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Post by Jeff Gerke on Feb 6, 2008 11:29:45 GMT -5
Lately I've been pondering something and I thought I'd bring it to the group for discussion.
I've been reading Hebrews and thinking about the supremacy of Christ's sacrifice over the old sacrificial system under the Law of Moses.
Those sacrifices, the writer says, could never fully deal with sin. They could help you feel less guilty and they could justify you in God's sight for that particular sin, but tomorrow you'd probably sin ten more times at least and it all starts over again.
I thought about a SF story in which a people was still in this kind of system. Then someone comes and suggests to them that there could be one final sacrifice that would deal with sin forever. I imagined them thinking dreamily about such a day, a day when they would be freed not only of sin but of the need for constant sacrificial atonement. They'd probably disbelieve that it could be possible, but they'd yearn for it nonetheless.
Well, that's what's happened with us. We (humans, that is) were bound to the sacrificial system with no end in sight, then Christ came and offered Himself as the last sacrifice, the sacrifice to forever conclude the sacrificial system.
So now think about that SF people again. They're bringing their sacrifices to the temple space station for atonement, but they hear that the station is closed. No more sacrifices needed.
What does that do to you? Can you believe that it really works? Can you trust in someone else's sacrifice on your behalf?
Okay, now let's say that they believe it. They rejoice that they don't have to offer sacrifices anymore. They believe they have reached that day when all sins are taken care of.
Wouldn't they expect that they'd arrived at the great Day of the Lord? It's great that they don't have to feel guilty anymore and bring sacrifices anymore, but doesn't it mean more than that? Wouldn't they expect that now there would be no more sin?
So what happens when they sin?
I'd think it would be confusing to them. Wait, I thought sin was gone. But it isn't. So what am I supposed to do now?
What does it mean to sin in the age of grace?
If there are no longer any sacrifices for sin, what are they supposed to do with the guilt they feel over their sin? If someone else atoned for their sin, what happens when new sin comes? Does an atonement in the past suffice for sins in the present and future? Certainly the previous sacrifices have all had a one-to-one correlation with specific sins in their past, but had no power to atone for sins yet to come. What now?
It's no surprise, then, that we see Paul and the writer of Hebrews (who I think was Nicodemus, but that's a rabbit trail) and others dealing with these issues.
Paul says that where sin increased, grace abounded all the more. In other words, where sin surges in our lives, grace surges even more. But we shouldn't, he says, "help that out." We shouldn't sin more so that there'll be more grace in our lives. But this is part of the struggle with the question of what does it mean to sin after all sins have been forgiven.
We look around us and realize that sin is inevitable. In the world, in those around us, and in our own lives. And we know that our sins have already been atoned for and we can never be bound again by the old sacrificial system.
So on the one hand it feels like license. Our sins are pre-forgiven, so why not sin?
When Pope Innocent III was calling all Christian knights to the First Crusade, he declared that anyone who went on the Crusade would have all his sins forgiven and would be guaranteed entry into heaven. (Sounds suspiciously like the promise given to Muslims who die in jihad, doesn't it?)
Consequently, many of the knights who went on Crusade kind of went wild. Raping, stealing, brutalizing, murdering innocents, and basically sinning their way across the Holy Land.
Paul says we should not do this. He says we are now dead to sin and alive to Christ. I don't know about you, but I feel very alive to sin. What Paul actually says is that we are to consider ourselves dead to sin. Well, again, I can consider it all I want, but sin is still there.
So it raises the question: what does sin mean in the age of grace? If 1) sin is inevitable and 2) sin is pre-forgiven, what is to prevent some folks from sinning like Crusaders?
The whole idea of pre-forgiveness seems dangerous to me. LOL. I'm certainly glad I'm not God because if I were I don't know if I would offer it. It seems like it wouldn't work. Sinners are still sinners even when forgiven and with the Spirit of Christ inside them.
Now, we don't want to sin. At least, we don't want to want to sin. We want to do the things that please God. We want to offer the members of our body to God as instruments of righteousness. We want to place ourselves in the vine so that His "sap" flows through us and we bear fruit.
But we don't. At least not all the time.
And so I'll ask you, as Nicodemus [grin] asks in Hebrews: what sacrifice remains?
