Who Did Jesus Die For?

As in almost anything that observers look upon, one observer can see a thing from a different angle or direction than can another. The two may describe a thing in terms virtually opposite of each other, and yet both be correct, and I would add, objective. Only a view that captures more angles, including those observers', would be more accurate. This is certainly true about our title question.

Calvinists assert that Jesus died only for those that were unconditionally selected to be saved. To say that there is even a hint of truth in such a perspective seems to fly in the face of the scriptures which universally assert that Christ died for everyone. Not everyone gets saved, however, which leads one to question in what way did he actually die for all when only some are benefited. Certainly, there is no doubt that he died for those who are benefited.

From one perspective, looking at efficacy, there is no argument--Jesus death was for some and not for others. From eternity looking back on time, such an assessment would seem to meet the facts as they will be: the repercussions of his death and resurrection will affect some, but not others. To look at that reality from that perspective and say Jesus died for the benefited is a spin that one could technically make and be accurate as far as it goes.

The problem with this view arises when the horizon on the subject is stretched to include intent. Since intent in this regard involves the counsels of God, humans can only know what God tells us about his intent. We cannot figure out the mind of God in this regard, nor infer what our reason tells us he must have been thinking. That is error prone when done between humans, it is idolatry when done concerning God.

God has spoken concerning his intent in offering Christ as the atoning sacrifice for humanity's sin, and has done so conclusively. Christ died as a bonafide sacrifice for all. Whosoever will may lay their sin stained hand upon the head of the scapegoat and tap into its benefits. That anyone who does so requires the intervention of God to do so does not mitigate or limit the expansive intent of the offer, anymore than does the outcome. Jesus is the savior of all men, but especially for those who believe and are benefited.

Overcoming Depravity

Depravity robs the human being of any capacity for any impetus toward God, but does not incapacitate the human being from any response to God. A thoroughly depraved person can respond to the touch of God, the appearance of God, or the unseen spiritual influence of God without having to be re-plumbed or regenerated in order to do so. All that is required is for God to express himself sufficiently to that depraved person so as to stir that person's empty spirit.

Because of the autonomy of humans (an aspect of the image of God, marred though it is in them), whatever interaction the Spirit may bring to him or her is not guaranteed to overcome that human's depravity. If Adam and Eve could go their own way in Eden, then a depraved person under the influence of the Holy Spirit can do so as well (in fact, they're much more likely to). There is nothing irresistible about grace, anymore than there is anything not resistible about any instance of sin. That freedom of will is intended by God is readily evident in mankind being made in his image.

Ultimately, life as God would have it lived will require a complete rebuild. The combination of soul, spirit and body we have been born with since Adam and Eve is not capable of experiencing life as God would have it. Meanwhile, in the here and now, sufficient grace can be brought to bear upon our condition to at least enable reconciliation to and relationship with God. As any of us are naturally, we can be encountered by God and respond to him with faith; we can then even be regenerated and reborn in spirit despite our dying bodies; and therein do we overcome our natural depravity.

Death and Depravity

Depravity and death are cut from the same cloth. When Adam and Eve sinned, the sentence pronounced upon them was death at the time of consummation. The flavor of God's proscription on the act was clearly that the death sentence would be carried out virtually immediately. However, Adam and Eve went on to live long natural lives before that ultimate reality finally caught up with them--or did they?

When we contract an illness, say rabies or bubonic plague, we do not die at the moment of infection. We go on for some time, not even necessarily feeling ill, before the disease runs its course and we stop running ours. Yet, we were diseased from the moment we were infected, and the writing was on the wall. For the human race, death did strike at the moment our primogenitors bit the apple, but it's first evidence was not cessation of natural life, but the emptiness of depravity.

Adam and Eve's physical life and physical capacities continued when they were struck spiritually dead, howbeit diminished and diminishing. Even their soulish capacities continued, though darkly, without the breath of God enlightening them. Death, in its immediacy, was in terms of separation rather than respiration. That is still the most fundamental quality of human depravity for all who were born of Adam and Eve into their condition--body alive but dying, spirit empty and uninspired.

