Tag: Religion

Christian Prayer vs. Magic, Part 5

(This is the fifth and final post in my series comparing and contrasting Christian prayer with a magical worldview.  If you missed the previous posts, you can find links to them all in here in part 4.)

I would summarize the differences between the magical and the New Testament views of prayer like this:  Magic focuses on the manipulation of spiritual power in order to gain a measure of control over life’s circumstances.

One of the most notable features of ancient magical texts/prayers/spells/incantations is the frequency of words of command.  I offer two short examples from the book Ancient Christian Magic:

First, a spell for healing –

Osphe, Osphe, Osphe, Yosphe, Yosphe, Yosphe,

Bibiou, Bibiou, Bibiou

Yasabaoth Adonai, the one who rules over the four corners of the world,

In whatever I want – I, [supply name], child of [ supply name], —

Now, now, at once, at once!

Second, an incantation for the power of blessing and cursing –

Yea, yea, for I admonish you by your manner of going in and your manner of going out and your manner of going up and your manner of coming down, that you shall listen to the words of my mouth and you shall act in accordance with the actions of my hands in every work of mine – every one, whether love or hate, whether favor or condemnation, whether binding or loosening, whether killing or vivifying, whether assembling or scattering, whether establishing or overthrowing…

Notice the various elements discussed in previous posts:  the magician uses secret words, names and phrases, repetition, and words of command for the exact result desired.  Notice, too, the language of “binding” and “loosing” for the power of blessing and cursing others; language that many Christians use today for their supposed “control” over demonic forces.

These traits all fit with my earlier description of magic as Utilitarian, focused on Immediacy achieved by mastering proper Technique.

In these different ways, the magician became a Master in control of his/her medium. Some people practice to become master musicians, others master woodcarvers, magicians became masters at imploring the spiritual powers to accomplish what they desired.

Petitionary prayer was a method of spiritual control.

I hope it is obvious that the magical goals of power and control are antithetical to Jesus’ own priorities in prayer.

Christian prayer is always directed by the understanding that our heavenly Father is in control, not us.  Remember how Jesus taught the disciples to pray in (what we call) The Lord’s Prayer,

Jesus Alone in the Garden, painting by Mikhail Shankov

“Father in heaven, cause your kingdom to come, cause your will to be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

At his most desperate moment in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prayed, “Father, not my will, but your will be done.”

Whatever else may be involved, true Christian prayer begins by surrendering control to God.

We must stop trying to use prayer as a tool for getting what we want, when we want it, as we want it.  Because, frankly, we are all too stupid, narrow-minded, selfish and short-sighted to have the foggiest notion of what’s best for us, or what God’s plan may be for us at any given moment.

Recall that even the apostle Paul admitted that his prayer life was entirely dependent on the wisdom of the Holy Spirit because he didn’t understand how he ought to pray or what he ought to request.  Paul is wonderfully candid when he writes in Romans 8:26,

…the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through groans that words cannot express.

We do not know what we ought to pray for.

This is not an excuse to stop praying.  It an invitation to surrender our conspiracies at twisting prayer for pious manipulation.  I will often stop in the middle of my prayers when I am feeling particularly lost or confused and simply ask the Lord to hear the Spirit’s prayers for me and do whatever the Holy Spirit is requesting — through His “groans that words cannot express” — on my behalf.

No, that’s not a cop-out. It is learning to pray like Paul. It is praying like Jesus.

It is not an excuse to stop bringing our requests before God’s throne.  It is a reminder that our final request must always be a heartfelt “not my will, but your will be done.”

The Meaning of Holiness, Part 3 #religion #theology

In part 1 of this series covering the Biblical concept of holiness, I (hopefully) explained how understanding holiness begins by understanding the unique nature and character of God.  Holiness is fundamentally a theological category.  God is essentially holy as the One who is Wholly Other, incomparable, the one and only God.

Part 2 then explained the resulting relational dimension of holiness. People and places may become holy when God comes into contact with them. Ancient Israel is called a holy nation because God enters into a covenant relationship with them and only them.

