Monthly Archives: April 2024

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Point of No Return?

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For once people have been enlightened–when they’ve tasted the heavenly gift and have had a share in the holy spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the coming age–it’s impossible to restore them again to repentance if they fall away, since they are crucifying God’s son all over again, on their own account, and holding him up to contempt. ~HEBREWS 6:4-6

Thankfully, this is not a controversial or particularly complex passage of Scripture in the least bit…

Ok, ok, so it’s one of the most difficult ever. Let’s dive in.

The first point to note is who these verses are specifically written to. This is for those who have tasted of the goodness of Life with God. It’s not for those who have merely dabbled, but those who have fully experienced the abundant life God offers and then turned away from it. The 4-syllable word for this is apostasy.

Instead of getting all controversial and attempting to define precisely what the unpardonable sin is, or just exactly who’s in and who’s out, it seems to me that we can use this passage more effectively for it’s likely intent: to spur us on to keep growing in our relationship with Christ and advance onward into the richer experience of the Spirit-drenched life.

Here, in my observation, is the basic take-away from Luke Timothy Johnson, one of my favorite scholarly commentators [Schommentalor?]:

Not moving forward is the same as falling backward. Failure to grow is tantamount to regression.

That, to me, is our poignant warning.

The old Interpreter’s Bible puts it flatly: “The danger is acute. If they will not advance, they are in danger of apostasy. Once over that cliff, nothing remains but death.” Similarly, Andrew Murray wrote that “Anything like sloth, and resting content in our beginnings, is unspeakably dangerous.”

Are you maturing?

Are you deeper in intimate relationship with God than you were ten years ago?

Are you a more loving person today than when you were a new Christ-follower?

Andrew Murray offers a succinct self-test: “The only sure mark of our being true Christians, of our really loving Christ, is the deep longing and the steady effort to know more of Him.”

Here’s more from schommentalor LTJ to give some deeper context:

The effect of apostasy is so devastating because of the extraordinary character of the gift received and the cost to Christ of its giving…The main point is perfectly straightforward: the enormity of apostasy is measured by the greatness of the experience of God it abandons. That is why it is impossible to “renew to repentance” people who have proven capable of turning away from their own most powerful and transforming experience.

Sitting in extended silence with this passage, here is what rose to the surface, which I trust and hope is from the Holy Spirit, the Great Wind of God:

What is the most offensive offense to Jesus? Not enjoying Him, or His gifts, Presence, life with Him, being Spirit-led. That is the greatest mockery. Behind every sin, every evil act, is the ignoring of Abundant Life offered. You think of what God has done to show us His unfathomable love and care for us: Becoming one of us–human! Serving, learning, dying cruelly, all for breaking down every possible barrier to enjoy being together. You taste of that beautiful life of Spirit-intimacy, and then turn away from it? Pursue other “gods”? It will be most difficult to turn back. Darn near impossible. Literally impossible? As it seems to imply here in Hebrews 6? Oh God, I pray not!

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Jesus Learned Obedience Through Suffering [part 3]

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Once more, let’s travel just a little further down this staircase of mystical truth. I say “once more” because we will keep in Trinitarian Spirit and close this meditation out with three parts. (Otherwise this will turn into one of those 17 month sermon series on Lamentations like I sat through growing up :D)

In continuing to reflect upon what we talked about last time, with regard to that aspect of suffering which results from the learning of new ideas that necessarily causes the death of old ones, my thoughts were drawn to Jesus’s famous “Sermon on the Mount”. Specifically, I pondered Jesus’s refrain, “You have heard that it was said…But I say to you…” How long did it take Jesus to develop these thoughts? To formulate these ideas and make them presentable in this memorable manner? How much searching and pondering he must have done!

In his incomprehensibly loving incarnation, Jesus went through the process of internalizing the Scriptures, and also spent time observing how they were playing out externally in real life. It’s interesting to note that his public ministry did not begin when he was 10, or even 20. Why is this interesting? Well, if he had held on to his omniscience as a human on earth, he very well could have begun his brilliant teachings when he was, say, 5 years old. Heck, he could have started as soon as he was able to talk I guess, at 2-ish, right?

But he had to learn. He had to learn because he really took on human form and mind and heart and limitations, identifying with us at the quantum level. At 12 years old he was listening and asking questions of the religious leaders, not instructing them (Luke 2:42). Afterward he went home with his parents and was obedient to them (v.51). This is the one childhood example we have of him learning what it means to obey. He learned what was involved with obedience the way any of us do–by the experiences of life.

Here is a provocative word from a Bible reference book called Hard Sayings of the Bible that kind of took me aback:

there are some things that even God can experience only by becoming a human being with all of our human limitations. Obedience in the face of suffering is one of them.

Jesus memorized, studied, and prayed the Hebrew Scriptures, always seeking his Father and His will in them. He then took note of how the religious people were interpreting them and living them. That was not always pretty, as we know.

So when the time was right, he delivered his big sermon, showing the people of his day, and us, what we’ve all heard before, and in contrast, what God’s heart truly is. He showed us where we have strayed from the agape of God and missed the point of it all.

