serve God in the way that he desires. “Aphesis amartia” could be translated as “forgiveness of sin”, but “freedom from missing the mark” is equally valid, but carries a very different meaning; one that makes more sense in the context of our being enslaved by the powers of evil.

A different, but valid, paraphrase of Luke 24:47 would be,

“Change your way of seeing the world to get deliverance from the consequence of missing the mark” will be preached in his name to all nations (Luke 24:47).

Ransom
Hebrews 9:22 is quoted frequently in this form.

Without shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness.

However, it could just as easily be translated as follows.

Without shedding of blood, there is no freedom.

If the spiritual powers of evil are demanding blood as a ransom to set us free from slavery, the latter translation makes more sense. Jesus supported this meaning when he said,

The Son of Man came to give his life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:45).

Jesus gave his life as a ransom payment. Who was he paying? Some theologians assume that Jesus paid the ransom to God, but that does not make sense. God would not stoop to demanding ransoms, like ISIS kidnappers.

However, the spiritual powers of evil would stoop to demanding a ransom. And they have the authority to do so because humans unwittingly placed themselves under their evil power.

Sin (3) Missing the Mark

The word most commonly used for sin in the New Testament is “armartia”, which means “missing the mark”. This is not deliberate disobedience. It is not choosing to do evil on purpose. It is failure to achieve an intended goal.

When an archer misses the mark, they are not deliberately trying to miss the target. The reverse is true. They are actually trying to hit the bull’s eye, but a crosswind, damage to the arrow, or a nervous twitch when it is being released, causes the arrow to miss. The important thing is that the archer was not trying to miss the target; they were trying hard to hit it.

So applying this to our personal lives, “missing the mark” is a failure to achieve the standard we are aspiring to achieve. We are trying to do what is right, but for some reason get it wrong. Like the archer, the reason that we miss the mark might be something beyond our control, like the sudden gust of wind that blows the arrow off target. Sometimes we fail to obey God because the spiritual powers of evil have buffeted us, and caused us to fall.

Part of Jesus' gospel was explaining to people that they were not free, but were trapped by the kingdom of darkness. In Jesus’ parable about a sower, some of the good seed is trampled on the roadside or snatched away by the birds. In the same way, humans have been trapped under the control of the spiritual powers of evil, which prevents them from following God even if they want to. Many humans miss the mark because they are attacked and controlled by spiritual evil, even if they wanted to serve God when they were young. Others reject him because they are put off by the hurts of people who claimed to be working for God.

Missing the mark is not deliberate rebellion against God. It is seeking to live in his way, but failing because the pressures were too great. It is considerably milder than extreme depravity.

Several other words used for sin in the New Testament also indicate weakness rather than deliberately choosing evil.

• parakouo is failure to listen to God.
• asbeno signifies weakness/feebleness.
• agnoeo refers to sin as springing from ignorance as well as the resulting blindness to spiritual truth.
• hettao views sin as a defeat.

A stronger word than missing the mark” is “parabaino”. It means to “go past, or “transgress”, but Jesus only used it for the Pharisees breaking the law.

Sin (2) Old Testament Law

For the Jewish people that Jesus walked amongst, the word amartia was failure to comply with God’s law. That is also quite different from the way that Christians talk about sin.

The Torah (God’s law) was not a standard of holiness, which the people of God needed to comply with to be holy. The law cannot be used as a holiness code, because it does not contain a complete list of all sins. Pride, patience, kindness, and gentleness are not really mentioned in the Torah; neither is presumption or gluttony. We should not be surprised at these omissions, because this is not the purpose of the Law.

God’s full standard of righteousness was not spelt out clearly until the Fruit of the Spirit were listed in the New Testament. The fruit describe God’s standard, but it seems that God knew that it would be impossible for humans prior to the cross and fullness of the Holy Spirit, so he did not bother setting them out systematically until after the Spirit had been poured out. The fruit are the outcome of a spirit-filled life, not a standard of righteousness that we must struggle to comply with.

