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May 20, 2019 By Ryan Harbidge

What’s So Bad About Sin?

I was brought to the hospitals emergency entrance with a gruesome and painful injury. My left shoulder had become completely dislocated. My arm hung uselessly with my shoulder totally out of the socket and the pain was building to an intensity that was almost unbearable.

The emergency doctor looked at me with anger and disgust yelling, “What the hell are you doing here looking like that?  That is absolutely disgusting!  What makes you think that all of us here need to see that?  Did you think of me?  Did you consider what seeing that is doing to my well being?  Besides, it is against the law to dislocate your shoulder.  You will be punished for this!!!”

They gathered around and beat me.  The doctors and nurses knocked me off of the gurney and punched and kicked at me for what seemed like an eternity.

Hopefully at this point you are wondering, “What kind of a sick and twisted hospital is that?”  After all, this is not how patients are treated at hospitals.  The story is partially correct.  I did in fact suffer such an injury.  The treatment that I received at the hospital, however was nothing short excellent, with caring staff who had one thing in mind for me:  The restoration of my body.  Repairing my injuries in order to make things right again. I told the story of this unmerciful hospital to make a point.  If you have been a part of either the Roman Catholic or Protestant Christian religion, you have likely been taught that God sees sin as the merciless hospital sees injury.  

Where do we get this idea that sin is a moral failure—a coming short of following God’s laws?  Looking back at the history of religious development from primitive to modern times, there seems to be a commonality of fear, superstition, and anthropomorphism at the heart of every religion.  In primitive times, people recognized the obvious design of nature and from that, knew that there was either a force or a person who was in control of, or at least influenced what happened around them. 

Imagine you’re a hockey game where your favourite team wins and you happen to be wearing a certain shirt. You may assume that if you wear that shirt again, your team will win.  It becomes your “lucky shirt” and you wear it every time your team plays in order to bring your team good luck and influence their victory.

The same thing happens in the development of religion. For example, you have a good hunting season after you have had a feast on the night of a full moon.  The assumption is made that the feast on that point on the lunar cycle was an influencer in your good hunting season.  Superstition is born.  

You recognize that people who are more powerful than you need to be appeased in order for you to live in peace and safety. You then begin to assume that whatever force or being (let’s call this “God” for the sake of reference) made the world you live in, they must also be like this. Anthropomorphism is born.

Sin, therefore, becomes a type of infraction on the expectations that this deity expects in order for us to enjoy safety, food, and health.  A religious system of rule keeping and ceremony is born out of fear of this God, to ensure that he keeps providing for your needs. This is a transactional relationship. Anyone in the tribe who breaks the laws is assumed to be putting the whole tribe in danger and is subsequently punished.  

We see this in the Hebrew language of the Old Testament scriptures.  There are three main words for “sin.”

  1. chaţţâ’âh chaţţâ’th: (An offence caused by falling short of someone’s expectations of behaviour)
  2. chêţ: (A crime.) This is also a subjective term, for example, in Deuteronomy 23:21,23 (NASBS)

 “When you make a vow to the LORD your God, you shall not delay to pay it, for it would be sin in you, and the LORD your God will surely require it of you.  You shall be careful to perform what goes out from your lips, just as you have voluntarily vowed to the LORD your God, what you have promised.”

The person in question only had to pay whatever he promised God because he promised it.  If he doesn’t pay, it is a “sin”. However if he hadn’t promised it, it wouldn’t be a sin to not pay it.

     3. châţâ (to miss)

Interestingly enough, looking at the Masoretic Texts, there seems to be an evolution of thought as to what “sin” is at some point for the Hebrew people.  It is châţâ and its corresponding imagery for “sin” which seems to make it into the language and thinking of the New Testament.  In the Septuagint, which came from much older manuscripts than the Masoretic Texts, we see a consistency of thought in the wording pertaining to the nature of sin. 

In the Koine Greek language of the New Testament (and the LXX), we find two main words for the word “sin”.

     -Hamartia: (miss the mark) This word has no moral implications.  It carries the imagery of an archer shooting an arrow at a target, but coming short of hitting the “bullseye”.  

