The Trinity

Three faces…….three aspects of God.

They are one……but they are not the same.

As one, they are God. When we pray to God…….we address all three. The common thread that they share is love. All three hope for and work for our wellbeing. All three seek relationship. All three want our company………in paradise……for eternity.

But, how we respond to each face of the Trinity is unique:

God……the Father

The Father is, in many ways, the archetype for our parents. He is sovereign. His power and authority are absolute. He makes the rules. He expects obedience. He rewards obedience and he punishes rebellion. He created us. He protects us. He provides for us. He loves us. In return, he demands our attention, honor, and respect. He knows that this is the path to a successful, fulfilling life in this temporal world. He created and defines paradise. He has established the criteria for our judgment at the end of our physical life. The Father is not to be trifled with. In addition to paradise…….he has created hell. Hell is not a metaphor. It is a place of burning eternal pain. We ignore, dishonor, or disrespect the Father at our peril. In a word, the Father is the Boss.

God…….the Son

The Son is a kinder, gentler face of God. The Son has enormous authority over the temporal world. But…….even the Son operates under the Father’s sovereignty. The Son is our teacher. He translates God’s desires for us into a practical plan for living. He shows us what a proper relationship with the Father looks like. He shows us what a proper relationship with other people looks like. The Son does not contradict the father. Everthing that the Son teaches amplifies and clarifies the desires of the Father. When we obey the Son…….we are obeying the Father. When we honor the Son……..when we worship the Son…….we honor and worship the Father.

God…….the Spirit

At Pentecost, Jesus…….the Son…….left our temporal world in physical form. He gave us…….as his representative…….the Spirit. The Spirit is a non-physical manifestation of the Son…….just as the Son is a physical manifestation of the Father. The Spirit is a gift from the Son to his followers. It is his reward to those who choose to obey, honor, and respect him…….and in the process to honor, obey, and respect the Father. The Spirit indwells in all believers. Non-believers do not have the Spirit in their hearts. That is why they behave the way they do.

So……here is the key to life…….to paradise…….to eternity.

The criteria for spending eternity in paradise is to obey, honor, and respect God…….all three of him. The hallmark of this relationship is the presence of the Spirit……..inside of your heart. Given the eternal consequences……..there is nothing more important in your life. Examine yourself for the presence of the spirit.

Paradise is not promised to those who:

are good people

watch their carbon footprint

identify as Christians

tithe

are generous

go to church every Sunday……and sometimes on Wednesday

pray the rosary

Paradise is promised to those who obey, honor, and respect God.Those who obey, honor, and respect God live their lives with the Spirit in their heart.

Do you possess the Spirit?

Nothing else matters.

“If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me. “These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.

Jesus explaining the Father, Son, and Spirit, John 14: 23-27, ESV

I have spent a lot of time studying Christianity. Most of this study involves reading the Bible……..the owners manual. There are three general areas of Christianity that I have tried to understand:

God…..the Father

God is the creator of everything, the physical world, the spiritual world (including heaven and hell). God is the pinnacle of everything. I can understand a little bit about God. But, much of God’s nature, perhaps most of it, is beyond my capacity to know. I will learn more after I die. But, I doubt that I will ever fully understand God. Even the Bible reveals very little about God. He has expectations. He rewards obedience. He punishes disobedience. But, he intentionally creates a certain distance between himself and us. We can like him…..or not. We can accept his reality……or not. But, he is in charge and we don’t get to negotiate. Even Jesus didn’t fully know what God was and is up to. Both the Old Testament and the New Testament give us glimpses of God’s nature.

Jesus…….the son

Jesus is a manifestation of God. He is a reflection of God’s character. Jesus serves God. Jesus is the clearest image of God’s nature that we have. He is fully God. He is fully human. Because Jesus is human, he speaks a language and lives a life that we can understand. Most of what we do as Christians centers around our relationship with Jesus. The Old Testament gives us a few veiled references to Jesus. The New Testament fleshes this out……literally. We focus on Jesus because we can understand him. We like Jesus because he is one of us………in addition to being one with God.

