What is wrong shall be undone

Following my note about Where did we go wrong, I leave you stuck in the mire if I stop there.

Having looked in the mirror, we have seen the enemy and it occurs that Walt Kelly was right, at least about that. So what? That knowledge does not help or heal in itself. (Aside: this is one of the key elements of the serpents initial deception – taking and eating the fruit will bring a certain knowledge, but not the kind we thought. Rather the kind that overwhelms us with our inadequacy and drives us to compensate. Whether we do that through denial, anger, guilt or imitation and cover up is, in the end, self defeating.)

The consequence of all sin, original, occasional, habitual, natural or otherwise is death. Death not just being the absence of life, or rather the absence of physical experience via my five senses. Death is the opposite of life and life is much more than taste, touch, see, hear and smell. I’ll gladly point you again to Phillip’s ‘The World Tilting Gospel‘:

People in hell exist forever, but I can’t think of any passages that refer to their existence as “life.”

Instead, as he mentions in the footnote, it is called the second death.

The conquest of sin though is promised and provided through its destruction. The first Adam brought it in and the last Adam will take it out.

For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. ~ Romans 5:19

For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. ~ 1 Corinthians 15:21-22

In the midst of God’s judgment against Adam’s sin he promises salvation – the undoing of our sin. There will be salvation through the death of a substitute and a promise of a redeemer. It is, at first, pictured tangibly when an animal is killed so that they can have clothing to protect them both from the environment and from the constant confrontation of the shame and guilt of their sin.

It is, ultimately to come through the birth of another “Adam” one who will both do what Adam did not and not do what Adam did and be victorious on all accounts. He will speak words of life, crush the serpent’s head and inaugurate the kingdom of God. Christ Alone is The True / Last Prophet, Priest & King.

Will you continue as Adam did, followed by his son Cain to constantly try to seize what God offers freely?

Will you rely on a false covering, and try to hide your sin from God through religious behaviour or moral behaviour or living the life of a so-called good person? Always be inadequate because you will always be acting independently of God?

Or, would you accept new life, be born again as Jesus once described it and die to your self, die to your schemes and plans, die to all those silly pathetic attempts you make at saving face before others and realise that God, as the author of life, is the only one who can give you life.

Don’t define your life in terms of existence or in terms of possessions or in terms of achievement.

Define your life, by experiencing life as it was meant to be, in the fullness of joy through Jesus alone.

And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. ~ 1 John 5:11-12

But, when shall these things be? Ah, that is for another post, in the interim, have confidence that:

if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. ~ 2 Corinthians 5:17

Are you in Christ?

 

Where did we go wrong?

What is wrong with the world? Or this country? City? That weird guy on the bus? You?

Creation got off to a “very good” start, until a man, Adam by name, attempted to seize (usurp/takeover/stage a coup) God’s kingdom instead of receiving it as a free gift.

A 7-fold process unfolds that shows us what went wrong and how we managed to end up with the trouble and difficulties we have today in our relationships with God, others and the environment.

1. Adam is created in the image of God and given God’s Word / Law. Gen 2:16-17
2. Adam is divided (blood is shed, his rib removed) and Eve is constructed. Gen 2:20-21
3. They are brought together in a covenant of marriage. Gen 2:22-25
4. Adam, as the high priest guardian & protector of both Eve & Eden is tested. Gen 3:1-6 (note the pronouns used here are all plural indicating that both Adam & Eve are involved in the temptation).
5. Adam acts immaturely, seizes the fruit (takes things into his own hands, literally) and tries to cover his disobedience with inadequate fig leaves. Gen 3:7
6. God uncovers Adam’s defeat by sin & covers it via shedding the blood of an innocent animal to give them animal skins for clothes. He is cast outside the angelic veil and no longer in the Edenic (promised) land. Gen 3:8-13, 21-24
7. Instead of entering into rest and glory, Adam’s failed dominion is inherited by his offspring. Gen 5:3

Adam as representative of all people failed the test of whether he would open God’s Word, believe it, obey it and speak it to his bride. Dan Phillips in The World Tilting Gospel helpfully points out that if you argue that you don’t want him as your representative, you are already placing yourself in opposition to God and acting independently of his judgement – which means, you’ve just failed the test also. So we are sinners both by nature and by action.

The New Testament explains it as:

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned. ~ Romans 5:12

Adams failure was 3-fold:

• Failed Priest – His job was to Guard & Protect the Garden. Instead of crushing the serpents head with his heel, he lets him by. Sin enters the world due to this failure of Adam (as high priest) to guard the kingdom.
• Failed Prophet – He was chosen to speak the Word of God. He should have reminded Eve of God’s promise and invited her to turn away from the forbidden tree and to eat from the Tree of Life. Instead, he stands silently while the serpent negotiates with Eve.
• Failed King – As he was created in the image of God and given dominion over the animals, he had the authority to command the serpent and extend the kingdom. He behaved passively, yielded his place and lost the battle.

Adam’s great sin was to act independently of God. He passed this proclivity to his offspring, you and I. Since then our inclination has been to continue doing the same, to the detriment and destruction of ourselves, our fellow man and the environment we were meant to manage. So, what’s wrong with the world? Take a look in the mirror.

 

An upside down Church

The first Christians didn’t have any power base whatsoever. They didn’t control the local media. They had no big name celebrities giving concerts with two-minute “testimonies” at the end. They didn’t have massive popular numbers. They didn’t have PR firms shining their image. They didn’t have lines of clothing, entertainment, or holy hardware. They didn’t even own buildings. Their assemblies could mostly be contained in people’s houses. They didn’t control any institutions—religious, educational, or political. They didn’t have money, equipment, or rapid-transport vehicles. They couldn’t even Twitter! Yet they created something like blind panic virtually everywhere they went. How did they do it? Fast-forward to our day and glance around at evangelicalism. All the things that Group A (first-century church) lacked, Group B (modern evangelicalism) has: institutions, sway, numbers, technology, money, equipment, connections, glitz, and glamour. Everything except world-tilting! Whatever you can say they are doing, you can’t say evangelicals are turning the world upside down. In fact, you could make a better case that the world has turned the church upside down.

- Dan Phillips, The World Tilting Gospel

 

What changed?

Beware mistaking “change your mind” as meaning simply “shift an opinion or two.” The “change” is a radical, top-to-bottom change; and it is the “mind” that must change, not merely some individual notion.

Dan Phillips, The World Titling Gospel