Francois DuToit, who is a Greek scholar was kind enough to send this definition of “hamartia” to me:

“The word hamartia, from ha, negative and meros, portion or form, thus to be without your allotted portion or without form, pointing to a disorientated, distorted identity; the word meros, is the stem of morphe, as in 2 Corinthians 3:18 the word metamorphe, with form, is the opposite of hamartia – without form. Sin is to live out of context with the blueprint of one’s design; to behave out of tune with God’s original harmony. Hamartia suggests anything that could possibly distract from the awareness of our likeness. See Deuteronomy 32:18, “You have forgotten the Rock that begot you and have gotten out of step with the God who danced with you!” Hebrew, khul or kheel, to dance.”

       -Paraptoma:  This word gets rendered into either “transgress” or “trespass” in English. Personally, I like the imagery of “transgress” better.  The imagery seems to be more consistent with the Greek. It makes sense when you consider the words “progress” and “regress”. “Pro” means “forward motion” and of course “Re” is “backwards motion”.  The word “transgress” is a combination of the Latin words “trans” which means to “go across laterally” and “gradi” which is “to walk”.   Here’s the imagery that forms in my mind.  I think of a Canadian winter in which there is snow and ice covering the ground.  I am walking towards a goal.  I am “progressing” and am “on target”.  Suddenly, the terrain changes and I find myself walking along a side slope which is slippery.  I start sliding sideways, which takes me off course of my intended goal.  I have “transgressed”. 

Now that we appear to have a completely different definition for what it means to “sin”, the big question becomes:  What is the mark we miss?  What is the goal that we slide away from?

I can no longer believe that sin has anything to do with falling short of Gods moral perfection. I have become convinced that it has everything to do with not recognizing our ontological worth and identity.

In the creation narrative of Genesis, we come away with one essential truth:  We as humans were created in the “image of God”.  We have divine origin.  We were declared by our maker to be “good”.  The Hebrew word used here is “ţôb” which means “complete, and as it should be”.

There is another interesting word in the Hebrew language and a corresponding word in Koine Greek which speak to human value. The Hebrew word is “kâbôd”.  Here is the imagery this word gives us:  Back before the invention of paper currency, if you wished to buy, say a cow for example, the worth of that animal would be equivalent to a certain weight of silver or gold.  Pretend for a moment that our economy still works this way. If you wish to purchase a live cow, in todays valuation, a cow would be worth approximately 1.8 Troy ounces of gold.  In other words, that cow has the kâbôd of 1.8 ounces of gold.  

In Greek, we have similar imagery in the word “doxa”.  To understand this word, picture this:  You are at an auction.  A beige 1979 Plymouth Horizon comes up for bidding.  I know.  It’s unlikely that anyone would actually want to purchase this particular car and that there might even any of these in existence anymore, but work with me here.  The first bidder sees the chance of buying a cheap first car for his kid and offers $100.00. You see the car and it brings back a wave of nostalgia as you had a car just like this in high school. (True story for me unfortunately)  So, you offer $150.00. The bidding war is on!  Others, delusional with auction fever join in, suddenly determined to have this fine automobile.  At the end, the car is sold for an unbelievable $5000.00. Is the car worth that?  Yes.  Why?!?  Because someone was willing to pay that money for it.  Value is a very subjective thing.  Something has value because someone has demand and desire for it.  

How are those two words, “kâbôd“ and “doxa” connected?  They are both translated into English as “glory”.

Read the words of Jesus high priestly prayer in John 17 with this imagery of “glory” in mind:

After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed.

“I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me.

I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.

While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves.

I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one.

They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.

“I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.

“Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent me. I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

Note how Jesus says, pertaining to himself: “you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.”  Who has God given him?  All people of course.  Yes, he acknowledges the loss of one person, presumably Judas.  This does not imply a static or irreversible state of being.  For being lost simply makes you eligible for being found.  

Near the end of this beautiful prayer, He says, “The glory (assessed value) that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.“

In other words:  “The assessed value that You have given to me I have given to them.”  Jesus, I believe is the perfect manifestation of the eternal Christ (the enfleshment of God) and thus possesses the same value as God the Father.  He has given us the same value!  How awesome is that?  And why?  So that there may be a praxis of unity.  

Have you ever been in a crowd of people who are incredibly rich, famous or successful in some way that you are not?  There is a hierarchical social structure that automatically forms.  If you are of a low place in society, you don’t feel like you can approach people of higher position as equals. There cannot be unity if there is a perceived difference in the value of people in a crowd. Jesus levels the playing field between us and our maker by giving us the same value…or perhaps by restoring the value we have always had.

