Why was Jesus born into this world of sin? Why is anyone?

A candidate for The Big Question is: why does this 'world of sin' exist at all? 

I am here using sin as in the Fourth Gospel to mean, mainly, death; and therefore to encompass the idea that this is a world of inevitable death; thus of ubiquitous change - decay, degeneration, sickness, pain... 

Why did God create such a manifestly-imperfect world as this one? A world dominated by death? 

The only satisfying answer is that this world is necessary. By necessary, I mean necessary to God's plans for creation. 

In other words, this world of sin is needed for the fulfilment of God's creative plans. 

Needed, yes - but obviously not as an end-point - because this changing world is intrinsically Not an end point. Here, the end of every-thing is death...

But as a necessary step towards God's goal. This world is a means towards an end. 

And God's goal with creation is to raise Men up to his level - to enable Men (who are already sons and daughters of God) to choose to become fully divine; which means fully capable of creation. 

God therefore needed both to make it possible for Men to become fully divine (i.e. to create Heaven); and also to enable Men to choose this possibility (i.e. to exercise agency, or free will). 

What is the necessary step that 'this world of sin' enables? 

Well, the one thing shared by all the diversity of Men of all human eras and situations is - A Body. 

In other words, the primary fact of Man's experience is incarnation: getting a body. 

And the body we get is a mortal body, a body that will die. 

Therefore, we may infer that this is the primary purpose of this world is to provide all men with a mortal body: thus the purpose is the totality of mortal incarnation - necessarily including death.*  

Jesus was born into this world of sin for the same reason as the rest of Men - he shared our fate: he was born to get a body - mortal body - and therefore to die. 

The difference was that when Jesus's mortal body had died; he was (him-self) then resurrected with an immortal body. 

Since Christians regard Jesus as the example we wish to follow; we implicitly accept that the best immortality is an incarnated immortality - that it is better to have an immortal body; than it would be to be immortal but without a body.

For Christians therefore; eternal incarnation is better (i.e. higher, more in accordance with God's plan) than eternal life as a spirit.  

So this world of sin is a necessary step in God's plan of creation because it provides us with a mortal body; and by Jesus's birth and death in this world - he made eternal incarnation possible (which is, for God, the best possible kind of eternal life.

Incarnation and death is the only experience shared by all Men - including those who die in the womb, and those who die as babies or children. But if getting a body that was the only purpose of this mortal world, then we would not live such varied lives - and some people would not live for so many decades...

So there must be a secondary purpose to this world, and it must be a purpose that explains why each Man's experience of mortal life is unique. 

In a nutshell; this secondary purpose to this mortal world is quantitative, rather than the qualitative fact of 'getting a body'. 

'Living' our own unique life is about what is best for us, rather than what is absolutely necessary for all Men. 

Our various experiences are in order that each of us, each specifically, has the best chance to learn those particular lessons we personally most need for the best possible eternal resurrected life. 

At Christmas we celebrate the birth of Jesus into this world of sin which all Men share with him. 

We celebrate Jesus getting a mortal body, and commencing a mortal life that would inevitably terminate in death. 

It was what happened next, after his death, that was the primary work of Jesus, by which he changed reality forever.  

*This clear understanding seems first to have been attained by the Mormon prophet: Joseph Smith.

Incoherence in traditional concepts of sin: Understanding 'sin' as the entropic nature of this mortal world; as anything-other-than resurrected life

Ever since I began to consider the matter seriously; I have found the ways that sin and forgiveness are discussed to be incoherent. They just don't seem to add up, or hold together. 

What I think I was sensing, was a clash between the temporary and the eternal, the individual and the social -- resulting from changes in human consciousness and the concept of 'Christianity' since the time of Jesus. 

I think it likely that, when Christianity was developed as an institutional, then a state, religion; it became bound-up with the prescription and enforcement of good, pro-social, 'Christian behaviour' - and this became regarded as the pre-requisite to salvation. 

So we get the idea of 'sin' as transgression of laws, and 'forgiveness' as some mixture of punishments, penances, and wiping the slate clean of past transgressions. In practice, 'sin' was externally, socially, defined. 

Thus laws and other rules of conduct were societally developed, validated and imposed; the individual was the sinner (law-breaker); and some representative of society decided what ought to be done about it.

This pragmatic system relating to social behaviour (primarily) was then harnessed to the 'cosmic' aspects of Christianity; i.e. the fact of Jesus Christ having change created reality - made possible a new Heaven of eternal resurrected life etc. 

This was the - to me - peculiar picture from Christianity; of a reality made up of moral laws/ legal codes and the system for developing and enforcing them; which was strangely linked with a narrative of the history of everything. 

It seemed hard to grasp how - in creating - God had built-in objective morality of this social kind... I just couldn't picture how this might work. 

When I spent a year or so, reading and re-reading the Fourth Gospel ("John") - I gradually became aware of a very different way in which sin was being conceptualized. 

The IV Gospel (overall) saw sin as ultimately death; and milder sins as including sickness and others kinds of dysfunction, corruption (away from proper purpose and function), wrong attitudes towards God, expounding of false realities, and so forth. 

I gathered that Jesus's work in taking-away sin, was to take-away death; in other words to offer Men the possibility of resurrection into life everlasting. 

Miracles of healing were perhaps Jesus taking-away lesser 'sins' of disease and disability. 

'Forgiveness' is not mentioned as such in the Fourth Gospel; but in some parables and miracles, Jesus seems to be declaring something about a change of mind or heart, or a reorientation, on the part of the one who is healed - this (here-and-now) commitment to Jesus is the 'faith' that has made the miracle possible. 

But this is not necessarily an eternal transformation of behaviour. I don't think we are meant to assume that one who has had faith, and received a miracle, would 'never sin again' in the sense of never again breaking any of the Laws of morality. 

The transformation of those who encountered Jesus was not a permanent change of their behaviour; but a here-and-now change of heart, of desire, of attitude. 

It seems possible that Jesus was talking about repentance or forgiveness in terms of a person turning to Jesus as Saviour, as Good Shepherd - as recognizing that only by 'loving' and following Jesus can we have eternal resurrected life. 

This can only be guaranteed as a temporary state of affairs in this mortal life - because somebody might at first decide to follow Jesus, and then later change his mind. As a sheep might begin following the Shepherd to safety; but change his mind, stray, and fall off a precipice to his death (i.e. to choose damnation). 

Thus, concepts such as 'repentance' and more generally 'faith' may best be understood as referring to the here-and-now; to the current situation in mortal life. 

These concepts are also, at root, personal and not institutional - at least to us modern men. 

Personal and institutional were, indeed, de facto inseparable in earlier stages of Man's development of consciousness, including the time of Christ and the centuries that followed. 

It was only from the late medieval era that Western Men began mentally to distinguish the individual group his group, more and more fully, and then to experience as a fact of reality. 

So, my confusion about 'sin' (and the confusion of Christian teaching, from which my confusion derived) was - in part - a consequence of trying to combine concepts from different stages of Man's consciousness.  

My conclusion is that we have now arrived at a very different point from where Christianity arrived at after the ascension of Jesus and the rapid development of first the Church, and then the Christian State. We are, indeed, now returned to a situation much closer to that described in the Fourth Gospel, during the life of Jesus. 

'Faith' is now something-like a here-and-now determination to follow Jesus to eternal life; and 'sin' is... anything else, i.e. any other commitment or purpose than that of following Jesus to resurrection-specifically. 

'Repentance' (the word itself isn't used in the Fourth Gospel) is (perhaps) simply the renewed commitment to following Jesus; whereas 'apostasy' is, like Judas Iscariot, referring to one who once had faith, later changing his mind and deciding Not to believe or follow Jesus. 

(And then, of course, apostasy may be repented.) 

So 'sin' is ultimately choosing death - meaning not-resurrection; but choosing instead some other fate for our post-mortal soul.

Thus 'damnation' may entail something like loss of personhood, loss of agency, loss of consciousness... Or refusing to leave this mortal world, and remaining bound to the domination of entropy and death. Damnation may be many or several possibilities, because it is anything-but resurrection. 

And, from this, 'sin' is used more generally to refer to mortal life and its innate nature - this world, dominated by entropic change: corruption, disease, decay, degeneration... 

In other words: 'sin' is all of that from-which we are rescued by resurrection into eternal life. 

Why don't modern Christians want resurrected eternal Heavenly life as their first priority?

A few days ago I discussed why mainstream modern (mostly secular) people do not want the resurrected eternal Heavenly life that Jesus offered - especially in the Fourth ("John") Gospel.

But what applies to modern people also applies to Christians in the sense that eternal life features as such a low priority or interest for modern Christians, that it often gets left-out altogether!

