Doing Time

What follows may be a little odd, coming from a person who is on a sabbatical from "intellectual Christianity", but I think it will stimulate your thinking. This follows closely in hand with a talk I gave to a group of men at a breakfast a few years ago. Since the subject matter was up to me, what I presented was a passion of mine: time and time travel. I know, a weird topic for a group of Christian men. I posted my talk (as a transcript) to my blog: "I Grasp It, But It Keeps Slippin' Outta My Hands!". Please take a moment to read that before continuing, or what follows may seem even more outrageous than it does on the surface. May I suggest skimming down until you reach the paragraph that starts with "Anyone who has gotten to know me knows that I am hooked on the concept of time and time travel", as the beginning is more of an introduction for the guys at the breakfast.

Okay. Ready to go on?

When I first embraced Christianity's Protestant flavor, one of the notable differences between it and the Catholic upbringing I had, was their view of the cross. If you have never seen one, a crucifix is a cross with Jesus on it. The Protestants embrace a cross with Jesus notably absent. The reason for the difference is that Catholics want to keep the crucifixion in front of their attention, whereas Protestants believe that, since Jesus is no longer on the cross, and has risen from the dead, the cross should be empty.

Which is right? In a sense, both.

As a quick overview, Christians believe that Jesus died on the cross to pay the penalty for their sins. The bible says that the penalty for sin is death (Romans 6:23). This "payment" is commonly known as the grace of God: you didn't earn it - you just accepted it - God did all the work. The alternative is paying the penalty yourself.

Here's the question: What does the bible mean by "death"?

If the answer is physical death, than once you physically die, you've made the payment and "bam!" you're in heaven with God. If that is true, Jesus dying on the cross was a complete waste of time - you can do that payment on your own!

If the answer is spiritual death, than once you sin, you've died spiritually (become separate from God), made the payment, and again, "bam!" you're with God. If that is true, Jesus dying on the cross was a complete waste of time as well. Since we all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23).

As a quick aside, the reason spiritual death is separation from God is that God is absolute holiness. It is not that God cannot be in the presence of sin, but sin cannot be in the presence of pure holiness. God's purity would "annihilate" the sinner. So, it is the love of God that keeps a sinner separate from Him. (Make sense?)

In the account of Adam and Eve, they were told in the day that they eat of the fruit (of the knowledge of good and evil) they would die. They ate, and didn't physically die. Actually, in pre-Jewish tradition, God slew an animal (shed the blood of an animal - killing it) and made tunics for them (Genesis 3:21). That "payment" was a temporary patch, if you will. In the Old Testament Laws, animals were sacrificed to pay for the sins of the people almost continuously. This was to cover the spiritual sin of the people temporarily, until he could send Jesus to make the payment once and for all on the cross.

So, if it is neither physical nor spiritual, what kind of death are we talking about?

Here is where I may seem a little cray-cray, and why I suggested you read "I Grasp It … "

The only kind of death that fits the penalty is "eternal separation from God". That's it. No other kind of death would fit the bill. Because of a person's sin, that person would be eternally separated from God - because like I said above, sin cannot be in the presence of a holy God.

So how did Jesus' hanging on the cross for a few hours, and dying there, pay the penalty of eternal separation? Let's look at three statements made by Jesus while on the cross:

"Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do." (Luke 23:34)
"… My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" (Matthew 27:46)
" … Father, into Your hands I commend My spirit …" (Luke 23:46)

Did you see what happened there? Jesus went from calling Him "Father", to "God", to "Father" again. The only time Jesus did not refer to God as "Father" was while on the cross. It was at that point that God "turned His head" and did not look upon Jesus, who had taken the sin of the world upon Himself (you can lookup the doctrine of the "scapegoat" on your own).

How long a time went between those statements is not known, but no matter how long, it does not add up to "eternal separation", since Jesus DID go back to calling God "Father" while still on the cross. So how DID He pay that price?

Remember at the beginning of this particular blog article, when I said that both the Catholics and the Protestants were correct in their view of the cross? They both ARE!

As I said in "I Grasp It … ", eternity is not defined as "time without end", but as "NO time". God lives outside of time. That is why He is without beginning or end (if He had beginning and end, he could not be God - as that would mean He is caused, and not cause-LESS).

In God's eyes, Jesus is "still" on the cross - separated from Him, and ALSO sitting on His right hand (Luke 22:69)

But J.P., the bible says that without the shedding of BLOOD there is no remission of sins (Hebrews 9:22). I'm sorry, you are so right. As a matter of fact, I cut myself shaving this morning - therefore I shed blood and paid for my sins. Of course not! The shedding of blood is another way of saying DEATH.

