Do you matter?

It is a life and death question, in a way. Do you matter? 

No, I am not asking Hamlet’s question: To be, or not to be? Hamlet was suicidal. He was obsessed with death, not life. So far as I can tell, the question of personal significance was not on Hamlet’s radar. And most people I know are glad that the tortured, brooding, insufferably indecisive Hamlet is dead!

My question is not about why I do not just kill myself. My question is about life. It is a question for the living. It is for you who want to live, but who wonder whether your life really matters.

I know you probably do not want to go there. Who does? Like me, you have probably learned how to bypass the question. But it is there, nevertheless, this honest yet uncomfortable question. It belongs to all of us. Whether we like it or not, it is a vibration under our feet, it is a tremor under our shoes, it is a shaking of the foundations beneath our every step. We might as well face it: “mattering” is a fundamental human need.

Status tells you that of course you matter. You get a good job. Or you come into money. Or you get some degrees. Or you have some success. Or you make a home and start a family. These things make the claim that, indeed, you must matter. And there is nothing wrong with any of these things. For a time, maybe a long time, these things can ward off the question. These things steady the tremors. They distract. They stabilize. They promise. But if your heart is like mine, it still wonders: Why then, if these external things mean that I really matter, won’t the dreaded question go away?

What if we look at it from the other side? What if you had nothing? Picture yourself with no status. What if it was all gone, all the things that boost your ego, all the things that prop you up, all the things that tell you that you are worth something, everything that sustains your sense of pride and human dignity? Strip these things away and stand there in naked humiliation, if you can. Now ask yourself the question. Now maybe we are getting somewhere. Would you matter if, in utter failure and loss, with no net under your unraveling tightrope, you had nothing?

I realize no one wants to really end up in circumstances like that. Yet, how many millions of people are today in those exact circumstances? My last blog was about homelessness, and they first come to mind when I think of people managing the margins of insignificance.

Do you have a car? Then you are only one of seven people in one hundred who own a car—7%. Please do not feel guilty! I do not feel guilty for having a Jeep. I am just saying that 93% of the people on the planet get through the day somehow without a car. And I am just wondering what it would do to my ego if I did not have one.

Do you make more than $10 a day? Only one in five people on our planet does. 80% of earth’s population makes it somehow on less than ten bucks a day. Please do not feel guilty if you’re in the fortunate 20%, though. I do not mention this to shame myself or you. I am just saying, today there are a whole bunch of people living life, many of them finding significance, with less than $10 a day. Could I?

If my sense of self-worth were really dependent upon how much money I made or whether I owned a car, what does that say about me? Billions of people will go to sleep tonight without a car and a ten dollar bill. And I am so accustomed to having a car and a good salary that I actually wonder if life would be worth living without them, even though I know the huge majority of my brothers and sisters spinning with me through spacetime have neither, and they have neither every day, and they will likely have neither the day they die. 

So, here is the deal for me personally, and I do not mind admitting this: I am so sheltered and privileged that I find myself asking why all these people even wake up in the morning. I stupidly want to know how they could have any joy and feel any significance day in and day out without a car and ten bucks. How can the vast majority of earth’s populace feel that their lives matter, though they lack what I feel are essential to my own sense of self-value and spiritual wellbeing?

I think this is worth pondering. Think about your family and friends. What if everything went south for you, to the point that you can no longer face them for shame? Or what if some of your family and friends start to turn away from you because they do not want to face the question of significance themselves, and they do not appreciate your humiliation reminding them to ask it? Or what if some of them merely grow philosophical about you, your misfortune, your pain, and quietly close the book on you as they plan sunshiny Fourth of July cookouts to which you do not get invited?

Perhaps, however, despite what anyone thinks, including beloved family and friends, you might actually continue to matter to yourself, no matter what. But why? It cannot be self-respect when you have lost your self-respect. Self-preservation, perhaps, but why? Just to exist day-to-day? Why wake up, shuffle around, go to sleep, and then do it all over again? What would be the point?

Perhaps you would matter to God. But how can you matter to God when he allows you to be utterly humiliated? Does he want you to be humiliated? Is he punishing you? Is it some Job-like test of your faith? Does humiliation teach me something—anything—important, something spiritual, something divine, some great “secret of life” that I am supposed to figure out through suffering degradation?

Again, believe me, I am in NO way asking this question to guilt you or myself for not trying hard enough. Trying harder does not fix some things in life, and the search for significance is, it seems to me, one of those things. And accumulating more stuff certainly does not fix it. I am asking whether you matter in the face of losing everything in order to clear the clutter. Take everything off the table, and what is left?

