Off to Pepperdine

Off to Pepperdine

I will be out of town this entire week at the Pepperdine in Sunny California. I will be speaking three times with my cohorts John Mark Hicks and we have added Johnny Melton to the mix this year. We will be speaking Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings on "A Gathered People." The substance of our presentation will be drawn from our soon to be released book of that same title.

If you are in Malibu stop by and talk with me. I am looking forward to seeing you there.

Shalom,
Bobby Valentine

Heaven (5): God's Love for his Creation

The Mission of Jesus

Many modern Christians have associated “materiality” with “unspiritual.” We hear talk of “spiritual” blessings, “spiritual” needs, saving “souls” and other lingo that seems to imply the secondary nature of God’s material world. This attitude as we have seen in Heaven (2) and Heaven (3) has far more in common with Platonism and Gnosticism than with historic Christianity.

I reject a definition of “spiritual” that means “non-material” or “non-physical.” Rather I have a working definition for “spiritual” as “Godly.” The ministry of Jesus is the criteria here. Jesus defines his ministry in Luke 4.18-21 in a very “non-spiritual” way if we buy into that modern view of “spiritual.” Jesus declares that his ministry is the Sabbath of Sabbaths. He is the Living Sabbath, the Year of Jubilee. This work of Christ is declared in very concrete and “material” terms in the Gospel of Luke. He is to preach good news to the poor. He gives sight to the blind. He releases the oppressed. He proclaims the year of the Lord’s favor. These were not preliminary for the “real” mission of Jesus but part of his entire mission of redemption. Every blind person given sight is a moment of redemption. Every leper healed is redeemed. For example the Centurion’s daughter is “saved” by Jesus (7.3); the sinful woman experiences “salvation” (7.50); the demoniac is “saved” (8.36); the little girl that died is “saved” (8.50) and Zacchaeus experienced the salvation of Jesus (19.9). Salvation is as broad as the Year of Jubilee These examples, and many more, are the outworking of the Jubilee mission of Jesus. Jesus’ mission is to reverse the curse that had invaded God’s good creation. The work of Jesus is inherently “spiritual.” Even the healing of limbs, feeding the hungry, touching the leper ... these are spiritual, not because they are immaterial but because the are the work of God.

The Belief of Gnostics on Creation

The work of Jesus to reverse the curse is part of the overall love of God for his good creation. The Hebrew Bible proclaims loud and clear that Yahweh is the Creator God and his work is very good. It was this point that Plato denied. It was this point that the Gnostics went ape over. They believed that creation was such a mistake (with a capital "M") that only a secondary and evil god could be responsible for it (The Gospel of Judas calls him Nebro, a Coptic word that means “rebel.” He is in no way the "father" of Christ! See more on the Gnostic "Gospel" of Judas here). The Platonists and their Gnostic disciples believed that “God” was only interested in a pure spiritual environment free from the physical and material ... anything less to them was not "spiritual." The beliefs of Gnostics relating to creation directly impacted their view on the incarnation of the Word of God that John is so passionate about. Because they rejected creation they had to rejecte any enfleshment of the Word (past or present).

Yahweh's Passion for His Creation

The Hebrew Bible, however, says not only did God create the world but it is proof of his love and that he lovingly cares for it. If you ask an Israelite “how do we know God loves us?” He/she would respond with two affirmations: God created the world and God rescued us from Egypt. Both of these are declared in Psalm 136 but I will focus only on the creation part,

To him who alone does great wonders

his steadfast love endures forever;

to him who by understanding made the heavens,

for his steadfast love endures forever;

to him who spread out the earth upon the waters,

for his steadfast love endures forever;

to him who made the great lights,

for his steadfast love endures forever;

the sun to rule the day,

for his steadfast love endures forever;

the moon and stars to rule over the night,

for his steadfast love endures forever.”

(Psalm 136.4-9)

The physical universe reflects the warmth and love of Yahweh. Indeed God’s own glory is displayed through the created world (Psalm 19.1-4). In terms of biblical theology it is interesting to see that Psalm 24, when answering the question of who may ascend the hill of the Lord it first declares “The earth is the LORD’s and everything in it, the world and all who live in it …”

Psalm 104 (worthy of deeper study) explores the purposes of creation. With images that recall God’s creation as a palace/temple (see Heaven #4) we read of beams and chambers. Israel in this Psalm praises God for his loving care of the universe. He protects it from the chaos, he sends the rain for the beasts of the fields and birds of the air ...

“He makes grass grow for the cattle,

and plants for man to cultivate—

bringing forth food from the earth …

The trees of the LORD are well watered …

These {animals} look to you to give

them food at their proper time.

When you give it to them,

they gather it up;

when you open your hand they are satisfied

with good things”

(Psalm 104.14, 16, 27-28) 

God lovingly cares for his good creation … a task that humanity was commissioned to do and failed and continues to fail. Even though sin has pervaded this world and it suffers from the curse … it is still God’s. The Hebrew Bible declares

“for every animal of the forest is mine,

and the cattle on a thousand hills.

I know every bird in the mountains,

and the creatures of the field are mine”

(Psalm 50.10-12)

God so loves and sustains his creation that he even builds provision for the non-human in his gracious Torah. Animals themselves are to be blessed with a Sabbath rest according to Exodus 20.10 and Deut 5.14, “On it you shall do no work … nor your ox, your donkey or any of your animals.” God explained to Jonah that one reason he did not want to destroy Nineveh was not only the people but because of the “cattle” (Jonah 4.11). Interestingly enough though folks will go to war because of the evil that pervades this fallen creation he limits its impact on the environment. "Are the trees of the field people, that you should besiege them" (Deut 20.19, this passage has always intrigued me).

Jeremiah when speaking of God’s covenantal promise to house of David he assures Israel they can believe it because it is like God’s covenant with the created order,

“If you break my covenant with the day and my covenant with the night, so that day and night will not come at their appointed time, then also my covenant with David my servant may be broken” (Jer 33.20-21)

The reliability of creation is rooted in the faithfulness of God.

Final Thoughts

This post has grown long and we have not even begun to touch the tip of the iceberg. We have said nothing of creational praise of Yahweh, we have spoken nothing of how the Exodus ties into the creational narratives in Genesis (remember the Bible is an integrated six act drama/play). We may come back to those in the future. 

One thing is for sure, we will never have a true understanding of the biblical longing for the New Heavens and New Earth as long as we have a sub-biblical view of God’s good creation and his incredible love for it. Like any art is an expression of the artist so God’s creation is an expression of himself and for us to think it is “unspiritual” is to view it in a totally different light than what Scripture does. 

God is redeeming humanity as part of his goal to redeem his entire creation. Jesus is doing in his ministry what God has done all along. He is the embodiment of the Year of Jubilee that brought rest to God’s suffering people … and his creation.

