As so
often happens for me when I write, I end up back at the beginning. Whenever I talk like this to people – even
people who have been in church all their lives – they don’t recognise what I am
saying as an old or historic idea but more as some revolutionary concept
nobody’s ever told them about before.
That’s probably because they haven’t.
As I
said at the beginning, it is my contention that Australia has yet to
see, hear and experience a full and unadulterated presentation of the good news
of the kingdom of God in Jesus Christ, of freedom in Christ – and of the
revelation of ekklesia and the new
covenant as delivered to apostle Paul.
And since, in our New Testament, there is no actual mention
of either ‘church’ or ‘religion’, this presentation of the good news of Jesus
must be without church and without religion.
We have corrupted the original message in the same way as Luke described
in Acts 15, insisting that the law of Moses must be kept and that the
structures and institutions of religion must be accommodated. Nonsense and double nonsense! Such insistence is the “wanton violence”
(licentiousness or lasciviousness in some translations) Jude was talking about.
I want to loudly and repeatedly echo the words of Jude that
I referred to at the beginning. I have
made every effort, over and over again, arguing for this message for most of my
adult life, and I appeal yet again:
Beloved, while I was making every effort to
write you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing
that you contend earnestly for the faith
which was once for all handed down to the saints. For certain persons have crept in
unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation,
ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into wanton violence and deny our
only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.
Religion and its institutions will do all within their power
– as did the Pharisees in the first century – to make it appear that I and
people like me are the ones who have “crept in unnoticed”; ungodly persons,
marked out for condemnation. Isn’t it
strange how white has become black and black white? ‘Wanton violence’ [probably a reference to
the imposition of circumcision onto non-Jewish disciples as in Acts 15] was, to
the apostles, the Pharisees trying to impose the Law of Moses on Jesus’
disciples; ‘wanton violence’ now is disciples of today strongly contending for
the good news of Jesus – of freedom in Christ as first delivered to the
apostles – against the religious fortresses and control centres – or so it
seems.
The perpetrators of today’s ‘wanton violence’ as discussed
by Jude are the fortresses of church and religion. They represent the ‘ungodly persons who are
turning the grace of God into wanton violence and denying our only Master and
Lord, Jesus Christ.’ And they are marked
for condemnation because of that final idea in Jude’s description: they deny
our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.
But you watch: as always, it will be me and others like me who are
called infidels and terrorists, not the actual unfaithful ones inflicting
terror on people.
¤
That said, let’s move on to the subject of the “the faith
once for all handed down to the saints” Jude was writing about. What is this?
Apostle Paul is perhaps the quintessential ‘contender for the
faith’. Let me reiterate a little from
the beginning of this series. According
to Ephesians, this ‘handing down’ was to apostle Paul: “the stewardship of
God’s grace which was given to me for you [Gentiles];
that by revelation there was made known to me the mystery...” (3:2-3) And the ‘mystery’ is not some weird invention
of Paul himself but “the mystery of Christ, which in other generations was not
made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed to His holy apostles
and prophets by the Spirit.” (3:5).
One of the things I have found most helpful is to read the
book of Acts and then, at the point where each fits, read the Epistles in their
context. For example, at the point of
reading about the establishment of the ekklesia in the Province of Galatia, read
Paul’s letter to the Galatians and so on.
When I did that, I found that Paul didn’t go round blowing
his own trumpet, so to speak, but committed his whole being to contending for
and defending the good news of Jesus in its rawest form. A modern analogy might be seen in the organic
food or ancient grains movements. Paul’s
message was to the corrupting and polluting effects of the ‘certain persons who
crept in unawares’ what organic food is to the mass food market, or what
ancient grains are to the mass grain markets and products we live with today. On the one hand, free of pesticides,
dangerous chemicals and DNA modification; on the other hand, tracing its DNA
uncontaminated back to its original source.
And who better to trace our 21st century message
back to than Jesus in the gospels and Paul in his original mission and
teachings? Church and religion has its
own version of these teachings and writings, but, when examined closely, they
share little in common with the original message and, in addition, are polluted
with both dangerous ‘chemicals’ and DNA modifications.
Much of today’s preaching is obsessed with what happens when
you die: are you going to heaven or to hell?