The Holy Spirit……..the “helper”

At least for me…….this is where the wheels start to come off. The spirit is non-tangible. Our mind is designed to operate in a physical world. We just can’t get a grip on a being who is completely non-physical. But, as hard as the spirit is to understand, the spirit is at the core of life in a “post Jesus” world. Please don’t misunderstand. Jesus was and is and will be. Jesus teaches us how to live. Jesus invites us into an ongoing relationship. Jesus requires us to accept him as God incarnate in the same way that we accept God……as God…….non-incarnate. But, at Pentecost, things changed. Jesus ascended into heaven. He left the physical world. He is, no doubt, still active in our world…..but, for the most part, in a non-physical form. When he left, he sent a non-physical replacement…….the Holy Spirit. The best way that I can understand the spirit is as a non-physical manifestation of both God, the father, and Jesus, the son. The Holy Spirit informs our minds. He guides our decision-making. He teaches us right and wrong. The right and wrong that he teaches are absolute. There is no negotiation. The spirit is often at odds…….at war……with our appetites. The spirit arrives in us when we accept God and Jesus.

There is a corollary:

Those who reject God and Jesus do not receive the spirit.

Those who reject the father and the son are ruled by…….are at the mercy of…….their appetites. They do not hear the Holy Spirit. This goes a long way toward explaining the behaviour of about half of our society.

Furthermore, it is entirely possible to identify as a Christian, receive the spirit, and yet completely ignore the spirit. This explains the large number of nominal Christians who allow their appetites to govern their actions. They straddle the gap between spirit led Christianity and appetite led secular humanism. I worry that they are like the guy with one foot on the dock…….and one foot in the boat.

The Holy spirit comes from God, the father. It descended on Jesus at his baptism. Jesus passed it on to his followers at Pentecost. If you are a Christian, the Holy spirit has been passed on to you. The Holy Spirit is the manifestation of God’s plan for your life. It is the manifestation of God’s authority………God’s sovereignty…..over your life……..every corner of it.

So far, so good. But, there is the problem of free will. Just before his crucifixion, as he prayed in the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prayed “not my will…..but your will be done”. Jesus had free will too. He could have walked away from the crucifixion. But, he didn’t. I believe that he listened to the guidance of the holy spirit. He submitted to the sovereignty of God, the father.

And that is our daily walk.

Thousands of times every day we make a choice:

We submit to the demands of our appetites.

Or

We submit to the sovereignty of God.

The Holy spirit is the being…….who lives inside of us…….who guides us in our choice:

The sovereignty of God

Or

The dictatorship of our appetites.

Jesus chose wisely……..we should too.

But if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.

“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.

Jesus explaining the holy spirit, John 16: 7-13. ESV

I know a young woman. She is dabbling with the occult, probably Satanism. She says that Christianity is a “cult”. She says that she rejects “religion”. She has been exposed to both ideas. She knows about Christianity because her family has shared it with her. I suspect that her exposure to Satan and the occult is through her friends.

Two diametrically different approaches to life. These two approaches are mutually exclusive. They cannot both be right. They cannot both be true. She is at a decision point. This is the most important decision that she will make in her life. It is important because the ramifications of her decision are eternal.

Christianity promises her an eternity surrounded by love…….an eternity in the presence of the God who created her. This is God’s offer to her…….if she accepts it. If she rejects God’s offer, Christianity also carries the threat of hell…….a place that is separated from God’s love…….a place that redefines pain.

Satanism/occultism promises her fun……right now. It is strangely silent on what kind of eternity awaits her. That alone is a red flag. Curiously, the people promoting the occult……..the people calling Christianity a “cult”…..never call Satanism a “cult”. This is another red flag. Satan never tells us that he loves us. He wants power and control……..but he never offers love.

I once stood at this same decision point. Jesus was either a supernatural being…..God……or he was one of the two greatest con-men of history (the other being Mohammed). God, heaven, hell, and Satan were either true……or a myth. Here is the chain of logic that I followed.

Jesus is an historical figure. He lived, preached, died by crucifixion and was entombed. This is documented in both religious and secular accounts. Jesus endorsed the Old Testament. His disciples endorsed the New Testament.

It all comes down to one question:

“Is the Bible true?”

Notice that the question is not, “do I approve of the Bible”.

When push comes to shove, the validity of the Bible hinges in one thing:

Did the resurrection of Jesus really happen? After all, I think we can agree that resurrection is impossible. If Jesus returned to life after being dead for three days, then he has done something impossible. If the resurrection really happened…….then Jesus is not limited by what is possible……..by the laws of science…..he is supernatural……a good working definition of God.

Jesus, God, the creator says that the Bible is true.

So……did the resurrection actually happen?