(Whereas modern secular people don't want resurrection at all; modern Christians don't want resurrection all that much...)

I don't suppose any Christian would go so far as to deny resurrection after death; but it has been pushed a long way down the scale of importance (except, perhaps, for Mormons - at least in theory) - because it has been displaced by this-worldly concerns. 

Part of this relates to the word and concept of sin. If asked "what is Christianity?" most Christians will probably focus upon sin; and by sin they will mean (almost exclusively) moral transgressions. 

Therefore, the explanation of what Jesus Christ did for Men is focused upon how he negated the negation that is moral transgression. Behind this is typically an idea that moral transgressions will send us to hell by default - except that Jesus Christ has negated these through his work and The Church.  

Yet, if - like me - you regard the Fourth Gospel as the primary source; then it is evident that sin meant mostly death. When Jesus took away sin, he took away the necessity of death. And provided "everlasting" or "eternal" life. Jesus took away death by replacing it with resurrection into Heaven.   

However, in contrast, the actual everyday, and detailed theology and doctrines, of Christianity have apparently - for many, many centuries - concentrated upon moral behaviour in this mortal life. And, consequently, Christianity has neglected or relatively downplayed the purpose and endpoint of all this - which is resurrected eternal Heavenly life. 

For example, I recently attended a Christmas Carol concert at an evangelical church - in which many things were mentioned - Old Testament prophecies, the nativity story; virgin birth; angels, shepherds and wise men, Jesus as King, Jesus whose death saved us from sin etc. etc. - but never any explicit explanation that Christianity was directed-at and ultimately-about resurrected eternal Heavenly life.

Perhaps this was partly because such a focus does not "play well" with a modern secular audience; but I believe that it cuts much deeper than this - and that when a modern Christian tries to explain Christianity Made Simple, he does not recognize the promise of eternal life as the single key fact that absolutely must be put-across as the core and essence of the faith. 

There are, of course, also spiritual risks entailed by a strong and central emphasis on eternal life as the 'reward' of following Jesus. 

But there are always risks to any course - there is no "safe" way to be-a-Christian - certainly not in 2023 and in The West; and indeed we see all around us the appalling consequences of the Churches putting morality in this mortal life at the centre and as the main concern of Christianity. 

And expediency should not be the bottom-line: truth must be our ultimate guide. We each must decide for our-selves whether it is true that resurrected eternal life by following Jesus Christ really is the essence of Christianity; and that depends upon our assumptions as to where Christian truth lies, and how we as individuals may best get access to it, and know it once found. 

Fear as Sin, Sin as death (revisited)

It is very difficult, sometimes, to avoid being gripped by fear - and by 'fear' I do not mean that acute emotion which leads to adaptive behaviours such as 'fight or flight'; but that chronic existential fear (or 'angst') which gets hold of the emotions, distorts thinking, and Will Not Let Go. 

It is important to recognize that such fear is a sin. 

It is a sin because it is is a consequence of lack of faith (i.e. lack of trust, lack of confidence...) in the goodness, love and creative power of God; and the salvation of Jesus Christ.

And sin itself is - in its deepest meaning - death (including that which conduces Men to choose death). That is, death as understood as the severance of the (eternal) soul from the (dead) body; with consequent loss of our agency, our consciousness of our-selves - so that we would become witless, demented, discarnate 'ghosts'. When Jesus offered the possibility of saving Men from 'sin' - it was this condition from which he was saving Men.  

 

There are always causes for fear; and fear may (it seems) strike anyone. I have read many accounts of World War One pilots, that make clear that the most courageous people one can imagine - men who have risked death, three times a day for months on end, in single combat with superior enemy forces - can, and eventually will experience, paralyzing fear. 

And such fear of death can be so extreme and unbearable, as itself to lead to either deliberate, or semi-deliberate, seeking of death - death to 'put an end to' (as it seems) the fear of death.

But even in what is apparently the safest and most secure individual lives - perhaps especially in such lives - there may be an intense dread of losing safety and security. 

Thus, fear is part of the human condition. 

If so, if sin is unavoidable - how can it be sin? And how can sin be overcome if it is part of the human condition?  

Well - sin is part of the human condition; and sin cannot be overcome fully and finally in this mortal life on earth... 

But this inevitability of failure does not matter in the ultimate scheme of things, since this mortal life on earth is intended as a time of learning and preparation, a time of tests and opportunities - the benefits of which learning may be 'enjoyed' through eternity (in resurrected Heavenly life), as well as providing glimpses and hope for that eternity.  

The inevitability of fear is, in a sense, liberating! Because it diminishes the delusory hope of avoiding fear, and puts the emphasis on what we do when we fear. 

In sum: fear cannot be avoided, it will always come back again - and again; but fear can be dealt with when it does return. 

Fear can be dealt with every time it returns, no matter how many times it returns - and it is this dealing-with fear that is what does us good...

And does us good, not here in this mortal life on earth; but good ultimately and eternally. 

This way of understanding sin (which, in my case, derives-from a close reading of the Fourth Gospel) is liberating, and hope-full; since it is attainable by anyone; even (perhaps especially) those most prone to fear. 

Each experience of fear is an occasion for recognizing that it arises only from the weakness of our faith; and repenting that fact. That is: recognizing that our existential angst about 'the future', about what might or will happen - is a sin arising from the mortal inadequacy of that confidence and hope which ought to come from our belief in God and following of Jesus. 

It is such 'knowing and affirming what is right' that constitutes repentance. 

Such a perspective (albeit temporarily achieved) may provide some here-and-now relief (albeit temporary) from the fear that afflicts us. It may stop such fear from getting worse, rather than (as otherwise usually happens) feeding upon itself. 

But even if no relief is obtained, even when we cannot 'make ourselves' feel the love of God and Jesus we know we ought to feel; the very act of repentance is valuable - permanently valuable. 

It is this knowing what is right, and wanting-to-want what is right, that is most important.

Death as annihilation, and other desired post-mortal destinations

We are eternal Beings, and at some level we know this. Therefore, the eternal future is a subject of compelling concern - albeit that concern may well be expressed by an absolute refusal to think or speak about it. 

I am suspicious of the common modern 'belief in' (which I interpret as desire-for) death as annihilation. I mean, the standard mainstream belief that biological death of the body also entails a complete destruction of every-thing about that person... There is no 'soul' or 'spirit' separable from the body... Dead means dead and gone.  

As I mentioned, I interpret this belief as a desire; and my understanding of this desire is that it often arises in those who will not repent (perhaps they will not acknowledge the reality of sin?)... People who are deeply and ineradicably ashamed - and who want (more than anything) for their shame to end. 

In sum: those who desire annihilation want permanent annihilation of their own self as a final solution to unendurable existence in a reality with No Hope.  

'Death as annihilation' is a manifestation of existential despair. 

 

In the ancient past - at least among both the Hebrews (Sheol) and the Classical Greeks (Hades) - there was a belief in "death" as becoming witless, demented ghosts; spirits with no memory of life and who had lost self-identity. 

This was not a torment, nor a pleasant state; rather it was neutral - and implicitly a situation of waiting. The fate of the dead soul was undecided, and there was a possibility of being-rescued. 

And this, indeed, happened; since Jesus rescued as many of these souls as wanted to Follow Him.

 

The anticipation of Sheol/ Hades was therefore for a state after death with hope of escape. But it seems a distinctively modern thing to desire death to be irrevocable; death to be a permanent and complete annihilation.

The modern idea of death is the desire to make an eternal commitment of negation. And, once thus conceptualised, I think that modern death can be seen as a mirror of Christian hope for Heaven. 

The Christian believes that he can make an eternal commitment in favour of God; and can thereby join-with God (and others who have made this positive commitment) in the continuing work of loving creation. 

In contrast; the mainstream, modern idea of death as annihilation is the opposite desire; the wish to make an eternal commitment to reject God, love and creation.

...And is, thereby, a decision to join-with the side of Satan and the powers of darkness; working against God. 

 

In sum, the normal, mainstream, modern desire for death as annihilation is evil: it is a manifestation of the unrepented sin of despair: it expresses an active rejection of God, love and God's creation. 

 

Note: A somewhat less 'final' version of the death-as-annihilation desire is the wish for death as a state of 'sleep', 'rest', 'peace' and so on - which seems to have become popular in England in the 19th century; and is still expressed in the unthinking repetition of 'RIP'. 

This seems to express a desire for death-as-annihilation; but of a potentially revocable type; allowing at least the possibility of awakening after a period of sufficient rest/ sleep/ peace.  

Further note: I have not discussed the matter of reincarnation, in its many and contrasting forms; nor what desires they reflect - because I am not yet clear on that matter.