One cannot take a bath if the tub is unplugged, and the soul has no good nor desire for it when God's Spirit is sucked out. Take God out of the image of God and the result won't look like God. This is what depravity is--God missing from the human soul. Will is still there, desire is still there, creativity too, but everything is twisted, off target because God is gone.

Left to our own devices, humans cannot and do not produce godliness. We have soulish capacities one would think capable of producing such, but apart from God our souls are unable. Ultimately, humans need to be rebuilt and re-inspired if they are to live as God intends. That doesn't mean, however, that we are incapable of being influenced by God as we are should he desire to come near. 

The Emptiness of Depravity

I believe the scriptures teach the total depravity of natural man (see this, this, and this, e.g.). Human beings, left to their own devices, would not seek after God nor do good. It's not that efforts along that line cannot be nor are not made by humans; it is that those efforts can only end up being idolatrous on the one hand, or productive of a "righteousness" that at best is merely self-congratulatory on the other. If man is to know God or God's way, it will take God revealing it rather than mankind discovering or enacting it--God alone is good.

Which brings us to the practical core of depravity. Depravity is not defined so much by what is in us as it is by what is lacking. Depravity is emptiness, a lack of something necessary if one were to be other than depraved. When Adam and Eve sinned and they (and the offspring "in their loins") fell into depravity, what they fell into was a separation from God. Sin broke their oneness with God--it de-Spirited us, if you will.

Under such a view, our inability exists not so much in an absolute incapacity, but in that God is not sharing himself with us. In the natural, we are still creatures with a spirit (capacity) even though we are without the inspiration of the Spirit (ability). Depravity is what comes out of us when God is not rubbing off on us, so to speak.  Such an inability is not so intrinsic to our nature that it would continue if God came near, any more than idle iron filings remain so if a magnet is passed near. There is no need to posit that a person would be unable to respond to God without first being reengineered. 

Finding the Right One

Helping folk find the "right one" is big business. Ads for dating and matchmaking services fill the web, TV, and the mails. It is not unusual to see such endeavors openly associate with Christianity or have departments that cater to the faith community. Love and marriage is not only important to us, but to God (and to pastors), so let me offer some advice for those seeking to find that special one to spend a life with.

THERE IS NEVER JUST ONE

As special as you may be, you're not that unique--you're not God. There is no such thing as the one: that is nothing more than a Hollywood fabrication meant to stir the flesh. If this one doesn't produce a love connection, then the next one could or the one after that. Out of 6.3 billion people in the world, I'd have to imagine that at least 100,000 would suit you just fine; that is if you're looking for a spouse, rather than a circus dog who can jump flawlessly through hoops.

         

Picky people end up lonely, get desperate, and then settle for less. Nobody's perfect so don't look for the perfect one for you. Even if someone could meet your standard, what's the likelihood you'd meet theirs? Though not just any one will do, remember that everyone has some annoying habits, and some philosophical disagreements with anyone else. So don't hold a standard that would exclude you if the other party approached this thing like you were or that only God would have a right to.

FIND SOMEONE WHO TRUSTS CHRIST

With rare exceptions, the choice of a mate is ours rather than God's, but we must exercise that freedom in line with Christ. If you and your potential mate do not agree on Christ, how will you be able to agree on a godly course through life? "Converting" in order to marry will not do, because folk will do almost anything to marry their love, even falsely acknowledging Christ. If you downplay or do not mention you allegiance to Christ, or accept a lame conversion by your mate in the selection of a spouse, you are out and out ashamed of Christ and that has no future at all!

FIND SOMEONE WITH A SERVANT'S HEART

Jesus, the mightiest, came to serve and he is the example we emulate. We should look for something of Jesus in our potential someones. Therefore, look for a person who endeavors to serve you; who does not consider it inconvenient to do so; who does not consider it a burden. If a potential mate doesn't want to serve you, plain and simple, he or she does not love you.

Don't be so afraid to not be in a relationship that you endure the boot heel of an unloving potential mate--that's mentally ill! Spouses are meant by God to be complementary companions, which means they help each other. Queens that wish to be pampered and kings that demand to be served are alike unfit for marriage, may they make themselves eunuchs or true widows for life! So be a servant, and look for a servant, if you desire marital bliss.

