Over the past eight years; my reading-of and brooding-on the Fourth Gospel (called "John") has had many and profound effects on my understanding of the differences between what Jesus said and did, and the Christian churches that came after.
In particular, that the core of Jesus's work was to provide Men with the possibility of resurrected eternal life in Heaven.
This means that the primary concern of Jesus was to save mankind from entropy and death - therefore Jesus's primary concern was not to save us from evil.
To repeat: For Jesus salvation means from death, not from evil.
However, most of religion before, during and since the time of Jesus is about morality - about the behaviour (and attitudes) of people.
Such religion is therefore therapeutic - it is "about" minimizing suffering and/or maximizing human happiness in this world and mortal life.
That is what all those Laws and rules are about, the propitiations offered to divinity, the abasements and obedience - they are trying to make this world a better place, and ourselves to have a better place in it.
And this is why all religions have considerable overlap in the approved behaviours.
But this was Not what Jesus was about.
Jesus came essentially to save us from death, not from moral sin.
Jesus was primarily against death, not evil - but his cure for death was also a cure for evil.
For Jesus the problem of death (of entropy) was more profound than that of evil; because in this mortal life and world, death is absolutely universal and completely unavoidable; destructive change may be slowed, but is always at work...
Jesus was necessary and unique because he offered a solution to death; not because of his moral teaching, not because of his moral laws and principles, not because people could make a church from the moral laws and principles.
This was and is very difficult to grasp; because most people (including most early Christians, including those who formed the Christian churches, apparently) - want morality.
Or else they want immortality Now in this world, and without dying first.
People do not, therefore, usually want what Jesus actually offered... Or, at least, they think they don't want it; or they do not want it as strongly and urgently as they want other things - such as relief from suffering, or happiness now-or-soon.
But relief from suffering and positive happiness in this mortal life are not the core of Jesus's message - because these are promised for post-mortal resurrected life, not for this life.
The error of making "Christianity" primarily moral distorted it from very early and has led to its current near-destruction.
Those who made Christianity continuous with Judaism (including the authors of the Matthew and Luke Gospels, and Paul); tried to conflate the primacy of resurrection with their continued primacy of morality...
Leading eventually to the bizarre concoction of Original Sin - in order to pseudo-explain why Jesus was both unique and necessary.
In other words, they made Jesus primarily "about" morality; and resurrection was made conditional upon the approved morality...
And morality was made to be why Jesus came, and curing morality was made to be what Jesus fundamentally did...
This-world morality was made of core importance to the Christian churches; and morality was made to come first - such that resurrection was relegated to a secondary status as reward for good-morality.
But morality is about this-world, here-and-now and before death...
Whereas the advent of resurrection was of cosmic and eternal significance - it is a change in the nature of reality.
Everybody everywhere has their ideas of proper morals; and this is continually contested. And morality does not require resurrection.
So morality is both regarded as primary by almost-everybody; yet morality is detachable from the reality of Christianity...
And morality has, in fact, already-been detached-from Christianity! - even (or rather, especially) in those lands historically (or nominally still) Christian.
As of here-and-now; Christianity is just one of many competing this-worldly moral systems; and gets evaluated in terms of its material "success" in producing good behaviour.
But if we are talking about Jesus Christ, rather than social institutions and traditions; then this is wrong, a mistake, an ancient error.
Jesus brought the possibility of resurrected eternal life in Heaven - and that fact should come first and foremost, and be kept at the core, of our Christian discussion and teaching.
All the gospel requires is repentance and faith. It does not require obedience. It does PRODUCE progressive obedience and conformity to God's nature (which is absolutely morally pure!). But I agree with you that it is not our morality that makes us Christian. It's belief in the message and work of Christ.
ReplyDeleteThese include His Immaculate conception and Resurrection, as well as His teaching that He came to save us; from death which is the result of sin, and the sin which introduced the death we all must face. He did not come to save us from suffering, which cannot be avoided, even though many immature Christians think this way. However, one need only look around and see pagans who make good (moral?) decisions experience positive outcomes while devout Believers who make foolish choices experience negative outcomes.