Water and the Spirit - this-world and the-next in the Fourth Gospel

In the early Chapters of the Fourth Gospel, Jesus repeatedly tries to explain the nature of his 'mission' - what he brings - using a contrast between water on the one hand, and that which water becomes through following Jesus after death: spirit or some other. 

More exactly; Jesus uses "water" to mean this life, this temporary life in this mortal world - and contrasts it with what he offers - which is "not of this world". 

Indeed, throughout the Fourth Gospel, involving everybody from the disciples through to Pilate, we can see Jesus struggling (over and again) to make people understand that what he offers is not of this world; that he is not a would-be "king" who claims to offers a better life in this realm of "water" in which everything is temporary... 

Instead of that; Jesus describes the Kingdom of life-everlasting coming after death, and only after death: to reach it we must first die, and then be 'reborn', born-again - that is resurrected.  

In Chapter 1, John says that he himself baptizes with water - but Jesus's is a baptism of the spirit - which refers to the distinction between this and the next world, the spirit being from Heaven:

And John bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him. And I knew him not: but he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him, the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost.

In Chapter 2, the contrast is given in the nature of the water-to-wine miracle of Cana; where water is perhaps understandable as this-worldly life, and "wine" may be taken to stand for the transformed life after death. 

In Chapter 3; Jesus talks to Nicodemus about being "born again" - which means first to die and then to be resurrected - i.e. a kind of rebirth, but into an everlasting condition: 

Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

Here we see "water" of this life, again contrasted with the "Spirit" of the next. And again that the Spirit must be preceded by the water. Man must first be born into this mortal world (of "water") if he wishes ultimately to enter the eternal kingdom of God. 

Jesus also introduces a further "analogy" for this mortal life as "the flesh" - to explain that there is no possibility of achieving the Kingdom of God on earth and in this mortal life; but only by passing-through death and re-birth ("Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God). 

A man that is born into this mortal world of the flesh can only be mortal ("the flesh is flesh"); but he that is re-born (i.e. resurrected) into the world of Spirit, beyond death, will himself partake of the immortality of that life-after-life ("the Spirit is spirit"). 

In sum; for a man to become eternal he must be born (that is, re-born; which entails mortally-dying first) in the eternal world.  

Chapter 4 describes Jesus at Jacob's well, talking with a Samaritan woman who is drawing water. 

Again Jesus contrasts the water of this mortal and temporary life which the woman draws from the well, with what He Himself brings to the world: which is everlasting water ("living" water - i.e. by analogy life that is eternally-self-renewing) - for those who desire it, and ask for it. 

Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.

The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water? Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle?

Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.

In Chapter 5, Jesus goes to the pool at Bethesda, where the "impotent" seek to enter the water and be healed. The "impotent" implies all men in this mortal life and world. 

In this world, therefore temporarily. Jesus heals the man ("Take up thy bed, and walk") but Jesus explains that what he has come to do is not about temporary healing in this temporary world; but is about "sin" (by which, in the Fourth Gospel, Jesus mostly means death without resurrection).

Afterward Jesus findeth him in the temple, and said unto him, Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more...

I think that Jesus's admonitions - here, and sometimes elsewhere - to sin no more, or not to sin, make no sense if understood as ordering people to cease from moral transgression - which Jesus knew (as we know) to be an impossibility in this mortal life. 

"Sin no more" - in the Fourth Gospel - means (more or less) that people should die no more; that is, that they should instead understand, believe, and accept Jesus's gift of eternal resurrected life. 

The instruction to sin no more is therefore roughly equivalent to Jesus urging people to accept the gift of resurrected life eternal, through believing and following Him.

"Sin no more" actually means therefore - as we might say it - "convert to Christianity". 

In Chapter 6 Jesus varies the symbol, somewhat: 

[The people said:] Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat.... 

[Jesus replied:] Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world. 

Then said they unto him, Lord, evermore give us this bread.

And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.

Again the contrast is between the only temporarily-satisfying "bread" of this world, and the eternally-satisfying bread from heaven after-which we will never hunger (and also the drink which permanently abolishes thirst, presumably "living water") - that shall be given - after death - to those who "come to" Jesus. 

Chapter 7: In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.

Here there is again implicit the earlier idea (from Jacob's well) the idea of ordinary water versus "living" water - to mean resurrected life everlasting. The man who thirsts is one who desires eternal life in the Kingdom of God. 

And the path to that life leads through death via "believing-on" Jesus - implying "belief" entails trusting and following the person of Jesus, at, and after, our death. 

Other similar passages can be cited, where contrast is drawn between, on the one hand, this-worldly and temporary ameliorations (such as Moses's provision of manna); and, on the other hand, the eternal and transformative life-beyond-life that Jesus brings and offers. 

It seems to me that there is a pattern through the Fourth Gospel of Jesus repeatedly denying that His business is to offer what we might term secular improvements - e.g psychological and sociopolitical benefits; and instead many attempts to explain (with various 'analogies', or symbols) that his message is not about this, but about the next, world. 

Now, of course, belief-in and desire-to-accept, Jesus's offer of eternal resurrected life in the Kingdom of God is almost certain to have effects on this mortal life... But any such effects on this-life are secondary to expectation of the-life-to-come. 

This is worth emphasizing, because I think many or most Christian get it the wrong way around - and thereby fall into the error Jesus strove so often to correct. They assume that Christianity is about doing particular stuff in this world in order to get to the next world. 

Indeed, some Christians put so much emphasis on the particular stuff that must be done in this world; that they hardly ever even think-about the next world. 

Some even ignore the primary promise of Heaven; and instead focus almost-exclusively on the quadruple-negative life purpose; of not-doing stuff that must be eschewed, in order to avoid-Hell!  

But Christianity is primarily about resurrected life after and beyond this mortal life; therefore, the effects of Christian belief on this mortal life are secondary to, contingent upon, the anticipated fact of resurrection in a mortal life.

Effects of Christian belief on this mortal life are thus a secondary consequence of the expectation of eternal life.

Any changed behaviours ought-to derive from the different perspective on this-life that results from belief in the life-to-come.  

***

Note: Then there is a long-running disputation about whether we can, or should, be confident about the life-to-come - i.e. "salvation". 

Many Christians have believed that salvation is difficult, complex, rare, only possible via a church and its requirements...

But that is not what comes across in the Fourth Gospel. In the Fourth Gospel; it seems that salvation is something like a decision and a commitment; and that those who have chosen salvation (by means of following Jesus) ought to be confident of salvation (so long as they continue to remain committed to it); and then... live their lives on the basis of this confident expectation. 

Why are the commonest sins neglected? Because they are socially-approved

The spiritual war is fought in public over whether the 'sins' of mainstream, totalitarian leftist-materialism ought to be regarded as primary (e.g. racism, sexism' climate- or peck-denialism...); or whether instead the traditional Christian sins such as adultery, fornication, drunkenness etc.) ought to be the major focus. 

(The mainstream has the advantage in this dispute because they deny that the Christian sins are sinful at all, but rather virtues; while the self-identified Christians usually agree with the totalitarian left that attitudes such as racism, sexism, and -denialism are indeed sins - and will, for example - routinely and officially exclude leaders who disagree with any of the mainstream leftist definitions of 'sin'.) 

My usual list of the most dominating sins of this time and place includes fear, resentment, dishonesty and despair. 

But these are - at best - almost completely neglected by Christian teaching - which continues to focus on more traditional (and spectacular!) sins of a sexual nature; or sins that are (at least officially) still against the law: things like murder, rape, theft etc. 

Such a focus has the unfortunate (but probably deliberate) effect of creating and sustaining "Pharisaism" among Christians, which I would here define as the belief that sin can be avoided - with enough effort. 

Well, yes! Spectacular sins can indeed be avoided. And avoiding these is made much easier by the fact that they are socially dis-approved, and if detected they will be punished. 

But my understanding is that Jesus said this was not only insufficient, but a harmful attitude to life. 

Sin, as such, is so pervasive in the human condition as to be unavoidable; and the belief that sin can be avoided leads to what Jesus termed 'hypocrisy' - that is, to assumptions of purity and authority on the basis of being (at least publicly) able to avoid a few extreme and spectacular sins; while neglecting the far more frequent, but equally in need of repentance, sins of everyday life - such as dishonesty.

Did you murder anyone yesterday? Probably not. And, if you did, you probably repent it. 

But were you dishonest yesterday? Yes You Were! And probably dozens, maybe hundreds of times; especially if you are a manager or a professional or any kind of leader. 

Indeed, most middle class people are dishonest as an essential (and growing) element of their job: they are strategically, calculatedly dishonest for-a-living.  