This is the most important decision that we will ever make. It is a black and white, yes or no, decision. There is no “in between”. You must answer yes or no. And ignoring the question is a tacit no.

Here is the evidence:

Jesus died…..a Roman soldier speared him with an 18″ iron spear that would have penetrated both lungs and the heart. He received no medical care. This is not a survivable injury. He was entombed.

Three days later he had dinner with his disciples. All but one of them testified to this. All of them died gruesome deaths rather than recant. I cannot believe that 12 grown men would die gruesome deaths to promote what they knew was a lie. I cannot believe that 12 men would accept horrible torture and death to promote a “con” knowing that the author of the con was dead.

Days later, he appeared to 400 eyewitnesses.

That is good enough for me.

Resurrection is impossible.
Jesus did something impossible.
Jesus is supernatural.
Jesus is devine.
Jesus endorses the Bible, heaven, hell, and eternal life.
What I believe……what I approve of…..what I like…..what is fun……is irrelevant.

I have lived 30 years following Jesus. I can promise you that it works.

The Ouija board……..not so much.

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”

Jesus claiming divinity, John 10: 27-30, ESV

Today’s post is a real stretch for me. I am trying to understand a realm that, intellectually, is outside of my grasp. This is the spiritual realm. Imagine a blind water snake trying to understand a blue sky.

We are confined in a spatial and temporal world. Our world is governed by the laws of science. Every year we learn and understand more. But, there are limits to our reach. We cannot change the past. We cannot forsee the future. We cannot even see the distant reaches of the universe. We cannot conceive anything beyond our spatial/temporal world. We never will. We are all blind water snakes.

What follows is one blind water snake trying to explain a blue sky to another blind water snake.

So……here goes.

God is a spiritual intelligence operating in a spiritual world. He is not restrained by space and time. As such, God is and was and always will be. He is just as present in the past and in the future as he is in the now. God had no beginning. God will have no end. God is constant based on our limited understanding of time. But, God is also constant in his nature…….his character. God’s character is defined by love, justice, mercy, and his desire for relationship. Our relationship with God is based on his absolute sovereignty. What we are supposed to become is dictated by his sovereignty. What God wants more than anything else is for us to be with him……..not as equals……but in a sovereign, parent/child relationship. God operates both in his spiritual realm and our spatial/temporal realm. There is probably much more to God. But, this is what we have been told. This is the limit of our understanding of God. We will probably someday know more. But, I do not believe that we will ever fully understand God.

Satan is a created intelligence. He had a beginning and he will have an end. He, too, is constrained by God’s sovereignty. Satan has a degree of sovereignty; but, his sovereignty is delegated by God and restricted by God. Satan has freedom to operate across space and time. But, this too is restricted by God. Satan’s character is far less constant than God’s. It changes with his appetites. Because of this, it is harder to pin down. Satan’s character is defined by jealousy, vengeance, anger, frustration, and the desire for power. In a word, Satan wants to be in charge. Satan, more than anything else, wants to be God. He knows that this cannot be and he takes his frustration out on mankind.

And then, there is man. Like Satan, we are created beings. We, too, are restricted. We are tightly hemmed in by space and time. We each have a beginning, birth. Our end is far more complicated. Our physical being is limited to the spatial/temporal world that we know. Spatially, we are limited to a tiny blue planet, one of trillions, so far. Temporally, we have about 80 years to work with. Given a potentially infinite cosmos and infinite time frame, our physical being is so tiny as to be almost inconsequential. That’s the bad news. The good news is that we are also spiritual beings. Our spiritual side is eternal. At our physical death, it will return to the spiritual realm. But, what about our character? Our character is all over the place. We have free will. This was not given to us by God. It was taken……stolen…..by man. Free will has a profound effect on our character and on our relationship with God…….and with Satan, for that matter.

With free will, our character can be anything that we want it to be. Ultimately, each of us chooses our own character. We choose, either by considered thought, or by happenstance. In practice, how we choose our character is governed by either God’s sovereignty or by our own appetites.

God’s appetites/sovereignty vs. Our appetites/sovereignty.

Enter the problem……..of distance.

From a spiritual perspective, God is constant. Satan, man, and everything else change from minute to minute. God is the center of the spiritual universe. Satan is the periphery. Satan extends as far from God as is possible. This is his “happy place”. But he also has a presence closer to God. This is the spiritual realm of man. Both Satan and God operate in the spiritual realm of man. We see this every day. Both Satan and God desire man. We drift around in the spiritual “Grey zone” between God and Satan. We spend time close to God. We spend time close to Satan……..all of us.