At the national mint where currency is printed, a $100 bill is given the value (glory) of $100.  That is the objective value it has.  No more.  No less.  If that bill falls out of its owners pocket and is dropped into a mud puddle on the road, becoming soiled, if cars drive over that bill, damaging it and tearing it, is it still worth $100?  Of course it is.  Neither its poor appearance or its lostness has altered its value.  Should you be so fortunate to find that bill, it can still be traded for something of equal value.  If you trade this $100 bill for something that is only worth $5, you have “missed the mark” and have not treated it according to its true value. 

Each of us as humans has been made in Gods image.  We are declared to be good—complete—as we should be.  This is the assessed value given to us by God Himself!  Yet throughout our lives, we are told that we have lesser value.  People do this.  Organizational systems do this to us. The church does this.

Ever heard of the doctrine of “original sin”?  It’s much easier to create a social or systemic structure to your advantage if you can convince other people that they are worth less than you.  This is what we call the “sin of the world”.

That’s right.  Things we do like: murder, theft, coveting, lying, etc., are not sin.  They are symptoms of sin.  The real sin is this:  When you either give to another person or receive from a person or system an assessment of value which is lower than what God has already given you.  This is sin.

When you have a cold, you get a runny nose and a cough. The snot, phlegm and noise of coughing is not the cold.  The rhinovirus is.  The gross stuff that is offensive to everyone around you is simply the symptoms of the virus.

If you have been told and believe that you are ontologically flawed from the get-go, that you are worth nothing and are utterly sinful, that is how you will behave.  Your perceived, assessed value will ultimately be reflected in your behaviour. From your lowered sense of worth, come “sinful” actions. 

It is impossible to consistently live a life that reflects a value higher than what you think you are worth.  Ever wonder why so many religious people tend to fall and fall hard into a lifestyle of “sin”?  They live a disingenuous life with the belief that they are sinful, but hold themselves to a higher sense of morality, because that’s what they believe God expects of them.  It’s the same transactional mindset of primitive religion.

The problem is, that you cannot keep up the facade.  You will ultimately fail in your quest for a “moral” life. It doesn’t matter if you are a high profile preacher or just an average person.  The only difference is that the high profile guy gets noticed more.  

The gospel has nothing to do with a prayer you must pray, a set of beliefs you must hold to and behaviour you must keep in order for God to be pleased enough with you that He will let you into heaven one day.  The gospel is the announcement that you have never lost your value. You are worth the same as God Himself.  You are as you should be. You are good.  The gospel is that we don’t have to live from a low valuation of self.

The words of Jesus in Luke 10:26-28 (NASBS):

“And He said to him, ‘What is written in the Law? How does it read to you?’ And he answered, ‘You SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND; AND YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’  And He said to him, ‘You have answered correctly; do THIS AND YOU WILL LIVE.’” 

Jesus is not telling this inquisitive lawyer how to act in order to please God.  He is telling him how you act naturally when you behave from a knowledge of what you are already worth!  He is describing how to live as one who is fully and beautifully human!  Whenever you treat someone with kindness, whenever you refuse to respond to violence with violence, whenever you put the needs of someone else ahead of yourself, you are behaving in the most natural, truly human way. You are behaving from who you are. This is what pleases God. When we engage in relationship with Him, we participate in the healing of the world. 

In the first chapter of the gospel of John, John the Baptist sees Jesus coming toward him and announces, “Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”  That is indeed what Jesus started, but did not complete.  You see, it was important for God to become enfleshed as one of us, to bring back dignity to humanity and to restore our “glory” as humanity had completely lost sight of our value.  Jesus gives us permission to believe that we are good.  And because we are good, we can behave in a way that reflects who we are.

I believe that “taking away the sin of the world” is a task that needs to continue.  It is a job that each of us is called to. Each of us needs to communicate to other people that we come into contact with every day that they too are priceless.  They too are created in the image of God and are complete and good as they are.  We need to participate with God in taking away the devaluation of humanity and restore proper worth revealing every person as equal.  It seems like a big job, but it really comes naturally when you live from your true self.

Once more…and if it seems like I am repeating myself, I am.  You are NOT morally depraved.  You do NOT have a sin nature.  

You ARE good.  You ARE created in the image of God and share His value.  Your nature is love and you can only thrive when you participate in what is natural for you.  

Repeat this to yourself every day. Change your mind about who you are and watch how your behaviour naturally shifts as you understand who you have always been!

Filed Under: Theology

April 15, 2018 By Ryan Harbidge

Tommy Lee Jones and Old Testament Sacrifice

Have you ever wondered what’s up with the constant theme of blood sacrifice that we see throughout scripture?