Now, in part 3, the stage is set for understanding the ethical dimension of holiness.  Behavioral holiness, being set apart, being different, is the most common, popular definition of holiness.  And behavior is certainly an important component of holiness, but notice how much Biblical groundwork has been required for us to construct the necessary framework for understanding this ethical dimension properly.

We are finally in a position to grasp the apparent strangeness of a text like Leviticus 20:7:

“Consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am the Yahweh your God.  Keep my decrees and follow them. I am Yahweh, who makes you holy.”

What’s the deal?  If the Israelites became holy when God brought them into the covenant (i.e. I am Yahweh who makes you holy), then why do they need a warning about making themselves holy (i.e. consecrate yourselves and be holy)?  Are they already holy or not?

How can these two seemingly contradictory statements stand side-by-side in the same sentence?

“You are holy, so you must become holy.”  “Make yourselves holy because you are holy.”

It sounds contradictory…UNLESS you understand the multiple levels of meaning connoted by this word – holy/holiness.

Because our holy God is distinctive and unique (part 1), when he brings others into relationship with himself (part 2), he requires that they, too, become distinctive and unique like him (part 3).  So, Yahweh commands the Israelites:

 “Consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am Yahweh your God.  Keep my decrees and follow them.”

This is a repeated refrain throughout the Old Testament, especially in the book of Leviticus, sometimes called the book of holiness.  Here is a short list of further examples:

“I am Yahweh your God; consecrate yourselves and be holy because I am holy.” (Leviticus 11:44)

“I am Yahweh who brought you up out of Egypt to be your God; therefore, be holy because I am holy.” (Leviticus 11:45)

“Be holy because I, Yahweh your God, am holy.” (Leviticus 19:2)

God emphatically presents himself as the model of holiness.  For the Old Testament, the process of making oneself holy, of consecrating oneself, entailed obedience to the Torah, that is, the code of behavior given to Moses for members of the Sinai Covenant.

The Torah included a wide variety of elements that we would see as both cultic/ritual (e.g. what kinds of clothes to wear) and ethical (e.g. do not steal), although no self-respecting Israelite would have considered making a division between ritual and ethics.  As far as Moses, Aaron and every other Israelite were concerned, it was all ethics.

God’s people were expected to live unique, distinctive lives because their God was/is a unique, distinctive Person.  They were to be set apart just as the eternal Creator is set apart from his temporal creation.  And a central component of God’s holiness is his unique, divine character distinguished by personality traits like justice, righteousness, faithfulness, mercy, compassion, patience and love, etc.

Yes, God emphatically presents himself as the model of holiness, but God’s people cannot make themselves Wholly Other. (Please, don’t try.  It gets really creepy.)  But we can obey God’s call to emulate his character, to live among others in the same way that he chooses to live with us.

Thus, for God’s people to display his character, to make ourselves holy as God is holy, means that we too must live lives of justice, righteousness, faithfulness, mercy, compassion, patience and love – “being perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48).

So, holiness does eventually become a matter of ethics.

In a world characterized by injustice, unrighteousness, faithlessness, lack of mercy, absence of compassion, impatience and hatred, reflecting the holiness of God’s character will set God’s people apart as a unique community; a stark contrast to the status quo around us.  At least, that is the goal.

I believe that understanding this 3-step unfolding of holiness is crucial to a proper, Biblical Christian ethics.  By rooting our view of holiness positively in God and who God is, we are better able to cultivate a positive, rather than a negative, approach to godly behavior.

Typically, when conversations about holiness begin (rather than conclude, as I do here) with ethics we end up thinking negatively.  Becoming holy is a matter of what we don’t do.  “I don’t drink, and I don’t chew, and I don’t go with girls who do!” as the old saying goes.  Being different from the world around us becomes a primarily negative concern focused on prohibitions; a matter of not associating, not doing, not participating, not sharing in the concerns or behaviors of those around us.

Certainly, abstaining from evil is important if holiness is to mean anything.  But making these sorts of prohibitions the entry point into holiness is wrong Biblically and theologically.  It, therefore, leads to any number of wrong-headed, practical mistakes.  (Perhaps, most significantly, it has a horrible tendency to blind God’s people to the continued reality of God’s Image in every human being, no matter their misbehavior.  But this is an important issue for another day.)