Did you repent these dishonesties - did you even notice them at all? Even worse - do you regard yourself as a truthful person, and deny that you were and are dishonest? 

Sins such as dishonesty are un-noticed and therefore un-repented because they are socially-approved, and often socially rewarded: 

Back in 2020-2021; we were all socially expected to fear the birdemic - and anyone who did not express sufficient fear was regarded as a danger to public health. 

Resentment is the motivational basis of antiracism, feminism, socialism and many other leftist ideologies (and several actually-left but supposedly-right ideologies such as nationalism); and nowadays such resentment (whether personal, or vicariously expressed 'on behalf of' the 'oppressed') is mandatory in public discourse. 

A manager and a politician is rewarded for dishonesty (e.g. calculated misleading, untruthfulness and indeed lying - if lies effective and deniable); and will be sacked if he refuses. Much the same applies to scientists, doctors, lawyers, church leaders, economists, the police and military... essentially it applies everybody in leadership or 'expert' positions in major social institutions. 

My point here - which I think was also Jesus's point in His teaching - is that we sin all the time, and deliberately - and we have no intention of ceasing to sin when those sins are socially-allowed/ mandatory; because to do so would put us out of a job, and exclude us from human society. 

Fortunately (!); Jesus came to save sinners, and not those (non-existent) persons who are sin-less.  

Jesus asks 'merely' that we acknowledge that we sin all the time, and cannot (indeed we do not wish to) stop sinning: and 'yet' these and we are exactly those who Jesus can and will save... So long as we are prepared to acknowledge and repent the fact.  

How does this fit with salvation? Well, in the Fourth Gospel ("John") the word "sin" is mostly used to mean "death" - that is, death without resurrection, death without salvation. 

Resurrection (i.e. eternal life, instead of death) depends on what we can call repentance, not on ceasing to sin. 

And repentance is necessary to salvation because resurrection requires that we are prepared to acknowledge sin as sin, and leave it behind us before we can proceed to eternal life in Heaven. After all, Heaven would not be Heaven if sin was still present - there can be no sin in Heaven; but we are all sinful, nearly all the time; therefore we must reject All sin before we can be resurrected into Heaven.

Repentance can therefore be thought of as the firm intent to leave-behind all sin (spectacular and unnoticed) when the choice and chance of resurrection comes to us (presumably, after death), and when all such sins shall be brought to our attention*. 

To "follow Jesus" means to repent all our sins. And it is those sins that are socially un-recognized, denied, or rewarded which are far less likely to be repented than the big and obvious sins on which nearly-everybody is agreed.   

*We cannot, of course, recognize all our individual sins during this mortal life - there are too many, and we lack sufficient discernment! But we can avoid falling into the damnation-trap of denying sin, especially when it is brought to our awareness. That way, when we come to the point of decision, we will not be held back from salvation by our habitual, ingrained and calculated unwillingness to let-go of 'the least of' our sins. For instance; someone who has spent forty years 'justifying' his own deliberate dishonesties in the workplace; may find it very difficult to acknowledge that dishonesty Must utterly and forever be repudiated in Heaven. 

Un-resurrected Men are not perfectible and there can be no Heaven on this earth (Jesus Christ is the only Way to eternal love)

I have often come across variations on the theme that this world and the Men, animals and plants who dwell here are perfectible: that this mortal life can be transformed into Heaven. 

The transformation has been variously expressed; one idea is that the gross materiality of bodies will be transformed into light; or that matter becomes spirit; or (in New Age type thinking) that the vibrational-state or frequency of the planet and everything on it will be raised. 

The underlying idea seems to be that this world as-it-is is "entropically" subject to death, decay, disease, and sin; but that the corruptible "stuff" of mortality and imperfection can be transformed and replaced by in-corruptible stuff... Thus Earth is changed into Heaven.

I regard this metaphysical belief as an early manifestation of Mankind's alienation, of our diminishing participation, of the loss of primal "animism" by which we knew that this reality is constituted by Beings - loving, conscious, purposive beings - and these are the bottom-line explanation. 

Because reality is Beings - therefore restatements of ultimate reality in such terms as vibrations or frequencies, of matter-spirit distinctions, or of light or any other physical property - are all abstractions. (All "physicsy").

That is these ways of understanding reality are all distanced, symbolic, representative - but not reality itself; and only a secondary form of understanding.

If, instead, we embrace the original and spontaneous human understanding of reality in terms of Beings, then we can recognize that what prevents Heaven on Earth is not a matter of matter, not about the "substance" of this world (as if it could be separated from the spirit). But instead that death, sin, insufficiency, "entropy" are a consequence on the inharmoniousness of relationships between Beings. 

In a nutshell: it is the lack of complete and eternal love that prevents our eternal lives and Heaven. 

We must rectify relationships and enable eternal Love to have Heaven. 

Heaven can arise only by Loving God first - that is, recognizing and committing ourselves to God's creation and creative methods and purposes. 

And second: by loving our neighbours/ fellow-Men - in other words Loving All Other Beings - forever.

These are the two Great Commandments articulated by Jesus Christ; and can be seen as shorthand for the eternal and irrevocable commitment to live by Love; in harmony with God's creative will. 

When beings live by Love, this is eternal - because there is nothing in Heaven (thus conceived) to disrupt or destroy divine creation.  

Since Love is what is needed, and since Love is a choice - we need to recognize that Love is the free act of a Being with agency as an essential attribute. 

Therefore (because Love cannot be imposed, top-down, from-externally); everlasting life and Heaven cannot be imposed, but must instead be chosen: indeed there must be a commitment to live eternally by Love. 

To make our lives eternal and dwell in Heaven is therefore a matter of relationship, and that relationship is voluntary (again, Love cannot be imposed)... 

Thus Heaven cannot be imposed on Earth by any means - what must instead happen is that all the beings of Earth (including the being of Earth itself) must choose to live by Love.   

I cannot see any way that such a lot of choices would be simultaneous, and Heaven cannot be partial; which would seem to mean that either Heaven must be delayed until every Being has chosen it -- which delay seems contradicted by Jesus's teachings (esepcially in the Fourth Gospel - of "John"). Or Heaven is elsewhere. 

(And also there is the fact of at least some apparently eternally-self-damned demons; which would prevent Heaven ever from happening - if indeed all must repent before eternal life can ensue.) 

Heaven surely cannot be partial; because the dwelling in Heaven of selfish or cruel Beings would not be Heaven! It would lead to destruction of that Loving creation which enables both perfection and eternity - and is itself the state of Heaven.

So, it seems to me that Heaven, and our eternal resurrected life therein, must be elsewhere than this earth; and segregated from this world of sin/ death - such that those Beings who have not committed to Love, do-not and cannot affect Heaven. 

My understanding is therefore that this-world cannot be other than it is; which is a consequence of God's Loving creation in a context of primal chaos, creation in the context of Beings that all have some tendency to death, to selfishness, to sin (and some Beings apparently incapable of Love). 

This world is temporary, and creation here is like the rule of a wise and wholly-Good parent imposed on children (i.e. Beings) who vary in their innate degrees of Goodness, and obedience. 

But for eternal life and Heaven to exist, these Beings (us, you and me, included) must be released from obedience in order to choose freely whether or not we want Heaven. 

So, this world is mixed: and has in it both evil (primal chaos, entropy, selfishness...), and also Good - vast and renewing manifestations of God's creative Love. 

Therefore; every Being or entity in this world has direct and personal experience of evil and Good. 

Every Being in this world is in a position to make the eternal commitment to live wholly by Love in a wholly Good "other place" that is Heaven - a Heaven that already exists, and to which we each can go by following Jesus Christ through resurrection, after death.

In other words; we can, will, and must choose either Heaven; or else "more of the same, mixed, kind of thing".  

But this world is not staying the same. 

This world apparently accumulates evil through time, because evil just-is cumulative, and Beings that choose evil become more evil..

(Unless the Beings repent; which means precisely making a commitment to follow Jesus to Heaven.) 

Also; Beings that commit to Good are incrementally being removed from this-world and segregated in Heaven. 

In other words; this mixed world already contains Hell in part and in places; but is becoming more Hell-ish with time. 

In conclusion; Beings such as our-selves can choose Heaven or Hell - both of which we all have experienced in this mixed world. This is the choice between eternally living only by Love; and not making this commitment. 

We can choose Heaven, or we can choose to reject Heaven. 

We can also choose to "delay" our choice -- but this is, in its actual effect, a here-and-now rejection of Heaven, and embrace of this mixed-world, which is tending towards Hell. 

We can go-back on this rejection of Heaven at any time: repentance is always open to every Being. 

