You Must Be Gentle, Part 3

Posted on February 9, 2013 by admin

I watched an interview with Ingmar Bergman on the DVD version of “Persona” called “A Poem in Images.” He spoke in English, not his native language, but I left the quote below verbatim because I liked the ideas expressed as they were.

“I was ill and they had to make some sort of operation. And I got in my arm an injection…I had been unconscious six hours. You know I had no feeling about time, of hour. From existing, I have being in the situation of nonexisting. And that makes me very happy….I am conscious about myself and everything and then suddenly, or slowly, my consciousness fades out, switches off. And it is a not existing. That is a marvelous feeling. From existing I am not existing. And at that moment nothing can happen to me. I think it would be terrible if somebody came after this marvelous not existing and wake me up, and said, ‘You are a returned soul Mr. Bergman,’ or something like that, ‘and you have to go here or there; you are guilty for that, not guilty for that.’ I think it’s just crazy.”

I was about five years old when I accepted what I thought was the gospel: believe in the Lord Jesus Christ or burn in hell for all eternity. It seemed like a no brainer. I was surprised that everyone in children’s church didn’t choose Jesus right there and then. (I can’t say for certain that I was taught this until an evangelism course I took as an adult, but the first time I seriously questioned whether this ultimatum was the Gospel was during that course.) I was saved, saved from hell, because I confessed that I was a sinner and believed in Jesus. And it worked in the sense that I grew up among fundamentalist Christians and can’t recall ever having any fear that I would go to hell, not as a child, anyway.

Hell was never taught as something I should fear. It was taught as motivation to invite my friends to Sunday school, friends who would go to hell if they didn’t confess that they were sinners and ask Jesus into their hearts. I tried to invite my next door neighbor once. In fact, I probably tried to save him myself right there and then. But my Catholic friend knew as much (or more) about trusting Jesus as I did. So I decided that my Sunday school teachers didn’t know much about my friends.

“So this feeling of not existence made me very happy,” Bergman continued, “because it was a feeling of relief, because this feeling of a god, this idea about a god, was very unhealthy. It was a feeling of something that was perfect, extremely perfect, the most extreme perfect that exists. In comparison to that I always must feel like a snake, like a dirty snake. For a human being to feel like a dirty snake is not good.”

In Junior High I pretended to be ill one morning so I could stay home and finish reading “Phaedo” by Plato, the death of Socrates. Socrates concluded, “if while in company with the body the soul cannot have pure knowledge, one of two things seems to follow—either knowledge is not to be attained at all, or, if at all, after death.”^[1] This has had a lifelong impact on me. Perhaps the main reason I have believed that each of us will give an account of himself to God^[2] (when I believed little else) is the hope that some clarity will come in his response to my account. The primary torment of Sartre’s hell in his play “No Exit” is not knowing for certain why, or if, one is there. Knowledge was the hardest thing to give up when I flirted with atheism. To accept that knowledge is either unattainable, or that the verdict of a jury of my peers (or even a cadre of knowledge elites) is the highest form of truth and justice, is a camel I can’t swallow.

So though I have experienced anesthesia and even wondered if that was what death was like, it was never comforting to me. Still, I could relate because I had been enamored with the fantasy of having never been bothered with existence in the first place.

As a child I prayed for two things: that my parents would get along and that I could hit a fast pitch baseball. Sure, I probably prayed for other things, too, but these are the prayers I remember. I certainly prayed them the most. My parents never did get along any better. They separated in my early twenties. And I hit the ball once, until my neighbor friend shared a record with me, a recording of Stan Musial talking about hitting.

I was hit by a pitch at practice early in my first season. It broke my finger and I had to sit the season out. Stan Musial seemed to understand my fear. I don’t even remember now what he said. I only remember that I began to stand in without shying away, watch the ball all the way to the bat and make contact. I’m sure coaches had yelled things like that at me many times before. But I had stood at Sportsmen’s Park banging my wooden seat on its hinges when Stan the Man came up to bat. Sometimes he struck out. But the next time we stood and banged our seats again, and more often than not, often enough to satisfy us all, Stan the Man hit it out of the park. When Stan Musial said it, I listened. And I decided that he was a much better hitter than God.