Moses realised that the Torah was not given to define sin, but to provide a way for people to live in peace and harmony with each other. God gave the law revealed to Moses to provide a communal program that teaches people how to live together in a tightly populated land without too much discord.

The law was given when the children of Israel were about to move into a new land. While they were slaves, their taskmasters had controlled every aspect of their lives. Once they were freed from slavery and planted in a new land, they faced the challenge of living together without falling out with each other over trivial issues. God gave them the Torah to equip them for this task.

The Instructions for Economic Life cannot be fulfilled by an individual because they provide guidance for people to interact in various economic activities. They dealt with challenges that did not arise while they were slaves. These instructions are inter-personal, so they did not provide a standard for personal righteousness.

• The Laws for Society (judicial laws of Moses) are instructions to the entire nation about how to deal with crime. God gave the Israelites a system of law implemented by local judges to constrain crime in their new society, so it is only tangential to personal righteousness at best.

  The laws focused on preventing adultery, theft, slander and murder. These four sins are the ones that disrupt the relationships between the people living together in a community. If I am proud and arrogant, my neighbours may not like me, but they are not harmed. If I steal from other people, those I steal from do suffer. A good society needs protection from theft.

• The Tabernacle provided them with sacrifices to provide protection from spiritual attack by absolving people of their inevitable failure to fully obey God.

• Sexual immorality is one of the key ways that evil spirits get transferred to another person. The laws about sexual immorality and health were to provide people with spiritual protection in a world where the spiritual powers of evil were rampant and not yet defeated by the cross.

The law also provides guidance for marriage, instructions for defence and war, guidance for caring for the poor, and many other social and economic issues, but most of these are instructions to a community of people.

So when John the Baptist was challenging the people to turn from their “amartia”, he was not talking about personal sin, but the failure of God’s people to live in God’s way in the land he had given to them. Instead, they had copied the nations.

Even though they were ruled by the Romans, applying God’s laws for society and economic guidelines would have given them a peaceful and prosperous lifestyle. Their failure to implement the Torah deprived them of the economic and social blessings that God had promised to them. Instead, most people were one step away from poverty, and their lives were miserable.

Sin (1) Greek Word

The Greek word “amartia”, usually translated as “sin”, is an interesting word, because its meaning is quite different from what Christians often assume when they talk about sin.

Greek Culture
The Greek verb “amartano” that is used in the New Testament means “missing the mark”, or “to err”. It is most often associated with Greek tragedy, where the term was applied to Greek heroes. Each hero of a tragedy, who is in other respects a superior being, had an “amartia”, a tragic flaw, an inherent defect or shortcoming in their character that brought about their downfall. The hero’s suffering and its far-reaching reverberations are usually far out of proportion to his flaw.

Often the hero’s tragic deed is committed unwittingly, as when Oedipus unknowingly killed his father and married his own mother. If the deeds are committed knowingly, they are not usually committed by choice. Also, an apparent weakness is often only an excess of virtue, such as an extreme adherence to principle or zeal for perfection.

In Greek culture, amartia is a character flaw that causes a good person to take an action that brings them harm. It is often committed unwittingly or without free choice. Often the motivation is excessive zeal for perfection. This is not the way that Christians think about sin. I don’t know how much influence Greek culture had on Jesus and Paul, but this is the way that the Greek word amartia was used at the time when they were using the word.

Brian Zahnd - Future of the Church

Interesting comments about the future of the church by Brian Zahnd in an interview with Brad Jersak.

The church will eventually have little choice but to be counter-cultural. It will have to be. Christianity is at the heart of the culture wars going on in North America at the moment. It is not a war that the church is going to win. It is not a war that we should fight. I am not fighting for the idea of maintaining Christianity as a cultural hegemony and dominant force. I don't know how long the battle will rage, but I am pretty sure who will win, and it will be secularism.

Christianity should always look a bit odd to people who are not baptised. We make some outlandish claims. We say that the logos of God became assumed human flesh in the person of Jesus of Nazareth through a virgin. That he was crucified and rose again on the third day. These are outlandish claims.