For our purposes in this post, I will only mention one practical mistake:  a prohibitive view of holiness invariably teaches us to view life principally in terms of what we don’t do, who we aren’t.  That is, we are not like them.

That is grossly backwards and upside-down.  Holiness is intended positively to express who we are.  We are God’s people!  And so, we are like our God in the sorts of things we do, in how we love others, show mercy, remain faithful, always being compassionate and patient.

Thus, holy behavior is rooted in our identity as sinners saved by God’s grace.  Only in a derivative sense is holiness concerned with not being like others.  Holiness is first and foremost concerned with being like Jesus, our Lord and Savior in the flesh.

Naturally, anyone who truly wants to live like Jesus will find any number of abhorrent thoughts, feelings and actions to avoid, but that is only the shadow-side of holy living.  The substance of a holy life is not determined by the shadows but by the beautiful light of God’s own presence and by heeding the Spirit’s call to “fix our eyes on Jesus” (Hebrews 12:2; see 3:1).

With our lives fixed on following Jesus, we avoid the shadows without even trying because we will be too busy living out the grace, mercy, righteousness, faithfulness, love and compassion of our crucified Lord.

See the difference?

OK, there has to be a 5th installment.  Next time: The Meaning of Holiness, Part 3B, “Sinners in the Hands of a Forgiving God”

The Meaning of Holiness, Part 2B

OK, so, I lied. I originally said that this would be a 3-part series on the biblical concept of holiness. But, as happens with much of my writing, it has grown into at least a 4-part, maybe even a 5-part, series.  This is the 3rd installment.

In part 1 I explained how a proper understanding of holiness is rooted in God’s nature, God’s being.  Our Creator is the one and only God, an incomparable God who is utterly unique in every way.

Part 2 then looked at the extension of God’s holiness to others through personal contact and continuing relationship.  Persons, places and things may become holy when God makes contact, particularly by establishing a personal relationship with select individuals, like Abraham and Moses, or with groups of people, such as Israel.

In part 2 we also discovered how God’s extension of holiness is a one-way-street.  Holiness “travels” in one direction only, from God to others.  Furthermore, that holiness is maintained by following God’s directions.  Violating the Holy One’s instructions can lead to immediate punishment and destruction.

However, my description raises a number of questions.  Such as:

What about God’s numerous personal encounters with folks like Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the book of Genesis?  Abraham enjoyed several intimate encounters with Yahweh (Genesis 12:1-7; 13:14-17; 15:1-20;  17:1-8; 22;1-18), yet he was never warned, as Moses was, about the dangers of “standing on holy ground” (Exodus 3:5).  The patriarchs were never ordered to “step back” or be killed, as were the people of Israel standing at the foot of Mt. Sinai.  Why?  What changed between Genesis and Exodus?

Similar questions are especially pressing for Christians when reading the New Testament gospel stories about the life of Jesus.

Historic, orthodox Christian theology has always insisted – because it is the consistent message of the New Testament – that the human being named Jesus of Nazareth was both fully human and fully divine.  That belief is at the heart of the Christian doctrine of the incarnation – the eternal God becoming an historic, individual human being named Jesus.

How does divine holiness fit into all this?  For instance:

How can an intrinsically holy God take on inherently unholy humanity such that the two (divinity and humanity) coexist for a lifetime as the single individual, Jesus of Nazareth?

Various theologians have offered a variety of thoughts on that question, but I must pass over them here. I will only note that my friend, Sǿren Kierkegaard, referred to this incarnational mystery as the primary stumbling-block, THE principal “offense” requiring the famous “leap of faith,” confronting anyone who wants to follow Jesus.  (You might want to read more about the offensiveness of Christian faith and the need for a leap of faith in my book Encountering Jesus, Encountering Scripture).

Furthermore, if (a) Jesus is God and (b) God is holy and (c) those approaching the Holy One must do so very carefully, in exactly the way prescribed by God if they hope to survive, then (d) how could Jesus be as open, accepting and approachable as he is in the gospel accounts?

What happened to the necessary limits, the barriers, the warnings and prohibitions – and most of all, the dire Old Testament consequences! – that always circumscribe the Holy One?