I have an ability to draw. I only have one piece of art that I have kept over the years, a fairly large, golden-framed, charcoal rendering of Michelangelo’s statue of David (pictured), one of the most famous works of art ever. I did not store it with my stuff in a pod in LA on Monday. I packed it carefully in my Jeep and brought it with me. Why? Yes, it is rare, in that it is the only piece of my art that I own, and since I do not really like drawing all that much, I do not anticipate creating more pieces. So it is a special piece. But it is more than that. Yes, I am proud of it and I like it. But it is more than mere pride and aesthetics. I think I value it because of the message it sends to me, and perhaps others who see it. It says that Bert matters. It says God gave me a valuable, quantifiable gift. If it did not exist, how could I prove to others or to myself that I have a significant capacity, an admirable talent, that says to me and to whomever, that I count, and that I contributed something tangible and even beautiful during my short life? But that answer bothers me.

I once participated in a men’s event about personal significance. It was a religious program that focused on your death. I am not kidding! Apparently it is all about your epitaph. The macho speakers presented a pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps approach to “men’s Christian spirituality,” one aimed at redoubling your effort to be “a good man,” so that your family, friends, church, and community will say good things about you at a ceremony while you lie dead in a casket. A well-meaning program perhaps, but also horribly misguided.

That is my problem with my drawing of David. Did I throw myself into that drawing—it took a month of daily, intense work—so that when I die people will say something nice about me? Was that really my motivation? Is that why I keep it and move it carefully across America? Is the value of my life to be measured by the future admiration of what I produced when I am dead and gone?

Listen. Why does what we do, whether it is art or work or giving or serving, have to have a selfish, eulogistic, ulterior motive? What does being a Christian—a term that means following Christ—have to do with doing stuff to boost my image in preparation for my funeral sermon? Can’t living for Jesus be its own good end? And isn’t it about life and living, not self-serving image-making focused on death and obituaries?

I do not think there is anything wrong with leaving a legacy, in and of itself. I particularly enjoy funerals that truly celebrate a person’s life in specific terms and stories. I hate going to those one-size-fits-all services where the person’s name is mentioned but little more about him. What a wasted opportunity to remember and grieve and celebrate and learn together! And, in my biased opinion, any eulogizer who does not take the time to sit down with grieving family and friends to ask questions, listen carefully, take good notes, and write a fitting remembrance to be delivered in the context of worship, is not worth his salt.

In the end, however, if Jesus is right, it is not about death. Death loses. In Jesus’ resurrection and in our promised resurrections, “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” Jesus came to give us life, here and now and forever. We pass from life to life. Death has no power. It has been swallowed by life.

2 Corinthians 5:4 For while we are still in this tent (this mortal body), we groan under our burden, because we wish not to be unclothed but to be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.

Moreover, the Jesus of Scripture is life. He is not just about life or the mere giver of life. He is true life itself in the here and now.

John 14:6 "I am the way, and the truth, and the life.”

I never read Jesus saying that real life is dependent upon external circumstances. These things together—what we eat, drink, and wear—are in his view a spiritually dangerous source of worry that steals life. Yes, we have to have them. But our incessant worry about them kills our trust in God’s providence. Jesus warns us about what “wealth” does to us. He was concerned about greed and an attitude of self-sufficiency. Unwarranted attachment to things is like barnacles on our souls. He warned us that having stuff can create arrogance and false superiority. “Having” can desensitize me to “have nots,” to the point that I can walk right past starving and sick Lazarus at my own gate and not even see him. I can be so busy building bigger barns for my bumper crop that I never consider sharing a single kernel with anyone else.

You know, the cross of Christ alone should teach us this. All that Jesus owned was stripped from his back and gambled over by Roman soldiers. He died naked with nothing. Most of the people who watched him die laughed and made sport of him. If the measure of his life’s worth was merely external circumstances, he and his life were worth nothing at all.

So was Jesus about legacy-making? Did he go around doing good so that people would say great things about him when he died? It that what really fueled his life and living?

This brings us to the key question concerning your life’s significance, as I see it, especially if you are a Christian: 

Why did Jesus’ own life matter to him?

It cannot have been popularity. He was quite popular, yes, by all biblical accounts, especially in the villages of Galilee. But the Scriptures go to great lengths to tell us that he did not trust the crowds, that he escaped them at times, and that he did not respond to flattery at all. Popularity is a fickle mistress. Where were the masses of adoring fans when he was executed?

It cannot have been success. While he learned a trade, he abandoned it. While his preaching and healing ministry could be described as successful, he had no income and he depended on a group of loyal, generous women for daily bread. He did not own a home, depending on friends in Capernaum and Bethany for lodging. He slept on the road, having “no place to lay his head.” He left behind, so far as we know, no properties, businesses, or inheritances of any kind. These things could not have been the source of his sense of self-worth. His last week involved being arrested, being incarcerated, being found guilty of sedition, and being executed for that crime—hardly a successful legacy by any earthly standard of success.

From what I can tell, Jesus’ sense that his own life mattered came from one thing: Doing the will of his heavenly Father. Nothing else seemed to matter to him. God is love, wrote John. And Jesus just loved. He loved and loved and loved, no matter what. And by love I do not mean a warm, fuzzy feeling. I mean a love that adored people while at the same time did not shrink from saying no to people, and even chastising them for their hypocrisy and heard-heartedness. He loved with a true and tough love that cuts through failure and rejection and humiliation and loss and even death. He was alive with God’s love, a love that serves and sacrifices and lays down its life for a friend.