But, in this mixed but evil-accumulating world, and given that un-repented evil will become more evil; delaying the choice of Heaven does make salvation more and more difficult. 

Repentance is never impossible, but always gets more difficult with delay. 

Conceptualising Sin - and The Fall

Sin could usefully be defined as 'the condition of mortal life' - since that encompasses its two main aspects of wrong behaviour and death.

The Fall was therefore, primarily, moving into the condition of incarnated mortality - with its consequent inevitability of both death, and those behaviours that are a consequence of being imperfectly aligned with the divine will.

Reading the Fourth Gospel, we can see that the term 'sin' refers to a wider range of phenomena that more recent usage - in particular it is used sometimes to mean death; and by death is meant the ghostly, half-existence of demented souls that have been severed from their bodies, and wander 'witless' in the underworld that the ancients termed Sheol or Hades (later translated and reconceptualised as Hell).


The Fall refers to the choice and decision made by all of us mortal Men to leave the child-like, unfree, un-conscious Eden-paradise of our immortal pre-mortal spiritual life; where we were immersed-in God's will and lacking in personal agency - hence unable to act otherwise than in harmonious accordance with divine motivations.

When we became incarnated, we increased our free agency; but at the cost of becoming separated from God's will. Mortality (as a state) is characterised by change, corruption, disease and decay - as well as inevitable death.

Thus, no mortal Man (except for Jesus) has been fully aligned-with God's creation. We are all, therefore, 'sinners' in the dual sense of being not-fully-aligned with the divine will, and also destined to die.


However, The Fall is sometimes rightly described as a Felix Culpa - a blessed transgression; because it enables us to attain a higher level of divine nature.  

Only after being separated from our previous state of unconscious immersion God's will; are we are (potentially) able to make the free choice of aligning ourselves eternally with God's will; and after mortal death, as resurrected eternal children of God, then actively-participating in God's work of ongoing creation - as ourselves gods.

 (i.e. Small 'g' gods, working within God the creator's reality.),

(All this is made possible by our mortal incarnation, but we are free agents, so it is not guaranteed. Indeed, in the modern West, it looks like only a small minority are choosing to choose salvation and resurrection.)


At the same time, because we are not-fully-aligned with God's will in this mortal life, we will inevitably think, say and do many things that are opposed to God's will: that is, we will inevitably commit 'sins' in the more common usage of the word.

Those familiar lists of behavioural sins (e.g. the behaviours proscribed by the Ten Commandments, or the Seven Deadlys - or mortal and venial sins; or the Scriptural prohibitions from Paul's letters) can be understood as broad categories of behaviour that tend to be characteristic of those who are not-fully-aligned with God's will.

Behavioural sins (such as these lists) are therefore Not to be taken as 'sin-itself' - which is subjective; but observable 'signs' that are typically 'correlated-with' actual sin - sin itself being the mortal state of being unaligned with God's will.


The specific focus of these familiar 'behavioural correlates of sin' tends to be on those behaviours that are either especially tempting, or especially destructive of society in general or church order in particular. That is the reason why sexual correlates of sin are so prominent.

And this focus certainly seems to be necessary - in the sense that we can now observe the subversive effects of removing such restraints. The outcome has been moral inversion: i.e. the worst of all possible outcomes: the one most likely to lead to self-damnation.

However, on the flip side, there is a relative neglect and softness of attitudes to other types of more 'private' sin; such as envy, spite, cowardice, dishonesty and bearing false witness - which are in themselves probably more dangerous to the soul.


In sum; we are all Fallen in the sense that we will all die; and because our mortal lives are never fully-aligned-with God's creative motivations. And the inevitable difference between God's will and our own will leads to many thoughts, words and deeds ('sins') that are a consequence of this disharmony.

And the cure for sin - both mortality and behavioural disharmony - is on the other side of 'biological death'; when we may choose to be resurrected to Life Eternal in a condition of everlasting harmony with the divine work of loving-creation.

Is death an unjustifiable violation?

JRR Tolkien quoting - with agreement - Simone de Beauvoir:

[De Beauvoir]: "There is no such thing as a natural death: nothing that happens to a man is ever natural, since his presence calls the whole world into question. All men must die: but for every man his death is an accident and, even if he knows it and consents to it, an unjustifiable violation." 

[JRR Tolkien]: Well, you may agree with the words or not, but those are the key spring of The Lord of the Rings.

On the one hand, death is universal and thus, apparently, natural; on the other hand, death is also experienced as profoundly un-natural, accidental, a violation. 

Traditional Christian theology has attempted to deal with this using the concept of Original Sin; but I find this unsatisfactory - both for having been (I would have thought obviously) inserted post-Jesus and therefore not genuinely Christian; and also because Original Sin theory fails to do what it claims, which is to explain the prevalence of evil among Men without implicating God. 

Instead; my understanding of death is that it is experienced as both natural and unnatural because of our situation in mortal incarnation - which I regard as (for Christians) situated between a potentially deathless pre-mortal spirit existence; and the post-mortal incarnated state of resurrection. 

This mortal life of ours is temporary, a phase not an end-state - but our basic expectations deriving from pre-mortal spirit life are that we 'ought to be' eternal and deathless. Furthermore, since the life and work of Jesus Christ, Christians have hope of an eternal and deathless state to follow this mortal life. 

Yet, the actuality of this mortal life and its inevitable termination - is unnatural. It is also not under our control; since other factors (primarily God, but also Men and other Beings and happening) influence how and when we die. 

We cannot, therefore, take death for granted. Death comes, and will be a time of transformation. It is a severing of soul from body, as the body dies - and (because we are incarnate Beings) the body's death changes us, removing part of our-selves - and what remains after death is naturally-speaking incomplete. 

In other words; the spirit after death - which has been variously conceptualized throughout history - is significantly like a different person, and (it has been believed) is often severely diminished in its coherence, identity, agency etc. 

I think we sense exactly this (mostly implicitly), when we consider death. It probably lies behind the yearnings for 'peace' after mortal-death, which are so often the wish of non-Christians (including many self-identified Christians who do not want the resurrection that Christ actually offered). 

...Anyone who felt sure that death will certainly annihilation would not be concerned to ask for peace; anyone who was confident that death was naturally a peaceful state would not feel compelled to pray for peace.  

There is a fear (clearly expressed by Hamlet in his famous "To be, or not to be" soliloquy) that after our death we will experience a state of inescapable nightmare; and that this may be the 'default' condition - unless... something else happens, or we take some particular actions or make choices.  

Thus, from our perspective here-and-now in mortal life; death is indeed the threat of a violation that seems unjustifiable; unless made-sense-of by resurrection - or some other desired outcome. And that death seems to be non-optional makes matters worse. 

Original sin was and is an attempt to make sense of this, but since it does not work then we need something else - and the explanation ought to be a clear and graspable kind of truth (as indeed it surely would be, given the nature of our God).  

  

How sin causes damnation

The usual understanding of Christians is that sin is moral transgression against God's law; and that this leads to the just punishment of being excluded-from Heaven and sent instead to Hell. 

But a close reading of the Fourth Gospel paints a very different picture of what Jesus taught about sin. 

In the Fourth Gospel - sin means death, primarily. 

Death here means to die physically, biologically, death of the body - and thereby to lose our-selves - without a living body we would cease to be our-selves. 

This seems to have referred to the condition of sheol - in which, after death of the body, each Man's soul was reduced to the state of a demented ghost who did not know his own identity.  

Jesus came to take away the sin of the world, for those who would follow him; and this meant that after biological death, instead of every-Man going to sheol, those who followed Jesus would be resurrected to eternal life.  

Thus Jesus came to change Man's previous universal destiny of death/ sheol - and this applied to those who chose to follow Jesus to resurrected life eternal. 

So, after Jesus made 'salvation'/ resurrection a possibility for all Men; then the meaning of sin began to include not only death; but any-thing that would prevent a Man from choosing to follow Jesus. 

That is how moral transgressions' work' in causing damnation. They are those moral choices that need to be recognized as preventing us from following Jesus to life everlasting in Heaven. They are moral choices that are incompatible with Heaven. 

Repentance is the recognition that these moral choices are incompatible with Heaven - and our willingness to discard these moral choices when we are resurrected. 

This is necessary, because for resurrection to eternal life to be possible, we must each voluntarily choose to discard that in our nature which is incompatible with Heavenly life among resurrected men. 

The reason is that Heaven is a state of full alignment with God's creative purposes; and Heaven is the situation in which Men work-with-God on divine creation. (This is becoming fully sons and daughters of God). 

Sins are what prevent us from having full alignment with God's creative purposes; and thereby intrinsically prevent us from being resurrected into Heaven. 