For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a terrifying expectation of judgment and 'the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries.' Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace? (Hebrews 10:26-29, NASB)
If we "go on sinning willfully" (which pretty much describes all sin, doesn't it? or is there unwillful sin?) no sacrifice remains. Does that mean, then, that any Christian who sins is now subject to eternal condemnation? We'd have to say no, but you can see how someone could build that argument from the text.
All right, I know this was a stretch to put it in the SF category. Maybe we should create a new sub-forum just for theological discussion.
And what am I saying or asking here? I've got a seminary degree, so I know the ins and outs of what I'm talking about. But lately it's been bothering me:
What does it mean to sin in the age of grace?
Comments?
Jeff
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Post by Jeff Gerke on Feb 6, 2008 14:23:54 GMT -5
As I've thought about this a little more I've begun wondering if Paul may have answered this question in 1 Corinthians 6:12:
All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything.
And Romans 6:16-18:
Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness? But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.
Maybe the solution is this:
Yes, we've been pre-forgiven. Which means that, yes, technically, anything goes. All things are permissible to me. Nothing is off-limits. I suppose even sin is permissible in an age of grace and an era of total forgiveness.
But not everything is good for me. Not everything leads to a happy destination. Not everything pleases God.
And yes, all things--even the things of the flesh--are pre-forgiven, but some of them lead to slavery. The enslaving power of the lusts of the flesh.
All things are permissible, but some lead to the loss of the very freedom for which Christ has set us free.
Maybe we're never free--at least in the sense of freedom from a master. We'll always either be serving God or ourselves. Slaves to God. Bond-servants of Christ.
Am I making sense?
Maybe sin in the age of grace works like this: anything I do is pre-forgiven, but some of the things I do can lead to slavery to sin and flesh.
What that says about the ultimate salvation of a person who would choose to do that, I don't know. But to me it shows that a true Christian can become ensnared by the sin that so easily entangles. Someone who "used to go to church" but is now caught up in sin or addictions isn't necessarily showing that he or she was never a Christian to begin with. But that's another rabbit trail.
So what do you think?
Jeff
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Post by strangewind on Feb 6, 2008 16:55:33 GMT -5
Oh krikey. Thanks for sending me spinning off untethered, Houston. Again!
Commence Operation: Wild Tangent
Controversy alert: I'm about to say stupid and insensitive things, probably. Not on purpose, mind you, and not without respect for the sensitive subject. But more than decorum, I really, really want to get at the heart of the concept of slavery. If it helps, I've got this strange culture of temple worship and sacrifice in space in the back of my mind as I write this.
On to the insensitivity.
Slavery is good. There is something in God's design for things that includes slavery. I don't think we can begin to comprehend the relationship of being bondservants to our Master if we don't come to grips with that.
Having said that, it is important to note that the current cultural concept of slavery stands in jarring opposition to any notion of goodness.
In my country, and in almost all nations that practice or practiced it in their history, slavery degenerated quickly. Just as authority and submission in other areas (such as marriage or the state) can degenerate into oppression and abdication, an ideal master-servant relationship can quickly fall into discord and abuse. Both indentured servitude (i.e. slavery with a contracted time limit) and forced slavery in the colonies quickly gave rise to myriad abuses, the likes of which we haven't since practiced in this nation (save for the more recent development of the death/"choice" culture).
But slavery, as a concept, is not pure evil. In fact, God makes it clear that mutual compacted slavery, or even post-enslavement compacts, can be a thing of beauty. Slavery, in a society where slaves have rights and masters have sacrificial love, can develop into a substantial (please. I didn't say "paternal." That would just be another abuse.) relationship.
That idea grates on my nerves. I can't deny that it is true, though. If "right" slavery isn't good, than is it an evil to be enslaved to Christ? Is slavery only right if God is the slave owner? How then can you explain the book of Philemon?
So, IF a slave can, in the Christian sense, be rightly held, and a follower of Christ, though slave, is free through Him who saves, AND that slave is capable of growing and conquering and running the race (and all other gifts listed in the epistles) and is even, to use Jeff's term pre-forgiven of sins...
...THEN is it possible and acceptable for one of Christ's followers to conceive of an intergalactic group of people who are, simultaneously, slaves to a master who loves them, and also more than conquerors?
Can you write a story that, within careful parameters, sort of quietly endorses Christian slavery? In so doing, could a gifted writer restore a right image of being in bondage to Christ? Philemon, so to speak, writ large in the stars?
Shazbot. That's way out of my comfort zone. I'd love to write it though. No way I'm going to though. I get enough funny looks in church.