Jesus loved large, and therefore he lived large. That was what mattered to him. And I think that is why his own life mattered to him. Love mattered so much to him that he even gave up his own life for the sake of it. Jesus lived and died for love.

Man, maybe he was on to something.

[I wrote this blog in California and posted it from Mississippi. I have a stupid cold that I got in snowy west Texas on Wednesday. Tonight’s Friday forecast here in Mississippi? Snow. Yes, seeing Mississippi friends yesterday and today has warmed me. But today, I am aware that “I left my heart” in sunny California because she made me think long and hard about life’s real significance. I didn’t find a job there, but I found something more important. I found new life and new friends. I dedicate this blog to the people on the west coast who loved me and prayed for me and helped me in innumerable ways. I pray that I contributed to your lives too. I love you, California. Stay in touch.]

Salted with Fire

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Why, after the amputation or Gehenna sayings, does Jesus speak suddenly of salt? Again it’s about Life and peace over against death and torment. If you have no salt, no fire, no peace, then you have no Life. Apparently there is a fire that consumes Life (fire in the dump of Gehenna), but there is also a fire that infuses Life (fire of the Holy Spirit). There is a fire that deadens and there is a fire of the Spirit that enlivens. This is the salt of which Jesus, again in figures, now speaks. What did he mean?

Though you are made to be the salt of the earth, you can become tasteless. To become a slave of your hand is to lose your salt. To become a slave of your foot is to lose your salt. To become a slave of your eye is to lose your salt. If the addiction of your hand or foot or eye robs you of the peaceful, passionate, salty, Life-filled, rich and abundant relational reality that Jesus called the kingdom of heaven, amputation is immeasurably better than that.

Salt equals Life.

Jesus is talking about spiritual death by blandness. Bland equals spiritual death and a hellish existence. Again, the symbol “=” means equals.

Spiritual slavery = blandness = hellishness = death

Spiritual freedom = saltiness = heavenliness = Life

How do you spell hell? Jesus spells it B-L-A-N-D. He wants to know, What’s your salt worth?

Mark 8:36-37 For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life (psuche)? ³⁷ Indeed, what can they give in return for their life (psuche)?

The Greek word for life also means soul, and is often translated as such.

Mark 8:36-37 What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul (psuche)? ³⁷ Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul (psuche)?

Salt is Life. It means everything. The opposite of salt and Life is blandness and death. Blandness doesn’t seem like such a bad thing on the surface. But without salt, if you’re bland, you’re worm food!

Salt in you—spirit and fire, passion and love, freedom and soul—is the zest and savor and vigor and verve of Life. It’s the flavor and zeal and gusto of Life. Salt is vibrancy and vitality and intensity. Salt sharpens and heightens and enhances. It intensifies and accents and enriches. It brightens and enlivens and excites. It arouses and stimulates and sparks.

I caught a televised worship service from a downtown protestant church recently. The robed pastor from his lofty pulpit deposited his three dry imperatives. You must have peace. You must have hope. You must have joy. When the camera showed the congregants, they resembled a forest of stumps. A child was drawing on a bulletin. A teenager mindlessly twirled her hair. Zoned-out parents made mental to-do lists. A grandfather took a nap. Even when the preacher spoke of joy, it was clear that joy had left the building and gone to lunch. Where’s the salt? Where’s the zest? Where’s the gusto? Where’s the spice of Life?

Please don’t think that peppier music and a hip pastor necessarily fix anything. You could have jumping up and down and rolling in the aisles. You could have waiving hands and loud weeping. Outward appearances aren’t salt. And simulation salt seasons nothing. I have nothing against the salt substitute manufacturers. I’m sure that the good folks on a salt-restricted diet appreciate one of the various salt substitutes. But the cook in my life says that salt substitutes are sad substitutes for the real thing.

Real salt is what is needed. Real salt is what every person wants. And like the tiny mustard seed that becomes a tree-sized bush, and like a mere pinch of yeast that makes a whole fifty pounds of flour rise, a dash of salt makes all the difference in the world to your palate. Without it a meal is mere nutrition. Without salt a meal is just chewing and swallowing.

Only in four verses in the Bible does Jesus speak of salt. But these four little verses, like salt itself, make all the difference.

^NET Matthew 5:13 "You are the salt of the earth. But if salt loses its flavor, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled on by people.

^NET Mark 9:49 Everyone will be salted with fire.

^NET Mark 9:50 Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with each other."

^NET Luke 14:34 "Salt is good, but if salt loses its flavor, how can its flavor be restored?

From these four verses I glean four meanings:

1. People, including you, are the salt of the earth. That’s the way God made you. You were born the opposite of bland. You are the spice of Life. You season the world. You are the salt in God’s recipe.

2. But you can lose your God-given saltiness. Un-salty salt isn’t salt. Un-salty salt can’t fix bland. Bland is useless. Bland is trash. Bland belongs in Gehenna. Un-salty people may be living, but they aren’t alive.