We need to be able to recognize sins as sins, and to repudiate them: to be prepared to discard them forever when we are resurrected. 

We must be able to discard these aspects of our-selves at resurrection - or else we physically-cannot be resurrected - and this choice of discarding  sin at resurrection is repentance in action. 

Problems with double-negative theology and the idea of being 'purged' from sin

I have often commented on the deep problems with the double-negative theology in mainstream Christianity. 

It is double-negative because it regards the problem of this life as sin, and the work of Jesus Christ as purging us of this sin - of removing this sin from us. 

This mortal life is therefore conceptualized negatively, as dominated by sin; and Jesus's work is the negation of this negative - i.e. removing sin, so that we can be resurrected into Heaven: a double-negative. 

This concept regards Heaven as a perfection, and mortal Men as imperfect due to sin; so we cannot enter Heaven until we are ridded of sin - and that is what Jesus made possible. 

So, by one means or another (and this means differs between Christian denominations), before we get to Heaven we go through a process whereby sin is removed (purged) from us, and what is left-over is wholly-good, and therefore we are allowed to enter Heaven.

To enter Heaven is understood as a willingness to undergo this purgation, this 'amputation' of our sinful elements.   

I find many problems with this set of ideas - which boil down to this concept being an implicit an assertion of the idea that God (the Creator and our loving Father) has put us into a sinful world, ourselves being riddled with sin; and that to reach Heaven we must have this sin stripped out from us - implying that what is allowed into Heaven is an incomplete version of ourselves... 

(Indeed, perhaps, for very sin-full people, there will not be much of ourselves remaining, by the time we are suitable for Heaven.)

The purpose of this mortal life - according to such theology - is to reject sin: a negative purpose.  

I find this kind of behaviour - imputed to God - incompatible with him being a loving Father; who might have created things differently and better.

And I find the idea of this mortal life as a negative motivation (against sin, which sin is against-God) both inadequate and somewhat repugnant. It points at the via negativa - a life of rejection that amounts to life turned-against life.

Whereas I feel in my heart (and from the example of Jesus Christ, who was incarnate, active, positive), that this mortal life is - or ought to have - a positive purpose. We ought to be able to become better through our living (experiencing and learning), rather than merely 'avoiding becoming worse'.   

Instead, I see 'sin' as essentially meaning 'death' (which is clear from the Fourth Gospel) - and also the other forms of anti-creative innate corruption and decay that lead up to death (and which modern physics terms entropy). 

Sin in this sense, is the severing of our souls from our bodies at death - and it is this 'death' which Jesus overcame himself, and made possible for those who followed his path. 

Sin, more broadly, is a turning-away from what God desires from us. And a turning-away is not dealt with by purgation but by turning us in the right direction - permanently!

In other words, the main thing that Jesus did is to bring the possibility of eternal life; and this life as a resurrection of our real selves, and with a body - destined for a Heaven where all beings are turned in a direction in harmony with divine creation. 

All beings in Heaven have made an eternal commitment to God's creative goals. 

Rather than a purgation of all that is worst in our-selves; I see the work of Jesus in terms of an amplification of our-selves at their best. 

In this mortal life we find ourselves, intermittently and infrequently - turned in a Heavenly direction. So we know from experience what it is like to live in harmony with divine creation - to work with (rather than against) God.

(We also know what it is like to be turned-away from God and creation - what this feels like, where it leads; and we may learn something of how to overcome this turned-away state in ourselves) 

To prepare us for life in Heaven is therefore something like making it possible for us to stay permanently turned in the direction of Heaven and Creation, in permanent harmony with God's creative will. 

For this to happen, we each must choose whether to allow it to happen. 

Do we want the best in ourselves to become our whole self - or not? 

(This naturally entails leaving-behind those things that can only be achieved by going against God and creation - but the positive reason is that we desire wholly to be our best selves; and because we want to dwell eternally in a situation where we can whole-heartedly and actively work for such goals.)

It is a matter of what we want, and what we want most. 

By analogy; if this mortal life is a walk; then it is a walk when we spin around: sometimes walking with God, sometimes off on a tangent, sometimes pushing against the direction of God. 

Those who choose to follow Jesus Christ, are those who value most - indeed, at root, deeply-value only - those times when they are walking with God (times when they are motivated by love, and participating in the work of divine creation). 

Those who choose Heaven are those who want to do this walking-in harmony with God and sharing God's goals all the time - because they value love and creativity above all else; and indeed these are ultimately the only things of mortal life that they truly, everlastingly value. 

What is the meaning of the "woman taken in adultery" story in John Chapter 8?

In my mini-'book' on the Fourth Gospel; I describe my assumptions in reading the Bible; which lead to me to the Fourth Gospel ("John") as the most authoritative Book; and which govern my interpretation of that Gospel. 

Much of this has to do with the unit of meaning that I focus upon - which is neither the Bible as a whole, nor a verse by verse (nor word by word) meaning; but more like a focus on the Book and the narrative-units within it. 

In particular, I pay attention to that which is repeated and re-explained - which I regard as less subject to later error, interpolations, and excisions.

To take a particular example: how do I look-at the episode from the IV Gospel often called "the woman taken in adultery" [see below for text]: What does this episode mean, how do I understand it?

For a start; I am aware of the overall and two-fold message of the IV Gospel; which is (approximately) that we each may have 'salvation' (i.e. eternal resurrected life) by 'following' Jesus. 

This overall message is stated several times, in different ways, throughout the Gospel from its beginning to its end (i.e. the verses at the end of Chapter 20 - Chapter 21 being, I believe, a later addition by another hand). 

In this episode the two-fold message is re-stated, using the frequent 'poetic-metaphor' of light;  in verse 12: Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. 

This core 'Christian' message required, at the time, refuting a different and prevalent idea; which was that salvation was a matter of avoiding sin, and avoiding sin was a matter of following The Law. 

This is what I think this adultery episode is about. Jesus is confronted by a woman who has sinned, who has broken the law; and, by the old rule, was therefore legitimately 'condemned' to death - and thereby (by the then understanding of 'death') 'damned' to dwell as a depersonalized, demented ghost in Sheol. 

Jesus desires to replace this scheme with one in which death is not damnation; but instead resurrection to a higher, better, fully-loving eternal life in Heaven. 

And this Life Everlasting is to be attained Not by avoiding proscribed sins, but by following Jesus. 

On the one hand; Jesus asserts that it is futile to suppose that we can avoid sin. This story demonstrates that we are all sinners, and therefore there is 'nothing special' about the woman taken in adultery. By the old religion we are all in the same boat as her; all 'deserving' of death for transgressing one or more of The Laws, therefore all destined for damnation (later, if not sooner)...

(In this regard; it needs to be remembered that in the IV Gospel, 'sin' and 'death' are almost synonymous. This is a key that unlocks many otherwise rather obscure passages.)

But the 'good news' Jesus brings and makes possible; is that none of this endemic and universal sinning ultimately matters if we choose follow Jesus; where 'following' means (almost literally) recapitulating his path from this mortal life, through death, and to resurrection in Heaven.

(We are made able to follow Jesus by loving him; which partly means wanting and affirming and committing-to God and divine creation; and this includes rejecting sin/ death. Sin is whatever conflicts with love; and therefore must be repudiated to dwell in Heaven. This is what we term repentance.)

That is what I understand this story to mean, and which fits with the reality and essential nature of Jesus, and with the Gospel as a whole and its repetitions - and therefore I pretty much ignore those specific verses that clash or contradict. 

For example when Jesus is quoted as saying to the woman 'sin no more'; then I note that this is literally false; because it is impossible Not to sin, as Jesus has just demonstrated; therefore this phrase is either a later and mistaken interpolation (which is what I assume), or else must be interpreted in a very contextualized meaning (if you can be bothered!).

Or, what about the business of Jesus writing on the ground? That is obscure, and might be incomplete (due to some later loss or deletion), interpolated; or else the act had some then-understandable 'metaphorical/ poetic' meaning, that has since been lost. 

But it does not really matter - and we need not get hung-up on it; once we understand the necessary and core meaning of the episode as a whole.

So, this is a specific example of how I read the IV Gospel, how I go-about discerning truth from error.

If there are other bits of the IV Gospel that you are seriously confused or 'hung-up' on; you might mention them in the Comments; and I may try to demonstrate how I have understood them - according to this scheme. 

   

**

John.8 [1] Jesus went unto the mount of Olives. [2] And early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all the people came unto him; and he sat down, and taught them. [3] And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst, [4] They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. [5] Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou? [6] This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not. [7] So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. [8] And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground. [9] And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. [10] When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? [11] She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more. [12] Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.

What keeps us alive?

*

Two things.