P.S. Sorry for the italics. They are a disease, I swear.
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Post by Teskas on Feb 6, 2008 17:57:44 GMT -5
What does it Mean to Sin in the Age of Grace?
Certainly an apt question for Ash Wednesday and the beginning of the season of Lent. I'd like to offer an answer systematically.
The Space Station Temple
So what happens when they sin, when we sin? The difficulty arises in what does it mean from our perspective. If we repent of our sins, and turn to Christ, and are forgiven, and then commit sin, it does not alter the reach of the once and for all sacrifice of Jesus. Jesus is the Lord of History, past, present, and future--the ultimate Time Lord. The sacrifice of Jesus took place 2,000 years ago, and yet it was a sacrifice for all time. So the sacrifice was offered for the sins not simply in our personal past, but also our personal future. The 'sin nature' of the flesh will always incline us to sin. What the sacrifice of Jesus did was to remove the damaged relationship with God.
Innocent III
To be fair to Pope Innocent, he was not giving the Crusaders carte blanche to rape and pillage their way to the Holy Land. The crusade was intended to be an act of righteousness, not licentiousness. (Whether it was right to call a crusade is another matter, of course. Here I am discussing only intention.) Christian men were still bound by the Ten Commandments when they went on crusade, and it is well-established that Pope Innocent personally excommunicated crusaders who behaved unlawfully. The Indulgence which he granted was for those crusaders who were sincerely sorry for the sins they had committed, rather than permission for them to sin as they pleased.
Those of you who read this are most likely doing so from a post-Reformation viewpoint. Pope Innocent seems to be offering forgiveness of sins, which runs counter to the doctrine of grace which comes to us again in Western Christianity thanks to the work of Luther. All I can say is that hindsight is a wonderful thing. Western theology, organized, systematic, taxonomic, only began with William of Champeaux (d. 1122) and his student Peter Lombard (d. 1160). Innocent III died in 1216. Not very much time for systematic theology to gain traction in the universities of Europe and influence the training of the clergy and the intellectual milieu of the educated laity. So if Innocent is off-course, it was through ignorance, rather than malice. There is genuine malice operating in Islamic jihad, although it may not be PC to say so.
The Age of Grace and the Problem of Pre-forgiveness
I suspect the real difficulty is for a person to reconcile what Paul is saying in Romans with what he says in Hebrews. If we are completely forgiven and wholly acceptable to the Father, then where are we when we sin again?
We don't want to sin, or we don't want to want to sin. Maybe. I always find my problem is that I sin because I want to and find it inconvenient that God doesn't approve. This has puzzled me for a long time. In God's eyes I am totally forgiven and completely acceptable, and I'm committing at least a half dozen sins every day. (Okay, maybe they don't rate the front cover of the local scandal sheet, but I know they're sins.) How can I regularly sin and be acceptable at the same time?
Maybe the clue to the answer lies in the "sin nature" of the flesh. I've been thinking about this a lot lately and have come up with this solution. Please do not buy into my solution as authoritative. It's only that it seems to explain things to me, and I hope ( and pray) it does not run counter to God's Truth and mislead either your or me.
There is an ancient Christian teaching which says that when God made the world it was made though the Logos, Christ. The whole universe, space, stars, land, creatures, man was made through Christ. "Through Him all things were made and without Him was made nothing that was made." What an amazing thought. Christ, our loving Brother, not only redeemed us, He actually made us. What is this 'us', this 'me'?
I think of myself as having an external, an internal, and an essential element. The external side is the clothes I wear, where I live, the car I drive, the language I speak, my hair color, speech patterns--everything by which other people are in contact with me. Then there is the internal side of me. My thoughts, ambitions, emotions, inclinations, aptitudes--which I may or may not disclose to the world. Between the two of these is everything that goes into making up my unique identity. Nearly. None of these things make me fully human. What makes me fully human, in other words, something other than a talking animal, is what I call the essential element. And that is the part of God's life that He has shared by creating me. The internal and external side of me belong to the sin nature, but the essential part of me belongs to God's nature. That doesn't make me a god, but it does make me innocent. I think it was that part of him which made it possible for Adam to walk "in the cool of the evening" with God in Eden.
