What is the knowledge that saves us from destruction (Hosea 4:6)? What is the truth that sets us free (John 8:32)?
What is the knowledge that saves us from destruction (Hosea 4:6)? What is the truth that sets us free (John 8:32)? Jesus articulated it in a two-sided conversation, a dialogue, between divinity and humanity around the furnace of affliction (Isaiah 48:10) on the road from the Crucifixion to the Resurrection. It is the most apocalyptic conversation between humanity and divinity since Moses and God conversed around the burning bush on Mt. Horeb (Exodus 3:1-3). Do you know both sides of the conversation? Can you articulate them? Unless you are privy to both sides of the conversation, your understanding of God is low fidelity - a poor approximation of him. Only the conversation unmuddles our understanding of God. Only the conversation frees the most important detail about God from the enigmatic black box into which it retreated with God after the fall of Adam and Eve (Isaiah 45:15).
Jesus upgraded our understanding of God by inserting a specific detail into the course of his life. A narrow focus on the specific detail leads us to the knowledge that saves us from destruction - to the truth that sets us free. The specific detail occupies the position of prominence in the showcase of Christianity - at least it ought to. This detail took root in reality when we baptized Jesus in the furnace of affliction (Isaiah 48:10) on the road from the Crucifixion to the Resurrection. We put Jesus to the test (Malachi 3:10) (Luke 4:12) (Deuteronomy 6:16) (Wisdom 2: 17-20). We tortured and killed the God who loves us. We made the God who loves us suffer and die. We impaled the God who loves us on a cross as a fisherman insouciantly impales a live worm on a sharp hook where he hung until death. The evil that we did to Jesus was both brutal and lethal. Yet, our evil did not stop Jesus from giving us his answer to it.
Unfortunately, most Christians divorce the test to which we put Jesus and the results of the test (Mark 10:9). Few view the events that unfolded on the road from the Crucifixion to the Resurrection as a two-sided conversation between humanity and divinity. The revelation about God that Jesus released into the hostile desert of godlessness began with the test. However, it did not conclude with the test. The results of the test concluded the revelation. It was a revelation in two parts - a two-sided conversation between humanity and divinity like the conversation between Moses and God around the burning bush. "Who are you Jesus? Identify yourself. Friend or foe?", we interrogated Jesus. Lash, thorns, nails and cross were our sharp questions. We wanted an answer from him so we gave him the third degree. Jesus did not hang mute. His tongue was not nailed to the Cross. He did not take the fifth. Jesus answered our sharp questions. And his answer was not ambiguous. His answer gave us a glimpse of God (John 14:8-9) - the best approximation of God available to the children of Adam and Eve here in the hostile desert of godlessness. Only the answer that Jesus gave us to the evil that we did to him - nothing else - definitively, irrefutably and apocalyptically put the knowledge of God into our hands - gave us the truth that sets us free. Only this knowledge saves the people of God from destruction (Hosea 4:6).
We can verify the unique importance of his answer by measuring the cost that Jesus paid to deliver it to us. The cost of delivery was not zero. Delivery wasn't free. It cost Jesus to deliver the revelation. It cost him plenty. Jesus did not pay the cost of delivery by drawing from his unlimited divine resources. He paid the cost by drawing from his limited human resources. He paid the cost in the coin of his flesh and blood. He paid them all for us (1 Corinthians 7:23-24). He kept not a penny in the bank for himself. He held nothing whatsoever back in reserve. He paid until nothing was left but the truth about God. He has never paid more for anything else (John 15:13) (John 10:15-18). The exorbitant size of the payment is the definitive, irrefutable and apocalyptic evidence of the exorbitant importance of his answer to the evil that we did to him. In fact, the exact location of God's greatest investment in humanity was precisely pinpointed by the erection of a landmark at the only place in heaven and on earth where Jesus spent the coin of his flesh and blood. The Cross of Christ (1 Corinthians 1:17) is the landmark that pinpoints the exact location where Jesus resurrected the knowledge of God from the dead.
Unlike us, Jesus understood the science of cause and effect. An axiom of the science of cause and effect holds that only love begets love - only forgiveness induces repentance. So Jesus went all in. He bet the farm. He gambled our salvation on his answer to the evil that we did to him - evil both brutal and lethal. He made an audacious bet. He forgave us (Jeremiah 31:31-34) (Luke 23:34 ) (Acts 10:43) (Matthew 6:12) (Matthew 18:21-35) (Luke 7:47). We were unworthy of forgiveness, but Jesus forgave us anyway. While we were still sinners (Romans 5:8), Jesus went out on the limb of forgiveness by loving us first (1 John 4:19). Jesus took the first step of forgiveness in the hope that we would take the second step of repentance. Our God did not wait for our conversion to forgive us but forgave us to bring about our conversion (Matthew 22:10)(John 15:13)(John 12:24). The audacity of Jesus is that he relied on the fecundity of his love for us to depetrify our stony hearts and turn them into hearts of flesh (Ezekiel 36:26) (John 13:35) (Matthew 22:36-40) (1 John 4: 7-12). Nothing grows in the toxic soil of the Crucifixion. Nothing. It is a sterile matrix - hostile in the extreme. So when the flower of forgiveness germinated, sprouted and grew, we beheld a miracle. We caught a glimpse of God himself. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit" (John 12:24). We planted Jesus into the toxic soil of the Crucifixion. By forgiving us, Jesus planted the seed of love into the toxic soil of our loveless hearts. From the seed of love, the kingdom of God germinates, sprouts and blooms within us (Luke 17:20-21). "...The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that a person took and sowed in a field. It is the smallest of all the seeds, yet when full-grown it is the largest of plants. It becomes a large bush, and the birds of the sky come and dwell in its branches" (Matthew 13:31-32).
Jesus's answer to the evil that we did to him is radically subversive. We discovered from his answer that the dial that controls his love for us is in his hands not ours. Moreover, it is set to the highest degree and locked in place. Not even our evil can budge it. By virtue of his gentle answer to the evil that we did to him, we discovered that our God is our friend not our foe. He is for us not against us. He is a philanthropist not a misanthrope. He is an ally not an enemy. He is rooting for us to succeed not against us to fail. "Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, That there may be food in my house. Put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, And see if I do not open the floodgates of heaven for you, and pour down upon you blessing without measure!" (Malachi 3:10). This knowledge is the blockbuster that changes the game - the agent of our transformation - the catalyst of our conversion. It rips us up by the roots. This knowledge upsets the status quo. It turns the status quo upside-down and inside-out. It is the knowledge that saves us from destruction (Hosea 4:6). It is the truth that sets us free. "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:32).
But, God had a problem. The problem was logistics. The knowledge that saves us from destruction - the truth that sets us free - were released into the hostile desert of godlessness in the boondocks of time and space - in the backside of the desert (Exodus 3:1-3). For it to have any impact it needed to be propagated from its place of birth then and there, across space and time, to the children of Adam and Eve here and now. It needed to be distributed. However, the mission of filling the earth with the knowledge that God loves us as the waters cover the sea (Isaiah 11:9)(Habakkuk 2:14) is easier said than done. It cannot be completed just with words. Words will not do it. Only love begets love.
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You can leave a comment to start a discussion about this post. God is not dead. Indeed, God is very much alive. However, the conversation about God is dead. Killing the conversation about God is tantamount to killing God. The enemies of the Church know this. The Church does not. Can we devote 50% of the conversation to God? Is 50% too much to ask?
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