How can this particular “holy one of God” (Mark 1:24) remain so flagrantly cavalier about mixing and mingling with society’s outcasts, who remain outcasts precisely because they do not obey God’s instructions?

How can he crash through every social barrier while freely touching and being touched by despised untouchables?

How does he eat and drink with sinners, using the very same bowls, plates and cups as they?

How did he tolerate the wicked, unholy abuses of human depravity that were heaped upon him at the cross?

MOST OF ALL, how can any of these (apparently unacceptable) encounters – at least, from an Old Testament perspective – occur without every one of these abhorrent, disobedient sinners (and this is what we all are!) being fried by lightning into charcoaled, crispy critters like the flippant sons of Aaron in Leviticus 10:1-3?

I believe that the only answer can be God’s grace.

It was only by God’s grace that Abraham became the friend of God.  After all, it was Yahweh who came to Abraham and initiated their kick-off to salvation-history (Genesis 12:1-7).  It certainly wasn’t Abraham’s idea.  Until that conversation, he was still bowing down to the gods of Ur!

God is not an automaton.  He does not execute His programming.

God is a divine person with a divine will, and scripture teaches us that God wills to be loving, gracious and merciful. So, even Moses required protection from the revelation of Yahweh’s glory, but both the revelation and the protections making it a survivable experience were acts of divine grace (Exodus 33:18-34:7).

I think that we must assume that the same gracious decision-making explains the preexistent Son’s life on earth.  As the gospel of John says,

“The Word became flesh and lived for a while among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14)

The gospel writer provides a New Testament commentary on Moses’ experience described in Exodus 33-34.  The second Person of the Triune God traversed time and space, so that Jesus’ entire life could become both the ultimate revelation of God’s glory AND the final protection for sinners seeking God’s face.

To revisit my parable from part 1 – Mr. Ball entered into Flatland and became Mr. Circle so that Madame Triangle, Mr. Line and Miss Square might all be elevated into the 3rd dimension with Him.

The Meaning of Holiness, Part 2

Andromeda galazy

We discovered in Part 1 that the entire notion of holiness begins with the understanding of God as being entirely distinctive and unique because he is the one and only God.  Now in Part 2 I will explain how holiness as a description of God’s nature expands into holiness as a description of personal relationship.

As the Holy One, God can make things holy by bringing them into relationship with himself.  God is able graciously to bridge the chasm separating the fallen creation from himself and share his holiness with others.  People and places may become holy when God draws near.

For example, the famous burning bush that confronts Moses makes “the ground holy” because Yahweh is there (Exodus 3:5).  The land of Canaan

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becomes “the holy land” because Yahweh chooses to live there with his people, Israel (Psalm 78:54; Ezekiel 45:1; Zechariah 2:12).  Mt. Zion becomes a “holy mountain” because God dwells there in his temple (Psalm 2:6; 3:4; 15:1; Isaiah 57:13; Ezekiel 20:40; Joel 2:1).

The descendants of Abraham become Yahweh’s “holy people” simply because Yahweh chooses to bring them into an intimate, covenant relationship.  Yahweh repeatedly says such things to Israel as, “I am Yahweh who makes you holy” (Exodus 31: 13; Leviticus 20:8; 21:8, 15, 23; 22:9, 16, 32).

If you recall the Old Testament storyline, Israel’s holiness certainly did not consist in their being an especially obedient, law-abiding people (cf. Deuteronomy 7:7).  Quite the opposite.  Israel became holy for one reason and one reason only.  The LORD had decided that they and they alone would become his “treasured possession…a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:5-6).

So, first, holiness is God’s alone by nature.  But, second, holiness becomes a relational term describing those whom God “sets apart” by making them his own.

In this regard, holiness is a gift of God’s grace, and he alone can decide how people come into and then maintain a relationship with him.  No one is free to waltz up to the Creator and say, “Hey, God.  I like the way I happen to think about you.  I have decided that we will become chums.”

Scripture tells us that such hubris is the road to ruin.  When people invent their own ways to approach God, disaster always follows.  Remember the crowds of Israelites watching at the base of Mt. Sinai, waiting for Yahweh to speak with Moses?  Moses was warned to erect boundary markers to keep the people safe – safe from the dangers of divine holiness.