The most defining feature of humanity is our distance from God in mankind’s part of the spiritual realm. Because Satan is all over the periphery, anything that increases our distance from God draws us closer to Satan. In our exercise of our free will we act. These acts will either increase or decrease our distance from God. This is the key to human life.

Why is this so important? This distance is the most important metric in our life for one reason.

When we die……..the distance becomes fixed……..for eternity. Wherever we are in our relationship with God when we die is where we will stay……forever. And forever…….is a long time.

I am not privy to the details. But, being close to my creator is where I am meant to be. This is the best place in the spiritual realm. It will be warm and sunny. It will be defined by love and joy.

The periphery, Satan’s realm, will be cold and dark. It will be defined by anger, hate, vengeance, jealousy, and pain. It will be defined by distance………from love…….from joy…….from God.

The sole object of human life is to daily draw closer to God so that when we die………our distance from God…….our distance from love…..our distance from joy…….is as short as is humanly possible.

All of the teaching of Christianity leads to that goal.

I used to worry about a lot of things:

My career

My health

My finances

And many more

In fact, I used to keep a written list of things to worry about. It was arranged in order of priority. It ran into 4 or 5 typewritten pages. When I had some free time, I would pull out the list and start worrying my way down page one. Usually, I would lose interest before page two.

But, over the years, my “worry list” has shriveled up. Part of this is due to my age. But, most of the shrinkage in my “worry list” is due to my growing understanding of the length and breadth of my life.

For much of my 73 years, my understanding of my life was that I had about 80 years to work with. I had about 80 years to get everything done. When I was 20, this was comforting. I had so much time at my disposal that I could throw away a year or two……even a decade or two…….and never miss it. And I did just that as I built my career. But, as I have grown older, the runway ahead of me began to shrink. Death, which was pretty much a theoretical concept when I was young, has become much more real and present. This old understanding of death as the end of my life led to a slowly growing despair. With each passing day, I was one day closer to old age, decrepitude, and, ultimately, the dead black nothing of death.

When I became a functioning Christian, I discovered a new understanding of death…….my death. Instead of the end of my life……the end of me; instead of being a stone wall that I was doomed to crash into at 80 miles an hour, death became something entirely different. Christianity teaches that death is not the end of life. Rather, death is a transition from one format of life into an entirely different format…….a format that is so radically different that we cannot wrap our brains around it. When we die, we change from a time limited physical existence to a new existence, where time imposes no limits. From a practical perspective, time ceases to exist. This eternal, spiritual world is centered around our creator. It is built on one concept……love. This is the “real” world…….because this is the world where we will exist forever. The irony here is that the spiritual world is far more real than our brief temporal/physical world. Eternal life is God’s promise, whether you are a Christian or not.

With that promise in mind, the nature of my “worry list” changed. Suddenly, just about all 5 pages of my “worry list” evaporated. It turns out that almost every worry on my list will go away when I die. The crushing weight of 5 pages of worry will simply disappear. My worries will go away because they are almost all confined to the temporal/physical world that I operate in today……..and for a few more years. They simply will not be relevant in the spiritual world. The great irony here is that my 5 pages of worries will be resolved……..fixed…….by my death.

So……..what is left? As a Christian……..what do I worry about today?

Three things:

I worry about my friend, a Buddhist.

I worry about a young man……..a committed atheist/secular humanist.

I worry about a young woman who defines Christianity as a “cult” and who is dabbling in the occult…..which apparently is not a “cult”.

I love these people. And I worry about them. I worry because God promises them eternity as well…….an eternity devoid of love and joy.

It will just be a different eternity from the eternity God offers me.

‘Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.

’Jesus describing two different eternities, Luke 16: 25-26, ESV

Let’s face it. We all sin. We do it every day. It is a rare day that goes by when we don’t think, say, or do something that increases our separation from God. To make it worse, we are repeat offenders. We are all serial sinners. Since we commit the same offense over and over, it is worth investigating our motivation.

Why do we repeatedly do things that drive a wedge between us and God?

Why do we choose separation from God?

Why do we sin?

Why do I sin?

