CHAPTER 9: IN THE GARDEN OF GETHSEMANEJESUS: FULLY GOD AND FULLY MANWell, dear reader, at this point God has the human race able to receive the antidote for sin. God has prepared the Jewish people, they have a social order. They have a government, they have a history. They have a religious life in which to begin to comprehend God's proclamations. They have the law, the guide post to understanding of how God wants us all to live on this earth. You could say that God now has all of the different ingredients for the antidote for sin to be placed within the world. And He does that, of course, through Jesus. Now the mystery of the incarnation is a truly deep and profound one which has occupied the hearts and minds of Christians throughout the centuries. Who exactly was Jesus and what was he doing? And the different answers that have come up through the years go all the way from God in the flesh, (who from the day he was born, knew that he could whirl galaxies) all the way to on the other extreme, just a man who was never anything more than a man, but who had placed upon him the mythology of Godhood by overly eager disciples. It will be important, in one form or another, for each Christian to decide for him and her self, who Jesus was and what he means to them. When he was a four year old child walking around, did he know that he was the infinite, limitless creator of the universe? Did he know that he could unthink all manifest reality simply by blinking his eyes? Could he, as the Apocrypha says, raise little animals from the dead when he was a baby? Was he in any sense divine at all? Or was he just some guy, hardly even a prophet, walking through the deserts of Galilee, teaching, giving little tidbits of wisdom to whomever would be interested in listening? Was he something in between? I will give you my answer, based upon the Biblical record. Jesus was completely God and completely man. But, no, he was not aware of that from the day he was born. In as much as he was a human being he had to go through a process of learning, growth and maturity as we all do. The notion that this little three year old boy walking around knows that he is God, I find simply to be silly and without any value whatsoever. Over the course of his life Jesus enters into a deeper and deeper understanding of who and what he really is. But there is always a tension here. A tension between the godly side of him and the human side. The tension revolves between Jesus recognizing his special unique relationship with God, and portraying to all of his disciples and fellow believers the fact that there is no difference between he and the father. For example Jesus says very clearly, "I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through me. Before Abraham was I am." These are very bold, very powerful, very provocative statements for a Jewish rabbi to make. At the same time while those statements indicate a special unique relationship between Jesus and God, he also goes out of his way to talk to his disciples in such a way that they know that they are brothers and sisters. Luke 6:40, for example says, "A pupil is not above his teacher but everyone after he has been fully trained will be like his teacher." That is truly astounding! And it is a verse which most of Christianity seeks to ignore. Jesus is indicating that we are ultimately going to be like he is. We will learn, we will grow, we will finally become fully instructed, our minds will be opened, which is what instruction is all about. And we will be like him. In the Gospel of John 20:17, Jesus says to Mary, "Stop clinging to me for I have not yet ascended to the father. But go to my brothers and say to them, 'I ascend to my father and your father, and my God and your God.' That could not possibly be any clearer. Here Jesus is indicating that all barriers between himself and his brothers are gone. That the relationship he has with God is the same relationship which the disciples have with God. Jesus, God in the flesh, ascended to his God. Jesus the only son of God, told his brothers that he was ascending to their father. When one puts all of the Biblical accounts together, I believe you are inexorably pushed to the following conclusions:
This is a key point, which is reiterated constantly in different ways
and different manners throughout the Bible. The very name Christian means to be like
Christ, Christlike. And we will see other verses that show how intimate that relationship
is to be. JESUS AS SUBJECT OR OBJECT?We have within Christianity, and in fact within all religions, a tension between Jesus as religious subject and religious object. In the early days of his life, as he walked and talked and ministered, Jesus was a subject. He was a fellow traveler, he was a brother, he was a teacher. And his words were to be listened to. His teaching was to be followed. We were to learn from him, walk with him, be one with him. If you read through the sermon on the mount, Jesus says, for example in Matthew 7, "Not everyone who says to me Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my father who is in heaven." We see here the dynamic tension between Jesus as subject and object. Jesus is in the Bible a subject to be listened to, learned from and followed. Over the course of history, Christians have tended to spend less and less and less time on this, and more and more time venerating Jesus as an object to be worshipped. This comes in many forms. We sing songs and recite our creeds, and place him up on the pedestal that he is the son of God, and we are not. He is perfect and we are not. He is wonderful and we are not. This is, in a certain sense, a valuable tool, but only if it's purpose is to elevate ourselves. Let me explain. If we are worshipping Jesus as the son of God, that is wonderful if it is done with a heart that recognizes that we, too, can be as he is. Then we are actually recognizing and venerating the highest calling of God upon our hearts. If, however, we are worshipping Jesus for purposes of self depreciation, then the worship of Jesus actually becomes a negative influence in our lives. This is so often the case. We ignore the statements about "my father and your father, my God and your God," and we only pay attention to those statements which will place Jesus up on the pedestal. As a result, we do not follow the true calling. We do not walk the pathway that Jesus walked. We only worship him as being the great God. The subject/object tension becomes very crucial as we return to our central thesis. The salvation of mankind is seen by most, by the common understanding of the Gospel, as something that we have to believe in. That Jesus did something we have to worship, that we have to be thankful for and acknowledge. The common understanding of the Gospel has placed Jesus into the realm of religious object, for veneration and devotion. It has failed to make him a religious subject to be followed. The proper understanding of the Gospel returns to Christianity's roots, and attempts to follow the pathway that Jesus laid out. Now, specifically, what we are talking about here is the antidote for sin. Adam and Eve have been cast from the Garden. The fruit of the knowledge of good and evil has poisoned them and they are dying. God then sends Jesus, part God, part man, fully God, fully man. According to the common understanding of the Gospel what happened?