In my late twenties I spent several years studying the Bible, history and philosophy. I prayed for answers to the questions my studies posed, then I trusted that those answers would be forthcoming, and kept on studying. By contrast I hated the Bible as a child. When I was forced to read it I didn’t hear anything because I thought I already knew what it said from Sunday school classes. I didn’t particularly like Sunday school classes either. The few times I did pick it up on my own I found some things that didn’t sound like my Sunday school and I assumed I didn’t understand the Bible, or that my understanding couldn’t possibly be right because so many people before me had understood it like my Sunday school classes. In my late twenties I probably still thought I already knew what the Bible said, but I was driven to read it, insatiably driven. Answers came, sometimes amazingly.

One was in a book from the British Museum. A friend gave it to me after a trip to London. He didn’t know the question I was asking and he didn’t know the answer was in the book he purchased for me. He simply thought I would like the book. And he was wrong! Apart from the question I was asking, I would have had no interest in this book at all.

Nietzsche: Friedrich Nietzsche was much smarter than I am. He would have convinced me of atheism apart from the Lord’s answers to his questions, or the questions he fostered in me. I will be forever grateful to Nietzsche for those questions. The Lord’s answers changed the way I read and understand the Bible.

Yet after that amazing time I was still disgruntled. Writing this has forced me to ask myself why. The answer that comes to me is that I was not actually as open-minded as I like to remember the story. I was trying to find a rational alternative to faith (i.e., that arrived at the same conclusions but required no faith). My best effort was indistinguishable from faith. In other words, I had failed. So as the Lord and I did our postmortem on those years, I said the time was better than I had expected (recalling my parents and hitting a baseball), but that I was still inclined to wish for never having been born.

He was angry. But I didn’t respond in what I consider a typical male response to anger, matching anger for anger, blow for blow. To repeat what He said wouldn’t mean much. It was completely in tune with the years we had spent analyzing statements and their negations. The thrust of it was, “I don’t care what you want, I called you into existence to love you.” My uncharacteristic response—one I have noticed in women responding to men’s anger, especially their jealousy—was, “He loves me.”

So while Bergman’s musings about anesthesia and death form a bond of recognition in me, and his taking comfort in nonexistence is endearing, I can’t follow Ingmar Bergman. Clearly I am inferior to God. But He has gone so out of his way to demonstrate his love and mercy to me that I can’t help but feel like a beloved child rather than a dirty snake. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery leading again to fear, Paul wrote the Romans, but you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry, “Abba, Father.”^[3]

You Must Be Gentle, Part 4

Back to A Monotonous Cycle, Part 2

Back to Son of God – John, Part 2

Back to Son of God – John, Part 4

Back to Romans, Part 44

Back to Condemnation or Judgment? – Part 2

Back to My Reasons and My Reason, Part 1

Back to My Reasons and My Reason, Part 6

Back to Fear – Deuteronomy, Part 1

Back to Fear – Deuteronomy, Part 4

Back to Romans, Part 89

Back to Who Am I? Part 8

Back to Atonement, Part 2

Back to Father, Forgive Them – Part 6

Back to A Shadow of the Good Things, Part 5

Back to Patterns of Evidence: Exodus

Back to Who Am I? Part 13

Back to The Book of Life, Part 1

Back to The Day of the Lord, Part 2

Back to The Day of the Lord, Part 6

Back to Christianity, Part 13

^[1] http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/phaedo.html

^[2] Romans 14:12 (NET) Table

^[3] Romans 8:15 (NET)

Fear – Genesis, Part 1

Posted on December 6, 2012 by admin

Paul was not the only one to write about the end of fear. John also wrote, There is no fear (φόβος)^[1] in love, but perfect love drives out fear (φόβον, a form of φόβος), because fear (φόβος) has to do with punishment (κόλασιν, a form of κόλασις).^[2] The one who fears (φοβούμενος, a form of φοβέω)^[3] punishment has not been perfected in love.^[4] This is as good to hear as Paul’s statement, For you did not receive the spirit of slavery leading again to fear (φόβον, a form of φόβος).^[5] But I wonder about the fear of the Lord since the concept continued into the New Testament.

Therefore, because we know the fear (φόβον, a form of φόβος) of the Lord, Paul wrote the Corinthians, we try to persuade people…^[6] And to slaves in Colossae he wrote, obey your earthly masters in every respect, not only when they are watching – like those who are strictly people-pleasers – but with a sincere heart, fearing (φοβούμενοι, a form of φοβέω) the Lord.^[7]I have begun to track fear through the Old Testament to attempt to understand this better.