1. Kept alive by the will of God. Essentially because we have something yet to do - repent, accept forgiveness, love, praise, serve...

2. Because we cling to life.

Possible because we have been equipped with free will, so we may defy God and refuse to die when we are called. For a while.

(This is, of course, a profound sin.)

*

So, part of the increase of human 'lifespan' we observe today in the West is due to reducing the contigent causes of premature death; but part is also due to the refusal to die when called, clinging to a-bit-more-life at any cost and at any price.

And we can, I think, observe that this artificially-extended lifespan is a Faustian bargain - a false hope, a trick, a depraved state.

*

Death is a terrible thing, due to original sin and the process of synergystic accumulation of sin which was set into play by the original sin.

Thus death was not part of the original plan (or hope) but is a terrible punishment.

Death is un-natural, in an ultimate sense, but must be accepted as just and inevitable in this world, because death is a consequence of what we are.

*

Yet death is now the way to eternal life - and the only way to eternal life.

We therefore must suffer the terrible and unnatural punishment; but on the other side of death we are promised an infinite gift.

Justice and mercy.

*

Death may be premature; but there is a proper time for death; which we know when it comes - except we blind ourselves.

Death cannot be defeated, nor can it be eluded; but death can be deferred.

However the price of refusing the call, when it comes, is immediately to fall into an appalling and increasing state of corruption, from which deteriorating state the likelihood of repentance dwindles and dwindles.


*

The double misunderstanding of resurrection by Modern Men; caused by the intrinsic evil of Modern Thinking

Jesus, especially in the Fourth Gospel promised resurrected eternal life to those who believed-on him and would follow him. 

To typical Modern Man this promise seems much less than it was. And - so long as Modern Man continues to think and reason as Modern Men do - i.e. reductionist literalism - this misunderstanding is unavoidable.

 

The eternal life Jesus made possible for us is not merely a matter of 'living forever' - it is (also) a place, a condition, a different world - a state-of-being in-which we live-forever. 

And eternal life is resurrection, not persistence. 

Eternal life is attained only-and-necessarily via death. Death is the separation of the living spirit from the body - and the eternal life is a resurrection, by which the surviving spirit is given an eternal body.

 

Modern thinking is literal merely, hence necessarily false. But it is not because ancient thinking was 'symbolic' (like a poem) - because for Jesus 'eternal life' was literal-and-more. 

Modern Man regards what he supposes Jesus to have promised to be both too-little, and impossible. Too little because - what's so great about about continuing to live? Since life is intrinsically interwoven with corruption, disease, decay and inevitable death: with 'entropy' - which rules this reality. 

(i.e. All we experience of this life is inevitably spoiled by what Christians call sin).

 

Jesus's complex and simultaneously-multifaceted promise is reduced to a single thing; and that thing made literal in terms of being this reduced thing, and this only. 

So Modern Man 'knows' that eternal life is neither possible (because of entropy/ sin) nor is it desirable - because (to the Modern sensibility, her-and-now in 2020) life is suffering - and gets worse the longer it continues. 

Thus Modern Man supposes that Jesus was offering something he does not want; even if it were possible - which it isn't. 

 

To escape this damning illusion requires that Modern Man thinks differently than Modern Men think. The primary sin lies in the Modern mode of thinking, which itself intrinsically frames all discourse (not just eternal life), reduces all concepts, and dis-values what Jesus actually said. 

The actual gift of Jesus - as rendered in the unsurpassed poetic-prose of the 'King James' Bible - has been 'translated' into managerial bullet points of a bureaucratic discourse: and this 'executive summary' was regarded as the whole truth... and rejected on that basis. 

The Modern rejection of Christianity is not, therefore, a matter of 'evidence' or 'facts'; it is a consequence of fundamentally incoherent thinking spilling-over into public discourse. 

The rejection of Life Eternal is, indeed, a consequence of evil thinking. 

 

The way Modern Man thinks is itself evil; he turns every-thing he thinks-about into evil: he trivialises, drains meaning, drains purpose and hope. His mode of thinking leads to value-inversion - consequently to fear, resentment, despair - and then (quite spontaneously) to active-embrace of the Satanic agenda.

As we see all around us... And this is found even among self-identified Christians; because mainstream Christians (nearly all) think exactly as typical Modern men.

What Modern Man needs (and I mean needs) to recognise - is that the way he thinks is a choice; a choice he has-made. And that choice was for evil. 

 

Modern Man must (and I mean Must) repent his choice to think-reductionist-literalism: must repent, or surely die. 

 

Note: After all, the word repentance can itself be understood as amounting to think-differently-about.

Jesus Christ is our Saviour. But saviour from what?

*
Christians call Jesus Christ "our saviour", or simply The Saviour - but it is not clear to secular modern people what we mean by this; indeed, I believe that the meaning (or emphasis) has changed over the centuries, because Christ did not save us from just one bad fate; but from many, many bad things - and different people at different times feel themselves in need of different savings: so that what I understand Christ as saving-me-from may not be your understanding.

*

At the time of his ministry and for many centuries, Christ was understood as saving us from death; and by 'death' people meant that the soul would usually endure in a (literally) nightmarish underworld (Sheol, Hades etc) where we would persist forever as demented, gibbering, desolate ghosts.

In effect, death meant death of 'the self' - death of consciousness and the will - but not an end to existence.

*

Christ was also saving us from sin; and it seems clear that through most of history Men felt this to be necessary: felt that we absolutely needed to be saved from our sins; and that if we were not saved from our sins, then we would be tormented by them forever. 

*

But modern Western Man does not feel himself in need of saving from death - because he regards death as extinction and therefore the end of suffering (not death as the doorway to endless suffering, as in the past).

And modern Man does not feel he needs to be saved from sin, because he regards 'sin' as an arbitrary cultural category - and Modern Man has redefined many sins as virtues, virtues as sins.

So in effect, Modern Man 'saves himself' from sin by promoting, enforcing, and believing, legislation and propaganda to abolish any sin he cannot stop or does not wish to stop; and making new sins from whatever threatens the continuation of this process.

*

But Modern Man still needs to be saved - he needs to be saved from meaninglessness, purposelessness, existential isolation, alienation, and nihilism (the sense that all truth, beauty and virtue are 'relative'; that values are 'subjective', that nothing is really-real).

Modern Man needs to be saved from the retrospective pall cast by the meaning-destroying pseudo-reality of death-as-extinction; and the nothingness of a world where profundity is repeatedly dissolved and remade, and where Man is become a mere conduit for ever-changing psychological manipulations.

*

Another thing Man always has needed saving-from is suffering; the suffering of this world.

And Christ saves us from this suffering in two ways, at two levels. In the first place he offers a significant, albeit partial, alleviation of suffering in this world - mainly by putting suffering into a perspective of eternal hope.

An analogy would be the suffering of childbirth. Childbirth can be agony: in a purely physical sense childbirth may be as painful as torture - but the suffering is put in the perspective of a parent participating in the birth of a child and this makes a very big difference. Indeed, the perspective utterly transforms the meaning of pain, and drastically reduces the suffering.

And secondly, the long-term effect of suffering is likewise transformed by Christ - because there is the prospect of complete healing from all the ill effects of suffering at the resurrection.

So all earthly sufferings are re-framed by Christ as temporary.

*

Christ is still our Saviour, as before; but now Christ is perhaps primarily (upfront) most-often our saviour from the void.

Christ is now, mostly, our saviour from the denied but pervasive existential terror that nothing really matters.

*

With salvation it is not a matter of either/ or; but a matter of all-this-and-more.

Because death, sin, suffering and alienation are all facets of the same evil fate - therefore Christ is The Saviour.

However, maybe when we state this great truth to non-Christians, we need to consider what they personally most need saving-from.

*

King Edwin of Northumbria and the sparrow's flight

 Yeavering Bell, the Northumbrian hill upon which King Edwin's palace was located

O king, it seems to me that this present life of man on earth, in comparison to that time which is unknown to us, is as if you were sitting at table in the winter with your ealdormen and thegns, and a fire was kindled and the hall warmed, while it rained and snowed and stormed outside. A sparrow came in, and swiftly flew through the hall; it came in at one door, and went out at the other. Now during the time when he is inside, he is not touched by the winter's storms; but that is the twinkling of an eye and the briefest of moments, and at once he comes again from winter into winter. In such a way the life of man appears for a brief moment; what comes before, and what will follow after, we do not know. Therefore if this doctrine [Christianity] offers anything more certain or more fitting, it is right that we follow it.

Text can be found here, with an Old English version, and links to the original in translation from the original Latin in The Venerable Bede's history. 


The above parable was, so Bede tells us, how Anglo-Saxon King Edwin's counsellor explained the advantages of the new religion of Christianity; leading to the King's conversion from paganism.