The church will lose the wrong-headed culture war that many are waging right now. It will not win. The ramifications will be long-lasting.

I do not think there is as much difference between Western Europe and North America as we imagine. The culture wars and the existence of civil religion make Christianity look stronger than it actually is. The political situation is such that people who have never gone to church are calling themselves evangelicals. It is a political brand/identity that is papering over the lack.

Western Europe is secular, but I see deep historic Christian roots. They might be buried or forgotten, but they are there. You don't find that in North America.

The United States is an experiment in secular governance. That is what will be remembered about the United States in 500 years' time. The French Revolution took it further, but the first real attempt at secular governance is the United States. I am not against that. Let the world do what it does, the church is something different. It does not persuade by coercion. We persuade by love, witness, Spirit, reason, rhetoric, and, if need be, by martyrdom; but never by force.

Secularism is a philosophy that is relatively new in the whole human journey. That is the deep roots of the United States, and that is what will win out ultimately. We will get what Thomas Jefferson and his fellow deists actually wanted, and that was a rationalistic, very materialistic philosophy, where Christianity was tolerated, but no longer really prominent. Jefferson hoped for that, and I think he is going to win, in one sense.

The church will have to be content with being underground, a counter-cultural movement that serves the gospel. We are best when we are counter-cultural, not angry. As in the first 300 years of the church, let the world do what the world does, but we are going to be something other.

Let go of the idea that it is our job to change the world. That kind of language has been ubiquitous in evangelical circles, but it is not our task to change the world. Our task is to be the world already changed by Christ. Christ is the saviour of the world. If the world is going to be saved, it has to be Jesus that does it. When we try to do it, we always reach for the ring of power, and it always corrupts us.

Reading Revelation

I read the book of Revelation, like the Old Testament, through a three-agent lens.

John does not fully reveal it, but the book of Revelation is a spiritual battle, between the Holy Spirit with his holy angels and the spiritual powers of evil. The latter are working through political empires on earth. God does not approve some of the stuff that takes place, but it happens because humans gave the spiritual powers of evil authority to work on earth, and they have to be driven out and forced to surrender to their defeat by the cross.

So when the letters to the churches describe the consequences, they are explaining what the spiritual powers of evil will do if they are given an opportunity. The latter will take every opportunity to do harm to followers of Jesus who go the wrong way.

Likewise toward the end of Revelation, John is describing the final defeat of the spiritual powers of evil. They are nasty and vengeful, so they will turn against the political and economic entities they have used to do their dirty work on earth when they have no further use for them. They will delight in wrecking them, even though they brought them to power, and used them to accomplish their own purposes. It will be rather ugly, but their true character will be revealed. In contrast, the rider on the white horse has only one weapon, the word of God. He does not use a political sword to accomplish his purposes.

For the holy angels, the final battle is a tough one. If will feel to them at times like it is touch and go, although God knows he will be victorious, so they will rejoice greatly when the enemies of God are finally defeated. I think we can give them that privilege, because their celebration will focus on the greatness of Jesus.

More in Times and Seasons.

Political Power

Christians often argue about what is the best political system, but this is the wrong question. Political power is always the problem, even though it takes a while to emerge.

The question we should be asking is, “Why despite their total defeat by Jesus on the cross are the spiritual powers of evil still so powerful on earth?”

The answer is that they have been able to carve out a place of authority on earth by aligning with and controlling human political powers on earth. That is why Paul said our struggle is with principalities and powers. It is a key aspect of what John was explaining in the books of Revelation. It is why Jesus said his kingdom is not of this world.

So when Christians put their trust in human political power, they are actually empowering the spiritual powers of evil that control political power. I reject all forms of participation in political power, because I am unwilling to do anything that would perpetuate the spiritual powers of evil. My full hope is in the kingdom/government of God.

I have just posted an article explaining the problems with Civil Government on Substack.