The first occurrence was from the mouth of Adam after he ate the forbidden fruit, “I heard you moving about in the orchard, and I was afraid (yârêʼ)^[8] because I was naked, so I hid,”^[9] he said to the Lord God moving about in the orchard at the breezy time of the day.^[10] The rabbis who translated the Septuagint used the Greek word ἐφοβήθην for the Hebrew word, the passive form of φέβομαι the root of φόβος.^[11] This form does not occur in the New Testament but is close to, For I was afraid (ἐφοβούμην, a form of φοβέω) of you, because you are a severe man.^[12] This is apparently the middle voice of φέβομαι.^[13]

Next God spoke what would become the most common divine greeting to those born of Adam, “Fear (yârêʼ) not, Abram! I am your shield and the one who will reward you in great abundance.”^[14] In the Septuagint the rabbis chose the Greek word φοβοῦ.^[15] The first usage of this form in the New Testament was in Mark’s account of the synagogue ruler Jairus. He fell at Jesus’ feet and said, “My little daughter is near death. Come and lay your hands on her so that she may be healed and live.”^[16] But, people came from the synagogue ruler’s house saying, “Your daughter has died. Why trouble the teacher any longer?” But Jesus, paying no attention to what was said, told the synagogue ruler, “Do not be afraid (φοβοῦ, a form of φοβέω); just believe (πίστευε, a form of πιστεύω).”^[17]

And here by faith in the revelation of Scripture I can begin to analyze the beginning of fear from its end. Jesus offered faith to Jairus as an antidote, or a preoccupation, to his fear of the revealed facts. (Jesus apparently raised his daughter from death.) This is the faith Adam lacked. Though he had unimaginable experience of God’s generous provision, Adam’s faith was in his own efforts to keep God’s commandment. Once that commandment was broken he feared punishment. Whatever sonship he experienced was forfeit and he was given over to a spirit of slavery leading to fear.

Sarah didn’t believe the word of the Lord when it was said, I will surely return to you when the season comes round again, and your wife Sarah will have a son,^[18] but trusted in her long experience of barrenness. She laughed to herself, thinking, “After I am worn out will I have pleasure, especially when my husband is old too?”^[19] The Lord confronted Abraham about her. Then Sarah lied, saying, “I did not laugh,” because she was afraid (yârêʼ). But the Lord said, “No! You did laugh.”^[20] While Adam’s fear prompted him to hide from the all-seeing God, Sarah’s fear persuaded her to lie to the all-knowing God.

The Hebrew word translated afraid above was the Greek word ἐφοβήθη in the Septuagint. This form of φοβέω was first used in Matthew’s narrative of Joseph’s, Mary’s and Jesus’ return from Egypt. After Herod had died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt saying, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child’s life are dead.” So he got up and took the child and his mother and returned to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid (ἐφοβήθη, another form of φοβέω) to go there. After being warned in a dream, he went to the regions of Galilee.^[21] Joseph’s fear of Archelaus was apparently warranted since God warned him in a dream.

I get an image of the nature of Lot’s faith in the Lord from the next occurrence of fear (Genesis 19:15-17).

At dawn the angels hurried Lot along, saying, “Get going! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or else you will be destroyed when the city is judged!” When Lot hesitated, the men grabbed his hand and the hands of his wife and two daughters because the Lord had compassion on them. They led them away and placed them outside the city. When they had brought them outside, they said, “Run for your lives! Don’t look behind you or stop anywhere in the valley! Escape to the mountains or you will be destroyed!”

Lot apparently sensed the anxiousness in the angels’ tone of voice, but misunderstood its significance. “No, please, Lord!” he said. Your servant has found favor with you, and you have shown me great kindness by sparing my life. But I am not able to escape to the mountains because this disaster will overtake me and I’ll die.”^[22] Lot assumed that the angels’ anxiety was provoked by Lot’s relative slowness. He reasoned that he should seek closer shelter. “Look, this town over here is close enough to escape to, and it’s just a little one. Let me go there. It’s just a little place, isn’t it? Then I’ll survive.”^[23]

“Very well,” he replied, “I will grant this request too and will not overthrow the town you mentioned.”^[24] Then the angel revealed that he was anxious to fulfill the will of the Lord. “Run there quickly, for I cannot do anything until you arrive there.”^[25] Lot made it safely to Zoar, and Zoar was spared from destruction when the Lord rained down sulfur and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah.^[26] But, Lot went up from Zoar with his two daughters and settled in the mountains because he was afraid (yârêʼ) to live in Zoar. So he lived in a cave with his two daughters.^[27] This, too, was ἐφοβήθη in the Septuagint.