3. Having salt in yourself is inseparable from being at peace in your relationships. Life and peace walk hand in hand. It’s God’s covenant promise and gift.

4. Everyone will be salted with fire because the Spirit will be poured out on all flesh. (Then afterward I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Joel 2:28)

I could write here about being a spirit-filled person. I could list spiritual gifts, as Paul did in 1 Corinthians 12, and I could define them: wisdom, knowledge, faith, etc. I could list the fruits of the spirit, as Paul did in Galatians 5:22-23, and I could define them: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. But I’d rather salt this paragraph with a picture everybody recognizes, even if you aren’t a cook. Let’s go into the kitchen and ask the cook about salt.

I have a friend who is a great cook; she should have her own show on the Food Channel. I asked her about salt. She said that salt brightens. It enhances what‘s already there. Salt brings out the natural goodness. In pickling, she said, salt draws out the juices leaving a concentration of flavors. It’s the base of any seasoning mix. You don’t even make cake without salt, she said, or it will be bland.

Folks, salt is the only cure for blandness. Salt is no mere additive. It is the spice of Life. Salt is Jesus’ poetic word for Life’s richness and zest. Life is what he came to give.

John 10:10 “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly."

John 10:28 ²⁸ "And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish . . .”

So Jesus says that you are the salt of the earth. He says everyone is salted with fire. He says have salt in yourself, and be at peace. Is he talking about literal salt? Again, no. He’s contrasting being spiritually alive and being spiritually dead. Salt-ness is Life. Blandness is death. Salt is his gift of Life to the world, for he claims the he is the way, the truth, and the Life.

 

There is no such thing as a bland Christian. That’s an oxymoron. Blandness is spiritual death. Spiritual death is self-obsession, self-importance, self-exaltation, self-righteousness, and self-imposition on others. Spiritual death is blind, unaware, oblivious, and insensitive. Blandness (spiritual death) is everywhere. But salt (Life) makes all the difference. And all it takes is a pinch.

Paul wrote only once about salt. He advises to have salt in your conversations.

^NRS Colossians 4:6 Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer everyone.

What could he mean but that gracious words are seasoned with salt, with Life and peace? No phony, artificial, bland religious jargon. But wonderful words of Life. Oh that our churches were filled with salty speech as Paul advised.

On the other hand, let’s keep it real. Were I you, I’d be on the lookout for the Bland Patrol from hell. They’re in our churches. Bland Christians (there’s really no such thing) attack people who have salt (because the bland are always blind). They hate the Life and liberty that is in you. The Patrol will be suspicious of you if you won’t wear their pseudo-holiness straightjacket, a repressed and rigid beige code of conduct born of a restrictive dull, flat, and tasteless religiosity.

The Bland Patrol is watching you. And their officers are probably the most religious people you know. I don’t know of a greater irony and tragedy than the predominant protestant, Christian voice in our culture, modern evangelicalism, is a child of Phariseeism. Too many of them are blind, bland religionist suspicious of anyone with light and liberty. They oppose Jesus and do it in Jesus’ name. The majority of the Pharisees did the same thing to Jesus and his followers. They opposed them in the name of God believing they were doing God’s will.

^ESV John 16:2 They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God.

Jesus said that the Pharisees were mwroi. kai. tufloi, , which means “moronic and blind.” They see themselves as God’s gift to the world, but they are his enemies and don’t know it. With ironic humor and biting sarcasm Jesus said of the religious Bland Patrol of his day:

^NRS Matthew 15:14 “Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if one blind person guides another, both will fall into a pit."

And Jesus hit them right between their blind eyes:

John 9:39-41 Jesus said, "I came into this world for judgment (krisis) so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.” ⁴⁰ Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, "Surely we are not blind, are we?" ⁴¹ Jesus said to them, "If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, 'We see,' your sin remains.

The Bland Patrol always presumes to see what is Godly and what is not, who is Godly and who is not. People enjoying Life and liberty are not Godly to their eyes. The institutionalized, zippered Bible, humorless, falsely humble, attendance pin wearing, hall monitoring religionists are Godly to their own eyes. The Pharisees asked him, You’re not calling us blind are you, Jesus? And Jesus replied, Yes, because you think you can see.

Jesus’ perspective on spiritual seeing is that the beginning of sight is the recognition of blindness. The problem with the Pharisaic Bland Patrol is that because they can’t see their darkness, they assume they are the light. This is not just sad. It’s dangerous. It leads to crucifixions of innocent people. The result is an arrogant, boastful airline in which every single pilot is blind and ready for takeoff.

Where are the Pharisees today? They’re where they always are in every generation. They are the officers and the ordained in religious institutions—churches and seminaries included.

Don’t worry about them, however, advises Jesus. They’re destined for the ditch. Focus instead on the log in your own eye. See clearly what’s dragging you into Gehenna. It’s better to be drowned or to endure amputation, said Jesus, than to be bland, to be without salt—the abundant and inexpensive spice of Life in the fire of the Spirit.

