The deep things of God

"The kind of faith Jesus invites us into doesn't skirt the big questions about topics like God and Jesus and salvation and judgment and heaven and hell, but takes us deep into the heart of them." --LOVE WINS Rob Bell

I suppose we are all designed to have an inquiring heart - Jesus himself was found asking questions in the temple when he was 12 years old. It looks like Jesus understands our innate hunger and thirst for the deep things in life, and in this respect, the kind of faith Jesus invites us would involve deep questions about God, Jesus, salvation, judgement, heaven and hell. I remember Jesus challenged his disciples to answer his question "who do you say that I am?" I believe he would want every one in every generation to think about this question as well because it is a key to finding answers to those big questions. It is also a question that each person has to answer for oneself and not go by what others say about him.

I am reflecting that we all have the spirit who is the candle of the Lord, searching the deep things of God, like the woman sweeping the whole house for that lost coin. I understand Jesus' question in terms of knowing his true identity, which in turn is about knowing ourselves. As Aristotle put it, knowing ourselves is the beginning of all wisdom. Hence, when we know who Jesus is, we know our true self and origin.

When we see our true identity in the image and likeness of Christ, we see God, for he who has seen him has seen the Father. Thus we see ourselves as one with the Father, as Jesus is one with him. Thus knowing ourselves, as I understand it, is the beginning of wisdom to find our own answers to the other big questions on salvation, judgement, heaven and hell.

At this point of my journey, I see salvation in terms of awakening to our innocence and know who I really am. Judgement to me is a matter of evaluating my value and worth in the light of my true identity - this is the boldness we have in the day of judgment, for as he is, so are we in this world.

Heaven is the state of being when we are like little children, not knowing good or evil, who simply live in the warm embrace of the presence of love, and living in the present. Jesus said to the religious Jews that unless they become like little children, they will by no means enter (or experience) the kingdom of heaven. He also said the kingdom of heaven does not come by observation but is within us.

Hell, as I have learnt, is simply a state of ignorance, as Jesus said to Peter that upon the rock of our true identity he will build the church (who are called out of darkness) and the gates of hell (ignorance) shall not prevail against the church. We shall awake from the illusion of separation and overcome fear, guilt and condemnation.

It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, and it is the glory of man to search out a matter, as proverbs says. The kind of faith Jesus invites us would involve searching out the deep things of God and in the process, we discover more about ourselves, which will determine the quality of our life on earth, such as how much of heaven we will experience on earth, as in how we all can live a life of love, grace and acceptance.

My response to the video "What happens after I die?"

The following notes are written in response to the video on "What happens after I die?"

When we die, our body returns to the ground and our spirit goes back to be with God. (Eccleciastes 12:7)

Heaven and hell are metaphorical, because Jesus said the kingdom of heaven is in each of us.

The word “hell” is actually not in the original languages of the Bible. The Hebrew word is “sheol”, meaning “grave”.
The Greek words are “Gehenna”, “tartarus” or “hades”.
These words are used in the context of the end of the Jewish old covenant age in AD70.
Neither of them refers to the afterlife.

Bottomline: Jesus did not die to save us from a so-called “hell” and go to “heaven”. He came to save us from the illusion of separation and show us we are already one with God.

God is love, and love keeps no records of wrongs, and love never fails. This is the foundation of our gospel (good news) of grace and peace.

"Be still and know I am God"

God is Love and we are God.

Love is who we are.

What the hell is the preacher talking about?

A preacher recently said that heaven and hell are real places, not metaphors. He claimed that Jesus described "hell" as having fires not quenched and worms not dying. He added that if heaven is a metaphor, then where is Jesus' present physical resurrected body today?

Then again, is not Jesus a Master of using parables and metaphors to bring His messages across, especially in the Jewish context? So, what makes one think that one parable is metaphorical and another parable literal?

For example, how can we claim that Jesus' speech about plucking out our eye if it offends us is metaphorical, and at the same time claim that when Jesus' speech about fire that is not quenched and worms that do not die is literal?

So what is my take on the above passage? Well, simply this: Jesus was using metaphors to describe the "condemnation of gehenna" experienced in the conscience of the unbelieving Jews during the destruction of the Jerusalem in AD70. And nope, Jesus' resurrected body isn't in a place called heaven - He is living in each of us. It is called "Christ in you, the hope of glory". We are all already seated together with Christ in the heavenly places, right here right now.