I think that it must be that we believe that life can be better apart from God. For some, this is global. Everything they do, they do apart from God. This is the world of the pure secular humanist. For some, perhaps most, the separation is compartmental. They go to church, they put $5 in the collection, they sing the songs, and pray the prayers. Then, they walk out into a secular humanist culture and spend their day following the norms of that culture. They tell small lies. They watch media that is filled with sex, murder, and mayhem. They hate the “other” political party. They ignore the poverty and suffering that surround them. This is the world of the nominal Christian.

Both the global, full-time, serial sinner, and the compartmentalized, part-time, serial sinner intentionally choose separation from God.

Both sin.

Both believe that they can succeed…….apart from God.

Both are wrong.

Both fail to consider the existence of both a temporal realm and an eternal realm. In the temporal realm, we can get away with separation from God. We can even profit from it. Consider our leaders: The average senator has a job that pays less than $200,000/year. The average senator has been in office for a little over 10 years. And yet, the median net worth of a senator is over 3 million dollars. To accumulate a net worth of 3 million over 10 years, the average senator would have to save over $200,000 every year. This doesn’t leave much room for Starbucks. In the eternal realm, separation from God is far more problematic. Say what you will about hell. Eternal separation from God means eternity apart from the source of love and joy in the universe. Eternity is a long time.

Setting the eternal ramifications aside, my experience is that the most fully engaged Christians are some of the most joyful people I have ever met. I believe that this is because they are closer to the source of love and joy than the rest of us. Serious Christians are in touch with the eternal realm.

In the temporal world:

You can have fun……apart from God.

You can make money, even get rich…….apart from God.

You can become powerful…….apart from God.

You can be sexually stimulated…….apart from God.

But

You will never find great love and joy…….apart from God.

The great irony is this:

When God warns you not to sin……he is warning you not to choose separation from him……..he is warning you that by choosing separation from him, you are choosing to sacrifice love and joy………for temporal fun and money.

What is the most devastating thing you could ever possibly hear?

Jesus……..saying “I don’t know you”.

This is the endpoint…….should you choose separation.

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

Jesus explaining the endpoint of choosing separation, Matthew 7: 21-23, ESV

I grew up with 60’s and 70’s rock and roll. This music, in my never humble opinion, is the greatest popular music of all time. The lyrics cover a broad range of topics. A great many of these songs, probably most of them, were about love. Young people today grow up hearing music that is different. Today’s music deals with a lot of social issues. Love, however, isn’t the central theme. It may not be in the top ten. Today’s young people are missing out. I think that they are struggling to find their footing in a love starved culture.

When I look at my world……..when I try to find the most important thing. I think that it is love. There is nothing that you could take away from me that would be more painful than the loss of a loved one. There is nothing that you could add to my life that would make me happier than to love and be loved.

This is not the way that our culture operates. Turn on your TV tonight. Count the number of times that you see an act of love. There is plenty of sex……but love……not so much. Count the number of times that you see anger, violence, and even hate. Listen to our leaders. Do they teach love and generosity……or do they sell anger and hate. Watch the news…….more of the same.

Our culture wants and needs to love and be loved. And yet, we consume a diet of anger and hate. Our need for love should not come as a surprise. Love is the very heart of Christianity and of the Bible. Christianity and the Bible teach that we were put here by a creator who operates in both our temporal realm and his spiritual realm. But why were we created? Why did God go to all of the trouble? I believe that we were put here for one reason……to love. We were put here to love and be loved. We were put here to love God and each other. Love and God are one and the same. Love is the very definition of God. The impetus to love is written on our hearts. It was put there by our creator. When we ignore it…..when we indulge in hate and anger, we are going to war against the very core of our being.

We have lost our way.

Why?

We have lost our way because our culture has shifted from love to science and technology. We have shifted from God to secular humanism.

There is good news and bad.

The good news is that science and technology…….secular humanism…….will not destroy us. The bad news is that they won’t save us either.

The absence of love is what will destroy us. And only love can save us.

So……how do we save ourselves?

We save ourselves……..our culture……by returning to our roots. The survival of our temporal culture requires us to turn away from secular humanism and return to Christianity…….to return to our core……to love…….to love God and each other. If we can do that……individually and corporately……….we can fix our temporal world.

God will take care of the spiritual world.

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

1 Corinthians, 1-13, ESV

If you are a parent, you will recognize the characters in today’s post.