Have you ever wondered as I have, why God would require blood sacrifice? Especially if God is supposedly just like Jesus?

There are two things I think the western church of today needs to be aware of.

One: I don’t think that the God of the universe ever needed a display of blood worthy of a Quentin Tarantino film to cure him of a bad mood so that he could forgive.

Two: Tommy Lee Jones really reminds me of God. More on that one later.

Right from Genesis 4, we see Abel offering a sacrifice from his flock. His brother Cain also offers a sacrifice to God, but from his crop. (It appears that God prefers steak over vegetables. I can relate to that.)

By the time we get to Genesis 22, we find the story of God telling Abraham to offer up his only son Isaac as a human sacrifice, which he seemingly agrees to without hesitation. This tells us, and we can also see from non-biblical historical records, that human sacrifice was already a common and accepted practice in many civilizations.

Moving on to Exodus, God gives instructions to Moses that “You shall make an altar of earth for Me, and you shall sacrifice on it your burnt offerings, your sheep, and your oxen; in every place where I cause My name to be remembered, I will come to you and bless you.” (Exodus 20:24 NASB)

Well now it seems at least that we’ve moved on to animal sacrifices and left human sacrifice behind, but then….In the book of Judges, we have the story of Jephthah. He had the misfortune of being born to the wrong woman, and as such, was kicked out of the house. Then we have a very heartwarming underdog-turned-hero story come about where the entire nation of Israel is counting on Jephthah to save the day as their fearless military leader. Negotiations between Israel and their enemy—the Ammonites have failed and the battle is inevitable.

Jephthah really needs this victory and makes a rash promise to God that “If You will indeed give the sons of Ammon into my hand, then it shall be that whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the sons of Ammon, it shall be the Lord’s, and I will offer it up as a burnt offering.” (Judges 11:30b-31 NASB)

Jephthah wins the battle and comes home in victory only to have his only daughter whom he loves dearly come out of the door to meet him. So he follows through with his vow and sacrifices her to God. There is nothing here that immediately condemns his sacrifice. So we’re back to human sacrifice again.

And then in 2 Chronicles 28, we see the reintroduction of human sacrifice in the cultic practices of Israel under the reign of king Ahaz.

No matter how far we peer into history, there is evidence of human and animal sacrifice in cultures around the world. Different people groups practicing this include; ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Phoenicia, Neolithic Europe, the Celts, the Germanic people, the Slavic people, the Chinese, India, Hawaii, the pre-Columbian Americas, and all across Africa.

So the question is: Why is it that every ancient culture has at one point in time had the compelling, perceived need to offer blood sacrifices to a deity?

There have been three main motivators throughout history for sacrifice:

The main one was that the people had felt that they had angered their god and thought they needed to give up something to appease their deity.

The second reason was that they wanted or needed an advantage over another people group and would make a deal with their deity…a trade. A sacrifice for a decisive victory.

The third reason was for divine provision for favourable growing conditions for crops. Another trade-off. A sacrifice in return for good crops. Other reasons tied into this, like the Mayans for example, sacrificing copious quantities of innocent lives so that the sun would continue to rise day after day.

The common denominator here is one thing…Fear.

Fear of God punishing, abandoning, and excluding them. Fear is the one thing that keeps the machine of religion ticking. It is the only thing. It doesn’t seem strange then, that various people throughout scripture are told by God or by angels to “fear not” over 100 times!

Have you ever noticed the progression take place throughout the centuries recorded in scripture?

“Sacrifice and meal offering You have not desired; My ears You have opened; Burnt offering and sin offering You have not required.” (Psalm 40:6 NASB)

“For I delight in loyalty rather than sacrifice, And in the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” (Hosea 6:6 NASB)

“For what purpose does frankincense come to Me from Sheba? And the sweet cane from a distant land? Your burnt offerings are not acceptable And your sacrifices are not pleasing to Me.” (Jeremiah 6:20 NASB)

“Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, “Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices and eat flesh. For I did not speak to your fathers, or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices. But this is what I commanded them, saying, ‘Obey My voice, and I will be your God, and you will be My people; and you will walk in all the way which I command you, that it may be well with you.’ Yet they did not obey or incline their ear, but walked in their own counsels and in the stubbornness of their evil heart, and went backward and not forward.” (Jeremiah 7:21-24 NASB)