It’s about fire either way. Choose the altar of Christ or Gehenna. It’s the fire of destruction or the fire of the Spirit. It’s a salty peace or a bland hell. So far as I know, the only ingredient that fixes blandness is salt.

For more on Jesus' parables see my blogs The Absurd Parable of the Unforgiving Slave, The God Who Gambles, Parable of the Vine and Branches, The Crooked Manager, The Friend at Midnight, Heaven Is Like a Crazy Farmer, He Speaks Of . . ., Salted With Fire, Talking Sheep and Goats, Is Your Eye Evil?, Two Prodigals and Their Strange Father, The Lazarus Parable Is Not About the Afterlife,and Jesus Used Parables Like a Sieve.

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The Father Judges No One -- 1

Adapted from Chapter 3 of “Heaven for Skeptics” © 2009 by Bert Gary for FaithWalk Publishing

Will the Father judge me?

Arguably the most shocking thing Jesus ever said was . . .

John 5:22 “The Father judges no one . . .”

Let that sink in. When the reality of it hit me a few year ago, it kicked me in the teeth. Hard. What was I feeling? Befuddlement? I’d been told all of my life that God is my judge. If God is my judge, then how can he not judge? What Jesus said didn’t make sense. The Father judges no one?

Really reading it for the first time and realizing what it said made me feel stuck. A Christian for decades, and apparently I didn’t understand judgment. Worse, I was sure that I had God wrong. Who is Jesus’ Father if not my judge? What does he do if not judge me? And if he doesn’t judge me, who does? What is judgment? And how does it work?

I think it’s fair to say that we Christians tend to see God as a distant watcher and judge who will determine—based on individual human performance at being good and praying “the sinner’s prayer” with sincerity—who will get to “go to” heaven or hell when we die. My sense is that modern evangelicals everywhere believe and preach and teach this. (Am I wrong?) Yet, there is this verse. There is this claim Jesus makes about his Father in John 5:22 that is clear and uncompromising. This question still haunts me: Why is it so difficult to see God as anything but a judge?

Perhaps we should read the rest of the verse. Maybe that will fix things.

John 5:22 “The Father judges no one . . . but has given all judgment to the Son . . .”

Jesus claims, via John’s Gospel, that the Father has given away his intention to judge. Obviously he has the power to judge, and the right to judge. After all, he’s God the Father! But apparently he has neither the desire nor the intent to judge directly. Yes, the Father could judge, but he decided not to handle it himself. He emptied himself of that power, handing it over to his Son completely. This humble transfer of power—from Father to Son—is consistent with the character of the Father, showing his humble, deferential nature. The Father confidently and entirely entrusts to the Son all matters concerning judgment. That task has been delegated, so say the Scriptures, and not just John’s Gospel. In the Book of Acts, Paul concludes his sermon to the intellectuals in Athens by saying,

Acts 17:31 “[God the Father] has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” (italics mine)

Will the Son judge me?

So obviously you are considering now the possibility that the Son, rather than the Father, will judge you. Millions of Christians would likely agree with you. But John again tells us that’s not quite right. Yes, the Son is the one who had the authority to judge. But what does the Son do with all that power given him by authority of his Father? He does the same thing that his Father did. Jesus says that he will not judge you directly either.

John 5:45 “Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father.”

John 12:47a “I do not judge anyone who hears my words and does not keep them . . .”

John 8:15 “I judge no one.”

John 12:47b “. . . I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.”

Jesus gives away the power to judge just as his Father did. It seems that he and the Father are on the same page. Judgment is a power that neither the Father nor the Son intends to exercise directly. It is not their nature, their will, or their way.

A little legalist that lives in a dark, cold corner of my heart objects to this strenuously. If there’s no judge, how can people be held accountable? Without a judge where is the moral deterrent to keep people from rampant sin and evil? There is no reason to be good if there is no consequence for being bad.

If that’s what you believe, I understand. But first rest assured, biblically speaking, there is a judge. It’s just that judgment is not implemented directly by the Father or the Son. And second, let me answer the accountability question with a question. (Jesus often answered questions with questions; I enjoy trying to do the same.) Assuming that you are married, is the only reason you don’t cheat on your spouse that you’re afraid you’ll get caught? Hopefully not. If you are blessed with a good marriage, hopefully the reason you don’t cheat is because you love your spouse in a relationship based on trust. The Scriptures are telling us something similar about God and judgment. The Father and Son that John wrote about are not interested in using threat of judgment to deter bad behavior. They’re interested in a relationship of love based on trust. As author Wayne Jacobson wrote:

“Trust is not a choice (or decision). It is the fruit of your growing confidence in Father’s love for you.”

We’ve established biblically that the Father refuses to judge you and has passed on the power to judge to his Son. And we’ve established that the Son, having received that authority does as his Father did; he passes on that power. So you’re probably asking yourself, Who is the judge then? That’s the wrong question as it turns out. Ask instead, What is the judge? Ask, What is biblical judgment?