Even if you are not a parent, you have certainly seen them out in public: a parent trying to corral a child who just will not obey…….a child who is determined to get what he wants even against his parent’s wishes. The scene is usually ugly……sometimes a little ugly…….sometimes it is awful. Without getting into the specifics of their disagreement, I think that we can all agree that the fight itself is unpleasant to watch. If you could replay the last time you saw this scene play out, I’m fairly sure you would be sympathetic to the parent. If you could offer a solution to the problem, it would probably be that the child should settle down and obey his parent. Your solution would be for the child to submit to the authority of the parent……..the sovereignty of the parent. While this is not an absolute, the parent typically has more knowledge and experience. Furthermore, the parent loves the child and is looking out for the child’s best interests…….in the long run. We know from experience that the world runs better when the parent is in control than when the child is in control. This is true, even when the parent is not completely in the right. I can recall an episode where my father and I had a disagreement about a pair of jeans that I had just bought. Looking back, as a parent myself, I can say with confidence that my father was wrong. But, I obeyed him. I submitted to his authority. And our family survived.

The post this week is not about whether our parent is right or wrong. It is not about whether God is right or wrong from our temporal perspective.

The post is about authority and submission to authority.

Authority…….sovereignty…….comes in several “flavors”.

Absolute sovereignty……..whatever the boss says is true whether you like or not. When the boss says jump……you jump. Good and bad……right and wrong are defined by the sovereign. This is not negotiable. Everybody operates on the same set of rules……the same set of definitions. Everybody is headed in the same direction.

Limited sovereignty………most of what the boss says is true. When the boss tells you to do something, you assess it and decide if it suits you. If it works for you…….you obey. The same applies to right and wrong…….good and bad. You listen, you assess, you accept what you like and discard what you don’t like. Everything is negotiable. You have a personal veto over the boss.

Non-sovereignty…….an external boss does not exist. You do as you please. No need to negotiate. No need to justify your behavior. You are the boss of your tiny corner of the universe. You go your own way……and so does everybody else. You make your own rules and definitions and so does everybody else. The guy who robs you in the alley……..is just as right as you are. Hitler is just as right as mother Teresa.

The tradeoff here is clear. Absolute sovereignty yields uniformity. Uniformity yields peace. Conflict……war…….is eliminated. We all work together toward a common goal……..a goal chosen by the sovereign……..whether we agree with that goal or not. Non-sovereignty gives us freedom. We look at the world. We assess our appetites. We act in a way that gives us what we want. But……so does the other guy. We believe that we are right. We believe that we are good people. But so does he. We butt heads…….we go to war. Nobody is right. Nobody is good…….because there is no uniform definition of right and good. When you boil it down this tradeoff is the dividing line between Creationism……..Christianity……..and secular humanism.

It doesn’t take an intellectual giant to determine which path the world is on.

But………it’s not that simple.

There is a temporal world and there is an eternal spiritual world. God’s absolute sovereignty extends over both. Our freedom is absolutely confined to the temporal world. Our freedom ends when our temporal clock runs out. God’s sovereignty has no end….no limits.

In the final analysis, the only escape from the eternal sovereignty of God is to deny his sovereignty. The only intellectually honest way to deny God’s sovereignty……..is to deny his existence. This is the “unforgivable sin” described in Matthew.

Denying the absolute sovereignty of God can work. People do it every day. But, it can only work in the temporal world. And even then, ignoring or denying God’s sovereignty often fails. At death, we all transition from our temporal world to God’s eternal world. When we die, we can no longer evade the absolute sovereignty of God.

In a nutshell…….this is the fate of man. One day, we will all experience God’s absolute sovereignty. It is worth the trouble to become familiar with it now.

“Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come”.

Jesus explaining “the unforgiveable sin”, Matthew 12: 31-32, ESV

Today’s post is a follow-up to last week’s post describing sin as the process of drifting away from our relationship with God……..rather than the act of breaking a rule. This week, I want to develop that a bit further.

