The Choo Choo Index

I was watching CNBC while I ate lunch, and saw something that gave me a boost. Years ago, I moved within half a mile of a double, double RR crossing. Every train that crosses both crossings in either direction blows its horn 4 times for each crossing. Suffice it to say, I have an ear on the economy. I can gauge how well we're doing economically, just by what my ears tell me.

Now, I've never been afraid to spill my "secret" economic tell to friends in casual conversation, but that news report told me bona fide economists pay attention to similar things, albeit a bit more scientifically and accurately. They watch the number of truck drivers actually working on the road and the number of vehicle miles travelled to gauge how the economy is doing. BTW, it's quiet around here, and the economy is not doing well!

The long and short of all this: from now on, I won't be so quick to doubt my perception of how the economy is going. I might not be able to count on the Bureau of Economic Analysis to give me the straight poop, but I have an ace in the hole in the infallible Choo Choo Index!

Two Seeds in Human Nature

There are two seeds planted deep in the earth of human nature. One of them is most definitely God's fault, the other is only indirectly so. These two seeds lay dormant within us until effected by the stimulus that stirs them to life by God's design and as described in Paul's letter to the Romans. What are these seeds? One is sin and the other is faith.

Sin, as I've described it before, manifests itself so early in any of us, we don't recollect the when or the how of its initiation. We may start life with sin as a latency rather than an actuality, but we are born in it and to it, we imbibe it. It's as natural as breathing to us, not even noticeable to us! We all act sinfully long before the seed of sin is even discovered by it's budding within us. Nonetheless, it takes a stimulus to enliven that sinful seed--a catalyst acting upon the latency, awakening tendril and root and establishing it's vice like grip upon our souls.

Paul said that instigating agent was the commandment of God. What Adam and Eve could only pattern because they were not sinners from birth, we all are by our very nature. A singular command was sufficient to reveal their inability to handle all that God had given them: we have more commands but lack their pristine goodness. When we are exposed to the law, sin awakens, rises, and wrestles us into submission. No matter how hard our minds may try to exert the upper hand, the seed hidden in us wins the day and declares its hegemony over us.

Thankfully, there is another seed in us--the seed of faith. Everyone is given a measure by God, at least that's how I see it. That seed may be only a small, insignificant trifle, but it is sufficient to raise the dead to life and launch mountains like ICBMs. This seed requires a catalyst as well to produce its desired effect. Paul tells us that catalyst is the word of God.

Now some could envision that merely as a communication of biblical material, but I think it goes farther than that. I believe God has to be there, in the word, speaking ethereally that which may be coming palpably through the language of man.  In otherwords, it's the Word of God carried by the Breath of God: alive, active, compelling, convicting. When that Word comes that close, the ears of the heart are tickled to life, and the seed of faith can awaken.

God's Forensic Responsibility for Sin

It is easy to get into a circular argument when it comes to the responsibility for mankind's sin. Blaming it on the Devil doesn't cut it in my estimation, it only temporarily deflects the issue. Since the Devil did not fashion himself, nor his parameters of action, how can he be seen as the ultimate cause? Blaming it on the sinner is certainly more justified, but not without it's own philosophical problems. Whether one says (as would a Calvinist) that it was predetermined by an omnipotent God; or one says (as would an Arminian) that it was foreknown by omniscient God and allowed in his omnipotence, all paths lead back to God, the singular, and great initiator!

God, it seems to me, acts like he is responsible for sin. When one is omnipotent and omniscient there is just no avoiding the responsibility for what ensues from what he starts. It is similar to the responsibility that a parent shoulders when his or her rambunctious child throws the baseball the folks gave him for his birthday through the neighbor's window. The parent may not be the author of the act, but bears the responsibility for the potentiality of it just by giving the kid the ball--or even just for being called, "Mom," or "Dad." What any decent, reasonable parent does at that juncture is take responsibility by either paying for the damage outright, or negotiating a settlement the offended neighbor feels is justified.

God acts something like that responsible parent. He gave mankind God-like capacities, he endowed them with freedom of will, he certainly was not surprised by their failures. Though there is ample evidence that in the early church many thought the Devil was the "abused" neighbor, I don't think inspired scripture bears that out. They do, however, paint clearly the picture of God taking upon himself the rectification of the situation caused by his erring children. God is not the author of sin, that tag has to remain with us; but I, for one, am thankful he stood up and took the forensic responsibility for it.

Freewill and the Nature of God

When Adam and Eve were created in the garden, they were specially made by God. They alone are said to be formed by his action rather than his word, and alone were "in-spirited" by his breath. He got his hands dirty making man and preparing a place for them--for everything else mere words were sufficient. Only they were made in the image of God and became living souls. When God was finished creating them, his response elevated from the merely good to the very good.