What is biblical judgment?

The original language of the New Testament is Koine Greek. The Greek New Testament word kri,sij krisis (pronounced KREE-sees) means judgment. The English word crisis is obviously derived from krisis. Let’s get to the heart of the matter. Let’s look at the most important biblical verse for understanding the meaning of judgment. The key verse of Christian Scripture containing this word is:

John 3:19 And this is the judgment (krisis), that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. (italics mine)

Jesus’ presence (not his direct pronouncement), John says, is the crisis, the judgment. I know the popular bumper sticker says, “Jesus is the answer,” but that is not a biblical quote. Biblically, Jesus is the crisis. And the 4^th Gospel is saying that Jesus was not only a crisis during his ministry, but that he is a continuing crisis today. And moreover, not just a crisis of the past and present, but he will always be a crisis, even until krisis day—judgment day (Matt. 10:15; 11:22, 24; 12:36; 2 Pet. 2:9; 3:7; 1 John 4:17). How so?

A roach scurries into the cracks when you turn on a light. I’m trying to illuminate John’s analogy with light. He is asking us to consider that Jesus’ truth is painful to humans, too painful for some. The exposure of their lives in the light of truth hurts like hell. Thus the crisis.

John 3:20-21 “For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. ²¹ But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”

Either you can stand the truth of the light and let it expose you, or you can run for cover. You can either stay in the light to walk through the pain to the point that you are willing to look at your secrets and grudges and faults and bitterness and brokenness and, for lack of a better word, sin so that you can experience healing and forgiveness. Or, like most of us probably most of the time, you can strap on your fig leaf and hide from him, from yourself, from everyone.

Jesus said he was the truth. (“I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” John 14:3) John’s point is that the truth is fine when it works in your favor or exposes someone else. But when it exposes your dirty laundry---not just to others but to you yourself? Well now, that’s not fun. When the light of day finds your hideaway, do you know what you’ve got on your hands? Exposure---a crisis of major proportions. Now that’s biblical judgment (krisis). But there’s a little more to it.

The high priest in the Jewish Temple, on the Day of Atonement, slaughtered one goat and drove an identical goat out into the wilderness. The second of the two, the one driven away, is called the scapegoat (Azazel). This two-goat ritual may have been practiced by Jews for over 1000 years. (Leviticus 16:15-22) Do you see how this is connected to judgment?

John 12:31 “Now is the judgment (krisis) of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out.” (italics mine)

By “now” Jesus meant “his hour” was at hand. Jesus was seen by the early church as the true High Priest who drives out the old goat, Satan. The judgment, in John’s Gospel, is certainly the presence of Jesus’ exposing light of truth. But judgment is concentrated on the hour of the Passover sacrifice itself, which is simultaneous with Jesus’ crucifixion. This is the hour of crisis, says John. Not just any hour, but the hour that the liar, Satan, is exposed by the truth, Jesus. In the Gospel of John, Jesus’ Passover sacrifice of himself is referred to repeatedly as “the hour” or “his hour.”

John 7:30 Then they tried to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him, because his hour had not yet come. (italics mine)

John 12:23 Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. (italics mine)

John 13:1 Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. (italics mine)

John 17:1 "Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, . . .” (italics mine)

He called it “my hour.”

John 2:4 And Jesus said to [his mother], "Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come." (italics mine)

Here the Fourth Gospel claims that Jesus’ “hour,” the time for his sacrificial death, is both the judgment/crisis of the whole world, and the driving out of the ruler of this world (the adversary, the accuser, the evil one, the liar and the father of all lies, Satan). Here is another key passage:

John 12:31-32 “Now is the judgment (krisis) of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out.” ³² And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself." (bold underline mine)

The “now moment” of krisis/judgment IS the crucifixion of Jesus. And the cross of Christ has a double effect, says John.

1. It draws all the children of the world unto Jesus (12:32).

2. It drives the ruler of this world out (12:31).

Let’s have a go at what this cross crisis really means.

First, by drawing all people unto him, Jesus presents each person with a crisis. There is no neutrality. Either you like being near a God who takes away everybody’s sin Scott free, or you think that’s horribly misguided. Either you want to dance at the universal atonement party to which all manner of reprobates are invited (Not universalism. See my blogs: “You're Saved” and “A Country Fried Parable.”), or you’ll simply refuse to have fun with all those filthy sinners around. There’s your krisis/judgment.

Second, and at the same critical moment, by driving the evil prince out, people no longer have an accuser. (The name Satan means adversary. Revelation 12:10 calls him the accuser of humanity.) So simultaneously, now with no accuser and with the sin of the world taken away, there is nothing separating humanity from the Father but death. But, of course, the Scriptures show that the Father thinks of everything. There’s a plan to defeat death too. The image of the evil one being driven out will be joined with the grave being driven out.

1 Corinthians 15:26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

It is Jesus’ resurrection from the dead (as a promise of our own resurrections) that accomplishes the destruction of death, which brings us to the subject of life.