It was the Gnostics who rejected the goodness of God's creation and its "spiritual nature" not the Bible. It was the Gnostics who denied that God aims to redeem his creation. It was the Gnostics who sought salvation as a means to escape God's creation. In light of the testimony of the Hebrew Bible is is no surprise that the Gnostics who rejected creation ultimately rejected the One who created it. I think these facts should give us cause for pause ...

Humans were created to be God’s co-regent in ruling his good creation. We failed … but God has not given up on his dream.

More later,

Bobby Valentine

Heaven (4): Eden, God's Temple/Palace on Earth

Once we remove the Platonic shades from our eyes and we investigate the biblical narrative we learn that heaven is part of the story from the get go. Scripture, I believe, is a fully integrated drama or story that is divided into “six acts” or “six chapters.” This story or drama has a plot, a goal or intent. The six acts or chapters are: Act One is Creation; Act Two is humanities Fall; Act Three is God’s relationship with Israel; Act Four is the coming of the Messiah; Act Five is the story of renewed Israel; Act Six is the return of Jesus and his New Creation. We are actually living out Act Five. Each act or chapter informs and shapes the others …and as we will see the ending is deeply tied to the beginning.

This six act drama of divine love tells us that “in the beginning” the Triune God created the heavens and the earth out of love. On the earth God cultivated a paradise for his image bearers. In this place shalom reigned between divine and human, humans and animals, males and females. This garden is simply called the “garden of God” by Ezekiel (31.8-9).

This garden is the original holy of holies. Have you ever noticed that the biblical writers constantly use architectural imagery to describe creation? For example we read in Job

Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?

Tell me, if you have understanding.

Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know …

Who stretched a measuring line across it?

On what were its footings set,

or who laid its cornerstone …

Who shut up the sea behind doors …

When I fixed limits for it

and set its doors and bars in place …

Have you entered the storehouses of the snow

or seen the storehouse of the hail? (38.4-6,8,10, 22)

You will find that the Hebrew Bible speaks of the pillars of the cosmos, heaven’s windows, it is described as canopy or tent. Imagine you are an Israelite in 750 B.C. and you hear these images from the priests and prophets … and the psalmists. What in your experience has cornerstones, doors, bars, storehouse, pillars and a canopy? TEMPLES! PALACES! The Bible uses the imagery of temples to describe God’s creation and in the Ancient Near East temples were understood to be a god’s palace (and in Hebrew temple and palace are the same word, hekal). When God created the cosmos he created his sanctuary.

There are numerous parallels beyond the architectural imagery that have lead biblical scholars to conclude that the Hebrew Bible understands the Garden as the first temple. Here is a short list:

First, like the tabernacle and temple Eden is the place of God’s holy Presence. Indeed, it is interesting that the same Hebrew verbal form (hithpael), hithallek, used for God’s “walking back and forth” in the Garden (Gen 3.8) also describes God’s Presence in the tabernacle (Lev 26.12).

Second, Gen 2.15 says that God placed Adam and Eve in the Garden to “cultivate it and to keep it.” The two Hebrew words for “cultivate and keep” (respectively ‘abad and shamar) are usually translated as “serve and guard.” In other places in the Hebrew Bible when these two words occur together they have the meaning and refer either to Israelites “serving and guarding/obeying” God; or (more often) to priests who “serve” God in the temple and “guard” it from unclean things (cf. Num 3.7-8; 8.25-26; 18.5-6; 1 Chron 23.32; Ezk 44.14). Adam and Eve seem to be called to priestly duties in caring for and protecting the Garden of God. When the first couple failed in this task it was left to cherubim to guard the tree of life.

Third, that the Garden of Eden was the first temple is suggested by Psalm 78.69 which explicitly declares that the Temple was built “like the earth.” The Hebrew historians tell us that wood carvings in the temple gave it a “garden like” atmosphere. For example 1 Kgs 6.18, 29 says there was “cedar … carved in the shape of gourds and open flowers” and “palm trees and open flowers” covered both the inner and outer rooms” (cf. vv. 32, 35).

Fourth, just as Eden’s entrance faced the East (Gen 3.24) and was situated on a mountain (Ezek 28.14, 16) so the temple faced East and was on a mountain … and Ezekiel’s end time temple was to face East and be on a mountain (Ezk 40.2, 6; 43.12). There is a river flowing out of Eden (Gen 2.10), the post-exilic temple did as well (The Letter of Aristeas 89 says, “And there is an inexhaustible supply of water, because an abundant natural spring gushes up from within the temple area”) as does Ezekiel’s and Revelation (Ezk 47; Rev 21.1-2).

There are many more parallels between the Garden of Eden and Israel’s temple(s). When God created the world he fashioned a dwelling where he and his creatures could have intimate fellowship. That place, Eden, was heaven on earth. God’s dwelling was on earth with his beloved creation. Adam and Eve were placed by God in his house that he built for himself. They live in the royal palace. They were to tend the Garden in the same manner that the priests did the tabernacle and temple. They had unfettered access to God and were free as children running in their own home. There is no altar in this temple because there is no barrier to between God and humanity. It is no wonder that the rest of the Bible seems to have a longing for the Garden. Longing for the Presence of God that was lost ...

I opened this blog with a comment on the narrative structure of the biblical text. I pointed out how the ending of the story is very much like the beginning. If what I have said is even remotely accurate (and I believe it is) then when we read that God has made his dwelling with humanity (Rev 21.3) and the New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven to the earth … we see happening in Revelation what has already happened "in the beginning" in Genesis 1 and 2. God built a house, a palace, a temple for humans and deity to dwell together. That place was in Eden. Revelation tells us that God has made his dwelling again with humanity, the curse has been removed. Humans and deity can live in the same place again. Heaven will once again be on earth.

God dwelling with us … that was the goal from the beginning. Eden was heaven on earth … and God is looking to bring us back to it. The renewed and glorified earth.

Shalom,
Bobby Valentine

Heaven (3) Resurrection & The Belief of the Early Church

The resurrection is critically linked to any Christian view of the afterlife. In this particular post I share the view held by the Jewish worldview prior to and contemporary with Jesus and that of the earliest Christian writings following the New Testament. I will highlight how the early Christians attempted to separate their beliefs from the Greeks and Gnostics.

The Platonic and Gnostic View

"the body is the prison of the soul" (Plato, Phaedo, 65, see 67-68 and 91-94)

"You {Judas} will exceed all of them {twelve apostles}. For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me" (Jesus in the Gospel of Judas, 56; see the Gospel of Judas edited by Kasser, Meyer and Gregor Wurst, National Geographic Society, p. 43)

"for he {Christ} put aside the world which is perishing. He transformed himself into an imperishable aeon and raised himself up, having swallowed up the visible by the invisible, and he gave us the way to immortality" (Treatise on the Resurrection, 44. The author(s) go on to insist this means shedding the flesh, cf. ch's 47-48)

"When you strip off from yourselves what is corrupted {flesh}, then you will become illumators in the midst of mortal men" (Jesus in The Letter of Peter to Philip, 137. Nag Hammadi Library, p. 435).