“With what shall I come to the LORD And bow myself before the God on high? Shall I come to Him with burnt offerings, with yearling calves? Does the LORD take delight in thousands of rams, In ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I present my firstborn for my rebellious acts, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:6-8 NASB)

“But go and learn what this means: ‘I DESIRE COMPASSION, AND NOT SACRIFICE,’ for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”(Matthew 9:13 NASB)

“But if you had known what this means, ‘I DESIRE COMPASSION, AND NOT A SACRIFICE,’ you would not have condemned the innocent.” (Matthew 12:7 NASB)

“Therefore, when He comes into the world, He says, “Sacrifice AND OFFERING YOU HAVE NOT DESIRED, BUT a BODY YOU HAVE PREPARED FOR ME; [6] In WHOLE BURNT OFFERINGS AND sacrifices FOR SIN YOU HAVE TAKEN NO PLEASURE.” (Hebrews 10:5-6 NASB)

“After saying above, “Sacrifices AND OFFERINGS AND whole BURNT OFFERINGS AND sacrifices for SIN YOU HAVE NOT DESIRED, NOR HAVE YOU TAKEN PLEASURE in them” (which are offered according to the Law)” (Hebrews 10:8 NASB)

So we have to ask, what’s going on here?

Has God, the immutable One changed his mind about sacrifice?

Does the change in the tone of scripture from God seemingly wanting sacrifice to not desiring sacrifice mean that scripture is fallible and errant after all?

I think that people who dogmatically insist on the inerrancy and infallibility of scripture are missing the point. As Rob Bell says in his book, “What is the Bible?”, the Bible is a story about what it means to be human. It is an accurate collection of stories which show how a specific group of people understood God as he has progressively revealed himself to us, culminating in his full disclosure of character when the cosmic Christ became enfleshed and lived among us.

What’s going on here is that God met man where he was: Lost, in pain, uncomfortable, believing in a false identity, forgetting who God really was and imagining what he was like based on fear.

I believe that our lostness is rooted in our trying to live within the parameters of a self-made moral code, when we were designed to live in perfect relationship, which ultimately makes any moral code obsolete.

Who was it then that desired sacrifice? Man or God?

I believe man desired sacrifice so that we could control our way into right standing with God. We mistakenly thought that God desired it and could be manipulated through a transaction.

Let’s dig into this further…

Matthew Distefano writes the following in his excellent book, “From the Blood of Abel”:

“Consider the backdrop for a moment. Here we have a man who does not bear a son with his wife, Sarah, until he is 100 years of age (Genesis 21:5). Not exactly the most ideal period in life to procreate!

Miraculously though, it happens. A baby boy! But then, one day God decides to ‘test’ Abraham, commanding, ‘Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the…’ (Genesis 22:2)

Wait! What?

No, no, no…that cannot be right. It sounds too ridiculous!

Well, not so fast. If we transport ourselves back in time, perhaps 3,000 years or more, then we will discover a vastly different culture, with very specific theological assumptions (starting to sound familiar yet?).

The important thing to understand is that once upon a time, people in the Middle East were polytheists. More specifically, and this applies to the early Hebrews, they were henotheists.

Simply put: gods were tribal. I had my god, you had your god, and they had their god. So, for instance, Yahweh was the God of Israel, while Molech was the god of the Canaanites, and so on and so forth. With that in mind, let’s get back to the story…

What Abraham and Sarah faced religiously and culturally sounds brutal for any parent.

Certainly, they both “knew” that in order for God to be appeased, blood had to be shed—and what better blood than that of a first-born son? This was just the way it was. I believe that is why there is no mention of Abraham contesting God’s “commands.”

Notice, in Genesis 22:3, immediately after getting the instructions from God, we are simply told that Abraham “rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac.”

No protesting, no pleading for the boy’s life; just that he saddled up for the journey. Now, after the two reach the place where Isaac is to be slain, Abraham immediately builds an altar (Genesis 22:9). I can imagine a rudimentary pile of rocks with hefty pieces of wood strategically placed on top. I picture them doused in a flammable oil of sorts, perhaps something like animal fat. After all, the body would have to be burned so as to reach the nostrils of God. Once everything is just right, Abraham binds his beloved Isaac and takes out his knife. With a shaking hand, he is ready.

But all of a sudden, in comes the plot-twist. As Abraham goes to kill Isaac, we read, in Genesis 22:11: “But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, and said, ‘Abraham, Abraham!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ He said, ‘Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.”