There had to be some suffering involved with this process. The ancient Greeks had a saying–Mathein Pathein–Learning is suffering. Suffering is learning. Surely it broke Jesus’s heart to see the holy teachings being misused; to witness poor, oppressed, and broken-hearted people not being cared for properly. Then there was the volatile opposition from the synagogue leaders who claimed to be on his Father’s side! Stressful indeed.

Jesus saw how we humans desperately try to define the undefinable, to tame it, and box it up; how we tend to attach ourselves to systems more than God. We systematize the mystery out of religion, out of GOD. Adopting systems of theology, abiding in them, leads us away from intimacy with our Lord. Jesus said, “Abide in ME.” How quickly do systems replace personal interaction with the Divine. Dogma swallows up prayer. Letting go of techniques is tough. You may have to sacrifice familiar and comfortable teachings for….the Voice–the Spirit speaking now. We of course have boundaries, and follow the teachings of Jesus and Holy Scripture, but we must fight the urge to define it all in the neatest little package that is never again opened. When did Jesus ever say the narrow gate would be a conveniently systematized, easily defined formula? If anything, he taught the opposite with his parables showing just how undefinable, and awesome, the Kingdom of God really is (see Mt.13).

It’s no wonder so many people these days say, “I’m spiritual, not religious.” With so much institutionalizing of the mystery, joy, and care for people, animals, and earth out of everything, can you blame them?

Alrighty then, let’s try to bring this back around full circle. Matthew Henry said in his commentary on Hebrews 5:8 that “We need affliction, to teach us submission.” And William Barclay, in his commentary on our verse, wrote, “God speaks to [us] in many experiences of life, and not least in those which try [our] hearts and souls. But we can hear his voice only when we accept in reverence what comes to us. If we accept it with resentment, the rebellious cries of our heart make us deaf to the voice of God.”

We follow the living Presence of God, brought to us by Jesus, and available now in the Spirit. Mathein pathein. We learn through suffering–when we submit to the Voice. Submission is the soul’s silence, giving it the ability to hear. Resistance is the soul’s screaming and yelling, drowning out the voices of Pneuma (Spirit) and Sophia (wisdom).

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Jesus Learned Obedience Through Suffering [part 2]

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Let’s go just a little deeper down the rabbit hole, shall we?

I’ve been intensely fascinated by the idea of Jesus arriving at new stages of experience as one commentator put it. One road of Hebrews 5:8 we could journey down is that Jesus learned obedience through a particular kind of suffering which we do not normally think of. Suffering is, as we know, not limited to physical pain. Pain is a part of growth as a human being. As Luke Timothy Johnson astutely points out in his commentary on this passage,

“intellectually, the learning of new ideas is a form of growth: our minds expand to include new realities of which we had not previously been aware. The growth is good. But it is also painful, since it implies the disruption and rearrangement–and often the abandonment–of our previous mental furnishings. To enter into new mental territory means at least a partial death to old mental territory. Stretching the mind to encompass new truth means suffering the pain of mental disequilibrium.”

Can you wrap your head around the fact that Jesus, taking on our humanity to the fullest degree, likely leaned new ideas which stretched him?

Perhaps he grew up hearing some corrupt religious teachings which he later found out, through seeing more of the light of God, were unhealthy and not truly from the heart of Yahweh. To shed something we’ve been taught, or simply heard and absorbed most of our life, is indeed a death, a suffering. We’ve all had to drop certain ways of thought which we discovered were unlovingly judgmental, and it does kind of hurt to admit to ourselves that we ever harbored such views.

Of course I am not saying Jesus ever sinned, nor will I ever. I’m merely pointing out this fascinating aspect which shows how deeply he can relate to us because of his great sacrifice and service to humanity that is no doubt greater than we’ve probably previously imagined.

The word “learned” in this verse is not conveying that Jesus went from disobedience to obedience, but rather has the connotation of coming to know something firsthand through personal experience. This is why I love the First Nations Version (a wonderfully fresh Indigenous translation of the New Testament) of this verse: Even though he was Creator’s Son, he still had to learn, through suffering, what it means to stay true to the ways of the Great Spirit.

Maybe Jesus had to experientially learn as a kid that life is not about pleasing people or trying to look good, but about pleasing God and serving people. At some point he probably recognized that we cannot transform others; we can possibly inspire them. Even God’s Son did not have a 100% conversion rate. Therefore, we can say with a little more certainty that Jesus experienced the suffering that comes with people not accepting what you are offering them, of people not really listening to you, and perhaps the most confusingly painful of all–people misunderstanding you and your intentions. How horrible is that?

But he had to keep obeying his Father anyway, through all of this suffering.

Despite the inevitable unmet expectations and desires that come with being human, he still had to trust in God. Gee, that’s always easy.

And remember, obeying is deeper than simply keeping the rules, as efficacious as that might be. Did you know that the Latin root of the word “obey” means to listen, to hearken to, to pay attention to? Despite suffering, we must keep listening to the One who designed us. We must keep our attention focused upon our Creator who is perfect love and knows us better than we know ourselves and wants the absolute best for us at all times. And not only listening and paying attention, but saying yes–every time.