"The soul answered and said, 'What binds me has been slain, and what surrounds me has been overcome, and my desire has been ended, and ignorance has died. In a world I was released from a world and in a type from a heavenly type, and from the fetter of oblivion which is transient" (Mary revealing Jesus' secret teachings in The Gospel of Mary, see Nag Hammadi Library, p. 526)

The Jewish/Christian View Exhibited in The Church Fathers

Before I produce a few quotes illustrative of the theme I have chosen, I need to refer to a passage in N. T. Wright's popular level book Judas and the Gospel of Jesus (Baker 2006). Wright summarizes, correctly, I believe, the three major themes the early Church held dearly in continuity with the Hebrew Bible and its Jewish worldview: 1) the belief that the Creator God is none other than the Father of Jesus the Christ and his creation is good; 2) the belief in the ultimate justice of God and 3) a belief that is directly and intimately connected with the previous two is the conviction in the resurrection of the body as part of the restoration of all things (p. 102), this is argued in considerable detail by Wright in some heafty tomes). These beliefs are in stark contrast with Greek Platonism and Gnosticism. Indeed it evident that the Fathers rejected as Gnostic what some today long for ... that "pure spiritual environment."

Josephus, a Pharisee, offers this view of what his party believed about the resurrection,

"they who depart this life in accordance with the law of nature and repay the loan which they received from God, when He who lent is pleased to reclaim it, win eternal renown; that their houses and familes are secure; that their souls, remaining spotless and obedient, are allotted the most holy place in heaven, whence, in the revolution of the ages, they return to find in chaste bodies a new habitation" (Jewish Wars, 3.374)

There could not be a starker contrast in this statement and that made by Plato, the "Jesus" of the Gospel of Judas and the Gnostic treatise on the "resurrection." Another text that I simply cannot reproduce for it is too long is the narrative of the martyrdom of the Seven Brothers in 2 Maccabees 7. But they freely give up their lives in belief of the bodily resurrection in a new creation along the lines in Josephus. These texts can be multiplied at length but there is no need.

One of the earliest Christian writings outside the New Testament is First Clement which actually belongs to "first century Christianity." In 1 Clement 42, Clement says Christians are "fully assured through the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ" that our faith is true. Earlier in ch. 24, Clement appeals to many life experiences to support the belief in the resurrection of the body.

If move down the line about 20 years we encounter Ignatius of Antioch. Ignatius is interesting on many levels. He is a bishop. He is a martyr. And he had the gift of prophecy, at least he so claimed and the early church believed he did. That does not make his writings canonical but it is interesting that his writings were appealed to from time to time in the early church as if they were Scripture. Just an interesting tidbit. Ignatius has opportunity to address the idea of resurrection far more than Clement did. In the period from Clement to Ignatius there arose some who started to teach that Christ and Jesus were not one and the same; that Christ was the divine nature that came upon Jesus in his baptism; that Jesus only 'seemed' to suffer and that Christ did not "really" become flesh. Of course anyone familiar with 1 and 2 John recognizes some of this heresy. Ignatius also has to deal with this teaching. He exhorts the Trallians for example to hold onto the faith that Christ was really crucified under Pilate, they he really suffered, that he was really raised from the dead by God who "in like fashion will so raise us who believe in Him--His Father, I say, will raise us" (Trallians 9). In the next "chapter" Ignatius warns of the "godless" who say that Christ was not really "bodily" but was a mere "semblance" (Trallians 10).

Writing the same folks at Smyrna as John did in the Revelation he comments on the nature of the resurrection of Christ in distinction of those who (he believes) teach false doctrine. He clearly rejects any notion of a mere "spiritual" resurrection ...

"For I am confident that even after the resurrection he {Christ} was in the flesh. And when he came to those with Peter he said to them, 'Take, handle me, and see that I am not an incorporeal being {a ghost}.' And they immediately touched him and believed, being mingled with his flesh and spirit. Therefore they despised death and were found to be above death. And after the resurrection he ate and drank with them as a being of flesh, though he was spiritually united with the Father" (Smyrnaens, 3)

This belief in fact fueled Ignatius own faith. He was glad to suffer martyrdom because he believed he would be raised in the flesh just as Jesus Christ was.

The next writer of critical importance is Polycarp. Polycarp was himself a disciple of the at least some of the apostles and was one of the bishops of Smyrna. Polycarp's Epistle to the Philippians dates early in the second century A.D. Polycarp has even less patience with those who want to spiritualize Christ's resurrection. He writes, pointedly:

"For 'everyone who does not confess that Jesus Christ came in the flesh is anti-christ'; and anyone who does not confess the testimony of the cross is 'of devil'; and anyone who perverts the sayings of the Lord to suit 'his own lusts' and says there is neither a resurrection nor a judgment--that man is the first-born of Satan" (Letter to the Philippians, 7.1)

Polycarp has other thoughts on the resurrection of the body but this one is plain enough to make us take notice.

The writers we have quoted in this section are not being given canonical status by any means. But I do find it rather interesting that these early post-Apostolic teachers (some like Polycarp with apostolic connections) have such continuity with the Jewish view quoted at the head of this section and that it stands in such radical distinction of that of Plato and the Gnostics. In the comments section of Heaven Part 1 I quoted from Justin Martyr extensively and he is right in line with these thoughts quoted here. Christ came in the flesh to redeem the flesh. Christ died in the flesh and was raised in the flesh. To attempt to make the resurrection of the body somehow "spiritual" was tantamount to denying the resurrection and a denial of the Gospel.

I bring this blog to a close with a quote from Bart Erhman. Erhman is no friend of Orthodox Christianity. He is a "hostile" witness so to speak. But he understands, and clearly so, the difference between what the Jewish and early "orthodox" Christians believed and what his precious Gnostics believed. He promotes their veiw in many books but I am here quoting from his essay in The Gospel of Judas published by the National Geographic Society last year. Note how he, ironically, confirms what Wright said in the quotation above,

"According to most gnostics, this material world is not our home. We are trapped here, in these bodies of flesh, and we need to learn to escape ... Since the point is to allow the soul to leave this world behind and to enter into 'that great and holy generation' {a quote from Judas, B.V.} -- that is, the divine realm that transcends this world--a resurrection body is the very last thing that Jesus, or any of his true followers, would want" (Gospel of Judas, pp. 84, 110).

The contrast between this view, identical to my opening quotations, and that in the Church Fathers could not be more stark. The faith of Christianity is this: the BODY that came down from the cross; the BODY that was laid in the borrowed tomb; the BODY that was guarded by Roman soldiers ... is the same body that came out of the tomb. The body of Jesus was raised by the power of God to new life. His body was glorified (redeemed from death and was victorious) and liberated from the curse. As Ignatius pointed out, our hope in our bodily resurrection is based on the fact that Jesus is the first fruits. Jesus still exists in the flesh ... we will never understand the new heavens and new earth if we do not believe what Clement, Ignatius, and Polycarp held. Resurrection of the flesh, not a "pure spiritual environment," is essential to the Christian faith.