The second usage of this form in the New Testament was, Although Herod wanted to kill John [because John had repeatedly told him, “It is not lawful for you to have {Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife}^[28].”],^[29] he feared (ἐφοβήθη) the crowd because they accepted John as a prophet.^[30] In other words, Herod did not believe the Lord that he should not have taken his brother’s wife. He feared the wrath of his people if he killed one they considered a prophet. Similarly, Lot did not believe that he would make it safely to the mountains and asked for Zoar to be spared as a place of refuge. When that request was granted he did not believe that Zoar would continue to be spared from destruction and fled to the mountains.

There is a pattern of sorts here. Those born of Adam fear God, but not in a good way. It is not a fear that leads to faith in Him. It prompts them to hide or lie or flee from his protection. It is a fear of punishment. They are not perfected in love. And I take this to mean they are not led by the Spirit, they do not experience that continuous stream of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control^[31] that flows from Him.

Fear – Genesis, Part 2

Back to Fear – Genesis, Part 7

Back to Fear – Genesis, Part 8

Back to Fear – Exodus, Part 2

Back to Romans, Part 72

Back to Wonders and False Wonders, Part 3

^[4] 1 John 4:18 (NET)

^[5] Romans 8:15a (NET)

^[6] 2 Corinthians 5:11a (NET)

^[7] Colossians 3:22 (NET)

^[9] Genesis 3:10 (NET)

^[10] Genesis 3:8 (NET)

^[11] http://greek-language.com/grklinguist/?p=394

^[12] Luke 19:21a (NET)

^[13] http://greek-language.com/grammar/20.html

^[14] Genesis 15:1 (NET)

^[16] Mark 5:23 (NET)

^[17] Mark 5:35, 36 (NET)

^[18] Genesis 18:10 (NET)

^[19] Genesis 18:12 (NET)

^[20] Genesis 18:15 (NET)

^[21] Matthew 2:19-22 (NET)

^[22] Genesis 19:18, 19 (NET)

^[23] Genesis 19:20 (NET)

^[24] Genesis 19:21 (NET)

^[25] Genesis 19:22a (NET)

^[26] Genesis 19:24a (NET)

^[27] Genesis 19:30 (NET)

^[28] Matthew 14:3 (NET)

^[29] Matthew 14:4 (NET)

^[30] Matthew 14:5 (NET)

^[31] Galatians 5:22, 23a (NET)

Romans, Part 32

Posted on November 21, 2012 by admin

For you did not receive the spirit of slavery leading again to fear (φόβον, a form of φόβος),^[1] Paul continued, but you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry, “Abba, Father.”^[2] Human beings have been afraid of God ever since Adam died and hid from Him, saying, and I was afraid because I was naked.^[3] That is καὶ ἐφοβήθην (a form of φοβέω) ὅτι γυμνός εἰμι^[4] in the Septuagint, literally, and I was afraid because naked I am And naked we still are, because no creature is hidden from God, but everything is naked (γυμνὰ, a form of γυμνός)^[5] and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must render an account (λόγος).^[6] It is fitting that the fear that came upon us when Adam sinned is banished in Christ.

The word Abba is the childish word for father. It reminds me of the picture of John John Kennedy peeking out from under his father’s desk in the oval office at the White House. In October of 1962 President Kennedy was the most feared man on the planet, with the power to plunge the world into nuclear war. But to John John, he was Daddy. The Spirit himself bears witness to our spirit that we are God’s children. And if children, then heirs (namely, heirs of God and also fellow heirs with Christ) – if indeed we suffer with (συμπάσχομεν, a form of συμπάσχω)^[7] him so we may also be glorified with (συνδοξασθῶμεν, a form of συνδοξάζω)^[8] him.^[9]

There are many things someone might suffer, but this linkage of suffer with him so we may also be glorified with him leads me back to chapter 6: Therefore we have been buried with him through baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory (δόξης, a form of δόξα)^[10] of the Father, so we too may live a new life.^[11] Once Jesus’ disciples knew that He was the Christ, the Son of the living God^[12] he instructed them not to tell anyone.^[13]

From that time on Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer (παθεῖν, a form of πάθω)^[14] many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests, and experts in the law, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.^[15]

So Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him: “God forbid, Lord! This must not happen to you!”^[16] Mark emphasized that Jesus spoke openly about this. So Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.^[17] But [Jesus] turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me, because you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but on man’s.” Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone wants to become my follower, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.^[18] And Paul wrote, For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be united in the likeness of his resurrection.^[19]