FIND SOMEONE WITH INTEGRITY IN THE SMALL THINGS

Someone who will cheat in little matters will cheat in the big ones too. That one will cheat on you (I certainly hope you see yourself as a big matter as a spouse)! So look for character, with integrity being the key issue. Don't look for a mate like a loaf of bread: just because it's soft to the touch, smells good, and doesn't look moldy, doesn't mean it must be wholesome.

The Bible never promotes romanticism in finding a mate, (even the Song of Solomon refers to love after marriage). God wants godly parents and godly children. If you want a mate, use your heart for sure, but also your Bible and your head! The lust of the flesh and eyes are no basis to find a suitable mate: no more than is mutual hedonism. Who you find, you give your life to, so pick the right one. Look for someone whose vision for God matches yours.

Some Thoughts on Time and Logic

Anything created has a definite beginning and a potential ending. It is in the nature of being created, it is necessary.  An ultimate creator has neither beginning nor ending, necessarily,  because that one is not created. If that one had either beginning or ending, that one would not be the ultimate creator. The attempt to mandate a created quality for the ultimate creator, such as a beginning and a potential end (as atheist sometimes do in saying "where did God come from?"), is to not understand the necessary qualities of the ultimate creator.

Beginning and ending are time ordinals which only have meaning within the stream of elapsing time. The words have no meaning apart from the reality of time. Therefore, time is not only a dimensional aspect of the created order because Einstein theorized it so and findings afterward verified that; but also because, philosophically, time ultimately is entailed within creation. Time is nothing more than something that passes sequentially between ultimate beginning and (potentially) ultimate ending.

Time is wed to created things: it's locked into initiations and progressions. Time cannot exist substantially where there is no beginning, what would it be? It cannot exist in the realm of the ultimate creator, in the place that is other than creation, or that place, that person, wouldn't be without a beginning. Some theologians have been saying for centuries that God is outside of time--they spoke well; for if time is an attribute or aspect of God, then God is subject to time as is any created thing, and his self-contained existence is undermined.

Logicians can have difficulty with such a concept because of the necessities of order in logic. Some thoughts have to occur before others in sequence. I think that situation is more a consequence of our thoughts and experiences being locked within the created order than it is of any ultimate truth in the realm of the ultimate creator. All that can be truly said, I think, is that logic works that way in our realm of elapsing time. Who among us can know the mind of God?

The Necessity of Spiritual Encounter

The pattern of scripture is not that men choose God but that men are encountered by God and a relationship ensues. Pelagic theologies frame man's capacity as something capable of initiating a relationship with God, but I think the scriptures are clear that man would never bother with God if God didn't intervene. It's not that we cannot come to an unaided conclusion that God exists or even comprehend his attributes, but in the gap between knowing about someone and knowing him personally, mankind can do none other than chiseling that data to our own liking (idolatry). God, the infinite and transcendent, is never subject to our powers of drawing him out.

Folk bent on discovering God, or knowing the Great Truth--Buddha, Lao-Tzu, or Plato for instance--do not find God the Creator, nor the Son who conquered death. They merely rearrange the particulars of projections of humanity and/or human reasoning. God as he is, God the only all-wise, the self-existent, the maker of heaven and earth, he who sees the end from the beginning, the one who talks, they do not find. Humans cannot find God, he must "find" them.

There is the scriptural command to seek God with one's whole heart with the promise of finding him as a result. However, just a modicum of thought will recognize that it was the word from God to seek and find that was itself the initiator of process in the first place. God "saying" something is how it always begins. God must show up in the places we can perceive (but not necessarily see) and poke us, shake us, call us or we remain apart. If one is ever to truly know God as he truly is, a spiritual encounter initiated by him is absolutely necessary.