Through the hands of evil people, Jesus was put upon the cross to be a propitiation for
God's wrath. A propitiation for our sin. This works it's way into our translations of the
Bible. For example, Romans 3:23, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
Being justified as a gift by his grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus,
whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in his blood through faith." METHODS OF ATONEMENTAt this point we must discuss methods of atonement. Let's say that I have done something wrong, I have stolen your watch. It is a lovely watch, it is a good watch, and I have stolen it from you. That is the sin, that is the crime, that is the problem. There are different ways that you can deal with this problem, all of them fall under the classification of atonement. Atonement Type 1: Ignore It. You can simply ignore the problem. For some people this is a form of forgiveness. You say that the watch doesn't matter, you do not care, and you will forgive me for having stolen your watch. The problem with this is, if the watch represents something essential, like the soul of man, then to simply forget about it is not going to be sufficient. Adam and Eve partook from the Tree and the poison is going to kill them. God cannot simply forget about it, or else Adam and Eve will partake from that Tree of everlasting life and their suffering will be immortal. Atonement Type 2: Retribution. You can pass along my sin to someone else. You can have some form of retribution. Retribution is from the words "re-distribution." You take my sin of stealing your watch and you go out and you steal someone else's watch. This obviously does not fix the fundamental problem, it simply passes it along. Atonement Type 3: Vengence. Vengeance it where you go after me and either hit me, kill me, find something of mine to steal. You take vengeance upon me. This is also known as revenge. Atonement Type 4: Propitiation. When we propitiate your pain, you come to me and say, "You stole my watch and I'm very mad." And I say, "How about if I buy you dinner?" I take you to dinner, you get all fat and happy, you forget about the watch and everything is fine. There is only one problem with propitiation: you still do not have a watch! You still have not taken care of the fundamental problem. So as it comes to the fall of man, if we are not going to forget about it, if we are not going to pass it along to someone else, if we are not going to seek revenge, and propitiation is insufficient, what is left? Atonement Type 5: Expiation. To epiate means to expire, to put out. When I expiate my sin of stealing your watch, I actually give you a watch back! I either buy you a new one, or, if I still have it, I get you the original one. Through this method and only this method is the original problem fixed! So these words which most people have never even heard, propitiation and expiation, happen to be absolutely crucial in the proper understanding of God's redemption. Now the translators of the New American Standard Bible, among others, talk about what God did through Jesus as a propitiation. This is at least consistent with the common understanding of the Gospel, that God poured out his wrath upon Jesus. According to the CUG, what was the problem in the Garden of Eden? Adam and Eve sinned, this angered God, and He had to vent His wrath somewhere. He could not vent His wrath on Adam and Eve because they would be evaporated. So He had to find somewhere else to vent His wrath. He had to find someone who was able to handle His divine punishment. This is CUG #15. God needed a sacrifice to atone for humanity's sin, a way to vent His righteous wrath in a way that would not punish all of humanity forever. So what He did was pour out His wrath upon Jesus. Perfect God and perfect man, God allowed His wrath over Adam and Eve's sin to be propitiated. He put all of His pain and all of his anger upon Jesus, watched him twitch, watched him bleed, watched him suffer, watched him die. Once this happened God said, "Well o.k., I've been propitiated. You bought me dinner and I'm going to forget about the watch. I watched Jesus die, I watched him suffer and bleed. I've gotten my divine wrath and my need for punishment, retribution and vengeance out of the way. I got it out of my system." Perhaps you might want to read that paragraph again, ladies and gentlemen, because as abhorrent and disgusting as it is, that is exactly how the vast majority of Christians think about Jesus and God! Notice, then, that since this a propitiation, Adam and Eve's sin is still present. It hasn't changed at all. They are still caught in their sin, they still are the same they were before. Nothing has been fixed. The watch has been stolen, nothing is right. The only thing that has happened is that this vindictive, silly, disgusting, so-called God has vented his anger and is no longer going to hold the human race's sin against us! Sick, yes? This is absolutely, positively not right! This understanding comes from the very fallen nature that we received in the Garden of Eden. This way of thinking about God and Jesus and salvation is nothing more than a further manifestation of sin. It could not possibly be more wrong. What, then is right? What is the truth? If the real problem with Adam and Eve was not their disobedience but actually the poison which the Tree gave them, and if God was not seeking to have revenge or propitiate His wrath, if He was actually attempting to expiate the problem, then we find our entire view of Christ's passion to be changed. |
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