05 July 2024
The biggest problem we have in discussing theology is the vast difference between the individualism of the West and the inherent collectivism of the Bible.
The Bible is Covenant-centric. Everything depends on your relationship with the Creator. And the only way you can enter into a relationship with Him is in the Covenant of Christ. That covenant is a community thing, not an individual thing.
Thus, we propose thinking in terms of not "in or out" but relative position via the Covenant. God certainly says He wants people to join His family. But He also made clear that He would cooperate with allies who don't want to go that far. Do you understand that the vast majority of church folks are nothing more than allies? They are not following Christ because they are not consciously submitting to the Covenant.
They are not fully covered. Covering is the only proper concept for thinking about sin and salvation. The issue is not going to Heaven; God handles that in His own ineffable way. The issue is laying claim to His Covenant and whatever goes with that. I'm not saying you shouldn't worry about Heaven; I'm saying you cannot do anything about it. That is, you cannot do anything as most people think about it. The only thing you can do is embrace the Covenant of Christ -- as a covenant. You must embrace the whole package.
So, the issue with sin is that we keep insisting in our western minds on a conception of things that misses the point. We bury a lot of nuanced concepts into one word, the same as we do with "love". Then we make it monolithic and stop thinking about it.
The issue in the Old Covenant was defilement. The rituals symbolized the issue by standing up the concept of ritual defilement. Are you permitted to enter the Tabernacle/Temple? It symbolized the question of whether you could come into the Presence of God. Everyone understood that it was symbolism -- until the infestation of western logic that came with Hellenism. At the foot of Mount Sinai, you can bet no one was confused by the mystical approach; it was the root of how they saw reality.
They saw the world as inherently hostile to their survival. It was enemy territory by default. The only salvation available was to cling to a higher authority, and it was a personal. The Creator had consigned the world to His servant, the Devil, but kept His options open by His own authority. And the policy of His activity was the Covenant. Thus, the Covenant became a symbol of taking refuge in the Creator against a hostile world.
But the biggest problem was always your own fleshly nature; it was an ally of the Enemy. You had to tame it and kept it under the constraints of the Covenant Law. You were the authority over your own flesh, delegated from the hand of God.
Think about the Day of Atonement: This was the annual "reset" that symbolized the necessity of fighting the defilement of the flesh. The goat driven into the wilderness carried the defilement of the flesh out to where it belongs, outside the camp and away from the Presence. The camp layout was a combat bivouac. It was a mobile fortress huddling around the Divine Presence. He was the fortress, the Protector.
The whole definition of sin was anything that exposed you to the Enemy. It was rooted in the notion of cooperating with him as God's foil. To deviate from God's ideal was to side against Him and support the chief of those who objected to God's ways. The Enemy already has some claim on your flesh. Your only hope was to limit his claim by a steadfast resistance, a tireless and never-ending war.
The Day of Atonement covered a range of human frailties. The whole idea was that you were quite fortunate not to be devoured by Satan. There were too many flaws to expect anything approaching moral perfection, too many ways the Enemy could lay a claim on you. So this one annual ritual symbolized divine forgiveness of all the things against which we struggled and failed.
Nothing in that ritual covered your knowing surrender on any point to the Enemy. For that, you had to exert extra effort to recover your relationship with God. You became accountable on that level when you acted against any rather clear statement of law. God alone knew whether you were conflicted internally and missed the point; your convictions would tell you.
However, your default assumption is that you are guilty simply on the grounds of standard humility. You should assume that you need to come regularly toward His Presence and confess what a failure you are. You take responsibility and allow Him to judge as He saw things, since He knows us better than we know ourselves. It was that way in under the Old Covenant, and it hasn't changed under the New, only the rituals.
The western notion of punitive justice is totally evil; it is an insult to God and His Word. The Law of God is relational, not impersonal. This is why evangelism must be viewed as wedding people to Jesus, not coming to terms with impersonal justice. It cannot be the same for each individual; God alone knows their hearts and what He wants from them. He becomes far more flexible with His family than He would be with outsiders.
He speaks through convictions in your heart, not through knowledge in your head. The knowledge is simply a way of conditioning your flesh to obey what your heart hears from the Spirit. Nothing in this is about a change of status; it's entirely personal and relational. It's not a question of what is wrong, because the specifics will change with the context. You cannot objectify the definition of sin. You cannot memorize enough to cover every contingency. It does not yield to logic and reason, but rests entirely an the active loving connection with Christ. You must get to know Him personally.
We are searching out the hidden family members of Christ. They are our treasure.
This document is public domain; spread the message.