Miracles Among the Masses: Faith

If authority isn't the telling issue in the manifesting of miracles, what is? To say, "faith," as if that alone was it would be inaccurate, although faith is very important in the scheme of things. There are recorded incidents of God producing miracles when no faith was present nor was any ensuing. God, of course, can do what he wants, when he wants, how he wants, with whom and to whom he wants; but he doesn't act purposelessly in the manifesting miracles. It seems to me, what could be called ministering miracles, occur at the nexus of three things: 1) faith in the doer, 2) faith in the receiver, and 3) the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

Though God is the ultimate performer of the miraculous, if the human agent does not have faith, the likelihood is that the miraculous will not occur. The faith necessary is the kind that has no doubts concerning the thing about to be done: doubt is the underminer of divine intervention. I think that is a hard thing for humans in general to produce, thankfully for God's glory, there is a gracious enablement that can accompany the need for the miracle. That is not to say that we do not have power over our own belief, so if we slough off counting on God to bail us out of our unbelief, we're likely to face disappointment.

If the receiver does not have some measure of faith, the likelihood of a miracle is next to nothing. God occasionally intervenes despite the unbelief of a receiver rather than in conjunction with his or her faith, but generally, that will not be the case. Today, the receiver is often saddled with the entire burden of failure in the effort to produce the miraculous, but I don't think that represents the total picture of what is going on. Regardless, it cannot be denied that Jesus clearly taught miraculous ministry is received according to one's faith.

The Spirit does as he wills and doesn't do as doesn't will. If the Holy Spirit does not have a mind to do a thing, it just ain't gettin' done! We can exercise some will in relation to the Spirit's will insofar as we go along with what he enables (like in tongues), but his doing is still absolutely necessary to anything miraculous. The only means we have of influencing the impetus of the Spirit is prayer, but the Spirit must be present to do whatever if whatever is to be done.

So, when faith in the doer is contemporaneous with faith in the receiver and the Spirit's willing, a miracle occurs.

Miracles Among Masses: Authority

Among the charismatic, over the last 100 years, a phenomenon known as the healing evangelist or miracle crusade has become common place. More or less, such ministry is an attempt to replicate the ministry of Christ (primarily) and (to a degree) the Apostles. Imo, the result has been less than stellar, many (most) of the miracles less than miraculous, and the practitioners a lot more than shoddy. The concept of replicating the works of Christ, is a noble endeavor: the practice, the miracle crusade, doesn't seem very noble at all to me.

Since I'm not ready or willing to saddle the practitioners with the accusation of outright fraud, what do I think is the problem with their doctrine and practice? First, I think there is a misapplication of the concept of authority in their sense of mission; and second, I think there is an ignorance of what inspiration entails in their practice. Let me develop these thoughts, with this presuppostion: Neither Christ nor the Apostles (in Acts) ever commanded things that did not happen. Therefore, a command or declaration that something is so that doesn't become so in short order is not in the pattern of Christ or the Apostles.

Authority can only go so far. Jesus had as much authority as any human will ever possess. He stilled the wind and waves, cursed the fig, forgave sins, and raised the dead. And yet for all his authority, he was stopped cold in Nazareth. Why? Was he not as in touch with Spirit as he ever was in Nazareth? Was he not as perfectly obedient to his heavenly Father there? Did he not have as much authority as he had anywhere else he went?

Jesus was stymied in Nazareth, not because of any issue of authority, but because of unbelief in the potential receivers of God's miraculous blessing. God is certainly under no obligation to put on a demonstrative show for the entertainment of those who would persist in unbelief anyhow. Besides, even Adam in sinless innocence was not forced by God to believe in God or his word--something tells me it wouldn't be belief if it was imposed. So, though unbelief in people doesn't diminish God's authority in the least, it does prevent them from receiving his gracious ministrations or knowing him intimately.

We have the authority we need, and all the authority we're going to get in our Great Commission. Authority in itself, however, will never be the issue that determines our success, it is merely the invitation for us to proceed. We have no power over the belief or unbelief of people, and in that regard, we'll see what Jesus saw: some believe, some will believe, and some won't believe no matter what we do or don't do. All we can do is not give them a reason for unbelief, and in dependence, follow the lead of the Holy Spirit.

I'll complete my thoughts in my next post.