“Put limits for the people around the mountain and tell them, ‘Be careful that you do not go up the mountain or touch the foot of it.  Whoever touches the mountain will surely be put to death…warn the people so they do not force their way through to see the LORD and many of them perish” (Exodus 19:12, 21).

Even when the Holy One reaches out to make contact with sinners like us, God alone decides how that relationship will work.  When, where and how may we come close?  Only God makes those crucial decisions.

No one approaches God willy-nilly, as they see fit.  And anyone who does not follow the Holy One’s instructions for that encounter will pay the price.  Remember Aaron’s sons, Nadab and Abihu, who decided to get creative one day and mix it up in the way they offered the LORD incense (Leviticus 10:1-3).

They were immediately struck dead, and the LORD reminded everyone watching, “Among those who approach me I will show myself holy; in the sight of all the people I will be honored.”

Destroying Aaron’s sons was not an act of whimsy or spite on God’s part.  Do I blame the fire for burning my hand when I stick it into the flames?  God is holy.  We may become holy only by answering the call to live with him and following his directions.  But he is the only One to decide how, when and where we can get close.

The possibility of relationship with God is his gift to give.  It is a gift of grace and mercy.  We can only receive it.  We cannot bargain over it, reshape it or negotiate new terms.

Thus, Jesus’ words are in lock-step with the graciousness of the Holy One when he says, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).  This has always been a hallmark of the Christian gospel.  The heavenly Father adopts as his child anyone who surrenders to Jesus Christ, and to him alone, as Lord and Savior.  There is no other way available.

This is also why the apostle Paul repeatedly calls the members of his churches, no matter how stubborn and rebellious they may be, “holy ones” or “saints” (Romans 1:7; 1 Corinthians 1:2; Ephesians 1:1; Philippians 1:1 for a selection).  Today’s “holy nation and kingdom of priests” is the universal church of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 2:9-10).

“Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!  How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!  Who has known the mind of the Lord?  Or who has been his counselor?  Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him?  For from him and through him and to him are all things.  To him be the glory forever! Amen.” (Romans 11:33-36)

The Meaning of Holiness, Part 1

I can’t remember the last time I attended a church service or heard a Sunday message that dealt with the subject of holiness.

I have heard many messages warning Christians to stay away from sin. In these sermons, holiness is typically explained in terms of “being separate,” which usually translates into avoiding the dangers of The Big Three – sex, alcohol and money (more specifically, the sin of not giving 10% of my money to the local church).

I will summarize this popular understanding of holiness by quoting an old (inappropriate?) saying, “I don’t drink and I don’t chew, and I don’t go with girls who do.”

But such an approach to holiness grabs the wrong end of the stick, and a very flimsy stick at that.  It’s like grabbing a lizard by the tip of its tail and saying, “I’ve got it!” as you watch the greater part of the lizard scurry away to hide.

So, I thought I would write a series of 3 posts explaining (what I understand to be) the Biblical concept of holiness.  There are 3 aspects to holiness in the Bible.  Each post will deal with 1 of these 3 inter-related elements, explaining how they build on each other.

To begin with, holiness is not about us.  Holiness is about God, who God is and what God does.

The Bible insists that God is utterly unique.  There are no other gods around for comparison.  No one can suggest, for instance, that Yahweh is an especially tall god, as far as gods go.  Because there are no other gods.  How tall would a tall god be in comparison to an especially short god?  Such talk is nonsense, for there is only One God, and He is what He is.  That’s it.

The prophet Isaiah asked rhetorically, “To whom will you compare God?” (40:18). The answer is:  to nothing and to no one.  Yahweh is it.

God is the sole, absolute standard for Himself.  God defines Himself as He is. (Yes, I know. I am committing the modern faux pas of using masculine pronouns for God.  But that is how both the Old Testament and Jesus refer to our Father in heaven.)

God exists in a category of One.