It seems obvious to me, that God was creating companions for himself in Adam and Eve--folk who could relate to him on his level. Lest you think I'm wandering off into Mormonism, go to the source (Jesus) and see his actual vision for redeemed mankind. God may have built a park for us to live in, but he wasn't opening a zoo. He was building a pleasant place to fellowship with people.

So to understand the nature of man one must look to the nature of God. I think it impossible to view God as shackled, bound, conscripted in any way. He's nobody's puppet! He is the picture of freedom and freedom of will. This is the image in which he's built mankind. He called it good. God's desire as reflected in pristine creation, pronounced good by him who would know, is mankind not coerced, or oppressed, or forced to do, or to act, or to think in any certain way. God's not like that and he did not build man to be like that.

In the best condition that humans could be in God allowed them have free reign. It was what separated them from all else and made them true companions to God. They had to have such freedom, or they wouldn't be God-like, and could not fellowship with God at the level he wanted. However, being God, in all his perfections, they also could not hope to exert will in opposition to God. That is untenable, unsustainable and, well, just plain evil. Nonetheless, even at the best they would ever be, God did not coerce or make his will irresistable to them. Why would anyone expect him to change his mind now?

Reasonable Advice for Dealing With the Unreasonable

Some sage advice from Jeff Leake. Have you ever been stumped, flumoxed and left scratching your head from dealing with someone who's just plain unreasonable? Would Pastor Leake's counsel have helped you?

Vicarious Not Cumulative Atonement

I suppose it is possible to look upon the passion of Christ--it's beatings, whipping, stabbings, humilitations, crucifixion, rejection by God, and death--in pity and say, "that was awful," while simultaneously doubting whether it was really tantamount to all the punishment for all the sin that has ever been and will ever be committed. Really, people have been treated to far worse fates before and since, and their deaths are not looked upon with any wonder. The reasoning in such an approach seems to calculate that what occured was not sufficient to bear the cumulative weight of sin. There was not enough blood shed, nor enough anguish experienced, and only one death incurred, and that accounts for every sin ever sinned?

The problem in such logic, as I see it, is that the atonement of Christ was not suffered cumulatively, but vicariously, prototypically. For Christ's passion to be effective vicariously for any individual whatsoever, it would only have to be sufficient for the very worst individual that ever lived. Adam and Eve were prototypically the best that mankind would ever be, Christ on the cross had to be prototypically the worst that mankind could ever be. So the cross does not have to "mathematically" reflect the sum total of all punishment against sin, it merely has to be sufficient to encompass the very worst individual any individual could be.

Really, we're not all that different from one another. Our conceptions of degrees of sin and punishment are a bit stilted as I see it. Does being Hitler or Stalin and missing out on God differ substantially from being grumpy Uncle Charley who refused to believe in Christ and missed out on God too? The Lake of Fire may have warmer eddies in one spot than another, but how much does it matter when one is swimming in fire and drinking flames? If there are gold medals awarded in the race to hell, they can only be made of fool's gold.

What the atonement had to be in order to be for all, was sufficient for any sinner to gaze upon it with faith and say, "that was me." We aren't saved in groups but as individuals, the atonement of Christ was masterfully fashioned by God to work perfectly in that regard. It does so because it functions vicariously, not cumulatively and any sinner that ever lived can see sufficiency in the cross for himself or herself.

The Ultimate Mind Game

I found this very interesting, and thought you might as well. Did you?

The Awfulness of Life Reflects the Awfulness of Hell

I was taken to task by a commenter a little while ago about my assertions concerning hell and its purpose. Hell is an unpleasant and an unpopular topic--as difficult to talk about as it is to hear about. Perhaps as a result, there is not enough cold-blooded, biblically-accurate, analytical teaching on the subject. It requires a certain bluntness and fearlessness if one is to deal with it sufficiently and effectively. I've given it a shot before on this blog, but I think I need to visit it again.

The Apostle Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, said that creation can reveal quite a bit about the person of God, particularly in regard to his power and the unchanging attributes of his divine nature. When I look at creation, even though I see exquisite natural beauty, I also see overwhelming ugliness. I see people die agonizing, untimely deaths; I see a tooth and claw natural realm which fights the living staying alive at every turn. If storms and quakes don't swallow the living whole, there's always sharks in the ocean (or on Wall Street) who'll get the job done. It's rough out there!

