The "Right" Interpretation

There are more than 33000 different Christian denominations. Each with their own specific interpretation of the bible and of what the truth is. This has obviously caused major splits in Christianity and divided and alienated many people, not to mention scar the image of Christianity.

Even as I grew in the faith, many contrasting  viewpoints were presented by different people, some I accepted and some I rejected and others and completely withstood and would fight against.

A while ago I came across a post where believers were arguing and discussing two opposing views on the cross. The one group were holding the view of penal substitution and the others were against that. Penal substitution is basically the doctrine where we believe that Jesus was punished by God for our sins, in a legal sense to get us off the hook. God had to punish someone for our sins, and in a sense required “blood” to be spilled to release forgiveness. And so Jesus took our place and was punished by God in our stead.

The other viewpoint is that it was not God that required blood to be spilled, but us as humanity. That the cross of Jesus was not God punishing Jesus on our behalf but rather Jesus going into the depths of our own sin, sickness, death and condemnation and taking it upon himself on our behalf. No punishment from God intended or needed.

While both of these points of view have merits and scriptural support, which one is right? The idea of penal substitution is a belief that has come a long way through history. A few centuries ago where justice and punishment for crimes were deeply ingrained into the consciousness of people, this idea would have made a lot of sense, would have been understood well and would set many people free from a sin consciousness. The idea of Jesus taking our death and sin upon himself without the punishment of God, would not have been understood or received as well by that same group of people, but would be much better received by people who did not have a background of liberation through justice per se.

I believe that the time of the law under Moses was a necessary pre-cursor to the cross. God had to meet sinful humanity where they were at, at a primitive spiritual understanding of the divine, and slowly walk with them through the ages of the law, and so doing, progressively reveal Himself to them until the fullness of Christ. The lamb of God was in fact slain before the foundation of the world but was only revealed at the right time…

What I’m trying to say is that what if the truth is both relative and absolute? What if God works with humanity’s understanding, albeit incomplete and obscured by our own sinfulness and blindness, to make the light of his love and ultimate truth still shine forth in a specific place and time in our lives? So what if both viewpoints earlier mentioned are correct. They are correct in the sense that God succeeded in liberating us from bondages through those doctrines. God hits a straight shot with a crooked club. He meets us were we are at and desires to liberate us from that which binds and blinds us at any cost! If you were liberated by the doctrine of penal substitution, wonderful! If you were liberated and given more freedom towards God by the other viewpoint, wonderful and hallelujah!

At the end of the day, God’s truth is not about which doctrine or interpretation of the scripture is the absolute correct one, but God’s truth is rather the unveiling of Himself as the personal liberator and as pure love and as The Truth. That is why 2 seeming opposing doctrines, both of which have their liberating qualities can both be true and bring us to this greater truth. The problem arises where we isolate our viewpoint or “smaller truth” and start to oppose everything that does not hold to that which liberated us, while not understanding that those you are opposing were liberated by their doctrine.

We have to see that truth is not a doctrine but a connection the giver of life himself, Jesus Christ. He himself is the final and authoritative Word of God. We must realise that doctrines taught to us, received by us unto liberation are not the final truth and will bring us step by step closer to the Word Himself. So after diving deep into the limited freedom that our doctrine has provided us with, we have to stand back and see that this journey doesn’t stop with an idea or a doctrine. The liberation doesn’t stop with one belief or understanding, our doctrines and we ourselves have to evolve and adapt as God progressively leads us to a better understanding of Himself through the Holy Spirit and scripture.

What if God deliberately included seeming contradictory points of view to capture the attention of as many possible, on both sides of the fence? (I am not referring here to selfish or deliberate evil interpretations.) What if we can also say of God, “I became all things to all men so that I might win some” as Paul said? God is love and desires to liberate us and show His love to us at the place and understanding we are at. Let’s fully receive what the Holy Spirit reveals in His time, while not holding too tightly, defending or opposing doctrines and ideas. Let us rather see them as stepping stones given in their time and place by God, to liberate us and bring us into a more spacious understanding of His nature with each new revelation.

The Journey

As we as Christians continue in our walk with God we go through certain trials and tribulations. All Christians who seek God will inevitably go through times of testing, twisting and refining. At the end of the day, we want to be like Christ. As Paul said : “I will not continue to labour until Christ is formed in you”. Paul’s passion and heart was to see the Christ that is already within you and I come out to the surface.

