Please forgive me.
But there is a point behind all of this. What I desire is that we all understand who Jesus, the son of Mary & Joseph, really was: He was a first century Jew, living in first century Jewish culture.
As he heard the voice of the Father in His life He was obedient. This obedience led Him to observe the OT Law in the way that the Father originally desired all humanity to observe it. It was because of this perfect obedience that Jesus could be our all sufficient
sacrifice and completely fulfill the Law.
I'm assuming that most of us won't have too many issues with what I stated above. What I take issue with is that we don't usually let all of that interact with our Christian calling.
It is precisely because of all of this that we don't need to be like Christ.
Jesus was obedient to His God-given vocation to be the Son of Man; the Messiah.
I however, have not been called to be the Messiah. I have been called to be the best darned Timothy Braun that I can be; the one that God wants me to be. Jesus' vocation was to fulfill the OT Law. I have not been called to live under that Law. To do so would be to return to slavery (Gal. 5:1). Instead I have been called to live under the "law of the Spirit of Life" (Rom. 8:2).
Jesus didn't get to live under the Law of the Spirit...
Jesus didn't get to (in His unresurrected human life) live under the New Covenant because it was by His death that it was inaugurated (Heb. 9:15-22).
To actually live the way that Jesus lived would mean returning to the Old Covenant.
Don't be like Jesus; be who Jesus wants you to be.
14 comments:
I love that you used the word "darned." It makes me happy because you crossed that line into "minor swears." Ha ha.
This is actually an incredibly freeing concept but hard to grasp since it's not what most people would teach. But being like Christ, being perfect, seems so impossible that it's almost too overwhelming to try. But I can be a really good me! I can work on that!
You are forgiven.
Also in regards to Lisa's comment. I also like that you used a "minor swear". However with the font of your blogged it looks like a misspelled 'damned'.
Anyway...
Are we then not to aspire to be like Christ? Or as the popular Christian saying goes: "Be Christ-like". Is this then referring to His character? I am not sure that you have distinctly drawn the lines between being like Christ (ie: living under the OT law) and aspiring to be like Christ (ie: in character & action).
I understand that Jesus wants us to be the best we can. He challenges us (me) to be the best Jared every day of my life. But I do not believe this can be accomplished without be "Christ-like" in any sense.
I get what you're saying but....I still have to think about that one some more.
Thanks for your thoughts. Please keep them coming!
As most of you know, I'm not trying to throw out all of our ideas of "becoming Christ-like." I'm just trying to get us to look at that idea from another angle.
I'm the kind of guy who stops seeing things if they never change: "...those clothes in the corner? Aren't they supposed to be there; they've been there forever..."
When we look at Jesus we often only see the "Son of God" (ie. divinity); hence my current emphasis on the "Son of Man" (ie. humanity). It is clearly not an either/or thing. These need to be held in balance.
If when we talk about "being Christ-like" we are talking about Godly character that's good and fine. The scriptures are clear that we are called to be people of Godly character.
I'm just saying that "being like Jesus" has a lot more behind it than WWJD.
Hey Tim,
Great post! I have an idea for a future series. How deeply have you looked into creationism? I for sure believe in a creation, but are the mechanics of that creation really only a period of 6 literal earth days? I had a discussion with a friend recently, they were upset at the CERN large hadron collider and the assumption that the big bang is a fact. I argued that we believe science when it's convenient for us, ie: no one disputes Newton's laws of motion, so could the big bang and evolution be tools that the creator used? I think so...
Thanks for the ideas Scott. That'd be a fun one to talk about.
In the meantime I'd recommend a book to you if you're interested: "The Language of God" by Francis S. Collins. For those of you who don't know who Collins is, he was the head geneticist for the human genome project... and an outspoken evangelical Christian.
I don't know that I completely buy into his perspective (his theology is a bit weak... but he's a geneticist, not a theologian) but what I really appreciated was his emphasis that science and faith need to start rebuilding the bridges that have been burnt. His book is a big step in the right direction.
So I thought about it some more and was wondering what your distinction is between "doing what Jesus did" and following Him. B/c Jesus himself did say we were to follow Him (Matt 10:38, 16:24) and Paul tells us to follow his example as he follows Christ (1 Cor 11:1). Just wondering how you would explain the difference.
In regards to Scott's statement about God "using" evolution to create the world....why would He have to? He's God. The Bible says He spoke. "And God said..." (Gen 1:3,6,9,11,14....) everything into existence. Aren't we really just being fearful of looking ignorant when we try to merge the two together? The science seems to prove evolution, so if we believe in creation then we are obviously ignorant people? I'm no scientist and don't even begin to say I understand it all, but I don't believe the answer to the creation/evolution debate can be just trying to merge the two together. The discovery of "new" science should never discredit years of theology. That's just my two cents worth.
