What if Jesus wants you to die?

 

What if Jesus wants you to die?

by Lydia McGrew

(Originally published at What's Wrong With the World. Link to original post at 'permalink' below.)

On my drives to and fro around town I listen to a fundamentalist Christian radio station broadcast from Pensacola, FL. Long-time readers know that I love Southern Gospel music and hymns. The news at the heads of the hours is pretty objective and, at most, tends to report more on religious liberty trends worldwide. And the extremely conservative talk show I occasionally run into is actually rather interesting, if occasionally weird. (Like there was the time when they spent an entire show explaining that the earth is not flat. Good to know, but...) It certainly doesn't fit the stereotype of conservative talk radio as crude and abusive.

The dramatizations vary. I confess to a liking for Adventures in Odyssey, made by Focus on the Family. Some of the other children's drama shows are more than a bit cloying and mostly serve as a source of (unintentional) entertainment. My imitation of faithful Frisky's water lapping noises when he recovered after nearly dying for the children had my entire family in stitches.

I was listening to one of these latter in the car yesterday. We had gotten to the point where an escaped convict was said (by an announcer on one boy's transistor radio) to be in the vicinity of the boys' campground, the sort of thing that seems to happen all the time in these shows. The protagonist, a boy named Alfie, had recently become a committed Christian. When the others asked him if he was afraid of the possibility that the convict would show up at their camp, he said, "A little." Asked why only a little, he took the opportunity to tell them about his recent decision to ask Jesus into his heart. (I really have no problem with this language of asking Jesus into your heart. I gather some theological sticklers of a Reformed persuasion deplore it because it isn't found in the Bible. But we'd never get anywhere in theology without metaphors and analogies, and we'd get nowhere even faster in describing the phenomenology of religious experience and conscious religious commitment without inexact metaphors, and this particular one has been serviceable to generations of truly good and pious evangelicals whose shoes the young sticklers are probably not worthy to unlatch. So I'm inclined not to knock it. End of digression.)

I was more or less in agreement with Alfie's theology concerning forgiveness of sins and accepting Jesus, but here's the odd part: It had very little to do with the question at issue, which was, "Why are you only a little bit afraid of the escaped convict?"

Alfie lost me completely when he got to the point where he said, "So I know Jesus will take care of me, because I accepted him." Whoa, stop right there, Alf. That just makes it sound way too much like a deal. You accept Jesus, and Jesus takes care of you.

I wouldn't have minded (theologically--artistic objections aside) if Alfie had said, "Even if the convict were to come and kill me, I know I would go to heaven, because my sins are forgiven." But that didn't sound like what he was saying at all. It sounded like he was saying that he knew Jesus would protect him physically from the convict because he had accepted Jesus as his Savior. To make it worse (theologically, still waiving the obvious artistic problems), one of the other boys replied at this point in an awed voice, "Wow, now I understand why you're not afraid!" So does this mean that the other boys think Alfie is now specially protected by Jesus? Is this a superpower? Do bullets bounce off of people who have accepted Jesus?

Now, not to be too harsh, but kids who listen to this show are growing up in a world where the next news at the top of the hour may easily feature Christians being crucified by Isis, gunned down by Fulani tribesmen, or sent to the Bamboo Gulag. Or some devout Christian in their own home town, a friend or relative, even, may be killed in a car-jacking or just a car accident. It's not really the best idea to give the impression that if we're Christians Jesus will protect us from physical harm. We know that's just not true.

And yet, and yet...On the other hand...Here is the Psalmist David:

Psalm 27

1 The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?

2 When the wicked, even mine enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell.

3 Though an host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear: though war should rise against me, in this will I be confident.

4 One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to enquire in his temple.

5 For in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion: in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me; he shall set me up upon a rock.

6 And now shall mine head be lifted up above mine enemies round about me: therefore will I offer in his tabernacle sacrifices of joy; I will sing, yea, I will sing praises unto the Lord.

7 Hear, O Lord, when I cry with my voice: have mercy also upon me, and answer me.

8 When thou saidst, Seek ye my face; my heart said unto thee, Thy face, Lord, will I seek.

9 Hide not thy face far from me; put not thy servant away in anger: thou hast been my help; leave me not, neither forsake me, O God of my salvation.