If we view sin as the breaking of rules, then we succeed by keeping track of all of the rules and honoring them. History tells us that this is not possible in practice. But, at least it is straightforward. Diligently follow all 635 of the rules…….you become a “good person”………you spend eternity in paradise………where you will, presumably, continue obeying the rules. But, where is God in this process? He is, no doubt, buried in the rules……”Love God”. But this approach is flawed. This approach to Christianity puts our focus on an intermediate step…….the rules. In a way, we wind up worshiping an enormous list of rules. Even if we could pull it off…….diligently honor 635 rules all day, every day for 80 or 90 years……..we would be missing the point of our faith. Even worse, we would be missing out on the power, not to mention the joy, of Christianity. Carried to its extreme, it is entirely possible to flawlessly follow the rules and to never know and experience God. This is tragic……..but it happens. The Bible is full of examples of people who did just that. Picture Caiaphus.The history of the Christian church is full of people who did bad things…….all while following the rules. Caiaphus carefully followed the rules. All the while, he viciously attacked God. In our modern church, it is not hard to find a committed Christian who follows the commandments but who mistreats members of the LGBT++ community……..or followers of other faiths. Consider the oxymoron of the antisemitic Christian.

But

The rules are not the heart of Christianity.

The heart of Christianity is God. And love is the heart of God. The rules are an intermediate step in our journey to God.

Focus on the rules………and you will completely miss the entire point of Christianity. You will miss out on the joy of relationship.

To put it bluntly, sin is distance from God. Sin is distance from love. The greatest tragedy in a human life is the Christian who religiously adheres to the rules listed in the Bible……..and in the process, allows his relationship to God’s love wither. This “good person” may very well be the greatest sinner of all.

So…….how do you know if you are the “good person” who obeys the rules without knowing God? How do you know if you are one of the “righteous” sinners?

The acid test is joy.

Joy grows out of love……..love grows out of relationship with God.

You will know it when you see it on the face of someone who is nurturing their relationship with God.

Even more importantly……..you may be the one…….whose joy demonstrates God’s love to others.

“If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.”

Jesus, John 14:23, ESV

I was once on a golf course that a US president had played on a few days earlier. He made headlines by shooting under 70. The trouble is that he took 3 shots off of the first tee and didn’t count them. I have the use of a house in AZ. It is on a cliff overlooking a golf course. Below me there is a green, protected by a sand trap. I have watched golfers deal with that sand trap for several years. I have never yet seen a golfer take a legal shot to get out of the sand trap.

These are not bad people. And yet, they each turned in a score card that was many strokes less than what they actually shot. I doubt that any of us would call their behavior sin. We tend to view sin as an act…….an act that breaks a rule. Christianity is a faith that is based primarily on two rules…..love God…..love everybody else. The ten commandments expand on these two rules. Beyond that there are hundreds of rules on the old testament that deal primarily with diet and the system of sacrifice.

But……..the core of Christianity is love.

Back to sin.

We think of sin as the breaking of a rule. We then go a step further. We rank our sins by their severity. There are big horrible sins and there are little tiny sins. We ask for forgiveness for the big sins and we generally deal with the tiny sins by justifying them. We are masters at the art of justification. We tell ourselves that people who commit little justifiable sins are basically “good people” and people who commit big sins are “bad people”. The problem is that we manage to justify our sin. The problem is that we convince ourselves that we are “good people”.

This is wrong……..it is wrong from the ground up.

Sin is not the act of breaking a rule.

Sin is the process of separating ourselves from our creator. Our very lives flow from our creator. Separation from God leads to death…….both spiritual and physical. The metaphor that the Bible uses is a plant. Cut a plant off from its roots and it will die.

The logic here tells us that there is no such thing as a tiny justifiable sin. There is no such thing as a good person. We have all separated ourselves from God. Even worse…….we continue to do so……every day.

Sin is the process of making choices that increase the distance between us and God. This is a cumulative process. Each act of separation builds on other acts……..until we are lost.

The irony here is that the guy who commits the big evil is usually fully aware of his situation. The guy who commits the tiny justifiable wrong is usually oblivious. The guy who only commits little tiny wrongs tells himself, ” I’m a good person …….at least I’m not like the really evil guy”. The problem is that the guy who commits the tiny justifiable wrong can be just as desperately separated from God as the guy who commits the great evil. The problem here is that they can both wind up just as dead.

We need to rethink our understanding of sin.

Sin is not breaking a rule. That is merely a symptom.

Sin is allowing the separation from God to develop.

And we are all guilty………some of us just don’t know it…….yet.

You will say that these are very small sins; and doubtless, like all young tempters, you are anxious to be able to report spectacular wickedness. But do remember, the only thing that matters is the extent to which you separate the man from the Enemy (God). It does not matter how small the sins are, provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards will do the trick.

Indeed, the safest road to hell is the gradual one — the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.

C.S. Lewis