This innocence is a perfect state of grace. When I do right, I am acting as God would act if He were me. That's what it means to do the Will of God. When I do right, I am in touch with what is literally graceful, apt, and stunningly beautiful. When I sin, I lose touch with all of this. I lose touch with my innocence. So God doesn't want me to sin--not because of any harm it does to Him, but because of the harm it does to me. And that's why I think Christians (especially me) are pretty stupid to invoke the Blood of the Lamb on Sunday then fiddle their expense accounts, yell at their spouses, and slander their neighbors on Monday. Every time we lose touch with our innocence, we are missing out on our ability to experience God, and perhaps worst of all, we are missing out on ourselves.
You might think that's an odd thing to say. Surely missing out on God is worse than missing out on oneself. Maybe. The sin nature is destined for destruction. The flesh, remember, will be transformed. I have no doubt that my renewed flesh will be much better to look at than this one. That my thinking will be clearer, and my jokes a lot funnier.
My external and internal self will die, but the essential will remain, and return to God. I need a new external and internal element, a new flesh, which in the world to come will be worthy to stand in God's Presence, and go for a nice walk with Him toward sundown. When we do not sin, when we do right, we have a foretaste of this renewed flesh in the flesh we have now, and touch our innocence.
Just a few thoughts.
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Post by Jeff Gerke on Feb 7, 2008 8:46:50 GMT -5
Great comments, strangewind and Teskas, and well-delivered.
Strangewind, I think you're exactly right that slavery can be a beautiful thing. It reminds me of I think it was Churchill who said that the ideal form of government would be a benevolent dictatorship. The problem with dictatorships (as with slavery, as you point out) is that the system quickly goes sour.
I'd love for you to write a story about Christian slavery, in the good and loving sense you're describing.
Teskas, are you saying, then, that you essentially agree with my second message? That sin in a pre-forgiveness scenario is harmful and not ideal? That it is not unforgiveable and does not change our eternal condition and yet it decreases our joy and freedom and connection with God?
I've never realized what an incredible paradox this is. An analogy might be purchasing something in an money-less society, or murder in a state of eternal life.
Jeff
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Post by Jeff Gerke on Feb 7, 2008 12:36:47 GMT -5
If it's true that Christians who give in to their lusts can become enslaved to sin, then Christians thus enslaved must be the greatest treasures of the devil.
Think about it. Satan surely loves it when people reject Christ. Those who never come to Him are the devil's delight. People he can yank back from the precipice of faith have got to be among his trophies.
But to be able to take one of the enemy's purchased souls and take it out of the game entirely...that's got to be his special delicacy. Talk about snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. Maybe he rejoices more over an enslaved Christian than over someone who never became a Christian in the first place.
And that's a scary thought.
I've found The Message helpful in interpreting the passages we've been looking at:
Just because something is technically legal doesn't mean that it's spiritually appropriate. If I went around doing whatever I thought I could get by with, I'd be a slave to my whims. (1 Corinthians 6:12)
...and...
So, since we're out from under the old tyranny, does that mean we can live any old way we want? Since we're free in the freedom of God, can we do anything that comes to mind? Hardly. You know well enough from your own experience that there are some acts of so-called freedom that destroy freedom. Offer yourselves to sin, for instance, and it's your last free act. But offer yourselves to the ways of God and the freedom never quits. (Romans 6:15-17)
Offer yourself to sin and it's your last free act. Wow.
Jeff
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Post by strangewind on Feb 7, 2008 15:30:49 GMT -5
The pre-forgiven, permanently free slavery to Christ is really mind-blowing. It isn't that I haven't thought about, or acknowledged, an aspect of it before, but Jeff just marched it out all naked, so it is really hard to not think about it in new ways.
Some of this speaks to the "Romans" transformation, of how the "seal" on Christ's resurrection is the Holy Spirit's transformation of His followers. In a sense, we slaves to Christ are unable to resist His transforming power in us.
I didn't realize this, physically, until five or six years after my conversion. Now looking back, I can see how some sins I would have so easily fallen into early in my walk in the Way absolutely hold no temptation for me. Of course, a dead man has many strongholds, and the living man remembers some strongholds more fondly than others.
In any case, I think it is really easy to fall into a belief that if I "pray enough and read the bible enough and go to church enough" or any other list of holy "enoughs" that I, by the power of my own will, can overcome sin. Sort of a "thanks for saving me Jesus. I'll handle it from here" attitude. I can be very prone to this.
But the book of Romans says something else entirely. Christ in us is at work in us.
Right now. Right here.