10 When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up.

11 Teach me thy way, O Lord, and lead me in a plain path, because of mine enemies.

12 Deliver me not over unto the will of mine enemies: for false witnesses are risen up against me, and such as breathe out cruelty.

13 I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

14 Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord.

You'd better believe if I were hiding from an escaped convict I'd be quoting parts of that Psalm in my head. Or maybe this one:

Psalm 121

1 I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.

2 My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.

3 He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber.

4 Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.

5 The Lord is thy keeper: the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand.

6 The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.

7 The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul.

8 The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.

Or this,

Psalm 91

1 He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

2 I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.

3 Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence.

4 He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler.

5 Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day;

6 Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.

7 A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.

8 Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked.

9 Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation;

10 There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.

11 For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.

12 They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.

When we quote Psalm 23, we give it a spiritual spin, but I'm not at all sure David did. David, the man of war, who said, "Blessed be the Lord my strength which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight."

It's all very well to think of only spiritual arrows if nobody ever tries to shoot you with a real one, but when David talked about being delivered from the arrow that flies by day, I think he was thinking of a real one.

To be honest, I've never been at all sure what the take-home lesson is supposed to be from those Psalms if it has nothing to do with divine physical protection. At a minimum they seem to indicate that we believers in the one true God can have some hope of divine deliverance, even miraculous deliverance, from external danger. And the Bible does record instances where this has happened. Does God really want us to spiritualize all of those Psalms in the light of the undeniable fact that many genuine believers die violent and sometimes horrible deaths? I have no easy answers.

And yet (now I'm back on the other hand again), even in the Old Testament, the three young men think they might really be thrown into the fiery furnace. So they tell King Nebuchadnezzar that even if God does not deliver them, still they will not bow down to his idol.

So it's not as though everybody in Old Testament times thought that God brings success and physical deliverance to those who are his own, while everybody in the New Testament thinks always in terms of accepting suffering and the way of the cross. Peter was delivered from prison (Acts 12), by angels no less, but later crucified upside down, according to tradition. Some days Jesus gives his angels charge over you to keep you in all your ways, and some days he wants you to die on a cross. And the frustrating thing is that, on any given day, you don't know for sure which it's going to be.

I have no desire to make fun of or undermine anyone's childlike faith, not even the fictional Alfie's. And I would hardly characterize the faith of King David as naive and childish. George Mueller somehow knew one fine day that God would provide milk for the children at his orphanage, and (according to the story I heard) God did provide it by what looked very much like a special providence, if not an outright miracle. We don't know how George knew, but I'd be hesitant to say it was just a lucky guess. George and God seemed to have something going that most of us don't have.

It's possible that a young person or new convert who was taught his earliest theology according to Alfie would suffer no permanent damage to his faith, even if he or someone he dearly loved were to suffer some horrible tragedy, despite having accepted Jesus. But I'd rather not risk it. Instead, if we must write an excessively didactic speech for Alfie, I suggest something like this: "Sure, I'm afraid of the escaped convict. But whatever happens to me, whether I live or die, I belong to Jesus. He can protect us--not only me, but all of us. But if he doesn't, it's because he knows best. And it's a lot better to be here knowing him than not."

It may not be better art, but I'm pretty certain it's better theology. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some Psalms to read.

Posted by Lydia McGrew on June 18, 2019 8:39 PM | Del.icio.us | Permalink

Tags: (Christianity) (persecution) (theology)

Fake points don't make points

 

Fake points don't make points

by Lydia McGrew

(Originally published at What's Wrong With the World. Link to original post at 'permalink' below.)

We pause in our series of detailed discussions of Dr. Licona's examples for a broader theological reflection.

It is all-too-common in New Testament circles, and certainly not unique to Dr. Licona's work, to hold that a Gospel author changed some historical fact in order to make a theological point. If anything, Licona concentrates on literary motivations (such as making a story run smoothly, telling a story more briefly, and the like) more often than on theological motivations. But he does at times accept or hypothesize a theological motivation for an alleged change. Sometimes Licona borrows these theological hypotheses from other scholars.

