Calling the Carnal

In John 2:1-12 we see Jesus first miracle. He turned water into wine. Specifically, he was at a party and they ran out of booze. Jesus took the water in the tubs for purification, a Jewish religious custom, at turned it into wine; literally from holy water to party water. Alcohol at a party is one of the most carnal things I can think of, much more if you took something churchy - say water for a religious custom- and used it to get that alcohol. Yet, that is what God did.

My father was an alcoholic; in fact, he spend months drunk without ever sobering up. He worked on a farm and literally kept himself drunk for unbelievable amounts of time.  He first attended church because of a Thanksgiving day feast being held. Basically, he showed up for free food, as most people who don't have money due to addiction will do. From this starting point, he eventually came to be the man I know, respect, and love. He is now a deacon in the same church that once fed him and his family free of charge.

Carnal things, like turning water into wine or feeding drunkards, may not seem to be the way that we like or would think would draw people, but it is a method Jesus used. He fed crowds, he gave out booze, he was even accused of being a winebibber and a glutton. There is no reason to condemn a method of evangelism that Jesus Himself used; in fact, the method Jesus started His ministry with.

However, the problem with Paul Washer's statement isn't just in ignoring Scripture. It is in assuming that some people are Carnal and some are Spiritual. Everyone one is Carnal. Everyone. God is who makes people Spiritual people. It is only His regenerative work that creates Spiritual people in His image.

The flaw is that Paul Washer believes God made some people Spiritual and some Carnal from birth. He believes if God made you Spiritual, you will be spiritual; and if He made you Carnal, you will be carnal. All Reformed preachers believe this, and that means they believe if a person is Carnal, there is nothing they can do to come to God. This is again not a Scriptural concept. The Apostle Paul (not Washer) clearly states that the Corinthian Church is Carnal, yet he also states that they are Saints. We are to deny our carnality and grow into Spiritually minded Christians, but none, not one, starts out that way.

Basically, this view advocates shoving spiritual "steak" down the throat of every Christian. If they can't handle it, Washer tells us they must not even be Christians. That is the opposite of the truth. Just because a person is a 'newborn' Christian and needs spiritual "milk" doesn't disqualify them from being part of the church or being saved.

There was a group in Jesus time that believed very similar things: the Pharisees. They believed that you had to have complex theories, advanced knowledge, and an exact statement of belief to be saved. Jesus condemned this outright. Ironically, they are the only people Jesus condemned to their faces. Jesus had much less of a problem with Carnal people then he did with people who condemned the Carnal people.

We need to remember that we are not Spiritual in ourselves. God gives us what we have. We have NO RIGHT to condemn people who are at a different place then we are. We can instead do what Jesus actually did: Love them. That's what Jesus did for the Carnal. He loved them. He drank with them. He even provided them with booze.

Is Our God a Violent God?

How do we reconcile Jesus' commands of love and non-violence with the image we have in the Old Testament of war and death? We see that God commands people to commit murder, 1 enact genocide, 2 and He even personally killed thousands of people Himself. 3 He send angels to destroy armies 4 and generally obliterates those who defy Him. 5  Is this a do as I say, not as I do type of situation?

Actually, it is.

God is literally doing something that He tells us not to. He is indeed destroying those who defy Him in the Old Testament. There is a massive death toll in the Old Testament that can be directly attributed to God's divine command, or even His direct action. Yet, Jesus tells us we are not to do so. Jesus, the very God that smote people for thousands of years came down from Heaven to tell us we were not to fight back, we are to love our enemies, and to lay down our lives instead of taking lives.

How can God justify that? How can he tell us not to do something then do it Himself? Well, simple really. Jesus, as God in the flesh, came to show us how to live as submissive servants of God. He showed us what God's desire for man is; that is, how a perfect man should live. A perfect man, a man of God, is a man like Jesus. 6 We are directly commanded to not resist evil or to hate or kill our enemies, ever for any reason. (see this post for details on that subject) 

But back to God's violence. Is it hypocritical for God to command us not to take revenge, yet He avenges Himself? Is it wrong for him to command us to do good to those who seek to kill us, yet He kills those who defy Him? Not at all. We are not God. We are not in God's position. Just as a judge has the right to pronounce sentencing upon criminals and a police officer may exceed the speed limit as needed, God is the ultimate Judge and Law Enforcer. We, his citizens and children, are not. Parents may do things, a great many things, that they forbid their little children from doing. It would be foolish to allow a three year old child to drive, set bedtimes, or operate any machinery. It's not hypocrisy for them to forbid it, it is love and wisdom. 