John 14:6 “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”

So how does biblical judgment really work?

The Father will not judge you. And the Son will not judge you. Perhaps you’ve already guessed who, or I should say what will judge you, biblically speaking. It’s the presence of life. Life eternal is the final judgment (krisis). Let’s lay it out.

Jesus is recorded as saying that “the word” (he calls it “my word”) he spoke will be your judge on the last day:

John 12:48b “. . . on the last day the word that I have spoken will serve as judge, . . .” (italics mine)

No need to wonder if Jesus is going to explain what the mysterious “word” is that will stand in for the Father and him on judgment day. He comes right out and tells us what it is, as recorded again by the author of John’s Gospel. It’s a word he says is directly from the Father. I suggest you read this and ponder it before you continue.

John 12:49-50 “. . . for I have not spoken on my own, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment about what to say and what to speak. And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I speak, therefore, I speak just as the Father has told me." (italics mine)

That’s pretty straightforward, isn’t it?

1. The Father will not judge you directly.
2. The Son will not judge you directly.
3. On the last day the word that the Son spoke will judge you on behalf of the Father and Son.
4. The Father commanded that the Son should speak that word.
5. The word the Father commanded the Son to speak is eternal Life.

From here on out I will capitalize Life when the word refers to the Life that Jesus gives and the word of Life that judges. Jesus was commanded by his Father to proclaim Life that is eternal, and that word—Life (Jesus called it “my word”)—serves as final judge. It’s as if Jesus is saying, For judgment now and on the last day, I’m just going to keep letting you bump up against Life and see what it does to your circuits.

Life eternal

OK. So what, you may be wondering, is eternal Life? Is it living forever? Is it an afterlife destination? The way the concept is often misused has left a lot of people confused. So let’s define the term before we look at how it works.

“Eternal Life” gets thrown around a lot in Christian circles, especially modern evangelical circles. It seems to be assumed by those who use it that they know what it means. And it is biblical. All four gospels and the Book of Acts use the expression. You’ll find it in five letters attributed to the Apostle Paul (Romans 2:7, 5:21, 6:22, 6:23; Galatians 6:8; 1 Timothy 1:16, 6:12; Titus 1:2, 3:7). It’s also found in 1 John (1:2, 2:5, 3:15, 5:11, 5:13, 5:20) and in Jude 1:21. That’s a lot. So, yes, biblically speaking, eternal Life is important. But what does it mean?

I’ll wager that the most common belief among Christians is that eternal Life is our future existence in heaven when we die. This definition has been ingrained in me from pulpits and Sunday school classrooms, by TV evangelists and everyday use of the phrase. What else could eternal Life be but a reference to the afterlife? It seems everyone assumes that that is what it is. It’s the place you go when you die.

Are you convinced?

I’m not.

In spite of the previous assumptions you might have, there’s a lot more to this “eternal Life” biblically speaking. We should begin with that---the Bible. Jesus defined it:

John 17:3 And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

Knowing the Father and the Son is eternal Life. It’s a relationship. How much clearer could Jesus have been?

Another real clarifier of this whole issue is this quote from the lips of Jesus, again from the Gospel of John:

^NET John 5:28-29 “Do not be amazed at this, because a time is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice ²⁹ and will come out--the ones who have done what is good to the resurrection resulting in life, and the ones who have done what is evil to the resurrection resulting in condemnation.”

The New Testament insists there is a final day of resurrection when all people are raised, and some of those people will have Life. But note that everybody is raised on the last day. That’s what Jesus said.

Are all these terms starting to run together? That’s because it’s all of one piece! “Eternal Life” is used alternately with the phrase “inherit the kingdom” and the term “resurrection.” For example, in the Parable of the Talking Sheep and Goats (Matthew 25:31-46), the sheep are said to inherit the kingdom and enter eternal Life:

Matthew 25:34 Then the king will say to those at his right hand (the sheep), 'Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom . . .

Matthew 25:46 . . . the righteous (the sheep) [enter] into eternal life."

Let’s keep it simple. There are three things that are really important if you want a biblical understanding of the kingdom of heaven, eternal Life, and resurrection.

First, there is a now-ness and a not-yet-ness to all three, biblically speaking. The kingdom of heaven is among us and within us here and now, and yet it won’t come in its fullness until the last day. Eternal Life is ours already here and now, and yet we have not yet inherited it in its fullness and won’t until the last day. The human race is already dead and risen and ascended with the Son, and yet we have not and won’t rise completely (bodily) until the last day.

Second, these three are inseparable. The kingdom of heaven that comes in its fullness on the last day equals eternal Life given in its fullness on the last day, which itself equals resurrection of everyone bodily from the dead. On the last day the forgiven who want to be forgiven (more on that coming up) are raised bodily for Life eternal in his coming heavenly kingdom.

Third, these three are present now and forever in Jesus. Life was his message, yet he said that he is the Life. Because he is Life, he speaks Life. He is his message. The gift of Life isn’t given because of or from Jesus. The Life he gives is not distinct from his person. He is what he speaks. He is Life; Life is in him.