Examples of this sort include John's allegedly changing the year of the Temple cleansing in order (in some metaphoric sense) to include all of Jesus' ministry in Passion Week, overshadowed by his "hour" (Why Are There Differences in the Gospels, p. 195) and John's allegedly changing the day and time of Jesus' crucifixion in order to emphasize that he is the lamb of God (pp. 191, 195). Licona borrows both of these ideas from Craig Keener. Another example, which appears to be Licona's own idea, is the hypothesis (p. 165) that Mark knew of but deliberately suppressed the repentance of one of the thieves on the cross in order to emphasize the fact that Jesus was "rejected by all." Licona does not positively conclude this about Mark but makes it one of his frequent dichotomies, arguing that either Mark engaged in this deliberate suppression or that Luke (for some reason) moved the repentance of one thief back from the time when it really happened so as to narrate it as part of the "same incident" with the reviling from the other thief.

In all of these cases the idea is that the Gospel authors thought they could make some thematic point by reporting things in a way that appears factual within their narrative but is not the way that events really occurred. Jesus really didn't die at the very day and hour when the Passover lambs were killed, but John reported as if he did in order to make a theological point that he was the Passover lamb, and so forth. It is particularly interesting that, in the context of describing the Temple cleansing, Keener refers more than once to the "story world" of John (Commentary on John, pp. 518, 530). The phrase "story world," used apparently to refer to a "world" that might or might not be the real world, occurs frequently in Keener's commentary.

What all of this assumes is that the Gospel authors viewed God's working in the world in such a way that they could make powerful theological points by mingling history and fiction. We are not talking here about a parable or some other totally fictional story. We are talking, rather, about taking a real person--the most important person in the world, Jesus Christ--and making up fake "facts" about him that are nonetheless somehow supposed to support theological points.

I submit that this is not how it works in history. Since the story about George Washington chopping down the cherry tree with his little ax is non-historical, it doesn't show us that George Washington was honest. At most, it might weakly support the conclusion that people who knew him knew that he was honest in some other way and that this motivated them to make up such stories about him. But this is weak sauce indeed. After all, for all that that tells us, they might have been wrong. Or maybe (very likely) the story was made up by someone who didn't really personally know Washington. Similarly, the legend that the young Arthur pulled a sword out of a stone tells us nothing about whether a real King Arthur was chosen by God to resist the heathen Anglo-Saxons in Britain.

The evangelists themselves understand that God dips His pen in history and writes His story using realities, not literary inventions.

When the evangelists say that an event occurred that fulfilled prophecy, they are stating that the event itself really occurred, for otherwise, the prophecy would not have been fulfilled by that event. Prophecies are fulfilled by things that really happen, not by fictional occurrences in a "story world." If the soldiers did not really divide Jesus' garments, that portion of Psalm 22 would not have been fulfilled there and then. If Jesus' legs were broken, then the prophecy "not a bone of him shall be broken" was not fulfilled. If Jesus was not pierced, the prophecy "they shall look on him whom they have pierced" was not fulfilled in history. Hence John the evangelist's vehement evidential declaration:

Then the Jews, because it was the day of preparation, so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day), asked Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away. So the soldiers came, and broke the legs of the first man and of the other who was crucified with Him; but coming to Jesus, when they saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs. But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out. And he who has seen has testified, and his testimony is true; and he knows that he is telling the truth, so that you also may believe. For these things came to pass to fulfill the Scripture, “Not a bone of Him shall be broken.” And again another Scripture says, “They shall look on Him whom they pierced.”

For John, theological significance and literal events are inextricably woven together. The evangelist agrees that fake points don't make points.

You can disagree with the Gospel authors' interpretation of the Old Testament at times. Why take "Out of Egypt have I called my son" to be a prophecy at all, as opposed to merely a statement about the history of Israel? One has to take it that the Holy Spirit knew about an extra meaning in the Exodus that we wouldn't otherwise have suspected. But their occasionally rabbinic use of the Old Testament is built on their belief in actual historical events--both those in the Old Testament and those in recent history. Matthew may be interpreting the Old Testament verse in a typological way, but that does not at all mean that he disbelieves in the historical reality of either the Exodus or the flight into Egypt. To the contrary, he is saying that the flight into Egypt fulfilled Scripture by actually occurring. Whether one agrees or not with St. Paul's theological use of the near-sacrifice of Isaac, there is no doubt that he believed that the event actually happened, and that is why he bases his theology of justification upon it. As D.A. Carson points out in this insightful article (p. 191), even when Paul interprets Israel's history from the perspective of his theology of justification by faith, he does so on the basis of what he takes to be literal historical fact, such as the fact that God made his covenant with Abraham long before the Mosaic law was established at Sinai.