Shalom,
Bobby Valentine

Heaven (2): Pie in the Sky or Meek Inheriting the Earth (Part 2)

Heaven: Pie in the Sky or Meek Inheriting the Earth (Part 2)

Sometimes the holders of the renewed earth point of view are characterized as having a “carnal mentality.” This view is somehow seen as less than "spiritual" to its critics. A truly spiritual view from that perspective practically necessitates defining "spiritual" as "immaterial." I think the cleavage that has been driven between "material" and "spiritual" does not reflect a biblical mentality. We will come back to this point later.


Some of my critics have pointed out to me that the "pioneers" among the Stone-Campbell Movement were not inspired men. When they tell me this they then recommend that I read the Spiritual Sword or Christian Courier. But the writers in those journals are no more inspired than Lipscomb or Campbell. The inspiration or lack there of is not really the issue however.
For the moment the issue is the characterization of the holders of this view as being "carnally minded." Yet I have a very difficult time believing men like Alexander Campbell, Robert Milligan, Moses Lard, David Lipscomb or James A. Harding were carnally minded men, yet they all held this position .

Alexander Campbell’s essay “Regeneration” in the Millennial Harbinger in 1833 is more than worth your effort to read. It is lengthy running from p.337 to p.384. In this essay Campbell provides a comprehensive overview of his theology--which he casts in sort of a mini-redemptive historical framework. God's plan for the world does not boil down to baptism as so many among us seem to imagine (though baptism is a means of grace for Campbell in this essay), rather God seeks to regenerate his entire creation. Campbell applies this to the created order as well as humanity. AC believed that our resurrection finds significance first in the one of Christ Jesus. So he asks, what the resurrection of Jesus and our own resurrection is all about? Was Jesus’ resurrection a “spiritual” or a “bodily” resurrection? He clearly does not endorse the notion of a “purely spiritual environment.” Here is a quotation from the relevant section of "Regeneration." Sounding almost as if he had taken a page from Justin Martyr's essay on the resurrection (quoted in the comments yesterday), he writes:

“Immortality, in the sacred writings, is never applied to the spirit of man. It is not the doctrine of Plato which the resurrection of Jesus is a proof and pledge … Jesus was not a spirit when he returned to God. He is not made the Head of the New Creation as a Spirit, but as the Son of Man … By the word of his power he created the heavens and the earth; by the word of his grace he reanimates the soul of man; and by the word of his power he will again form our bodies anew, and reunite the spirit and the body in the bonds of an incorruptible and everlasting union.” (Alexander Campbell, "Regeneration," Millennial Harbinger, 1833, p. 359).

David Lipscomb addressed this issue on many occasions. He has an entire essay called "The Ruin and Redemption of the World" in his book Salvation from Sin. His views are rooted in the kingdom of God and a comprehensive view of the work of Christ. Christ's work is cosmic in scope ... which is what Colossians teaches.

David Lipscomb writes in Salvation from Sin:

“The object of God’s dealing with man, and especially the mission of Christ to earth, was to rescue the world from the rule and dominion of the evil one, from the ruin into which it had fallen through sin, and to rehabilitate it with the dignity and the glory it had when it came from the hand of God” (David Lipscomb, Salvation from Sin, p.114, see the entire essay “The Ruin and Redemption of the World” but esp. pp. 115, 117, 126-128; Check out p.137).

Romans 8 figures prominently in any discussion of the Christian hope in heaven. In his commentary on Romans, Lipscomb comments on the meaning of “creation” in 8.19ff. “The ‘creation’ here means the world, embracing all animated nature below man. (p. 152). Later he writes, “then the whole creation will share this deliverance and be freed from the corruption and mortality to which it has been subjected by the sin of man. It shared the corruption and the mortality of man’s sin, and will share his deliverance from it” (p. 153)

Do we believe that the body comes out of the grave. Paul says that our bodies are to be redeemed—not simply our spirit, Rom 8.23. If the body comes out of the grave then what for?

Heaven (1): Pie in the Sky or Meek Inheriting the Earth?

Texts: A Sampling

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Gen 1.1)

"God saw all that he had made, and it was very good" (Gen 1.31).

"Cursed is the ground because of you" (Gen 3.17b)

"So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden" (Gen 3.23)

"Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth" (Isa 65.17)

"As the new heavens and the new earth that I make will endure" (Isa 66.22)

"For creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice" (Rom 8.20)

"Creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the
glorious freedom of the children of God" (Rom 8.21)

"The whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth" (Rom 8.22)

"We wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies" (Rom 8.23)

"In keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth" (2 Pt 3.13)

"I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away" (Rev 21.1)

"I saw ... the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven ... 'Now the dwelling of God is with men'" (Rev 21.2)

"No longer will there be any curse" (Rev 22.3)

Reflections

Some of my closest friends believe that the goal of God's salvation work is a pure "spiritual" existence they call "heaven." These friends have loved ones that ask questions, reflecting that pure "spiritual" existence idea, like "will we know each other in heaven?" They ask this question because they have assumed that "I" won't know "you" because you aren't "really" you anymore. Rather you are some kind of disembodied spirit.

I believe in "heaven" fervently and pray for its coming everyday. Yet I completely reject as not only unbiblical, but as alien to the tenor of the scriptures that notion of pure "spiritual" existence some claim as heaven. The idea seems to reflect common Platonic and neo-gnostic views of creation and matter than what I read in the Hebrew Bible, New Testament and the Jewish literature of the day that illuminates the world of Jesus and the apostles. (This may or may not be true and will be investigated more fully. I do not wish to engage in ad hominem reasoning myself ... just to point out there in the beginning of Christianity there were at least two very distinct worldviews and they have a bearing on this discussion). Some of my friends, when we have talked about this, have gone nearly ape on me. I think their emotional reactions are unfortunate. They have engaged in very little argumentation and even littler exegesis to demonstrate this pure "spiritual" existence.

I have no, absolutely no, desire to get into a debate on this matter or to be contentious about it. I hope to share my thoughts (briefly) on things I think pertain to this subject. Because I am a poor communicator I am sure that I will fail to do justice to the issues at hand Yet over the next several days I will be posting a series of blogs that deal with the criticism of renewed earth eschatology. I began the blog simply quoting Scripture. It is amazes me how the beginning of Genesis, the "plot" of Scripture that follows, and the end of Revelation all tie together around the idea of creation and new creation. God's goal in redemption is to reverse the curse and restore the intimacy that was lost in the Garden. I believe the narrative of Scripture more than sustains this proposition.