So, yes, we are pre-forgiven, but Christ is also in us, and has begun a good work.
Yet this doesn't mean we lay around waiting for Jesus to shape us into better people. Because we are better people, and being shaped into even better people, laying around just does not have a satisfying appeal. In the long run, it can't tempt us. We act, more and more, in ways that Christ wants us to act, because, more and more, he's shaping us that way.
Jeff really must like waterfowl in twos, because he writes of such a paradox!
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Post by Jeff Gerke on Feb 7, 2008 15:38:12 GMT -5
[happy groan]
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Post by rwley on Feb 8, 2008 0:04:43 GMT -5
Slavery, in its perfect sense, is a good thing. Think about it; the slave does not have to worry about whether he's going to be unemployed tomorrow. He does not pay bills because he does not own anything. He has food, shelter, clothes all provided. He is probably told whom to marry and when, what job he will do, where he will live, etc. etc. Because he has none of those "worries", he is free to do his job to the best of his ability and when he is home he can enjoy his family with no distractions. His owner/master has all the burden. All of it.
If we, as Christians, live in true slavery to Christ, we don't have to worry about all those things either. God will provide; He has promised us this. But just as the slave does at times make mistakes, so do we as Christians. Bur our perfect and righteous master does not throw us to the lions; no, He still loves us, still protects us, still cares for us. If we choose to disobey this loving and gracious master, He disciplines us but still does not throw us to the lions. If we continue to disobey, willfully and stubbornly, He may let the lions roar at us, and nibble at us a little, but He will not allow the lions to destroy us. Even if we lose a limb or two, He will care for the crippled slave. Is the slave still happy? Probably not. Does he still belong to the master? Yes, of course.
So, as Christians, mistakes or sins, are forgiven and God helps us learn and go on. If we choose to sin, or to not give up a sin, He will discipline. I believe (my opinion) that if a Christian stubbornly continues in a something he knows is wrong, God will allow him to suffer the consequences of that sin. And, again just my opinion, if a true, born-again Christian for whatever reason gets so far away from God in his actions and attitudes that he is truly damaging the Kingdom, God may just take him home and take him out of the picture all together. The person will still be in Heaven, but he will have missed out on God's will for him in this life, and he will be short a few crowns in Heaven, but he will still be there.
Of course, all this is based on the fact that the salvation by grace experience really happened to that person. Only the individual and God know for sure. We have trouble believing that a person who continues to willfully sin is truly saved, but that really isn't our call. We are obligated scripturally to help each other and to warn each other if we observe willful disobedience and there is a scriptural pattern to follow; one-on-one; two or three-on-one; then the body. If the person still refuses to repent or recognize his willful sin, we must ask him to leave our particular congregation. He is not out of the family will, just out of the manor house. We should always, always, be willing to take him back if and when he shows true repentance and we should never, never stop praying for him or loving him.
All that to say this; sin in the age of grace will happen. Some sins by accident, some by design, some by default. But the mark of a growing Christian is one who recognizes that he still will sin, recognizes that he does not want to sin, and simply does what he can to move closer to God. At some point we simply have to realize that the Christian life is not hard to live, it is impossible. Only one Man did it perfectly; Jesus Christ. Therefore, we must depend on Him to live the Christian life through us and for us. We cannot do it without Him.
I guess most of the time I don't mind being a slave. Every now and then I get rebellious and go off and do my own thing and then the lions start roaring and I can feel them gathering. Then I turn tail and head for home and Father is always there, waiting to gather me in, dust me off, and put me back to work at what He has designed for me to do. Back when I was in my heathen days, no one would have been able to tell I was a Christian if they observed my behavior. I was a black mark on the Father's name and yet He made sure I did not run off the road in a drunken haze; I did not lose my children due to negligence; in fact I did not suffer many of the consequences I likely could have considering my actions. Looking back I can see He was always there, fending of the lions even though I know I had tooth marks on my behind.
Grace is completely and utterly unexplainable. Yet I thank God that He offers it to us, freely and with all the love the eternities hold.
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Post by Jeff Gerke on Feb 8, 2008 8:38:21 GMT -5
Wise and beautifully written, Robi. I like your metaphor.
Hmm.
[goes off to ruminate]
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Post by Jeff Gerke on Feb 8, 2008 11:15:47 GMT -5
Thank you guys for going with me on this little thought journey. It's nice to have fellow sojourners.