Immediately following this, Abraham sees a ram and sacrifices that instead. After he does this, he names the place Adonai-Jireh, or “The Lord will provide” (Genesis 22:14). In order to determine the power and meaning of this text, we are provided with some very strong clues in the very language used.

Note:
• Verse 1: Elohim tested Abraham…
• Verse 3: Elohim had shown him…
• Verse 8: Elohim himself will provide…
• Verse 9: Elohim had shown him…
• Verse 11: But the angel of Yahweh called…

Here we have a wrestling with “God’s will.” Initially, a theological assumption is made about the creator God, Elohim, arguing that he needs Isaac’s blood to be spilled. But then the God of Abraham, and then later Isaac, and Jacob, via a messenger angel, rescues Isaac from this false, and might I say murderous, sacrificial assumption. Remember, everyone in Abraham’s day believed all gods, Elohim included, demanded blood. But this is simply false.

In fact, it is a lie, and ultimately comes from satan—or in other words, the human principle of accusation—the one whom Jesus would later label a liar and murderer from the start (John 8:44). The lie that satan hides behind here is that God demands blood. The truth though, is that really we are “satan” – the lying, sacrifice-demanding murderers, not Elohim. In all reality, the one true God—whether named Elohim or Yahweh—has never demanded blood sacrifices, but that theological understanding is not our starting position; the belief in a God who demands human sacrifice is.

This passage takes us from one theological place to another. It is a baby step in a way, but it is also huge (especially for me!) because it is ultimately the reason we do not sacrifice first-born sons any longer (and I am a first-born son!).”

One theme that we see throughout the story of humanity in the Bible is how we have gotten lost and God has met us, not where we should be, but rather where we are—lost, broken, confused about who we are and confused about who God is.

Around twenty years ago, a bunch of friends and I had the brilliant idea of climbing to the top of Mt. Burke and tobogganing down the north face. Mt. Burke is in the Canadian Rockies and has a 3000 ft elevation gain. Oh, did I mention this was on December 23rd?

We ended up getting lost on the way down and what should have been an easy two-hour hike to the base of the mountain turned into an exhausting adventure trudging through deep snow in the dark, trying to find our way back. This was one of the few times in my life where I actually thought I was going to die.

Fortunately, one of the guys that had started up the trail with us had gotten tired out and turned back while we were on the way up. He was waiting for us back at the vehicle and had started wondering what was taking us so long. He became concerned for our safety and managed to get the help of some guys who had their snowmobiles out. Together, they went looking for us.

Where should I have been at eleven o’clock at night on December 23rd? Probably at home with my wife and my one-month-old daughter. That’s not where I was though. I was cold, tired and hopelessly lost in the forest somewhere on the north-west side of Mt. Burke. I needed rescue and my rescuers came to where I was and took me to where I should have been.

To me, this is a picture of how God has met humans where we were throughout history and brought us to where we should be.

I want you to imagine someone important in your life. A person you cannot imagine living without. It could be your spouse, a sibling, a parent, a grandparent, that crazy uncle, a lifelong friend. Picture that person in your mind. Now imagine something you could do that would hurt that relationship. Imagine you have done that thing…whatever it is. You feel incredible remorse and want more than anything else to make things right with that person. You are willing to sacrifice anything of yours which you hold as valuable in order to have that relationship back. Your whole view of that person you love has now changed. You imagine them to be, at best, disappointed with you, and at worst, furious.

You end up avoiding that person out of guilt, maybe working up the courage to make a phone call or send a text offering to make up for what you have done. If you could only exchange something valuable of yours for forgiveness, it would have the effect of easing your conscience.

This is a picture of the human condition. In the garden of Eden, Adam and Eve made a wrong decision. They decided to act like less than they really were. In their minds, God was angry with them and they needed to do something to make up for what they had done.

Then they produced children, and these children got their ideas about what God was like from their parents. The children also made wrong decisions and assumed that God was angry with them and that they need to do something to make up for it.

This is the system of sin which Adam and Eve introduced, something which evangelicals would call the “sin nature.” Here’s the thing though. God was never angry or disappointed. I think it’s quite difficult to be angry or disappointed with anyone when you exist outside of time and have already known for a few billion years what decisions people will make.

The first thing God does in fact, after Adam and Eve sin, is to come looking for them so that they could go for a walk as they usually did. Together, enjoying relationship.

Notice that here, God did not withdraw from Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve hid from God.