Some try to "disprove" renewed earth eschatology by engaging in classic ad hominem arguments. I noticed this in a recent article published by a brother on heaven. This common fallacy is also known as "poisoning the well." It is a very easy way to divert attention but never gets around to addressing the arguments put forward. For example when a critic associates the view with "Jehovah’s Witnesses," “denominational writers,” “millennial doctrines” and “wandering off into sectarian ideology” he is simply wanting one to associate it with folks his or her constituents want nothing to do with ... but it says nothing about the validity or the lack thereof of the position. In fact such smoke and mirrors is neither helpful nor even relevant. In fact this can be down right deceptive if by “millennial doctrines” our critics mean premillennialism (and through personal conversation I know this is exactly what some mean by "millennial doctrines").

Renewed earth eschatology has been around long before anything looking like the premillennialism of Tim Lahaye and Hal Lindsey. Anthony Hoekema even articulates the view nicely while critiquing the premillennial point of view in The Meaning of the Millennium: Four Views edited by Robert G. Clouse. Further Alexander Campbell and Jonathan Edwards were anything but premillennialists. Neither is John Piper or James Packer. New Earth and premillennialism are separate issues and trying to stick them together is a mistake.

The attempt to wave a wand and dismiss renewed earth eschatology through ad hominem means is poor workmanship. The texts cited above are only the beginning but even these cry out for understanding.

Rather renewed eschatology is rooted in a specific belief regarding God's purposes and goals in creation and what he accomplished through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is further rooted in a specific understanding of the purpose of God's good creation. It is rooted in the belief that Christ's resurrection was bodily for a reason and that our own resurrection will be like his. And further it is rooted in the firm theological belief that Satan did not thwart God's plan. Redemption goes as far as the curse is found. If Christ's victory does not go as deep and far as the curse then what victory is it? But the blood of Jesus did overcome and the resurrection did overturn the curse.

Until next time ...

Shalom,
Bobby Valentine

The Greatest Threat

The Greatest Threat?

It sounds a bit presumptuous to identify anyone or anything as the “greatest” of its order. Yet there is a greatest person, a greatest commandment, and a greatest sin. A while back I read a piece that raised the possibility of naming the greatest threat to life, joy, faith, virtue, and all other good things.

Elie Wiesel survived the Auschwitz and Buchenwald death camps of Nazi Germany. He speaks and writes extensively concerning the Holocaust. It is his conviction that man’s inhumanity to man during that awful time must not be forgotten, lest it be repeated.

Something Wiesel said in an interview sometime back has stuck in my mind. He said, “Indifference, to me, is the epitome of evil. The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, its indifference. Because of indifference, one dies before he actually dies. To be in the window and watch people being sent to concentration camps or being attacked in the street and do nothing, that’s being dead.”

Indifference. Maybe it is the greatest threat to virtue. It is easy for example, to imagine the following:

- People die, not because we steal their bread, but because we refuse to notice or care that they have none.

- Community morality erodes, not because we introduce or practice great evils, but because we are silent as others do so.

- Neighbors are lost, not because we seduce them into sin, but because we fail to tell them that God sent a Savior

It is better to question and argue with God than to ignore him (see Job and Ecclesiastes). It is better to ask the hard questions of faith than pretend they aren’t there.

It is far better to fight a personal vice or community ill and fail than to pretend there is no problem.

Surely the ultimate insult to Jesus the Nazarene is cool indifference. G.A. Studdert-Kennedy wrote of the cruelty of the men who put Jesus on a cross and murdered him. In the same poem, he wrote of the gentler spirit with which Jesus would be treated if he were to come to our generation. We would likely just pass him by, causing him no pain and leaving him to his own devices.

In Studdert-Kennedy’s poem, he pictured Jesus crouching against a wall and crying out for Calvary. Is it impossible?

Shalom,
Bobby Valentine

While We Weep ... For VT

While We Weep ... For VT

How deserted lies the city, once so full of people!
How like a widow she is, who was once great among the nations!
...

Bitterly she weeps at night, tears are upon her cheeks.
Among all her lovers there is none to comfort her;
they have become her enemies.
...

Remember, O LORD, what has happened to us;
look and see our disgrace.
Our inheritance has been turned ...
We have become orphans and fatherless,
our mothers like widows.
We must buy the water we drink;
our wood can be had only at a price.
Those who pursue us are at our heels;
we are weary and find no rest.
...

Joy is gone from our hearts; our dancing has turned to mourning ...
Because of this our hearts are faint,
because of these things our eyes grow dim ...
You, O LORD reign forever; your throne endures from
generation to generation.
Why do you always forget us?
Why do you forsake us so long?
Restore us to yourself, O LORD,
that we may return; renew our days of old
unless you have utterly rejected us
and are angry with us beyond measure.

Lamentations 1.1-2; 5.1-5, 15, 17, 19-22

Clapton and McCartney Weeping

Faith in a Troubled World, Meditations on Hab. 1.1-4

Faith In a Troubled World, Meditations on Hab 1.1-4

“How long, O LORD, must I call for help, but you do not listen?

Or cry out to you, ‘Violence!’ but you do not save?

Why do you make me look at injustice?

Why do you tolerate wrong?

Destruction and violence are before me;

there is strife and conflict abounds.

Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails.

The wicked hem in the righteous,

so justice is perverted.”

Getting Started ...

Habakkuk lives in a time of gross and violent injustice. He lives in a time when society has not only grown accustomed to abuse of our fellow humans but has come to expect it and even sanction it. That is “just the way life is.” The historian John Bright describes the society of Habakkuk’s day as obsessed with a “premonition of doom and gnawing insecurity . . .” (History of Israel, 3^rd Edition, p. 320).

The world power structure of his day was radically changing. The Assyrian Empire, which had been the master of the east for centuries, was in its death roes. Now a new power called Babylon was rising as fast as a meteor shooting across the sky. Government officials were killing each other, kings were being assassinated left and right, judges and lawyers could care less about the right as long as they made a buck or two.

Habakkuk looked around and saw his world, his nation, God’s People bent on self-destruction. He saw a society where neighbors took advantage of each other any chance they could. He saw a country where the poor and outcast were severely discriminated against.

And Habakkuk is confused! He is confused because he does not understand why Yahweh, the God of Israel, tolerates this situation. He confesses the holiness and justice of God but confesses dismay that God has not stepped in to rectify the horrendous scene before him. He is confused because he finds God’s People to be at odds with his faith. He is confused because he wonders if faith can even survive in this kind of world.

I love the prophet Habakkuk! I think he is my favorite of the prophets. I often visit him for imaginary chats, just as I did this week. He seems so relevant to my life in this postmodern and post-Christian world. He speaks, seemingly, directly to my life and my world. My world that also has a “premonition of doom.” Think about our world for a moment, do we not live in a world amazingly similar to Habakkuk’s? I read through the New York Times and U.S. News and World Report at Starbucks recently imagining that I was Habakkuk. Our world definitely seems to have a gnawing insecurity. Huge corporations like Enron (or some insurance co.) sap millions of dollars from the little man, leaving hundreds of thousands wondering about their future. Innocent people spend 35 years in prison only to learn that the police and the court hid information that proved innocence. The world sleeps with one eye open for fear of terrorists and the war in Iraq. We see folks beheaded simply because they are there. In Sudan and Ethiopia thousands are starved to death by their own governments while the rest of the world just washes its hands as if we have no responsibility. At night out in my own city the police helicopter circles above searching for some accused criminal. Not quite as dramatic but equally sad we see the sharks fighting over Anna Nichole Smith's little girl ... or is it the fortune she represents (?). The world is not only frightening at times but even sickening.