If Jesus wasn't really crucified on the day and at the time that the Passover lambs were killed (and I think that he wasn't), his crucifixion at that day and time cannot make the point that he was the Passover lamb. Fake points don't make points. John the Baptist of course does call Jesus the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world, and I am strongly inclined to think that his crucifixion at the general time of Passover was no accident at all, theologically or Providentially. But the fit between Jesus and the Passover lamb cannot be made better by the insertion of a false fact into the narrative.

Similarly, if the thief on the cross did actually speak to Jesus as he does in Luke, repenting and asking Jesus to remember him, then in just that sense Jesus was not strictly "rejected by all," and it would have been misleading for Mark deliberately to suppress the thief's conversion in order to make the point that Jesus was "rejected by all." Fake points don't make points. (Mark, of course, may well simply not have heard about the second thief's conversion. As usual, this extremely simple hypothesis doesn't make it onto the New Testament scholar's radar.)

In his insightful review of Robert Gundry's attempt in the 1980s to recast the Gospel of Matthew as "midrash," Douglas J. Moo makes the same point I am making:

[Matthew] writes from the conviction that the decisive revelation of God had recently been manifested in the historical actualities of Jesus’ life and teaching. To say, as Gundry does, that “'Jesus said’ or ‘Jesus did’ need not always mean that in history Jesus said or did what follows” ... attributes to Matthew an unconcern with history that seems to me at odds with one of the most distinctive features of the Christian message....I am suggesting that concern for historical actualities, which is the essential byproduct of the incarnation, kept [Matthew] from combining history and nonhistory.... “Matthew and Midrash,” pp. 38-39.

There is a very real danger that, in attempting to define "mere Christianity," we may develop a Barthian or semi-Barthian unconcern for any historical facts beyond those that we have put into the "mere Christian" box. Another danger is that we will flinch away from any epistemic connection between other facts and those propositions on which we have decided to hang our theological hats. We may lose our nerve and get into the habit of saying, "Phew! I'm so relieved that I don't have to defend that in order to defend Christianity," then repeatedly offer as a concession to skeptics that "that" may well be false, where "that" could be almost anything but, say, the bare statement of the resurrection of Jesus. We should explicitly acknowledge these dangers and resist these shifts. Our message in defining a minimal set of Christian distinctives should never be that nothing else matters. Most urgently, the message should never be that history doesn't matter, nor that it is a virtue to make Christianity immune to the evidential impact of history. Those Christian distinctives themselves, even if we settle on a fairly short creedal list, are both metaphysically and epistemically based upon a wealth of historical particulars and upon the factual nature of the records we possess.

We are surrounded by voices right now lecturing us that the concern for factual truth and for distinguishing fact from fiction is anachronistic, but the apostles do not agree. It was not a hung-up, post-enlightenment philosopher but St. Peter (2 Peter 1:16) who emphasized that he and the other disciples were not promulgating cunningly devised fables but were eyewitnesses of Jesus' majesty. (Yes, I'm aware that "many scholars" reject the Petrine authorship of 2 Peter. Yes, I'm aware of their arguments. Yes, I think Peter wrote 2 Peter.) It was Peter and John who told the Sanhedrin that they would keep preaching, because they must testify to what they had heard and seen (Acts 4:20).

God has wrought our salvation by means of literal history. Since both God and his apostles emphasize the importance of what is written in the language of history, we should care to know what is history and what is not. Nor should we project onto those who gave us the Scriptures a postmodern unconcern with bare, boring fact. That would be truly anachronistic.

Posted by Lydia McGrew on November 8, 2017 10:10 AM | Del.icio.us | Permalink

Tags: (Christianity) (history) (Licona) (New Testament) (theology)