So, the Catholic crucifix is right, because for God, Jesus is eternally separated from Him on the cross (in eternity - get it?), and the Protestant "empty" cross is right, because Jesus is no longer there.

I guess this makes me either a Catholestant, or a Protatholic. And now, back to my sabbatical.

("Doing Time" is the title of a song by Bad Religion, from the album "How Could Hell Be Any Worse?" - catch the irony?)

© Emittravel 2015

Walkin' the Line

Years ago, a minister named Kenneth Hagin made a comment that the Christian church goes to such extremes that it finds itself in either one ditch or the other, never seeming to stay in the middle of the road very long. Even though he was the leading voice of the Name-it-claim-it faith movement (clearly nestled in one of the ditches), I have to say that he was on to something there.

Extremes. That seems to sum up us humans pretty well. We go all in on the things that we are drawn to. Some are simply more culturally acceptable than others. For instance, thanks to recent Marvel movies, being a comic book geek is not such a weird thing anymore. Those people have moved out of their parents' basements and now are filling convention centers to beyond capacity. Are they extremists? In a sense, yes. But they are acceptable extremists.

As a person on a sabbatical from "intellectual Christianity", I find myself reflecting on what brought me to where I am. I also find I'm hypersensitive to the extremes. Maybe it's my fear of finding myself in one of the ditches again.

I used to be in one ditch as a youth. I was, what I considered, a devout Catholic. I was an altar boy. I read my father's prayer book (including the Latin - which was indecipherable to me) over and over. As I grew older, I joined the music team at the church - making up tenor harmonies as a 14-year old in a then-contemporary guitar group. Even after becoming a born-again Christian (which could be considered an extreme by some), I still attended the Catholic church for awhile.

As I mentioned above, I was what I considered a devout Catholic. Recently, my wife and I had an experience with a REALLY devout Catholic that ended up spawning this particular post.

Since I started this sabbatical, my wife has chosen to go to a local Catholic church. In their bulletin was a blurb asking for donations of gently-used Catholic items. There is a Catholic book/gift store that was accepting these donations. My wife had some that travelled from her condo to our house that never really got out of the boxes. We gathered them up and went to drop them off. There we met a lady on staff who believed every person who walked in was straight from the Vatican in their devotion to Catholicism. We certainly didn't fit the description, but she didn't know that. She talked about Saint This and Sister So-and-So, and showed us books from authors I've never heard of. They might as well have been bloggers! (Oh, wait.)

As we were trying to leave, she kept bringing up more and more things that might interest. The last was to point out the state banner of Mary (apparently, every state has one for their individual state). If we wanted to, we were encouraged to bring in our rosaries so that we could touch them to the banner and receive a special blessing.

It was a bit muddy in that ditch.

On the Protestant side, as I've made known in previous blogs, we have the worship of the bible. Just because you put the word "Holy" on the cover, does not automatically make it an object of worship. I believe that the bible CONTAINS the word of God, but it is NOT the word of God. There are many things in there that are clearly historical in nature, and statements made by the writers that tell you what you are reading is their opinion and not that of the Lord. (For example, the tradition of dedicating children instead of baptizing them is based on something Paul said, and not the Lord - 1 Corinthians 7:12-14 NKJV)

There is a passage in the epistles (2 Timothy) that says all scripture is given by inspiration of God. This is one of those passages that I hear quoted to prove that the whole bible is inspired of God, and therefore worthy of the title of "Holy". I like to point out that when Paul wrote that letter to Timothy, he was not referring to the letter he was writing as scripture! That's a lot of hutzpah! In actuality, whenever "scripture" is referenced in the New Testament, what is referred to is the OLD Testament. That was all they had! They had no idea that what they were writing was going to be compiled into a book.

So, on one side you have the worship of the bible - that everything in it is pure, inerrant, and holy, and on the other you have touching rosaries to pictures of Mary to get blessings - which is found NOWHERE in the bible.

Extremism is found on both sides of the aisle, for sure. It's easy to go from one side to the other. If man says it, most likely it has an agenda and is full of error. Think of the extreme sides when it comes to climate change, evolution, religious beliefs, politics, and whether or not coffee (chocolate, or eggs) is good for you.

So in closing, consider taking a spiritual Breathalyzer, try to walk the line, and stay out of the ditches!

(The title is inspired from Johnny Cash's "I Walk the Line" - "I keep a close watch on this heart of mine. I keep my eyes wide open all the time. … I walk the line.")

© Emittravel 2014