^NET John 1:4 In him was life, and the life was the light of mankind.

1 John ..5:11.. And this is the testimony: God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.

So, eternal Life biblically speaking is bigger than a future end-time destination. Much bigger. You don’t have to wait to die. You can have it now.

John 3:15 “. . . whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” (italics mine)

John 5:24 “Very truly, I tell you, anyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life, and does not come under judgment, but has passed from death to life.” (italics mine)

John 10:10 “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” (italics mine)

John 5:39 "You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that testify on my behalf. ⁴⁰ Yet you refuse to come to me to have life.” (italics mine)

John 6:47 “Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life.” (italics mine)

So where do we get this eternal Life?

John 6:63 “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.” (italics mine)

John 6:68 Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life.” (italics mine)

John ..8:12.. Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life." (italics mine)

And why did Jesus say that he came?

John 10:10b “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” (italics mine)

John ..10:28.. “I give them eternal life, and they will never perish.” (italics mine)

John 14:6 Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” (italics mine)

Not only is his grace and good will toward you Life, not only does he give Life to everyone who has it, but he is Life. When he gives the kingdom of heaven, he gives Life; when he gives Life, he gives himself. In him we live and move and have our being (Acts ..17:28..). Adventurous Life is in him.

Life then is nothing if not a relational experience, says Scripture. It is a relationship that is Life rich and abundant. Anybody who has experienced relational joy, beautiful and sweet, has tasted eternity. I concur with my long-time friend Cary Stockett who says, “We are hard-wired at the factory for relationship.”

The following verses confirm this, and they summarize the gospel itself:

John 20:31 But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name. (italics mine)

John 11:25-26 Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" (italics mine)

Is it clear enough? Life is something that Jesus is and gives, now and forever. It’s relationship itself. It’s oneness in the one who is Life. By trusting him, according to Scripture, we truly live in the kingdom of God/heaven. Jesus scripturally, as you will continue to see, is the resurrection, the Life eternal, the presence of the kingdom of heaven, the place, Paradise, and home.

So how does Life judge?

Life’s judgment comes not from the Father or the Son, but from our No to Life. To put it personally, it’s as if Jesus is saying, I’m giving you Life, and you keep saying No. If this is the way it is, truly it’s not the Father or the Son that judge you directly. The judgment is in your response to the presence of Life—merciful, honest, revealing, exposing, forgiving Life—given to you up front without strings. Religion is always a deal. Life is always a gift.

I realize that if you wanted to, in your mind you could divorce Jesus from Life. You have Jesus stuff over here, and real life stuff over there. Sunday is divorced from the rest of the week. And church is separated from your office and the ballpark. This is missing the point biblically speaking. What we’re talking about here is Life—the whole shooting match. And the Scriptures say that Jesus can’t be divorced from life because he is Life. All of it.

Where does your passion for your wife or husband come from? What passion are you participating in when you lose yourself in lovemaking or music or dancing or baseball or stock cars or cooking? The Scriptures of the New Testament are clear. It’s Life real, rich, passionate, and abundant. We are all up in his Life already, though we too often fail to recognize it as such. We always have been in him. Where’s the proof of this, biblically speaking? Fasten your seat belt. Here we go.

Check out the first verses of John’s Gospel (immediately below). Life as we know it was created by “the Word,” upper case “W.” John’s Gospel not only declares that Jesus’ message [“the word” (lower case “w”) that he spoke which was Life] is the point here. He also calls Jesus himself the Word of God---the Word that created you and every living and inanimate thing. It’s often assumed that God the Father was the lone creator. What we have missed is that the New Testament insists that the creator of all things is God the Son, the Word of God, Jesus himself:

John 1:1-4 and 14 In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

² He was in the beginning with God.

³ All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.

What has come into being ⁴ in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.

¹⁴ And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth. (italics mine)

Do you get how radical the Scriptures are? No? Deal with this, then: Jesus made Jews. Jesus made Muslims. Jesus, the creative Word of God, according to the New Testament, made everybody and everything that existed, exists, or will ever exist.

The politically correct folks bristle at Jesus claiming in the Gospel of John that, “No one comes to the Father but by me.” (John 14:6) This is misinterpreted by many as meaning that only Christians can be in relationship with God. Wrong. It’s saying that because all people are made in and by and through the Word (Jesus), then whether they consciously know it or not, all people are relating to God the Father, and all are doing so in and by and through Jesus who is the Word of God and God the Son, the one who created everyone, the one in whom everyone lives. It’s not an exclusivist claim. It excludes no one. He created the universe, and his atonement includes the universe. In Jesus, creation and redemption are universal claims:

John 1:4 In him was life, and life was the light of all people. (italics mine)

John 1:9 The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. (italics mine)

John ..12:32.. “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth (on the cross), will draw all people to myself.” (italics mine)

1 John 2:2 . . . and he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. (italics mine)

[Continued in “The Father Judges No One - 2”]