Yes our world is like Habakkuk’s! He read the local paper and shook his head in dismay and said in a loud and painful cry, “How LONG! O, Lord, how Long!” It is as much an exclamation as a question. We read the paper and say, with Habakkuk, “Is God really in control?” “How can God let us go on treating each other as we do?” We must admit that we believe he is – but at times it looks as if he isn’t!!

A Complaint as Prayer

Habakkuk is among God’s faithful. He wants to do what is right in Yahweh’s eyes, he wants Israel to keep his covenant of love. But how is that to be done in a world that has forgotten God? How can Habakkuk have “faith in a troubled world?” How can you and I, not just maintain, but grow in our faith and devotion in times like these?

The prophet does something that most of us, on the face of it, despise. He complains! In our society complaining is associated with the sore loser ... the ‘cry baby.’ That, however, is not the kind of complaining that Habakkuk is doing. Habakkuk’s complaint is called a “lament” and it is vital to genuine biblical faith. Habakkuk’s complaint (or lament) is a cry of weariness. The prophet is tired of the world as it is. He is exhausted from the fight of merely existing in a world in which the one standard is “look out for yourself!”

Because he is weary of Sin he complains to God. Because he is tired of injustice he laments. Because he is weary of evil he calls to God, “How Long, O Lord” (v. 2). This my brothers and sisters is the language of worship – it is the language of prayer!

How does one exercise faith in a world like ours? If Habakkuk is any indication the first step is wrestling with God in prayer. What can the Christian do about Iraq, corruption in government and injustice against those of another race? Habakkuk says we must turn to the only source for making the world a place of shalom (peace) and that is Yahweh in anguished prayer! The prayer of the follower of Christ is intensely interested in God’s mishpat, God’s justice in this world. That is the dominating idea in these four gut wrenching verses of Habakkuk. The prophet prays for God to intervene and make justice count. He prays that right will prevail in the lives of those around him. He asks the honest question, “how can you stand to look at wrong doing?” (v.3, TEV).

Faith in a troubled world is anchored and shown in prayer – honest wrestling prayer. No not a prayer every once in a while habit -- but constant prayer. The text lets us know that Habakkuk has been uttering this lament in prayer for a long time. Over lengthy periods of time faith is demonstrated through calling on his Name. Habakkuk challenges – because he was challenged – hunger and thirst after righteousness and seek God’s kingdom first in our lives and in this world. It made the prophet sad, even angry, that his world was dominated by a view that could tolerate the mistreatment of fellow humans. That sadness fed his prayer life. That sadness caused him to plead, cry and wrestle in prayer with Yahweh to send forth his righteousness.

Complacency and Faith in Troubled World(s)

Christians must avoid the spiritual disease of complacency at all costs. You see complacency kills our search for intimacy with God. It kills the God-born hunger in our hearts for righteousness. Complacency convinces us that this age isn’t so bad – especially if I am not personally impacted by its injustice. Complacency whispers that I need not be concerned about corruption in officials or the courts.

Habakkuk calls such mentalities on the carpet. He demonstrates just how foreign such an outlook is to those who belong to the covenant community of Yahweh. He challenges us to hate evil and seek God about it in prayer. Prayer not only demonstrates our faith while living in a troubled world, but it also FEEDS and STRENGTHENS our faith. In prayer we learn, as did Habakkuk, “that no matter how loud the roar of the storm, no matter the strength of the wind or the force of the rain – God is with us.” (Jerry Jones, Beyond the Storm, p. 165). In prayer we enjoy the refreshment. How so? In prayer we may not discover the answer to injustice or why God tarries. However, in prayer – in worship – we find the gracious Presence of the Father. The same Father who once lost a Son to a mob bent on lawlessness and injustice. We find companionship for the dark night and strength – yes even divine strength to live by faith in a troubled world.

That is why Habakkuk laments and wrestles with God in prayer.

I recently read a book by Eugene Genovese, The World the Slaves Made. It amazes me how the “world” the slaves made was formed out of a troubled world – it was the creation of faith. Imagine, if you will, that you were born in 1838 (you think) and you just happen to be black. You are now 20 years old in 1858. You don’t know who your father is, nor your mother, because you were sold shortly after birth. You have seen children taken from their mothers and it grieves you. You have witnessed white men take slave girls and father children by them only to see them sold into slavery themselves. The other day you wandered off the plantation without supervision and received thirty-nine lashes for trying to escape. On a day called Sunday you see a bunch of white folks go to a building called a “church” and worship some “God.” You even think in your mind that you might have faith in this God too. I ask you, how would you, if you were one of those slaves, maintain faith in your troubled world?

I tell you, honestly, I don’t know if I could have – but they did! In fact faith thrived. How did they do it? They did what Habakkuk did – they prayed their laments. They sang their prayers and they triumphed over the world that had them in chains. They have left all Christians a priceless treasure of faith filled prayers songs we call “spirituals.” They sang prayers like, “There is a Balm in Gilead” and “Roll Jordon, Roll” and “Where You There When they Crucified My Lord.” They sang,

Go down, Moses

Way down in Egyptland

Tell old Pharaoh

To let my people go.

(Crossing the Danger Water: Three Hundred years of African-American Writing,

ed. Deirdre Mullane, p. 277)

and

Steal away to Jesus

Steal away, steal away home,

I ain’t got long to stay here.

and

We’ll soon be free,

We’ll soon be free,

We’ll soon be free,

When de Lord will call us home.

My brudder, how long,

My brudder, how long,

My brudder, how long,

‘Fore we done sufferin’ here?

(Crossing the Danger Water, p. 291)

Did you hear the same question that Habakkuk asked? “How Long, O Lord?” It is the cry of God’s People down through the ages. But in that troubled world faith not only was born but thrived. We sing their prayers of deliverance. We sing their songs of prayer for God’s justice to intervene. We sing their songs of unshakable faith. The slaves had faith by going and wrestling with God in prayer – they did not find the answers they longed for but they found something even better – the companionship of God. The slaves are just one example of faith thriving in this fallen and sinful world. But its one that I am grateful for.

As Christians we believe that God has in fact answered Habakkuk’s complaint. He has heard the slaves of long ago. God wants us to seek him, and him alone, not the “comfort” of the world. God assures Habakkuk that he is working to overcome the evil he laments (1.5-11). No, God will not tolerate evil and injustice. He does not just want to punish evil but eradicate it, he wants to cure it!