So the suffering Paul had in mind I think was primarily the frustration and inner confusion associated with this death and resurrection experience, particularly that neither I (old man born of the flesh nor new man born of the Spirit) can do what I want: For the flesh has desires that are opposed to the Spirit, and the Spirit has desires that are opposed to the flesh, for these are in opposition to each other, so that you cannot do what you want.^[20] I’ve written in another essay in more detail that I think the essence of taking up one’s cross to follow Jesus in this death is not my will but yours be done,^[21] and a few more ideas about this suffering of death in another. For I consider that our present sufferings (παθήματα, a form of πάθημα)^[22] cannot even be compared to the glory that will be revealed to us,^[23] Paul continued (Romans 8:19-21 NET).

For the creation eagerly waits for the revelation of the sons of God [e.g., all who are led by the Spirit of God^[24]]. For the creation was subjected to futility – not willingly but because of God who subjected it – in hope that the creation itself will also be set free from the bondage (δουλείας, a form of δουλεία)^[25] of decay (φθορᾶς, a form of φθορά)^[26] into the glorious freedom of God’s children.

In school I learned about evolution, that marvelous creative force that made everything we see today. In my real life I travel from medical conference to medical conference where I hear about genetic defects and diseases, the bondage of decay, the actual observable results of evolution. The palliation of genetic defects and diseases is one of our last locally produced products and a mainspring of our economy. While medical researchers may intend to find “cures” for genetic defects and diseases good economic sense would argue against that. But there is another more pressing problem to consider, more long range and more far reaching.

Those who are faithful to their creator evolution, what I will call the evolutionary mind, face a daunting problem when it comes to “cures” for the products of evolution. To my mind a cure would be found along the lines of investigation leading to an understanding of God’s original design of the genetic code for humankind. This would not be conceivable to the evolutionary mind. There was no grand design, no right way for the code to be written. It was all happenstance that happened to produce life-forms that survived under given conditions. For the evolutionary mind a “cure” must come from one’s own mind, evaluating the conditions people must thrive under and “Imagineering” so to speak how the code should read to accommodate those conditions.

Just as an aside, it occurs to me that back-breeding (e.g., inter-racial marriage) is still quite effective to overcoming some of the genetic burden that continues to accumulate over time. When I was young such marriage was a curiosity. Now inter-racial marriage seems to be a positive symptom of enlightened thinking among many young people. If that trend continues and becomes standard practice it may well alleviate the necessity for any more Draconian measures forbidding intra-racial marriage. And to my way of thinking it is the religious mind that would stand in the way of inter-racial marriage much like it would have bridled at God’s decrees against intra-familial marriage when genetic burden made that necessary.

Paul’s point, however, was that those who trust in Christ, or more specifically those led by the Spirit of God, wait for God’s solution, that the creation itself will also be set free from the bondage of decay into the glorious freedom of God’s children. While the children don’t know exactly how this will take place, they assume it is along the lines of death and resurrection that they are experiencing, a destruction by fire and a creation of new heavens and a new earth (2 Peter 3:8-13 NET). Ultimately, the children trust that Abba, Daddy has everything under control. The scorn and ridicule that elicits from those with an evolutionary mind may also be part of the suffering Paul wrote about.

For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers together (συνωδίνει, a form of συνωδίνω)^[27] until now. Not only this, but we ourselves also, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we eagerly await our adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope, because who hopes for what he sees?^[28]

This is what convinced me that for Paul, So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin,^[29] and, For the flesh has desires that are opposed to the Spirit, and the Spirit has desires that are opposed to the flesh, for these are in opposition to each other, so that you cannot do what you want,^[30] were normative for the believer’s experience here on earth. They are the suffering to which he referred. Even being led by the Spirit is but a foretaste of the glory that will be revealed to us. It is the foretaste that prompts us to pray, Our Father in heaven, may your name be honored, may your kingdom come, may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.^[31]

But if we hope for what we do not see, Paul concluded, we eagerly wait for it with endurance (ὑπομονῆς, a form of ὑπομονή).^[32]

Romans, Part 33

Fear – Genesis, Part 1

Twilight Revisited

Back to Fear – Genesis, Part 2

Back to You Must Be Gentle, Part 3

^[2] Romans 8:15 (NET)

^[3] Genesis 3:10 (NET)

^[4] Genesis 3:10 Septuagint

^[6] Hebrews 4:13 (NET)

^[9] Romans 8:16, 17 (NET)

^[11] Romans 6:4 (NET)