But how does this process work, how do we grow and go from glory to glory? Many on this path have deviated much from the path, many have completely left the path because of disappointment, unanswered prayer or expectations not being fulfilled. Where are you in this journey of Christ-likeness?

Before we begin the expression of this journey, we have to clearly show and see what the objective of God is. At the end of the day, It’s God working in us, not we working something in ourselves… We have to make this distinction. As many of us begin this journey with God, we have the wrong ideas and expectations of where we are supposed to end up - this just ensures for some more setbacks and struggles. If you are one of those who have left the path, or have wondered off and are reading this, you are much closer than you think!

To put it simply, the process of this journey is death. Death of what cannot inherit the Kingdom of God and consequently life to that which can. My self-righteousness cannot express God, my stubbornness and pride cannot either - it has to die and make place for Christ to live his life through me. It’s not just my bad or sinful traits that have to die, but the whole of ME! Andre has to make place for Christ! In the end the angels won’t sing, “Worthy is the Lamb and Andre”, they only worship the perfectly slain and righteousness lamb of God. 

At the end of the day, my perceptions of God has to die, my expectations have to die, my sinful desires have to die, my self-righteousness and pride has has to die… Alas, the whole of “ME” has to die to make place for the christ-man that is already born again in me.

Don’t stop reading now, there is good news! The whole mystery and glorious truth of the gospel is that when Christ died, YOU already died with Him! And when he was resurrected, you were already resurrected with Him! The process of dying is the process of recognising what is already dead, and recognising what is at life now!

Many Christians set out to crucify themselves, their own sinful nature… But imagine yourself on a cross. With your right hand you can hit one nail in each foot and probably with much luck hit in the nail on your left hand. But you cannot smack the nail into your own right hand… No, we cannot crucify ourselves, if we were able to, What did Jesus die for? Just as an example for us? No, Christ died FOR, in place or AS you and I. That is why Paul says in 2 Cor 5 that when one died for all, all died.

You see, the process is not killing yourself, but the end result is realising that you have been killed already and that there is a glory-man and woman already on the inside of me that does not have it’s own goodness, its own righteousness, its own holiness or its own glory and power but that this glory man and woman on the inside of me and you is a partaker of the nature of God. The new you and I has and shares the very same nature of God…

The process is one of discovery. A process of discovering our true nature and so doing discover our false and sinful nature. I can only realise I have been prideful if I have spent time with a truly humble person. In the same way I can only let go and cling to the christ-man in me once the holy spirit reveals the christ-man to me through the gospel.

The process is wonderful, and carries with it an easy, liberating yoke but our own stubbornness, pride, ideas and expectations will cause us much hurt the more we cling to them.

May we realise that the dead and fleshly “ME” cannot share in the glory and the nature of God, because it is incapable of doing so, and at the same time may we realise that Christ has already crucified that sinful state and at the same time made me a partaker of his divine glory as a brand new creation.

The process is not hard, long and laborious. No, if you think it is supposed to be that, then you are trying to do what Christ has already done for you. The freedom and the good news of the Gospel is an announcement that Christ has taken the process of death upon himself and included you and I in the package. We are recipients of his death and resurrection, no effort on my part involved but to see and trust in the work of God through Jesus and in me.

The Gospel in Job

The gospel can be found everywhere in the old testament and not only in the new testament. As I was reading the book of Job the other day - one of the best literature pieces in the bible, and some are of the opinion one of the oldest books in the Bible, I came across the good news of Jesus - the Gospel!

Job was a righteous man and was abundantly blessed, and Job and his friends believed that righteousness = blessings. The more righteous you are, the more you will be blessed. So when disaster struck Job, his first reaction was - I am a righteous man, why is this happening to me?

His friends argued that he must have done something wrong for God to punish him like this, while Job continued to defend himself. The majority of the book of Job is about this - Job defending his righteousness while not understanding why the bad stuff is happening, while his friends trying to show his unrighteousness. Both of them are assuming that righteousness = blessings and unrighteousness = curses. Does God play by those rules? In the old testament He indeed did as we are shown in Deuteronomy 28 and 29 - Your actions or obedience will determine your blessings or your curses. But this was for a specific purpose - to familiarise humanity very well with our own inability to earn through our own righteousness…

But here God takes a different approach to show Job that his own righteousness has nothing to do with why God is blessing or cursing him.