Those who preach the doctrines of hell continue to terrorize the minds of little children on a daily basis, and tragically, these preachers will continue to get away with abusing the minds and lives of impressionable little children until we stop the abusers. ~ Michael W. Jones

Resource links:
Jesus' teaching on hell (Tentmaker)
Bible Threatenings Explained (Tentmaker)
Are heaven and hell real places? Where is Jesus’ body today?

‘Hell’ is a Misunderstood Concept in Christianity

Someone asked in Yahoo Answers this question: “Do you believe in hell?” The following is a very good answer that is based on sound Biblical interpretation and historical research.
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‘Hell’ was a borrowed term from pagan tradition by Roman Catholic Church during the reign of Constantine.

In the Bible, the term ‘hell’ was mistranslated by the translators. So yes, it is an invention of the Church empire for the purpose of controlling of masses.

As for ‘heaven’, the apostle Paul stated it in Ephesians 2:6 that the entire Human race has been raised to heavenly places IN Christ Jesus. As in Adam all die, so in Christ ALL and the entire human race will be made alive as they come to knowledge of Christ. And it is my conviction that hell or heaven is in one’s consciousness. When the apostle John mentioned heaven in Rev 21:1, “a new heaven and a new earth” is not referring to terrestrial or celestial bodies, etc. Rather he was talking about ‘covenantal transition’ – the ending of the Old Covenant Mosaic world of sin and sacrifice and the coming in of the endless New Covenant age of mercy and GRACE – the ages to come, a “world without end” Eph 3:21; Isa 9:7; Isa 54:17.

I encourage everyone (NOT ONLY YOU) to not buy into the popular Church idea that “If you believe in Jesus you will go to heaven, and if you don’t believe in Jesus you will go to hell” — it is the most ridiculous idea that has been sold to us by the man behind the Curtain. The Bible says that when we die, the body returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it (Ecclesiastes 12:7). We don’t go to heaven or hell. That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard in my life and there is nothing spiritual about it. It is all Pagan. The Christian religion set back history at least by 2000 years. We think the way people in Old Testament time thought because of the lie that we have been told all our lives.

You know what is the negative side of it all? Hell is nothing but ignorance or the absence of the love of God. Jesus said, “And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of HADES (most translations say ‘hell’) will not overcome it”. So, what is ‘hell’ in this context? Ignorance, living in the absence of love and grace and darkness is ‘hell”, so Jesus was telling Simon, “Son of Jonah, I tell you, you are Peter, son of God, upon this rock (UPON THIS UNDERSTANDING OF WHO YOU ARE IN CHRIST) I will build My church.” (petros = a portion of rock from petra = a mass of rock) A chip of the old block! The ekklesia is the expression of the fact that the son of man is the son of God, the fact that man began in God, and His image and likeness is redeemed in human form! So, hell is nothing but “Identity crisis”. In my opinion. Be Free!!=:)

(Adapted from Yahoo Answers)

Related links:
Hell is a Christian hoax
Has God been misrepresented by Christianity?
Bible Translations that Do Not Teach Eternal Torment

John 14 What did Jesus mean when He said that He is the Way, the Truth and the Life?

What did Jesus mean when He said that He is the Way, the Truth and the Life, and no one comes to the Father except through Him? (John 14:6) For too long, the evangelical church has been using the verse to say that Jesus is the only way to go to heaven. It is about time we question this interpretation. I believe everyone will be with God after they die because our spirit will return to Him who gave it. (Ecclesiastes 12:7) The good news is actually about knowing that God is our loving Father.

I remember Peter Youngren taught that “Jesus is God, and comes from God, to show us what God is like.” I tend to agree with that, but at the same time, I also recognise that every society and culture at different eras of history may have their own understanding of God/gods, and I do think these beliefs have their place too.

Someone wrote: “I believe that there is one God, and He and His messages are just interpreted in different ways.”

So, my take on this subject is that when Jesus said He is the way, the truth and the life, He was speaking to His disciples – the Jews back then had a different idea of what God is like because they only saw a glimpse of His true nature in the old testament/Jewish scriptures. So Jesus told them He is the revelation of God as the Father who loves them. (Not just Elohim/Creator or Yahweh/Covenant-keeping Lord or El Shaddai/All-Providing One) Jesus said, “He who has seen me has seen the Father”, and He affirmed to His disciples that they had indeed seen the Father because they had seen Him.

Jesus said to His disciples, “From now on, you know Him and have seen Him” (John 14:7). Amazing – the disciples were still alive when they saw the Father (through seeing Jesus). They had not died yet. So definitely John 14 isn’t talking about Jesus is the only way to go to heaven after people die, unlike what most evangelical preachers would have us believe.

