Scripture: Romans 5:1-2a
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.
Thought for the Day: Paul is the founder of Christianity. Jesus started a progressive movement within Judaism, but Paul started an entirely new religion. And while I believe Paul was trying to be faithful to God, his interpretation of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus completely missed the point and derailed what discipleship to Jesus could and should have been.
For Paul, it is the spilling of Christ’s blood through which God reconciles the sinners of the world (which is all of us) to God’s good graces. Now, if you were a 1st Century Jew or Gentile, this would make sense to you. All the gods were demanding, and most of them demanded blood sacrifices. But Paul knew as well as any other good Jew of the time that the Jewish sacrificial system was different from the Roman system. Where the Romans (for the most part) thought the sacrifice itself appeased the gods, for the Jews, the sacrifice was always symbolic. The sacrifice itself was simply a way for people to show their willingness to give things up in order to have a closer relationship with God. It was a way for Jews to acknowledge that everything they had belonged to God, and that they were just temporary stewards. They knew God didn’t demand fatted calves or hoards of Gold—what use does God have for material things?
So for Paul then to insist that God demanded the blood of Jesus be spilled to seal the covenant was disingenuous. It’s possible he attached so strongly to this after he started evangelizing to Gentiles, who would have had a greater connection to a material sacrifice. The Roman gods, much like the Romans themselves (and don’t our gods always reflect our own natures?) often demanded blood.
However, it’s now 2000 years later, and most Christians still insist that the blood of Jesus had to be spilled in order for God’s wrath to be appeased, and the work of reconciliation to begin. I disagree (as do most modern theologians). Some traditions hold us back. This is one of them.
While we remember and respect the work of Paul in his time, in our own era, we need to recognize and accept that many of his ideas no longer have bearing on our spiritual development. The entire idea of reconciliation and forgiveness for sin might be wrong, in fact. What if we’re not fallen creatures, but are evolving spiritually? God is not disappointed in us, and certainly didn’t mate with a human to create a demigod to be sacrificed like Hercules to Zeus. No, we are all the offspring of God in an entangled metaphysical/physical way we are only now beginning to understand. Jesus’ death wasn’t about atonement, it was about at-one-ment, a way for God to show us what and whose we are, always, no matter the evils we commit right now. God is at work, as God has always been at work, delivering us from our evils. That’s the way evolution works. It’s a process—a slow process, but our faith will see us through.
Prayer: God who conducts all the processes of the universe, give me patience, wisdom, and strength to encounter and understand You in entirely new, often frightening, always untraditional ways. Free my heart from the unhealthy belief systems of the past, and fill it with more enlightened ways to understand my spiritual relationship to You. Amen.
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.
Thought for the Day: Paul is the founder of Christianity. Jesus started a progressive movement within Judaism, but Paul started an entirely new religion. And while I believe Paul was trying to be faithful to God, his interpretation of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus completely missed the point and derailed what discipleship to Jesus could and should have been.
For Paul, it is the spilling of Christ’s blood through which God reconciles the sinners of the world (which is all of us) to God’s good graces. Now, if you were a 1st Century Jew or Gentile, this would make sense to you. All the gods were demanding, and most of them demanded blood sacrifices. But Paul knew as well as any other good Jew of the time that the Jewish sacrificial system was different from the Roman system. Where the Romans (for the most part) thought the sacrifice itself appeased the gods, for the Jews, the sacrifice was always symbolic. The sacrifice itself was simply a way for people to show their willingness to give things up in order to have a closer relationship with God. It was a way for Jews to acknowledge that everything they had belonged to God, and that they were just temporary stewards. They knew God didn’t demand fatted calves or hoards of Gold—what use does God have for material things?
So for Paul then to insist that God demanded the blood of Jesus be spilled to seal the covenant was disingenuous. It’s possible he attached so strongly to this after he started evangelizing to Gentiles, who would have had a greater connection to a material sacrifice. The Roman gods, much like the Romans themselves (and don’t our gods always reflect our own natures?) often demanded blood.
However, it’s now 2000 years later, and most Christians still insist that the blood of Jesus had to be spilled in order for God’s wrath to be appeased, and the work of reconciliation to begin. I disagree (as do most modern theologians). Some traditions hold us back. This is one of them.
While we remember and respect the work of Paul in his time, in our own era, we need to recognize and accept that many of his ideas no longer have bearing on our spiritual development. The entire idea of reconciliation and forgiveness for sin might be wrong, in fact. What if we’re not fallen creatures, but are evolving spiritually? God is not disappointed in us, and certainly didn’t mate with a human to create a demigod to be sacrificed like Hercules to Zeus. No, we are all the offspring of God in an entangled metaphysical/physical way we are only now beginning to understand. Jesus’ death wasn’t about atonement, it was about at-one-ment, a way for God to show us what and whose we are, always, no matter the evils we commit right now. God is at work, as God has always been at work, delivering us from our evils. That’s the way evolution works. It’s a process—a slow process, but our faith will see us through.
Prayer: God who conducts all the processes of the universe, give me patience, wisdom, and strength to encounter and understand You in entirely new, often frightening, always untraditional ways. Free my heart from the unhealthy belief systems of the past, and fill it with more enlightened ways to understand my spiritual relationship to You. Amen.
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