God has always demonstrated forgiveness. Yes, even before the cross. In fact, I believe that the very act of creation was an act of forgiveness. God never needed for us to “make up for what we had done.” He never needed an exchange of something valuable in order to forgive.

Let’s get back to Tommy Lee Jones, shall we?

In the 1997 movie “M.I.B.”, the characters “Kay” played by Tommy Lee Jones and “Jay” played by Will Smith have cornered a villainous alien known as the “Bug”. In their epic final confrontation, the bug ingests the weapons of our would-be heroes.

Kay tells Jay that he’s gonna get his gun back, and then moves in front of the alien shouting insults. He screams at the bug, “EAT ME!” The bug more than gladly obliges, thinking that this is the end of one enemy. Kay, however, finds his gun inside the alien and kills it from within.

Just like God did to religion.

He climbed into our darkness, into our mythology, our misconception—our religion—for the purpose of killing it from within. He met us where we were and continues to meet us where we are; smack dab in the middle of our lostness.

In the preface of his book, “Across All Worlds”, Dr. C. Baxter Krueger brilliantly writes:

“Jesus wants His Father known. He is passionate about it. He cannot bear for us to live without knowing His Father, without knowing His heart, His lavish embrace, His endless love—and the sheer freedom to be that works within us as we see His Father’s face.

Jesus knows the Father from all eternity. He sits at His right hand and sees Him face to face, and shares life and all things with Him in the fellowship of the Spirit. How could He be content to leave us in the dark with no vision of His Father’s heart? How could this Son be indifferent when we are so lost and afraid and bound in our mythology?

Burning with the Father’s love for us, inspired with the Spirit’s fire, the Son ran to embrace our broken existence, baptizing Himself into our blindness. He braved the seas of our darkness to come to us. Why? So that he could share with us His own communion with His father in the Spirit, and we could know the Father with Him, and taste and feel and experience life in His embrace.”

I can hear the objections from my religious readers already: What about Hebrews 9:22 where it says, “In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” (NIV)

First of all, if you are still reading an NIV Bible, do yourself a favour. Light it on fire and get yourself a better translation that isn’t jam-packed with sloppy interpretive bias.

Here’s a better rendering of that verse with some context:

“Therefore even the first covenant was not inaugurated without blood. For when every commandment had been spoken by Moses to all the people according to the Law, he took the blood of the calves and the goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, saying, “This IS THE BLOOD OF THE COVENANT WHICH GOD COMMANDED YOU.” (Hebrews 9:18-22 NASB)

And in the same way he sprinkled both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry with the blood. And according to the Law, one may almost say, all things are cleansed with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.”

There is a clear distinction here in, “ONE MAY ALMOST SAY”, and “ACCORDING TO THE LAW.”

Whose law is this anyway? God’s, or man’s?

Since we know now that God never wanted sacrifice, I think we can confidently say that this was man’s law, made by men who mistakenly thought that God wanted sacrifice.

God entered our religious system to meet us where we were. God does not require anything in order to forgive. In fact, as soon as you bring a transaction of any sort into the picture, it is not forgiveness anymore. It is a payoff.

One other thing that my religious readers will bring up is a verse from the NASB since that is what I have been primarily using in this essay:

“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” (1 John 4:7-11 NASB)

Yes, even the NASB has some sloppy translation, and the usage of the word “propitiation” is a perfect example of this. The NRSV correctly translates this as “atonement”. Why is this important? The word, “propitiation” carries the meaning of “being appeased”, which necessitates a transaction, which is then no longer forgiveness.

Atonement is an excellent word choice. It means to reunite, to make whole again. It has the imagery of the Hebrew word, “shalom”—nothing broken, nothing missing. It’s interesting to note that the Greek word irresponsibly translated as “propitiation” is ἱλαστήριον (hilastērion).

This word comes from the Hebrew word כּפּרת (kappôreth) which means “lid”, referring to the lid of the ark of the covenant. This is the place where God (the uncreated) and the high priest (being the representative for the created) would meet (At-one-ment) together in the holy of holies and were able to do so because of the blood sacrifice covering sin.

Sin needed to be covered so that the people’s conscience could be cleared at least for a while in order to enjoy relationship with God. God enters the sacrificial system and allows them to use this as a means to relationship—atonement.

Jesus the Christ became the lid or the place of atonement where the uncreated and the created are able to meet. Jesus was the sacrifice (who was not sacrificed to God, but rather to humanity) and he did not just cover our sin, but actually removed it. We are now a kingdom of priests able to always be in the holy of holies.

