Posted by PS on March 25, 2003 at 01:05:55:
In Reply to: Re: Jesus posted by Rob on March 24, 2003 at 21:53:58:
: I was not offended, I'm just trying to learn all I can.
You rock. But I am tired and weary, so forgive me if this is disjointed or not well thought out. ;-)
You seem to have overlooked the part of my prior post that deals with your questions here, specifically the faith in God that saved the publican in the temple. That is my main point. You did not seem to deal with that in your answer. Please engage the parable with me in my last post again, and see how many of your questions you think I might answer starting there. I can’t go back there again and recap. I am old and tired. ;-)
Believing in Jesus' and in His NAME means much more than knowing his name or being part of a church. It is believing in all He is--the mercy of the righteous God offered to all. If someone believes in the righteous and merciful God who makes a way for the sinner through his mercy, but does not know about Jesus or the exact way God made for them, are they damned? Why? Because the printing press wasn't invented? What kind of God is this who rejects those who believe in his holiness and trust in his mercy, because they were not privy to the news in 30CE?
I have to ask these questions. It is essential to my worldview today. Before I can address religious diversity TODAY, I have to address the crucial issue of God's jugment on those before Christ, apart from Israel, and ignorant of Jesus' existence. How are they condemned or justified? These ideas must agree.
: I know Jesus gave his life so that the world would not perish, but I do not know where acceptance of all faiths that appear to live according to Jesus teaching stops and absolute truth begin, if that makes any sense to anyone else outside my head.
Sure it does. I was not focusing on just living according to his teaching--this was my secondary point and totally dependent on the primary--the essence of saving faith. Again, engage the parable first. The works were offered as examples of evidence of real faith and obedience to God, not as the true criteria for salvation.
: I am confused by your reply a little because Jesus said many things to his disciples that would imply believing in his personhood, in his incarnation as God in the flesh, and not just his teaching or his ways, in order to be saved.
And this could be a discussion for years right here. Did Jesus really talk about believing “in His incarnation as God in the flesh" as the basis for salvation, with all others being damned? These words are not found, not in any of your quoted verses, nor in the gospels. Yes, I know the interpretation you espouse well. (I might well defend it in some form in a different situation.) But if it was so clear what Jesus was saying, then why did it take the church till the fifth century (Council of Chalcedon) to agree on a comprehensive statement regarding Christ's divinity and humanity? And that understanding was by imposed by edict, after centuries of fighting over doctrine, for the unity of the Roman Empire and the church. The church split in the 11th century yet again, East from West, each embracing markedly different Christological views, and the reformation in the 16th-17th centuries splintered the faithful into so many different groups with different views of Christ and salvation that time fails us to even give a cursory overview. Suffice to say that early Christians clearly did not understand Jesus as we do, and the church has fought about its views throughout its history. We should not be so arrogant as to think that we have the one true faith "just like Jesus taught," to the exclusion of all other Christian viewpoints, just because we have arrived at this place after 2000 years. And if right understanding is really the basis for salvation, as you might have hinted, then the history of the church should leave you very disturbed about the whole thing.
I will resist the urge to go into the various 1st century Jewish conceptions of messiah...
But closest to my main point, and returning to the whole-world historical viewpoint, it seems your idea of salvation might exclude the vast majority of all who have ever lived from any hope. Do you think God willingly decided that billions of people are doomed to hell with no chance at all for salvation? If not, then what of all those who didn't know the name of Jesus or the message of the gospels? Please tell me how they are judged. If they cannot be saved by believing "in Jesus" somehow, then how is our God loving or righteous or merciful? Paul said the love of Christ is so deep and broad and wide and high it cannot be measured. But I can measure this brand of inferior love quite easily.
Now I know this is not what you think of Jesus, whom you clearly love. But I am just challenging you to rethink what He has revealed of Himself to YOU in personal relationship. Christian rhetoric says God is perfect love, and in the next breath that he has chosen to fry the majority of humanity in hell, unwilling to let Christ’s death apply to them. Explain this love to me again. It doesn’t sound much like love. I am nonplussed by it.
I know this kind of thinking flies in the face of your evangelical traditions. But the church as a whole has been way off the mark throughout history, and why should today necesarily be different? I want to really know Jesus, and if the church is wrong I still want to know Jesus.
I say these things NOT to offer a theology (I routinely refuse to give definite answers to these kinds of questions, and rather throw out food for thought); I only try to make people THINK. Once we think we have it figured out, we are wrong. Better to admit we have lots of questions, and then ask them prayerfully and studiously. We all have a lot to learn, and today's church here does not often further real inquiry into these difficult areas, only the need for catachistic assimilation of its mass-marketed faith. This relieves us of the crucial need to truly seek to understand other peoples, to really have compassion as Jesus did, to find the truth and beauty and goodness in their beliefs and know that all these good things come from God (who else--satan?), and believe God is loving enough to have cared about them throughout history and to have reached out to them as well. This does not take anything away from Jesus; in fact it exalts Him to the GOD He is--a GOD of all, who clearly loves all (you would agree to this point surely), and in His love must have made an attainable way for all. I ponder these things continually, and search Jesus’ teachings objectively, because I do not find the Christian church’s answers satisfying. But I CAN say assuredly that Jesus is the Lord of all, and all who are redeemed will worship Him. Both they AND WE will be amazed at His glory and how deep our misconceptions of Him in fact were.
In conclusion, I must let you know that I find it difficult to try to communicate such huge and controversial concepts in a bbs post. I would much rather do this in a classroom discussion (and that is what we do at church with these kind of things) or in a private face to face discussion. I have often resolved to try to avoid these kinds of issues here on the bbs, but tonight I have broken with my resolution yet again. And again I remember why I made it. ;-) I wish you were still around. It would be great to really talk with you, as you clearly are interested in many things I have been studying also. Sigh...
God bless you.