Jen,
This is precisely why I would like to start the dialogue on this topic. I admit I would like to base my view on sound theology, but I have an issue with the way creation was taught to me when I was young. You cannot believe in the Big Bang, or Evolution, people would teach me, but it is fine to believe in all other science that the church agrees with. When we look back at the Inquisition and the belief that Galileo was a heretic, are we not that far off now? None of us would even remotely argue with Galileo’s theories, they are now mostly taken as law. But has any of us studied planetary motion and proven it ourselves, if we even had the ability to do that? In my opinion, we are proving our ignorance by not asking how science can fit in with creation. It does not mean that if we think we understand something about the basics of creation that we are disagreeing with the theology behind creation. In fact, I believe the more we understand about how many things had to line-up for life, the more it will prove that God had it all part of His master plan. Is not theology a human interpretation, maybe the classic theology behind creation needs to evolve?
Scott, Yikes. I admit I don't even understand half of what you said. I wish I was a scientist and a theologian and a good debater so that I could have a very intelligent reply to your statement. I think the problem I have is when people look to science for the facts and then see if the Bible lines up with them. If the Bible truly is the inspired Word of God, which I believe it is, then shouldn't we be looking at the Bible first and seeing if the science we believe in lines up with it? That's where the teaching of not believing in Evolution or the Big Bang comes in, b/c they don't line up with the Word of God. This issue at its core, is really a question of do you believe the Bible is accurate in its ENTIRETY. For if you start questioning the Genesis account, what else are you going to question? But I may have completely missed your point and argument. Sorry if I did.
OK, so next week I'm going to blog about what I think is at the core of this always controversial debate.
Jen, the struggle for those Christians with a scientific background is not that "God spoke." No Christian is going to argue with the fact that it was God who initiated and mediated creation. The struggle is HOW God did that...
... so God speaks and then what? Let's take, for example plant life (Gen.1:11-13). God speaks and plant life comes into existence, but by what means? Did they simply, "poof!" appear? If so, did the trees have rings?
Actually, vs 11 says God commands the plants to "sprout"(ESV) and in vs 12 it says that "the earth brought forth". To me that sounds as if there was a definite PROCESS OF CREATION that followed God's command.
These are the sorts of things that some people wrestle with. This is not to say that they don't abide by scripture; it's just that their giftings and areas of expertise lead them to ask different questions.
Too often the church has alienated people who ask questions they are not comfortable with. I think that's wrong. If God's word is true it can handle a few tough questions.
Evolution vs Creation. That's a big one!
They are both very cool stories. I think evolution has a few too many holes in it to be the one. Creation is pretty well laid out in Genesis. God can make anything he wanted. But what about the dinosaurs? Where do they fit in? Did they miss the boat, or are they a puzzle God left for us?
I'm not sure I agree with Collins' view on creation. He suggests that God made all the physical constants in the universe, started the big bang, and the only way things could possibly turn out is the way it did.
Intelligent Design is almost a bad word. But God is intelligent. And powerful. He designed and built everything. Because he can.
My idea/theory is the Lego Theory of Creation. Yes, those little plastic building blocks. If you look at our DNA and sub-cellular organelles and functioning, they are very simmilar to that of the simplest bacteria. So God puts the blocks (maybe the DNA) together one way and he gets E.coli.(a bacteria). He puts them together another way, and he gets an earthworm. Another way, he gets Man. That's why evolution looks plausable, because things fit together like they evolved. eg. A bacteria is symbiotically engulfed by another, and you have the first mitochondria. but then, how does an eye evolve, especially in light of Darwin's "survival of the fittest"? God has the building plan for that and creates it.
That's not to say that micro-evolution hasn't occured since creation. Might explain Darwin's finches, or maybe why there are so many species of beetles. (maybe God just loved making beetles?)
Anyway, nobody is going to read to the end here. If you did, thank you. I would love to get into this discussion with you, Scott.
Rick
Rick, I have to admit that I am only in the process of thinking through this issue, but I'm sure you can tell which way I'm leaning. I'm not at all trying to question genesis or the bible and find holes. I just don't want to tell my children they can't read about evolution in their science textbook, just cause.
hey Scott.
I'm still thinking through this, too. I earned a master's in Biology, studying evolution in grasshoppers. So really, this creation thing is kinda new to me. I've been struggling with this issue for years, especially the last 4, since coming back to Christ.
Rick
So, leaving the evolution thing alone and going back to your original point, I have a question: As a good Jew Jesus should have been defiled by coming into contact with a dead body, a person with skin desease or a woman with a flow of blood. Yet Jesus intentionally reached out and touched all these things and there is nothing to indicate that he considered himself ceremonially unclean as a result, rather in each case the other person was cleansed. So, was his fulfillment of the Law always just about keeping it? Or did it go beyond that? Also, any thoughts on Jesus healing on the Sabbath? Was that work? Or not?
Arlana
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