God points the prophet forward to a time he cannot see – to the time of the Cross of Jesus Christ. There in the face of the Ultimate outrage against justice we see God’s one and only answer to the problems Habakkuk has cried out over. God challenges us to see in that event his answer to the evil of this world. He condemns and punishes all the evil the Prophet complained about and the slaves sang about – he tells us to look at the figure of the Man on the Tree and see the wrath of God displayed against injustice. We see the resurrection and are assured that God does in fact make it right. Our prayers are being heard, they have not fallen on deaf ears.

Wrapping Up

So we Christians, in the year 2007, will commune with God in his holy temple and keep silent prayer before him (2.20). We will continue to wrestle in prayer for God’s way to be our way. We will pray for God’s kingdom to have dominion over all hearts. We will pray for justice to be empowered in our world. We will maintain faith – through gift of prayer – in this mighty unfriendly and troubled world. We will call to our God and he will give us the strength and see us through. I end this meditation some of the most stirring words in all of Scripture:

“Though the fig tree does not bud

and there are not grapes on the vines,

though the olive crop fails

and the fields produce no food,

though there are no sheep in the pen

and no cattle in the stalls,

YET I WILL REJOICE IN THE LORD,

I will be joyful in God my Savior.”

(Habakkuk 3.17-18)

Oh, God may it be so.

Shalom,
Bobby Valentine

Text & Context 5: The Taxman, Lk 20.20-26

The Taxman: Text and Context #5, Luke 20.20-26

One of the sad ironies of April is that tax day follows closely on the heels of Easter. I am not sure if that is on purpose but one never knows with Caesar. After an email today from a dear friend I spent a few moments reflecting upon the question put to Jesus by the "spies": "Is it right for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not?"

Knowledge of the social setting (i.e. context) of Jesus and Jerusalem at the time sheds abundant light on this story in Luke and the other Synoptic Gospels. It is important to know that Galilee and Jerusalem (Judea) are governed differently even though both are part of the Roman Empire. It is also important to recall that Jesus is in Jerusalem (Judea) when the question is posed (i.e. geography matters).

When Herod the Great died the Romans divided his small realm among his sons. The most relevant for our purposes is Galilee and Judea where Jesus lived and worked. Galilee went to Herod Antipas who ruled that area until A.D. 39. Jerusalem and its environs went to Archelaus. But he was such a jerk and incompetent fool that the Roman Emperor took over and appointed a prefect in A.D. 6 to avoid a revolt.

As Jerusalem was now reorganized as an imperial province the taxes went directly to Caesar, (not the Senate) who even then claimed divine privileges. That same year Judas the Galilean (mentioned in Acts 5.37) propounded the doctrine that it was wrong to send the substance of the city of God with his holy temple to a pagan ruler who also made divine claims. Josephus shares some information relevant to Judas,

"A Galilean named Judas was urging his countryman to resistance, reproaching them if they submitted to paying taxes to the Romans and tolerated human masters after serving God alone. Judas was a teacher with his own party ..." (Jewish Wars 2.118)

Later in another work know as Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus says quite a bit more about Judas. I will not quote all of it though.

"Although the Jews were at first intensely angry at the news of their registration on the tax lists, they gradually calmed down, having been persuaded to oppose it no further by the high priest Joazar son of Boethus. Those who succumbed to his arguments unhesitatingly appraised their property. But a certain Judas, a Gaulanite from the city of Gamala, in league with the Pharisee Saddok, pressed hard for resistance ..." (18.3)

Of course the Romans dealt with Judas.

This was never an issue in Galilee. Though, I am sure, taxes were never popular they were still paid to a Jewish leader. So the hot theological debate is is it right to pay "tribute" (phoros, Luke uses the term phoros rather than kenos which appears in Mt and Mk. phoros carries connotations that go beyond mere taxes or duties, cf. BDAG, p. 1064) to a pagan from the city of God. The Pharisees did not believe so and would have thought Jesus unsound at best and perhaps idolatrous at worse if he approved of such a thing.

The brilliance of Jesus' reply is that they are not using the things of God render tribute. Indeed they are using the pagan's own resources to "render" to him. The verb "render" also indicates simply returning or giving back what has his own (unholy??) image on it. And because it has an image on it, no Pharisee worth his salt would even want to touch such a thing ... much less keep it. Jesus is not endorsing Caesars claims in this passage. He is saying give the pagan what he has already defiled with his image. We on the other hand give all to God that he rightly claims.

Enjoy the Beatles video ...

Tax Season follows Easter Closely, :-)

The "Gospel" of Judas: Reflections & Thoughts

The "Gospel" of Judas: Reflections and Thoughts

Christians throughout the world celebrated the bodily resurrection of Jesus the Nazarene yesterday (April 8). I have decided as a follow up there could be no better way to highlight the "Easter" message than by contrasting it with Gnosticism that has perpetually plagued the Church. What follows is part of a larger presentation that I did on May 13, 2006 on The "Gospel" of Judas at Southside Church of Christ for area ministers and other interested parties. There is a great gulf between historic Christianity and Gnosticism. I will follow this blog up with at least one more and possibly more depending on the interest. It should be known that I am not a disinterested person here--I have little sympathy (actually none) for Gnostic theology.

The New York Times headlines of April 6, 2006 read “Gospel of Judas’ Surfaces After 1,700 Years.” The Times article claims this is the “most significant ancient, none biblical text to be found in the past 60 years.” Perhaps even more amazing than the Dead Sea Scrolls. The document is declared to be “authentic.” Elaine Pagels is quoted as saying “these discoveries are exploding the myth of a monolithic religion, and demonstrating how diverse - and fascinating - the early Christian movement really was.” The Times further claims this find has “shaken up Biblical scholarship.”

Codex Tchacos

According to Rudolphe Kasser, the document’s editor, Codex Tchacos was discovered accidentally around 1978 in upper Egypt about sixty miles north of Al Minya. The document went through an amazing odyssey between then and its coming into the hands of the Maecenas Foundation in 2001.

From a historical standpoint and from a cultural standpoint the discovery of Codex Tchacos is wonderful and amazing. Anytime a piece of the human story is recovered we learn more about ourselves. It is a priceless treasure. However, it is not a treasure in the sense that it is going to revolutionize our understanding of ancient history, Christian or otherwise. Indeed it does not even revolutionize our understanding of Gnosticism. There is actually nothing in the Gospel of Judas that we did not already know about the basic contours of Gnostic thought.

Codex Tchacos is actually an ancient anthology of sorts. The Codex has 66 folios (ancient pages) with four different works bound together by old tax receipts. Those works are:

1) The Letter of Peter to Philip. This document was previously known from the Nag Hammadi
find.

2) A document being called “James” that closely parallels another previously known document
from Nag Hammadi.

3) The Gospel of Judas covers folios 33-58 of the codex and was previously unknown except through Irenaeus and Pseudo-Tertullian.