To me, Father (or Abba) is the intimate expression of family love that is also self-sacrificial, unconditional and universal.

When Jesus told His disciples to go into the world to preach the gospel, I believe the great commission was already accomplished. According to some preterist views, all things have been fulfilled by AD70. The apostle Paul wrote “my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ… has been made known to all nations”, which took place before AD70. Since AD70, I believe Christ is in everyone, for the Holy Spirit has been poured out on all flesh in the last days (of the old covenant age). Maybe the good news to share with people today is simply about the mystery that has been made known to the Gentiles: Christ in you, the hope of glory. Yes, the good news is not about going to heaven or being saved from a place called hell.

As for gospel campaigns, I would say maybe it is not really wise or advisable to go to another country where christianity is opposed (and risk offending the people and risk being harmed by the extremists). It is ok if people in a region are open to the gospel, otherwise I think it is best to leave them alone and continue in their own belief system, and go elsewhere to preach. Sometimes, people fare better in terms of living in peace and harmony when they are comfortable with their native religions (whether native american spirituality or buddhism or new age or hinduism).

To me, any belief that promotes peace, love, compassion, harmony and freedom, and doesn’t create any sense of fear, guilt and condemnation, or a sense of separation from God or from one another, is one that is in line with God’s nature and desire for all humankind. Perhaps God himself is so diverse that He cannot be contained in any one religion or belief system, and it is up to each individual to choose which is best for them or most comfortable for them. “All things are permissible but not all things are beneficial” is probably a good guiding principle for me when comes to choosing a particular belief system – I would say that love and freedom (with responsibility) would serve as a good foundation for my choice of an ideal belief system (which happens to align with the teachings of Jesus or the gospel, but I’m open to learning from other religions too). After all, the whole law is summed up in this: “Love your neighbour as yourself”, for love does no harm to a neighbour. Others may have their own reasons for choosing a particular faith, or not to subscribe to any at all, but remain open-minded to people’s belief systems or philosophies, and that is fine with me (and I believe with God too).

(Adapted from Yahoo Answers)

P.S. A friend of mine, Leigh, recently shared with me that he was feeling kind of silly that he used to think he was bought by the church, rather than realising that Jesus had already bought him and ALL the people of the world. I can relate to that because we were all blinded in the past. Thank Abba for opening our eyes to see that Jesus is the Saviour of the world – indeed, He is the Saviour of ALL men. (1 Timothy 4:10)

Related links:
Christians and others, What is your opinion about cultural relativism and Jesus being one among other Gods? (Yahoo Answers)
“Are We Really Hiding Behind Our Religions?” By E. Raymond Rock

Some Reflections on a Trinitarian View of the Cross

The following is a very interesting article by Bill Nieporte, which refutes the penal substitution view of the cross in a positive way. I can relate to this article because like the author, I used to subscribe to the penal substitution view of the cross, and later realised that this view faces several problems. I think he summarised the main problems of that view well, such as the triune God – the Father, Son and Holy Spirit – is not separated from Himself or one another, and the fact that Jesus came as a revelation of God as our loving Father.

After all, in the past few years, I have listened to preachings like this: “Yes, God is love, but God is also just. God hates sin and has to punish sinners, so God punished His Son on our behalf at the cross.” Or “Yes, God is our Father, but God is also a Judge. As a Father, He wept for His Son, but as a Judge, He had to turn His back and forsake His Son at the cross – He was forsaken by the Father so that you and I will be accepted by the Father.” I have accepted this view without much questioning in the past, because the preachers sounded convincing in the way they presented this view of the cross. It was also a popular view, as it seemed to be widely accepted by people among the evangelical christian circles.

I guess the penal substitution view might even sound logical to most people because we tend to equate our human sense of justice with God’s idea of justice. In most (if not all) societies, the law court would impose on an offender some form of punishment, such as fine, jail or death penalty, depending on the severity of the crime. But this punishment is mainly retributive and serves as a deterrent for others – it is neither remedial nor restorative. The judge also gains nothing out of it. God, on the other hand, has a different view of justice – He judges on behalf of the poor, the downcast, the oppressed, and the sinners. God is love, and His justice must be viewed from the perspective that His nature is love — love wants the best for us.

So who did God judge at the cross? Not us. Not His Son. I believe God judged the devil, who is the accuser of the brethren, and he is none other than our guilty conscience, so that today, our conscience can no longer condemn us or make us think God is angry with us or out to punish us. God saves us from wrong thinking (which began in the garden of Eden), by sending His Son to open our eyes to the truth of the gospel – through His finished work at the cross, He has cleansed our conscience so that we can have the boldness and freedom to fellowship with God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit who is all the while with us and for us. We can boldly and freely enjoy the warm fellowship and love with the triune God in our daily life.