This is growing verbose, but I agree with you that we often take the thing out of order, but I believe Paul's letters were to encourage Gentile believers that following Christ does produce a change in lifestyle. You don't encounter the living Christ and remain the same. His point was that we live what we believe. Always, and that what we believe manifests itself in how we live. Citizens of the heavenly kingdom look different from citizens of the kingdom of darkness just as Japanese people look different from Englishmen.
I don't think these are mutually exclusive propositions.
@elspeth - From your comment, which does not really engage with what I said; I suspect that you haven't really grasped the argument I am making here.
ReplyDeleteThe author of the book of Hebrews does state that the new Covenant is superior to that of the old one. (And then he goes on to explain why.)
ReplyDeleteAs for morality as the primary goal: I agree, that wasn't Jesus' goal at all. If anything it was to unwrap all the layers of legalistic nonsense added by the so-called religious leaders over centuries and free mankind from that heavy yoke. In my incomplete understanding it is why Jesus poked his finger in their eye at every turn: healing on the Sabbath, etc.
@Dan D - And all this ought to have been clear and explicit from the start, but was not - for reasons that seem lost to history. Thus the confusion continues, with many bad consequences.
ReplyDeleteFor the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. Rom 8v2
ReplyDeleteFor, as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive 1 Cor 15v22.
The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. 1 Cor 15v26.
I don’t know how much clearer it could be; Our Lord, Jesus Christ, saves us all from death. The rest - morality, love, Christ-likeness, overcoming evil - follows from the obedience of faith Rom 1v5, Rom 16v26. Anything short of trusting only in the finished work of Christ for salvation – that we would have to add something of our own, or behave in a certain way, leads to confusion. Personally, I know that if I had to add anything, do and not do certain things, in order to secure my salvation, I’d undoubtedly ruin it.
Orthodox Christianity ties itself in knots trying to reconcile statements of Christ’s finished work with some sort of human contribution which is why we have such a mess today both within the Christian church and how it presents to those outside.
As many of your previous posts have shown, the root problem is spiritual, not moral, not structural. And we lose hands down when we depart from that position of spirituality and try to argue for better outcomes effectively on materialist/atheistic grounds.
@Allen - Good cites.
ReplyDelete" Personally, I know that if I had to add anything, do and not do certain things, in order to secure my salvation, I’d undoubtedly ruin it."
Ha - I think I know what you mean.
But people read the Bible with very complex preconceptions about what they expect to find, and how to interpret it - for example that everything in the Old Testament is also true and good and wholly compatible; and that (one or another) church is essential to salvation and the prime authority.
And there is plenty in Luke and especially Matthew - and even in other parts of Paul's Epistles - to confirm an assumption that Christianity is primarily a religion of morality - with resurrection as a reward for those whose moral behaviour is best.
We are all so used to reading "The Bible" - or at least The New Testament - as if it must all be saying a single coherent things, that I found it very difficult to read IV Gospel (despite that it has always seemed to me the most authoritative source) and grasp what it said, in and of itself. And when I first realized, I was pretty shocked!
But having taken this on board, and thought about it as seriously as I could, suddenly the whole thing began to make clear and simple sense - without need to introduce incomprehensible fudges.
. “. . . . . I found it very difficult to read IV Gospel (despite that it has always seemed to me the most authoritative source) and grasp what it said, in and of itself. And when I first realized, I was pretty shocked!”
DeleteI have noted your position on the fourth gospel as a profound stand alone and I do intend to read it through myself from this point of view, as I do appreciate your insights generally. The fourth gospel certainly stands apart from the other three.
Personally, I consider Paul's 13 epistles separately from the other books in the NT (including Letter to the Hebrews) as being the revelation to the Gentiles, from Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles. For me, the maxim of all Scripture being for us but not always written to us is a guiding principle. Col 1vv25-28 is an express illustration of this where Paul outlines his ministry which was a secret (mustErion in the Greek) hid from (previous) ages and generations, (ie not to be found in the OT) the glory of which, he says, is now revealed among the Gentiles.
I thought I was saying what Allan said. Clearly, I didn't say what I thought I was saying. I accept your assertion that I seemed to miss the point.
ReplyDeleteEither way, thank you for the food for thought and the hospitality of allowing me to comment.