4) The last document is badly damaged is being called The Book of Allogenes, which seems to be unknown as well.

The other three documents have not been translated into English yet. The National Geographic Society was however in a hurry to get Judas out by Easter {of 2006}

Codex Tchacos as a manuscript dates to around A.D. 300 though the works within it are earlier than that.

The Gospel of Judas

The "Gospel" opens with these words, "The secret account of the revelation that Jesus spoke in conversation with Judas Iscariot during a week three days before he celebrated Passover."

Theology and Judas

(Contrary to some popular opinions Theology really does matter . . .)

Many Christians confess the Nicene Creed each Sunday. In a day when there were no pocket Bibles or NT’s the Apostle’s Creed and the Nicene Creed were important summaries of what Christians believe. The Nicene creed opens

We believe in one God, the Father, the almighty
maker of heaven and earth,
of all things visible and invisible.

Immediately this creed has makes some radical claims. There is only one God. He is the Father of Jesus Christ. He is the Creator of all things seen and unseen. There is a reason why the early Christians felt the necessity of including this confession in the creed . . . because Gnosticism denies this basic point. That is they deny that "God" is the creator of this world nor is he the Father of Jesus Christ. These two themes are intimately connected btw.

The affirmation of Nicea stands is radical contrast to the Gospel of Judas. Bart Erhman, hardly a conservative scholar, writes “At the outset of the gospel {of Judas} it is clear that the God of Jesus is not the creator god of the Jews” (The Gospel of Judas, p. 104).

In fact the disciples are in “pious observance” of the Passover and are praying to God. In the Gospel of Judas Jesus mocks the disciples . . . which of course offends the them.

“Why are you laughing at our prayer of thanksgiving? We have done what is right?”

“I am not laughing at you. You are not doing this because of your own will but because it is through this that YOUR god will be praised . . .” (GofJ 34).

The Jesus of the Gospel of Judas continues:

“Your god who is within you . . . have provoked you to anger within your souls. Let anyone of you who is strong enough among human beings bring out the perfect human and stand before my face . . .” (35).

The disciples fail to have the strength except for Judas. Judas confesses that Jesus is from the realm of Barbelo and Jesus takes him aside to instruct him privately. In this private discussion Jesus offers a very complex mythology of the origin of the world.

"Judas said to him, 'I know who you are and where you have come from. You are from the immortal realm of Barbelo. And I am not worthy to utter the name of the one who has sent you."

Because Judas exhibits superior insight, the "Gospel," says "Knowing that Judas was reflecting upon something that was exalted, Jesus said to him, 'Step away from the others and I will tell you the mysteries of the kingdom."

The disciples had confessed that Jesus was “the son of our God.” But as it turns out in the Gospel of Judas this is not the case. Jesus wants nothing to do with their god, much less be his son.

Their god is the rebel Waldabaoth or the fool Saklas. It is these two gods that are primarily responsible for the desecration of the pristine cosmos--that is one without flesh and materiality. Rather the real world is one of pure spirit.

Jesus comes to reveal a super secret god (though the Gospel of Judas suggests that the term “god” may not be appropriate for him). He is so transcendent that he has nothing whatsoever to do with this planet, or the universe in any fashion. He does not reach into this world to deliver humanity. The cross of Jesus is simply a means for him to shed the material body and free his pure spirit. However there are on this planet those, like Judas, that have a spark of divinity (gnosis) that lets them know the secret truth. That truth is: The God of the Jews is not the real God. That we are not meant, and never were meant, to live on this planet or have materiality. We were never intended to be here in the first place this place is a cosmic accident and evil itself. It is the work of the foolish and evil god of the Jews. That true knowledge is understanding these mysteries and such knowledge is the path to enlightened salvation , i.e. a return to the realm of Barbelo ... the realm of pure spirit.

Thus even Jesus who is encased in flesh needs ultimate liberation from the body. “For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me.” Thus Judas plays the part of betrayer but only in order to save, that is deliver, Jesus from his fleshy body so he can return to Barbelo, free from materiality.

“Their high priests murmured because he had gone into the guest room for his prayer. But some scribes were there watching carefully in order to arrest him during the prayer, for they were afraid of the people, since he was regarded by all as a prophet.

“They approached Judas and said to him, ‘What are you doing here? You are Jesus’ disciple.”

Judas answered them as they wished. And he received some money and handed him over to them.”

Evaluation

Ben Witherington III writes this about the Gospel of Judas:

“I was on the phone yesterday with my close friend Dr. A.J. Levine who teaches at Vanderbilt Div. School. She was called in late in the game to give a bit more balance to the group of scholars unveiling the Gospel of Judas. I asked her point blank: " Well A.J. is this document of any importance at all in helping us understand the historical Jesus or the historical Judas and their relationship?" She said unequivocally--- "none whatsoever". In other words, we need to all have our baloney detection meters set to 'heightened alert' as we watch the special on the Gospel of Judas tonight. While this document will tell us more about the split off movement called Gnosticism, and so is of considerable interest as we learn more about church history in the period from the late 2nd century through the fourth century, it tells us nothing about the origins of Christianity or the beginnings of the Jesus movement.” (Blog, April 9, 2006)

More to Come,
Bobby Valentine

The Meaning of Easter

The Meaning of Easter

Easter! What comes to your mind when you hear that word? Do you think of new clothes? Painted eggs? Chocolate bunnies? or ______ ??

Easter to me is a word filled with meaning. It means so much because of something that changed the history and future of this world. That something is often forgotten or overlooked every other day of the year yet it is without a doubt the most significant historical event the universe has ever seen. That something is the resurrection. Thus Easter means a new beginning. It means hope. Easter is the day Jesus the Nazarene came gloriously out of the borrowed tomb by the power of God. On the morning after Passover, Jesus conquered death.

Easter means that Christians are not defeated in life or by death. Easter means we have God’s promise of a fresh start and a new creation. We have God’s promise of joy, even in the face of death, because God said, “Arise my Love!”

When our loved ones pass on we miss their physical presence. But if we are in Christ, Easter assures us—we will see them again. We will not see them because we enter into death too. We see them because we will be resurrected, like Jesus was, to a new life. Not ghosts mind you but our bodies will be raised to new life. What hope we have. What joy because of what the Lord has done.

Easter means a new beginning for those who have been afflicted in this life. Elise Reid, a dear friend of mine, was a nearly six feet tall at one point. But Elise was eaten up in her body by radical diabetes. When she died she was blind. When she died she had no arms. When she died she had no legs. When she died she was not even four feet long. But I rejoiced with her because Easter promises her a new body and new life. How I love Easter! Easter is good news.

The things we tend to associate with Easter, the new clothes, etc. are joyous because of the newness they symbolize. They point to joy. They celebrate life. May God bless you this day—Easter. Christ the Lord is risen today. Hallelujah.

Shalom,
Bobby Valentine