“The reason I am ‘hung up’ on this (as you put it) is that I am passionate about biblical theology. What is advocated by those who hold ‘penal substitution’ view of redemption is a hermeneutic that is imposed on the scripture from the outside. It does not rise up from the text. I once believed otherwise – but as I have more carefully studied the Bible – I am no longer able to accept the schizophrenic view of God that teaches that Father was dumping anger or wrath out on Jesus when he was on the cross. My foundation has been a renewed understanding and appreciation for the biblical doctrine of the Trinity.

The ‘penal substitution’ view is in error in that it divides God into parts differing personalities, rather than a Triune who share the same nature (LOVE). The early church fathers referred to this as perichoresis – a Greek term that means ‘cleaving together.’ It describes the fellowship (Baxter Kruger calls it ‘the Divine dance’) that exists between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as they embrace and infuse each other. This is more than just intimacy and self-sufficiency. It is also the understanding that the Father, Son, and Spirit are one in being. Karl Barth considers the  doctrine of the Trinity so important that it became the lynchpin of this entire theology. In fact, the doctrine of the Trinity (Barth referred to the ‘one in threeness’ and ‘three in oneness’ or God) was the prolegomena of his systematic theology.

Here is where the problem lies. The idea that one part of God could be angry at us and the other loving toward us is contrary to this core biblical doctrine of the Christian faith. The idea that Father could in any way pour out anger or wrath on Jesus in anathema to a good Trinitarian, as it cuts up the Godhead into separate entities, rather than affirming the unity of the Godhead. This is unbiblical.

Compounding this biblical error is that it serves as a basic denial of the doctrine of the Incarnation which teaches us that Jesus was the perfect expression of the Father in human form (see Hebrews 1:3). In Jesus, God is seen not as some wrathful God of vengeance who must be appeased. Rather God is full of compassion and mercy, as witnessed in Jesus.
What Trinitarians advocate is that the place from which to understand scripture and all doctrines of the Christian faith is by looking at the love and kindness of Jesus, who came to reveal what God was really like (as John 14:9 says, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.”) Those who work from a ‘penal substitution’ view say that the discussion about the nature and identity of God begins with ‘the law’ and not with Jesus. In fact, ‘penal substitution’ draws the attention so much to ‘the law’ that even God must submit to its dictates. In this view, God is so uptight about sin (disobedience against the law) that God MUST punish lawbreakers. So, then, the two hermeneutical principles that inform my interpretation of scripture are the doctrine of the Trinity and the conviction that the nature (DNA, if you will) of God is LOVE. Both these principles rise up from the scripture, where as the ‘penal’ view does not. So, while you may disagree with me, please don’t see my objection as merely a visceral discomfort with the notion of God’s ‘anger’ or ‘wrath.’ Rather these ideas (as they are understood from a ‘penal substitution’ viewpoint) are simply inconsistent with biblical theology.

So, then, the logical question is this: “If God was NOT pouring out wrath on Jesus as a penal substitution for us, then what exactly was happening at the cross?” The answer is that the cross is a unified expression of LOVE from our Triune God. Texts that affirm this include 2 Corinthians 5:19 and Hebrews 9:14 which together place Father, Son, and Holy Spirit together, on the cross, bringing all humanity the gift of salvation. Beyond all else, salvation is an invitation to participate in ‘the Divine dance’ (perichoresis).

As I said earlier, God is not schizophrenic. He does not suffer from a multiple-personality disorder. There is not a good guy God in a white hat named Jesus, and a mean God in a black hat called the Father. There is one Triune God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) who loves without condition and has not only forgiven us, but has removed sin from us, and has made a way for full participation in the love relationship the Godhead shares. The word Paul uses is ‘adoption.’ God becomes one of us in Jesus. God takes up our cause. God draws us into relationship. (Ephesians 1:4-5)

Now with this picture in mind, how do we see this concept of God’s wrath? God’s wrath is God’s anger at sin because it hinders our ability to have intimacy with God. As a parent, I have often been angry at my children’s behavior. But I have never stopped loving them. I have never disowned them. Jesus makes this exact point in Matthew 7:9-11, when he says, “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” The message of the cross under the ‘penal substitution’ view is that God is angry with you and poured out His wrath on Jesus. The message of the cross from a proper Trinitarian understanding of the scripture is that God loves you. That’s why we call it GOSPEL.”

- Bill Nieporte