One thing that strikes me about the sparrow's flight as a metaphor of the human condition, is that it gives equal emphasis to pre-mortal as to post-mortal life. The 'mystery' includes what comes before, as well as what comes after; and the implication is that Christianity provided answers to both sides of the question.

What is interesting is that mainstream modern orthodox and traditional Christianity does Not (at least in its official theology) offer any information about what came before this mortal life; because it regards each person's soul as being created by God, from nothing; usually happening at some point (there is disagreement) between conception and birth.

By contrast, the sparrow story has the soul flying-into the hall of our brief mortal life from somewhere else - before flying out again. This makes me wonder whether - at that time, and in that place - Christians assumed that there was a pre-mortal life of the soul - that, in other words, we each already-existed in another form and/or place before our conception or birth.

Among large modern denominations, I think only the Mormons adopt this same three stage view of life as divided into pre-mortal, mortal, post-mortal phases.
 

Another aspect of this story is that it seems to reveal as a pagan assumption that the soul did indeed survive death - but that the pagans were unsure of what happened. What King Edwin's counsellor was saying was partly that Christianity told us more information about the soul after death - but (in the text which follows the above excerpt) - "such truth evidently appears in this preaching as can confer on us the gifts of life, of salvation, and of eternal happiness".

Thus life, salvation and eternal happiness... But to the typical modern mind; Christianity is mainly about morality, about converts following a specified lifestyle in order to save them from damnation due to sin, where sin is regarded as evil moral transgressions.

For example, CS Lewis believed in God and Jesus before he believed in life after death (he says that belief in the afterlife followed many months after his adult conversion); and in general it is considered to be a kind of cheap, dumb pandering for Christian evangelists to focus upon the offer of 'eternal happiness'. It sounds to moderns like 'wishful thinking'.

Yet here, among these tough pagan warriors, the list includes 'life' and 'eternal happiness' along with salvation - so the emphasis of the teaching is on living forever in happiness as the gift of Jesus.

This, indeed, is the teaching of the Fourth Gospel - where sin includes - and is mainly about - death and annihilation of the conscious self (i.e. the Sheol of the ancient Jews, or the Hades of the ancient Greeks). And salvation from sin therefore mostly means saving us from the extinction of our-selves that otherwise follows death.


It is my conviction that the root of modern Man's nihilism and demotivation is our belief that mortal life is everything; and that the most important Christian message therefore ought-to-be that Jesus offered us the possibility of Heavenly Life Eternal.

This requires that modern Christian evangelists give a description of the nature of Heaven, in order that people can decide whether or not they want it.

If they want Heaven for themselves; then that is the time to see whether they believe Jesus's offer is real and possible; and whether they personally wish to follow Jesus. But if someone does not want Heaven - then even if they believe that Heaven is true, they won't become a Christian.


All this suggests that modern Christians should be a lot more specific about 'eternal happiness' than was the case when CS Lewis was writing.

Of course, different Christians (and different Christian churches and denominations) have different ideas concerning the nature of Heaven; but that can't be helped. Vague hand-waving about the abstract happiness of an abstract Heaven will not suffice nowadays (if it ever truly did, for most people).

The modern evangelist should give his own understanding, as best he can; and with whatever justifications he truly has. Then the potential convert can discern the truth of what he has been told; by whatever means he regards as most valid.

Christian evangelists might consider focusing on this core and primary aspect of Jesus's teaching - i.e. his gift of resurrected, everlasting Heavenly life - instead of secondary and derived behavioural aspects.

First things should be put first, or else the secondary issues will never even arise.

Necessity does not obviate the requirement for repentance

As Jesus apparently tried to make clear; following Him to resurrection ought to be about repentance of all sin; not the literal impossibility of ceasing from sin, nor even the (salvific) irrelevance of ceasing from some list of particular sins. 

Because they have the idea that Christians are supposed to stop sinning, or at lease reduce it considerably; self-identified Christians are too-often very concerned to explain that most of their sins are trivial, that it would be unreasonable to expect that they be ceased; or that this kind of sin is necessary - that it is unavoidable to sin in some particular way. 

(The subtext often seems to be that because sins are trivial, coerced, needed - then they are "not really" sins, and don't really count. Not so long as Big Sins - murder etc. - are avoided.) 

It's not that this is false (in a way) but that such arguments are essentially beside-the-point.  

The truth is that mortal beings on this earth, in the actual situations they/we find ourselves, just aren't aligned with God's will, with divine creation; and that is sin. 

We can't validly enumerate sins, because life isn't divided-up in that way - thoughts, speech, actions etc are linked, there aren't qualitative separations between sins, or between sin and virtue. 

This is because the underlying reality is motivation - motivation to be on God's side in the spiritual war - and nobody can be on God's side all of the time in all situations. 

What we are required to repent is "all the ways" in which we diverge from living wholly by love... The idea that we need to avoid (or strive to avoid) some particular list of sins is wrong. And the idea that someone who avoids the worst sins is set up for salvation is likewise a mistake. It doesn't matter how good we are relatively to others - in the ultimate and vital sense, we are all sinners. 

All that isn't fatal to salvation, because Jesus came "to save sinners" - which is another way of saying he came to save potentially all men who "follow" Jesus, acknowledge that they are sinners, and know what would be needful not to be sinners.  

But while we live, while God maintains us alive; we must have useful work to do. 

That work isn't stopping sinning; but part of it is discerning, acknowledging, and repenting sin - whenever possible. 

This is just a by-product of knowing what we ought to think, say, do - and knowing that we aren't doing it - and that we would do it it that were possible. 

This is particularly important when it comes to the sinning that we are incentivized, coerced or even compelled to do. For instance (my favourite example) untruthfulness - dishonesty, lying; deliberate misleading of others by repetition, hype and spin, and by selective omissions. 

Nearly everybody does this a lot of the time, and the leadership class and most professional class people (including priests, pastors, ministers and the like) do it for a living. They do it much of the time, and the must keep doing it if they want to get and keep their jobs. 

Indeed; calculated and systemic untruthfulness is essential to much modern work, mandatory for employment; necessary to obtain and retain one's position, and get prestige and promotion. A very large slice of the modern population therefore "lie for a living". 

These are sins that are active, purposive, obtrude into our consciousness many times every day. 

People do them, and have zero intentions of stopping doing them. Indeed, they could not stop doing them without abandoning their responsibilities. Without "giving up". 

And even then, they would still be sinning in innumerable other ways - and would very likely be required to commit more of other kinds of sin. 

(In practice, stopping one sin very often entails ramping up other sins - and the balance between decrease and increase is often unclear even when not negative.) 

The first thing to acknowledge is that there is no way out of this - as we actually are, on this mortal earth!

The second thing to realize that the many and various excuses of why we "have to do sins", do not make any difference to salvation even when they are perfectly true! 

What we should do about all this is quite simple, and described in the Fourth Gospel! 

We start with our commitment to follow Jesus to resurrected eternal Heavenly life. 

And recognize that this will require us to be remade and transformed into "beings of love"; which also (negatively) means becoming without sin. As Jesus explained to Nicodemus, is only possible on the other side of death: we must die and then be born-again.  

Therefore, one of the most significant things we can do, here-and-now, in this mortal life; is to notice and acknowledge when we are actually sinning.

This is important for our salvation, and the state of our souls, to acknowledge this actual sinning; much more more important than to focus and expend our finite efforts and attention in (Oh So Admirably!) diminishing one or a few selective sins - in what Jesus might have called the Pharisee Strategy. 

Showing off about one's (supposed) immunity to this or that temptation or sin may be an effective way of manipulating other people - it might (less often) even be a good thing for particular or overall social functioning. 

But is not the way to learn spiritually, to improve one's soul - and it has almost nothing to do with salvation. 

If the requirement for repentance is regarded in this way, then we will all find that there is no shortage of material for learning! 

If we are not much tempted by one kind of sin, there are plenty of other sins which we are doing some or most of the time - and which we have (for whatever reason, good or bad) have no intention of stopping. 

And there are sins that because of our nature, and/or circumstances; we cannot stop, we do not have the ability to stop. 

Jesus Christ did not ask the impossible of us; indeed he made salvation possible for anybody capable of love. 

Ultimately, those who attain resurrected eternal life need to desire themselves to be remade wholly good, without sin. 

We can't do this on this side of death; but can always and everywhere be learning what that will entail. 

This is time well spent. 

Each and every recognition and repentance of our sin is both an affirmation and strengthening of our ultimate commitment to follow Jesus after death; and also a (small but significant) proximate betterment of our souls as they now are, and shall be carried forward into eternal life.