Whatever we might compare God to is, by definition, not-God. We are left to fumble with the inadequacies of language, for no description of God will ever prove sufficient. We are limited to using analogies, metaphors and similes for our descriptions (e.g. “God is like such-and-such”, “God’s eyes see us”, etc.), and even these efforts only work, in a limited sense, because human beings are created as God’s image. (Now we are dealing with the theological pros and cons of the “analogy of being,” the analogia entis, which we may explore some other time.)

Some theologians have referred to God’s essential uniqueness as His “Wholly Otherness.”  Since Yahweh is the only divine Person inhabiting the category of “God,” Yahweh is Wholly Other.

THIS is where a proper understanding of God’s holiness must begin.  God is holy as the One who is Wholly Other.

Let me explain by way of borrowing the plot-line from Edwin Abbott’s famous story, Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions.  Imagine living in a two-dimensional world.  That is, your universe has length and width, but no depth, no height.

Your world is like a flat piece of paper.  All of its inhabitants are also two-dimensional.  So, you walk to work each day as a stick-figure.  As you pass by, you wave to your neighbors, Mr. & Mrs. Circle, as well as the Straight-Line family and Madame Triangle.

One day, you all hear a friendly disembodied voice calling, “Hello!  How are you all?”

But none of you can see anything.  Where is that voice coming from?

“Hello,” it calls out again.  “My name is Mr. Ball!”

“Mr. Ball?,” you all wonder.  “We have never heard of such a thing. What in the world is a ball?”

The voice answers, “Well, a  ball is also a sphere.”

“What’s a sphere?” asks Madame Triangle.  “Is it like a circle?”

“Well, yes and no, but not really,” replies Mr. Ball.  “Why don’t I come visit you in Flatland and show you who I am,” he suggests.

Mr. Ball then proceeds to enter into Flatland.  But still no one sees a sphere.

At first, everyone notices a small dot that appears out of nowhere.  Then the dot morphs into a tiny circle.  The circle expands, becoming larger and larger.  Then it abruptly stops growing and reverses itself, becoming smaller and smaller. Finally, the circle becomes a dot again, and then vanishes all together.

“There you go,” cries Mr. Ball.  “I showed myself to you!  You have just seen me.  Now do you understand what a sphere is?”

Obviously, the answer is No.  Two dimensional creatures may perceive something of the three-dimensional creature’s “personal revelation” – in this case, an ever expanding and shrinking circle – but fully grasping or comprehending Mr. Ball’s self-disclosure is impossible for folks living in Flatland.  The difference between a two-dimensional and a three-dimensional existence are too great.

Mr. Ball is wholly other than Mr. & Mrs. Circle.

So ends my feeble attempt at describing the essential nature of divine holiness.  And when we combine God’s Wholly Otherness together with the alienation created by human sinfulness, we are left with a yawning chasm separating humanity from God that Sǿren Kierkegaard calls “the infinite qualitative difference.”

An infinite qualitative difference looms large between sinful human beings and our Wholly Other God.

Recall Moses’ experience at Mt. Sinai (Exodus 19).  Yahweh is calling Israel into a deeper, more intimate relationship with Himself by way of a new relationship described in the Sinai Covenant (see verses 5-6).  It is a time of celebration as Yahweh “comes down” to reveal Himself more fully, more intimately and personally to the entire nation.

God is not angry with Israel.  He is not arriving to judge or to condemn a wayward people.  Not at all. Yahweh is giving Himself over to His chosen people, so that they may all enjoy deeper covenant fellowship together.  This is the beautiful “marriage ceremony,” if you will, between God and his chosen people!

Yet, as Yahweh appears atop Mt. Sinai,

“…there was thunder and lightning, with a thick cloud over the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast. Everyone in the camp trembled…Mt. Sinai was covered with smoke, because Yahweh descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, the whole mountain trembled violently, and the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder” (verses 16-19).

Yet, God is still not angry.  He is just showing up for the party.

Our heavenly Father is the Holy One, the One and Only God who was and is and is to come, Whose perfect ways are entirely beyond our fallible, frail, fallen human (in)ability to (mis)understand.

What can we do but fall down or tremble in awe and wonder to adore Him in His Holiness?

What else but to join in with the heavenly, six-winged seraphs who cry out,

“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory!” (Isaiah 6:3)