1 John 2:2 says, “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.” (NRSV).

John 1:29, speaking of John the Baptist says, “The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”.

Why was it important for Jesus to remove the “sins of the world”? Sin leads to a guilty conscience. A guilty conscience leads to the severing of relationship.

“But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation; and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” (Hebrews 9:11-14 NASB)

When we look at the whole picture of God that scripture paints for us, we must come to one of four conclusions:

  1. God is not immutable. his essence can change throughout the ages.
  2. There is disunity within the Godhead with God the Father being the angry, punishing judge, God the Son being the loving, forgiving, self-sacrificing one and the Holy Spirit being the neutral one.
  3. Scripture is unreliable as it presents two clearly different and conflicting views of God’s character.
  4. God is immutable. God the Father is, always has been and always will be like God the Son. We haven’t always known this as a human species, but with the perfect revelation of God in Jesus, we now do. Scripture is simply a reflection of our progressive knowledge of this.

I believe number four is the correct conclusion.

God entered our religious mythology and, though never desiring or needing sacrifice to forgive, recognized that it was us who thought we needed the system of sacrifice to appease our guilty consciences. He met us where we were, not where we should have been.

We see throughout the story of scripture how God reveals more and more truth about himself until we finally have the full and perfect revelation of God in Jesus—whom we sacrifice on the altar of religion, violence, empire and human independence in our lostness, confusion, and sin-sickness.

Was Jesus a sacrifice? Yes. In fact, the ultimate sacrifice to end all sacrifices.

He was the sacrifice that we demanded, not God.

He was the sacrifice that proved that no matter how much we fell short of what it means to be human, made in the image of God. No matter how independent, selfish, prideful and violent we were, God in Christ would hang on the Roman instrument of torture, bleeding, hurting, and lost in our darkness, just like us…and He would say, “Father forgive them.”

God never asked for sacrifice. We did. And God entered our lostness and met us where we were, giving us what we asked for, to relate to us, to show us that he is here for us as our healer and rescuer.

Ryan Harbidge is the husband to one beautiful woman and a father to three gorgeous young ladies. He lives in the small town of Nanton, Alberta, Canada and owns a painting company.  Ryan likes to spend his free time reading, writing, playing music, camping, hiking, riding his motorcycle, growing a large beard and most importantly, basking in the reality of God’s love.  It is Ryan’s hope and dream that others will understand and experience God’s love through his writing, music and life.

IV Horton

Filed Under: Theology

April 23, 2017 By Ryan Harbidge

The Intersection Between Knowing God and Self Actualization

“Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity,” says the author of Ecclesiastes.

Another way to render “vanity” is “meaningless” or “empty”. The authorship of this book has traditionally been attributed to King Solomon, the “wisest man to ever live”. This is a man who had everything. Health, riches, power, peace, good food and drink, and maybe a few too many wives. All this, and he declares that life is meaningless.

What gets you up in the morning? What, if anything gives you reason to say at the end of the day that “this has been a good day”? How can we possibly have meaning when Solomon couldn’t find it?

We Have An Intrinsic Need To Self Actualize

The term “self actualization” was coined by the organismic theorist Kurt Goldstein. “In Goldstein’s view, it is the organism’s master motive, the only real motive: ‘the tendency to actualize itself as fully as possible is the basic drive… the drive of self-actualization.'”

In other words, everyone without exception needs to have a sense of meaning. We need a lasting purpose in life.

Abraham Maslow identified five human needs, starting with our most basic of physiological needs and then continuing on to safety, then love & belonging, then esteem, and at the very top, self actualization. It is very interesting to me that the science of psychology ties together meaning with spirituality. This tells me that there is nothing in the physical realm which in and of itself can provide anyone with real or lasting meaning in life.

Personally, I think that in order for anyone to find any kind of meaning in existence, we need to start to understand the nature of God.

In the 300’s, the Cappadocian fathers were largely responsible for digging into scripture and giving us the non dualistic trinitarian theology that I believe is required for us to understand what God is all about and how we fit into this existence we’ve been thrust into. Though the modern western stream of Christianity largely believes in the basic doctrine of the trinity and gives lip-service to it, we have lost the implications of what this trinitarian God means for us.

In the 400’s Augustine of Hippo infused the dualistic philosophies of Plato and Aristotle into Christianity, and I think we need to go back to the pre-Augustine church in order to see the connection between the trinity and our life’s meaning.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Theology

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