In the same way, God forbidding us from enacting violence, and instead commanding us to love at all times and at all costs is not hypocrisy. It is instead wisdom. He sees the heart; He knows the situation. We do not. He is the Father and we are His children. He has the full right to enact His Judgement while commanding us to not do so.

So do Jesus' commands of love and non-resistance ignore the Old Testament? No. We see that Jesus Himself will come to judge the world in the end. He will bear His sword eventually. However, we are commanded not to do that ourselves. We are commanded instead to be salt and light; to give life, not to take it.

In the end, some people would claim that the Anabaptist view of complete non-resistance is ignoring part of God's nature. However, the Anabaptist view of nonresistance is what we know God commanded us to follow; not inherently meaning God cannot do otherwise. We know God has the right to judge and to take life; after all, He is the very Author of it. He can take away because He both gave it and can also give back. We are commanded explicitly to love our enemies, personal and political, all the same. Jesus told us explicitly that His Kingdom was not of this world, which is why His people did not fight, and that holds true today. We are called to be loving examples of God. He will take care of the rest.

Sovereignty and Choices

A friend of mine asked me today if Anabaptists really believe that God didn't 'approve' of the brutal or messy parts of the Old Testament. It's a fair question. I personally believe, as many before me as did as well, that these brutal occurrences were not God's first choice for humanity, even in the kingdom of Israel. We have plenty of examples.

Abel's murder. 

Tamar's rape. 

Israel's entire kingship. 

Prophet's murdered. 

Idol worship in His very own temple.

But doesn't this diminish God's sovereignty? Are we not saying God is then not in control? 

A fair question and a good one. First, what does God have to say?

In the case of Abel, God was clearly displeased that Cain murdered his brother. God punished Cain for this sin. It is clear that God did not approve of this, yet it happened.

In Israel, we see that God did not intend for them to ever have a king other then God Himself. However, Israel rebelled and God consented to give them a king and even bless the line of David. David was never supposed to be king; God had intended for them to keep only Himself as their king, but God still allowed it to happen. Even in this entire existence that was not in accordance with God's original will - this second best option, if you will - God still worked with and through King David.

Why? Isn't God all powerful? Isn't he able to force His will? Of course He is. There is no question as to wether or not God can. The fact of the matter is that He won't. He will not force His will upon us. Because of this, things will happen - like the kingdom of Israel becoming a kingdom, and the various acts of violence that would be entangled therein- that are not God's original plan for the nation. A whole chain of causality happens that affects thousands of years and millions of lives because God allowed human choice. God is not limited by human choices because He cannot act against them; rather because He chooses to truly let us have freewill and all that that entails. 

But does Jesus ever talk about this? Indeed He does. He mentions it specifically in two places in Scripture.  (Luke 13:34 & Matt 23:37 ) Jesus, as Almighty God, tells us plainly that Jerusalem was disobedient to God's Will of its own freewill and that this was allowed. Not only that, but this affected all of history. Jesus makes it clear that this grieves His heart, but that He allows Jerusalem to kill prophets and deny Him because He gave them choice and they chose to do so. 

Frankly, that we can choose to defy God's will and that doing so will cause things to change. These decisions are irreversible, not because God is limited by nature, but because He chooses to limit Himself by choice. This chain of disobedience can cause things to happen that God does not condone or even want to have happen, but He allows them because He has the ultimate Sovereign Power: the ability to grant us, mere humans made of dirt, the awesome power of true choice - Freewill.

Some may protest, saying that God might allow these things, but in the context of the kingdom of Israel God's Will was still His primary Will; meaning that God truly approved of all that Israel was and did, so far as commands, laws, and wars. However, we find again that Jesus disapproved of some of Israel's legal system that He, as God, had given them. When they ask Him about divorce, He makes it abundantly clear that it was not His Will that they even consider divorce, but He allowed it in their law anyway. He directly and clearly states that this was not His original intent and goes so far as to say that divorce in virtually all cases is sin, but it was allowed only due to the fallen nature of Israel.

So if Israel is so full of flaws and failures, where can we turn for an accurate look at what God wants?

Jesus

He is our perfect example. He commands us to be like Himself, and like His Father. We are called to be merciful, to love our enemies, to do good and not evil, and to be holy as He is holy. Jesus was the perfect example that we are commanded to follow; and He didn't leave any of His commands of love and self-denial in vague terms. He clearly states that His Kingdom is not of this world, that His people do not fight, and that we are to carry our crosses and follow Him. He lived in a time that being a political revolutionary would have been approved by the clergy, but He told us to be subservient to our enemies, making no distinction between political enemies or personal ones. He said this in the most literal, simple terms possible, and we believe He meant them literally.