But you won’t find this obsession in Jesus whose message was about the
daily experience of the kingdom of God now, over against the corrupt and
corrupting influences of the kingdom of man – money, power, earthly
possessions. Yet listen to much of
today’s preaching and it is about those very things. The ‘blessing of God’ is seen in commercial,
social or political success – as defined by the gurus of the kingdom of
man. If you have these things, that’s
God’s blessing and you are obviously on the right track. Be without these things and you are obviously
‘out of the will of God’ and in need of adjusting your priorities. That is how capitalism has become almost
synonymous with modern Christianity. But
you won’t find any of that in Jesus – unless, of course, you filter all of
Jesus through a capitalism or right-wing political grid – or you apply your
personal biases to Jesus’ life and teaching.
Turning to Paul, I find he had three major recurring themes
in his preaching, teaching and writing.
He understood the message of the gospel of the new covenant to be about
1) hostility in relation to God – transformed by reconciliation in and through
Jesus; 2) guilt before God – transformed by forgiveness in and through Jesus;
3) bondage to sin and corruption – transformed by freedom in and through
Jesus. Study all the “theological” words
Paul used and you will find they have direct blood-lines to these three central
themes.
In this series, I will deal only in brief with these
expressions of ‘the faith once for all handed down to the saints’ because I
have written of them in greater detail elsewhere – readily available along with
this series. I have written at length
about “The Kingdom of God” which, for cultural reasons, I refer to as “The Household of God”. And I have also
written at length about “This Good News” – the good news of Jesus and Paul as
we see it in the bible’s second testament.
As for the restorative message of Jesus, he lived and taught
that peace with God – true fellowship with God the Father – does not come via
the law of Moses or any other religious pursuits but via full and complete
acceptance of Him as Messiah (for the Jews) and Lord (for the non-Jews). It may sound a little odd, but I find reading
the Old Testament book of Job one of the most helpful guides here. Church and religion will always and forever
adopt the view of the so-called Job’s comforters who insisted then and still
insist today that if Job was suffering, he must have been doing something wrong
– something offensive to God. He himself
was even close to being persuaded to this idea.
But, despite repeatedly being urged to ‘confess’ ‘hidden’
sins, Job insisted he was not guilty and there has to be some other
explanation. Losing pretty much
everything of value to this life – except his own life itself – he argued and
argued with both his ‘friends’ and with God.
In the end, he had to put his hand over his mouth and silence himself in
the face of the wisdom and power of God and admit that acceptance with God is
not about personal morality or keeping some law (civil or religious) but about
trusting fully in God and surrendering up the perceived right to determine
salvation or lack of it – either in ourselves or in others.
John records of Jesus (John 1:11-13) that “He came to his
own people and those who were his own did not receive him; but as many as did
receive him, to them he gave the right to become children of God – to those who
believed in his name – who [by means of this faith] were born, not of blood nor
of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”
We don’t get to determine what makes any of us acceptable to
God – not even by insistence on a bible reference – because the thoughts and
ways of God are way beyond us; and because it never has been and never will be
our place to make determinations about who is in with God and who is not. We make ourselves enemies with God when we
take this power to ourselves. And, yet
again, much of this comes from our petty insistence that it is all about going
to heaven or hell when you die.
God has made it abundantly clear that it is not by law or
any religious pursuit that we attain the ‘right to become children of
God’. And, likewise, it is not up to any
man – clergy or otherwise – to give us or to strip us of that right. Living faith in Jesus is the measure. As far as God is concerned (and Peter
preached this in his classic address recorded in Acts 2) “God has made this
same Jesus whom you [Jews] have crucified both Lord and Christ.” And Paul reiterated this later in the
introduction to his letter to the Romans: “Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ,
called to be an apostle, and set apart for the gospel of God, which He promised
beforehand through His prophets in the holy scriptures, regarding His son, and
who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God
by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord.”
God is fully and completely satisfied with the finished work
of His son Jesus who is, at God’s will, both Christ (Messiah for the Jews) and
Lord of all. That being so, full faith
in Jesus is what it takes to attain the right to become children of God, not
pursuit of some ‘slippery pig’ of religion, priest, pastor or church.
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