It's not at all unusual to find people who think life is unfortunate and unjust, and who associate those characteristics with the God behind it all. For some Christians, the most immediate response to such thoughts is that there is someone other than God working such mischief. Really, what does that solve? God is the creator of that mischief-maker too, so he's still on the hook for the way things are. The truth is that there's no avoiding responsibility for what is when one is omnipotent!

Folk treading water in the swamp that is life may think that things are terrible and unfair, and blast the Creator for making it so, but from God's perspective life is anything but. The God who sees all, knows all, and is everywhere would be doing himself and all he has made a disservice to allow what he knows is not right to exist. That may seem to necessitate the instant annihilation of anything that steps out of harmony with God, but that would miss God's ultimate, and ultimately righteous, redemptive purposes in creation. Instead, God has ordained that fallen creation take a slow spiral down to a crash and burn, which is the milieu of all that lives in the here and now, and then after the crash will come the appointed judgment.

Would it be better for everything here in life to be hunky-dory, totally blind to God's perspective on sin and the sinners of this world, only to have them surprised by the furies of hell afterwards? If life was pleasant, just, and right, we would never give God a second thought. We would never consider our death and suffering and its meaning and never know we were at odds with an eternal, ominscient God who can't pretend nor just forget. We'd live idyllically to a ripe, old age and die, and then, pow, be hit in the kisser with everlasting fires of eternal punishment.

We may find this life of suffering and death frustrating and unfair, but if life was going to continue for some measured time after the introduction of sin, it was actually good of God to give us at least a sensored preview of hell. The awfulness of life is a prophylactic demonstration of the utter awfulness of hell. Life is not meant to demonstrate that all is well in the world and that God is in his heaven, but that God is at odds with sinful humanity and his fury over it is white-hot. 

The only question that matters is whether or not the trailer has gotten your attention enough to take steps to avoid it?

How Does the Atonement Work for Me?

The human condition is bondage: bondage to sinfulness, subjection to the evil one, and sentenced to death. Mankind has not been sold into this condition so much as, in Adam and Eve, mankind has chosen it. The Apostle Paul tells us we are slaves to whomever we yield ourselves, whether to God or to sin. So our bondage is not something imposed upon us by third parties in an enterprise we had no part in, even though it may be hard to see what part we had in the actions of Adam and Eve. Yet, they were pristine at the time of their ultimate test, not subject to any kind of decay, and as absolutely good as the model could get. I think they were more than capable of representing all the rest of us-- I'm positive I would have done no better than they did; in fact, I'm sure I would have done what they did if not worse.

So mankind, as a species, fell into sin, became subject to death, and bound in soul. To redeem this circumstance, both sin (and with it death) and the bondage of the soul have to be undone. The atonement of Christ is God's solution to this dilemma. Throughout church history there has been some confusion about how Christ's atonement actually functions: some have seen it primarily as a penal satisfaction, others the payment of a ransom, still others as a typical example or an illustration. The earliest nonbiblical testimony seems to favor the ransom theory; the Bible itself, I think, casts the efficacy of the atonement in the light of penal substitution. The debate is silly, really, for the atonement actually entails and accomplishes all of these functions.

Although the notion of ransom is well attested in the OT, and spoken of very directly in the NT, I see the penal substitution aspect of the atonement as more vital than any other aspect. If I'm standing in fellowship with the saints before God, but have no clear, final disposition of my past sin; even amongst the throng before the throne, individual doubt would arise within me, and guilt with it. Reflexively my eyes would turn from him who sits on the throne. So redemption apart from penal substitution won't produce what the gospel invites us to-- guiltless, intimate, barrierless fellowship and interaction with the Holy God.

In my mind, the idea of group redemption does no more to salve the individual conscience than the concept of inherited sin does to convict the individual conscience. How can a person truly own either one? Even the sacrificial system of the OT, which pointed to Christ, shows that both communal and individual sacrifice was necessary to alleviate guilt and provide restoration with God. So, though Christ was prototypical in the way that Adam and Eve were, and what he did on the cross delivered a kingdom, it is still its application to the individual that makes the difference. It is the individual who must so identify through faith with Christ's death and resurrection that he or she sees themselves upon the cross, in the tomb, and coming out to new life in Christ.

That is the message of Romans 6. The atonement works for the individual through uniting by faith with Christ in his vacarious sacrifice. The word translated united really carries the meaning of entwined. The atonement works for the individual when he or she sees not Christ on the cross, or buried, or walking alive out of the tomb, but his or herself! Jesus gave himself as the vessel that can be any of us vicariously, that's how the atonement gets out of the realm of theories and does its practical good for me. 

For that, I say, "Thank you Jesus!"