Scripture: Romans 3:22b-24
There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
 
Thought for the Day: This passage, among others, has been used to support the misguided notion that “Jesus died for our sins.” The idea that humankind needs to be “redeemed”—purchased from our slavery to sin by the death of Jesus, is prevalent in modern Christianity. This is unfortunate, because it makes Jesus a convenient scapegoat, which is exactly what the Romans hoped to accomplish when they crucified him, albeit for a different reason.
 
Jesus as scapegoat also absolves us from personal responsibility and liability. If we just pray to Jesus or confess to our Priest, we are forgiven and everything will be all right. Then we can go out and continue to do the stuff we know is wrong, but will ask forgiveness for tomorrow.
 
It’s easy to read the Bible and come to this conclusion. It’s a bad conclusion, though, a result of too little critical thinking and too much literal interpretation of Scripture. There is absolutely no need for Jesus to die for our sins. Resurrection doesn’t prove either that God disapproves of human sacrifice or that God defeats death. Both are illogical ideas that misunderstand the cultural context of the 1^st Century.
 
Furthermore, a literal understanding of Jesus’ death as necessary for redemption means Paul tries to have it both ways in this passage from Romans. This thinking then creates a fallacy in his argument: we cannot both be saved by grace freely given, and also redeemed through the sacrificial death of Jesus. The former is negated by the latter. Paul was too intelligent to think or write this way. So there must be another way to understand Paul here.
 
In the statement above, Paul is more likely saying that yes, humans have fallen short of the image in which we were created (God’s). However, because God is ultimately a forgiving, loving entity, it’s okay. Moreover, since God is a being that is constantly moving everything and everyone in the universe into wholeness, we are given many ways to rediscover our true nature, our God-nature, the Christ that is the true spark of being within us all. Jesus Christ is the perfect example of what that looks like. Knowing who he was, Jesus then teaches the practices required to reach his same level of God-unity.
 
Conscious awareness of the presence of God is not a once-and-for-all event in Jesus. It is meant to be an example of, and the spark that ignites, many such events within every human on the planet. It’s less about redemption than it is about rescue: from dualistic thinking, from selfishness, from greed, from a world organized by a few powerful people who enslave the rest of us. We are enslaved, and Jesus certainly points to one of the ways out. It is not, by a long shot, the only way.
 
Prayer: Awaken me, God who is Wisdom. Help me use the gifts of science, history, and critical thinking to discover your presence, always within me, ready to change my life. I’m ready to evolve spiritually, and ready for you to point the way. Amen.