I'm imagining a character standing at a crossroads. The path to the left leads to all manner of fleshly pleasures--all not prohibited and all pre-forgiven. This path has a tremendous pull on our poor character, whose flesh readily recognizes the allure of the pleasures to be found there. And yet he knows that path leads to slavery. Every pleasure adds a new chain that prevents him from extracting himself from it. Every indulged desire puts another stone across the cave entrance he's just come through.
The path to the right is the correct path, he knows. It leads to pleasing God and living in freedom. And yet it is absent of the visceral ecstasy of the other path. Part of that ecstasy may be the very fact that things down the left path are "wrong" and forbidden (at least in the moral sense). The boring, goody-two-shoes life vs. the life of pleasure that ends in slavery and disaster.
It's almost as if we're living in a vessel that doesn't go where we wish. We live in a flesh-capsule designed and configured to live in a world that appeals to the flesh. And yet what if we change our mind?
Think of it in a SF sense. We started out life fully committed to the service of the galactic conquerer. When the opportunity came to man a one-man search-and-pillage spaceship, we signed up as quickly as we could. We lived our life going where the vessel took us and enjoying the ride and the benefits.
But now we've had a change of heart. In those long months between pillaging, we ended up reading and being influenced by some books our crazy mother insisted we bring along. Now we've become convinced that what we're doing is wrong. Now we see that the things the galactic conquerer are doing are wrong--and we're helping.
We want to turn the ship around, but we can't. It's on automatic. It takes us to places to pillage and when it gets there, it pillages. We're trapped on the inside. We don't want to do what we're doing anymore, but we are unable to change course--especially when something triggers the ship's sensors.
There are even troubling moments in the midst of those pillaging attacks when it is kind of enjoyable. There are certain pleasures associated with it, even though in our hearts and in our lucid moments we don't want to be that way anymore.
Is this what Paul talks about in Romans 7? He wants to do the right thing but he finds himself not doing it? There's another power at work? Oh, what a wretched man he was!
I know that Christ delivers us from the old way. To keep our analogy valid we'd have to say that Christ reprogrammed the ship or put us in a new one, or something. And yet somehow the vessel we're in now, post-salvation, seems inclined to some of the same pleasures we'd experienced before.
So here we are, living inside a flesh vessel that desires all its desires, moving through a world specifically enhanced to arrest those desires. And yet we no longer agree. We wish to live another way. But we are betrayed by the vessel in which we find ourselves. Our flesh, our human systems with its desires and hungers, is our enemy.
Maybe the monks had it right, after all. I know we need to be in the world so we can influence others to Christ, but I can see the logic in isolating ourselves as much as possible from the things that would engage our automatic systems and trigger the pillage sequence.
How do you live in such a world? How do you steer the craft to the right when the craft itself--and the very space around it--desires to go left? How do you keep that craft from taking you where you don't want to go? How do you stay "right" when the vessel you're in is pre-programmed to go wrong?
If all things are permissible and pre-forgiven, and if you're trapped inside a vessel that wants to go do the worst of those things--even knowing that they lead to slavery--how do you not go that way?
Surely this is the territory of God. As Robi pointed out: we can't.
I don't know about you, but this leaves me in fear and trembling. I'm sore afraid. [ouch]
Dear Lord, I am a sinful man living in a sinful flesh that automatically desires to succumb to the sinful pleasures of a sinful world. I basically have no hope but to sin, despite my desires not to, my hope to please You, and my knowledge that such sin leads to slavery and uselessness to You.
I never want to presume on Your forgiveness or trample on Your grace. And yet all my self-control amounts to the ineffectual flailing of a falling man. If You don't do something fast, I fear I will succumb again.
I am not given license for doing these things as if I had no choice in the matter, and yet I feel I have no real power to avoid it. I'm supposed to be dead to sin and my flesh is supposed to be crucified, but it sure doesn't feel that way. I can't do it, Lord. I surrender again.
Jeff
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Post by rwley on Feb 8, 2008 14:53:17 GMT -5
Amen!!!
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Post by strangewind on Feb 8, 2008 16:30:09 GMT -5
Amen...and an addendum.
I love the crossroads, freed-space vessel analogies. There's one more element to add:
Romans 8.
Let's see here, we've got the pre-forgiven crossroad to the left (also the automatic, destroying space vessel with the trapped yet transformed man inside) and the righteous, but pleasure-lacking crossroad to the right (the free-range vessel that can, but doesn't exactly want to, abandon the pillaging campaign).