At the end of Job, God squashes Job’s pride with His majesty and Job’s self-righteousness is shown for what it is. Job answers : 

“I know that You can do everything, And that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You. You asked, ‘Who is this who hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, Things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. Listen, please, and let me speak; You said, ‘I will question you, and you shall answer Me.’ “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, But now my eye sees You. Therefore I abhor myself, And repent in dust and ashes.” Job 42 : 2-6 

At this point Job realised that God does whatever he wants and that God is not bound by man’s righteousness or lack of it. God is God and he gives because he is Good and not because man is good. 

This is the gospel in essence. The gospel magnifies the goodness of God in spite of and not because of man’s goodness. God’s heart has always been from the very beginning to bring us out from the yoke of slavery (our own righteousness) and put us under the light and easy yoke of Christ’s own righteousness!

May you and I let go of our own righteousness, stop defending it or fighting for it, or try to measure God's approval of us by it, may we rather embrace the righteousness of Jesus Christ!

The Ocean

As I write, in front of me, not in the far distance but relatively close by I am presented with a glorious beach and ocean… From my vantage point, in the middle of this spectacular view lies an intricate rocky ridge that stretches into the blue abyss. The ocean amazes and attracts us because of its mystery and consistency. Beneath the blue surface lies a mysterious world, unknown to us. We can only imagine and fantasise what lies beneath and beyond the horizon.

When I first moved here, the ocean mesmerised me and I was very excited to live right next to it (for someone who has lived his whole life 7 hours from the ocean) but as time went by I realised that the ocean slowly started to lose its wonder. It was still mysterious and attractive but not in the same way anymore. I guess its like that with any new thing, a car, a new house, a marriage… What first amazed us slowly loses its appeal.

The ocean didn’t change, but I did, the wonder and mystery of it is still there but I have lost perception of it. My perception of it changed and it ceased to amaze me because it had somehow become common to me. Even though the ocean can never be “common” my thought patterns and ingrained brain connections have become used to its own perception of it. So what Im trying to say is - I have become used to my view of the ocean and not the ocean itself…

So the other night I was left without peace in myself while reflecting about certain things that happened in the past and I realised that continual introspection is not the way to solve certain internal dilemmas. Instead I believe the holy spirit lead me again to the ocean. I just lifted my eyes from where I was and tried to put my attention on it, the waves, the sounds and the constant cadence, but I just could not do it without being pulled back into my own thoughts and struggles. I tried again and again, realising that I would have to view these unresolvable issues from an external point of view, because my own efforts and perception of the problem or the way to resolve it just wasn’t enough… 

I tried again to rest my attention on the ocean… I closed my eyes and started listening… Then I realised that the roaring waves were much louder than they usually were and that It had probably been like this for the whole day - I just wasn't aware of it. I missed it because I was used to it. My attention started to focus more and more on the ocean, under the moonlight I could see the waves over the rocky ridge going in different directions as they break over the rocks and it seemed that the sound of the waves came all the more closer with each break.

I realised that the ocean had a life of its own… Its unaware of me… I realised that this ocean in front of me is much bigger and more majestic than I am… I am dwarfed in its presence.

Something in me said - enough is enough, you’re wasting your time with this, get up and do something already… I looked away, thought of something to do, and just before I stood up, I gave one last look at the constant waves over the rocks and then within me I recognised it’s beauty again. The beauty that I saw when I first arrived here. I didn’t know what I saw, but the more stared at the constant rolling of waves under the moonlight the more I realised what the beauty was, that that I was feeling and seeing again…

The waves and the entire ocean, the sound each wave makes when it breaks over the rocks and breaks onto the beach - I realised that it was in full adoration and worship of God. As I realised this I realised that it had been worshipping God all along - with each and every wave and I was totally unaware of it. I was moping about some stuff while this majestic and unchartered ocean was worshipping the creator of all things all along. But now as I was recognising this, I was joining it in it’s worship of God. 

The ocean IS, it’s not trying to be. The ocean is reflecting the glory of God by just being what it was created to be. It is totally itself at it’s core and it is created as an instrument to worship God. The ocean cannot cease to worship God, it would have to cease to exist to stop. Everything it does is worship, there is nothing it can do that is not worship.

And as I was connecting through its worship I realised that I… and you too are instruments of worship. In our core and at a cellular level we are already magnificent worshippers of God. Every cell and every part of us reflects God and is in adoration towards Him. When you and I become aware of this we join in this bodily worship to God in our consciousness. We become aware of His magnificence, His presence his indescribable greatness, his imminence.

The ocean never lost its appeal, I lost sight of what it truly is. God has never left or withdrew His presence from me, I was merely dumbed down to the glory of it all.