While the "right" path is not ours to adorn, or even lay out, it is ours in which to enjoy the spoils of victory. That path isn't just devoid of sinful pleasure/enslavement, but it is also abounding in victory, full of an experience that is infinitely greater than the power of life or death or principalities, things present, or things to come. The path made righteous by Christ and credited to us through is grace and sacrifice truly is the one true great adventure.
There are ecstasies greater, deeper and more permanent than the trinkets dispensed by pre-forgiven sin.
The man in the space vessel not only grows as he eschews the pre-forgiven pillaging, but, through God's grace, becomes a "God's pleasure-seeker." His thirst for battle is slaked by holy war with principalities. His hunger for destruction is fed by the building of the intergalactic kingdom of God.
I wonder if the human adrenaline of justice coursed through the God Jesus when he overturned the tables. I wonder if the glory of heaven pulsed through His too, too human veins as his corpse rose?
The freedom Christ bought for us is no mere list of prohibitions, but, to the contrary, the freedom to shuffle off the binding irons of sin disguised as joy.
When we struggle, it makes perfect sense to echo the paradox and stress of Romans 7. But what sweet relief our spaceman will find in time as Christ builds in him the peace of Romans 8.
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Post by schoolml on Feb 8, 2008 23:11:31 GMT -5
One of my favorite verses in the bible is a crossroads verse, in the NIV at least. It seems to work well with some of the posts. This is what the Lord says: "Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. But you said 'we will not walk in it.' Jer 6:16 See Jesus' use of this verse in Matthew 11:29. To develop the SF angle, I'd suggest that perhaps the temple space station ruptured from seismic activity emanating from the planet's core right around the time these folks were told the sacrifices were no longer necessary. The ruptured temple emitted (work with me here, I have never done SF) a ? force that transformed the inhabitants. I can't see the story clearly, but it seems like this gave them a strange power to do good as long as it was constantly fed from the source beneath the temple; however, their old natures remained. These old natures were constantly at work in their members, struggling to sin, and at all costs, attempting to rationalize the folks to turn away from the source beneath the temple. Fortunately, when they strayed too far from the source, the temple would glow white hot and spew an extra amount of this ? into the world. This would break the spell of the old natures for a time, allowing our SF colonists to return to the source. Ultimately, after many repetitions of this phenomena, these folks learned two things: their old natures were weakening with every new blast from the temple, and that they would sin in an age of grace as many times as they followed their old natures. The good that they did, even in an age of grace, was by, through, and on account of grace.
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Post by myrthman on Feb 8, 2008 23:52:59 GMT -5
Lots going on here. I have some thoughts to add:
In Logic, being the study of rational thought and so-called arguments (bear with me here, I only took one class and it was a while ago!), there is a method of determining the answer to a question by considering its equally important opposite. If "A" is "B" then "B" is also "A" and if "not A" is "not B" then "not B" is also "not A". Following me? I'm not. So I'll press on. The question at first was can there be sin in the age of grace. If "the age of grace" is defined by that period from the Cross until now, continuing to the point when Jesus returns, then we might also give name to the period from Moses to the Cross: "the age of sin." The Bible makes it abundantly clear in the majority of the Old Testament that sin was rampant, yet there arose men and women who were touched by God's power and grace, heroes of faith as some would call them, who led God's people to renewed relationship with Him. Since such people existed, that grace came in the age of sin. If that is self-evidently true (from the evidence of the OT), then the converse, that sin can exist in the age of grace, must also be true.
Phew! Now I can breathe easier!
On the transformed spaceman in a rebellious spaceship idea (love it, btw), what would happen if the craft's designer was asked to reprogram it and pilot it (correct its course at every step of the way)? The original spaceman would still have some say in where they go, but if he truly wants to do what is right, he must relinquish his hold on the manual steering column (absolute favorite Trek moment ever!!) to the one who knows how to really fly the thing and reprogram it as he goes. Is this not the essential point of the Gospel? We must yield to the One who knows how best to live in order that we not die. We have to believe in Him AND ask Him to lead us at every step. I think someone else has said that we CAN'T do it. But if we surrender, and let HIM be ... LORD (hmm) ... in every circumstance, then we CAN!
Talking fiction is fun and needed for all of us as writers, but I have just had my countenance sharpened by some fellow iron. And that has been sorely lacking in my life of late. Thanks guys!
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