Can You Recognize a Snake?: On Deception and Social Consequences

DO YOU RECOGNIZE A SNAKE ?

DECEPTION AND THE CONSEQUENCES

ON A NATIONAL SCALE

CONTENTS

Promises, Promises

God’s Righteous Judgment: Both Personal and Social (Romans 1:18-32)

God’s Righteous Judgment: The Law Written on the Heart (Romans 2:12-16)

God’s Righteous Judgment: The Law Written on Stone (Exodus 19-20)

Nature’s Revenge: When the Stones Cry Out (Luke 19:39-40)

PROMISES, PROMISES

           During the 1950’s and 60’s the American prophets of progress painted a quite rosy picture of the future provided, of course, that we wouldn’t allow the Communists to wreck the plan. This rosy future of new inventions and better machinery would reduce the 40 hour union work week down to 30, perhaps even 20 hours a week, and everyone would have time for hobbies and long vacations. This promise didn’t happen.

           Later as computers took over the desktops of the nation, the prophets, most of whom appear to have gone into sales and marketing, promised that life should be getting easier, as it would be possible to do so many complicated tasks so much more efficiently. The reality instead is that today, some people have less time than ever, and others must spend their newly obtained leisure looking for work, possibly visiting food shelves, and applying for benefits.

           If we go back to the beginning in Genesis and meet the world’s first sales representative, we are introduced to a snake that sold a bill of goods to our ancestors, the invoice for which all of us continue to pay. The value of reading the Genesis story of our ancestors is to realize how much we all are still part of that story. The Genesis story truly describes us—our universal gullibility and pride. In the story, our first ancestors challenged God by crossing a boundary he had forbidden, after which they lost the position of trust to manage a garden God had given them.

           A parallel example would be that of a careless driver hitting a concrete wall at 50 mph. The driver may lose his driving privileges, but the consequences go much further—the broken bones and lacerations, the injured passengers, the vehicle, the lost wages, etc. In the same way when we ignore God, there will be consequences.

           At the expulsion from Eden, the consequences described in Genesis 3—the woman’s subjugation to man and painful child bearing and the man’s subjugation to toil—are not called a punishment, but rather reveal the unavoidable consequences. In addition the curse on the snake and on the ground was not a punishment from God. Humans initiated the curse, and God informed them regarding the consequences.

I suggest the judgment of God is written into the order of things, and that just as his laws are written on the human heart (according to Romans 2); so also his judgment and wrath reside in the human heart.

GOD’S RIGHTEOUS JUDGMENT: BOTH PERSONAL AND SOCIAL

ROMANS 1:18-32

           Reading Luther’s commentary on Romans recently, I was enthralled with the clarity and depth of his exposition on the personal dimension of faith for my own life—the law of the Spirit for empowerment contrasted with the impotence of the law to change me in any fundamental way.

           Still from an Anabaptist perspective, the social dimension of the gospel is also vital to understanding Romans. Paul is deeply concerned for the relationship of Jews and Gentiles in the church. The difficulty of bringing both together in fellowship was a vexing problem for the primitive church. Today we still have the same tribalism, nationalism, racism, sexism, classism, etc. to which the early church was awakening.  It is precisely within the body of Christ, as God’s showcase, pilot project for the world, where we find hope to become one “in Christ.” All human social agenda is doomed to ultimate failure when we put our trust in our projects apart from Christ.

Romans 1 addresses the social dimension of judgment in verses 18-32 describing how humanity collectively had refused to honor God, and God had given them up. The consequence was an addictive pattern of progressively degrading relational dysfunction expressed destructively in every kind of sexual promiscuity, and God simply let them go. Then with a mind completely empty of God, their self-destructive behavior could only be described as “foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless (NRSV)”

The irony is that those who were the Image of God gave it up and remade themselves into the image of the lower animals they were supposed to govern. We need to read the Old Testament and its judgments in the light of the New. In the Old Testament we hear the perspective of those who suffered the judgment, and from their point of view, God withheld the rain, sent disease, and invited their enemies to abuse and torture them. Their perspective is valid, but Romans adds a new dimension for understanding the way God’s judgment operates.

GOD’S RIGHTEOUS JUDGMENT: THE LAW WRITTEN ON THE HEART

ROMANS 2:12-16

           “All those who have sinned without the Law will perish without the Law; and those under the Law who have sinned will be judged by the Law (NJB).” If traffic signs have been obstructed and a driver, in ignorance, then fails to comply and hits the concrete wall, the lack of knowledge about the law will not repair the physical damage or heal the broken bones. Even though the driver was not formally notified of danger, still the driver has responsibility. Quite likely the lay of the land, the weather, and the surrounding environment would have provided signs that caution was in order, if only the operator had the experience and desire to read those signs. Paul goes on to say “gentiles, not having the Law, still…demonstrate the effect of the law engraved on their hearts (verses 14-15).”  The environment itself gives warning against sin if we have an open mind to read its message.

If God has written his law on human hearts, then might not God’s judgment also be written in human hearts, and just where does the wrath of God reside? The human heart was made for God’s residence. Even though God may be absent from the heart, remnants of God’s law still remain, and I suggest the “cup of God’s wrath” is there as well. The universal experience of injustice and betrayal is buried in human hearts, and the fermentation of misunderstanding, disappointment, and anger, built up over many generations eventually explodes uncontrolled in senseless violence and war. This is an empirically observable phenomenon, as the social sciences and history have demonstrated.[1]

           Therefore we can say that when the “cup of iniquity” is full (Isa 51:17-22, Jer 25:15, Rev 14:10, and  Rev 16:19) then the cup of God’s wrath is poured out. Judgment and punishment are written into human nature and accumulate in human hearts, exploding when ignited with vast social consequences

GOD’S RIGHTEOUS JUDGMENT: THE LAW WRITTEN ON STONE

EXODUS 19-20

           At this point we will examine further how our study in Romans can shed light on the Old Testament. In Exodus 19 Moses instructed the people they would be a “nation of priests.” Their covenant was with God, not with any other ruler from whom they might obtain benefits, such as a mutual defense agreement or specified economic and trade benefits. Security obtained apart from God would inevitably fail.

In Exodus 20 God gave the Ten Commandments. The remarkable thing is that there are no specified punishments for breaking these commands. The consequence for failure to keep these commands would be that God would no longer be their God, and would not protect them. In the vacuum of the absence of God’s goodness, evil would begin to seep in.

Therefore both the economic and military disasters that fell upon Israel resulted from the evil that came in the absence of God. The war and suffering Israel experienced were not sent by direct action from God, but rather were written into the software of human interaction. Conflict and frustration are the default when God’s goodness is pushed aside.

Returning to our illustration, when the bus hits the wall, a wall God created for a better purpose than destroying buses, God does not interfere. Still God’s mercy and love govern his action as he reaches out to those passengers who are willing to trust him through the disaster. This we see in the writings of all the prophets.

NATURE’S REVENGE: WHEN THE STONES CRY OUT

Luke 19:39-40

In Luke 19 as Jesus rode the donkey into Jerusalem his followers loudly proclaimed his Messiahship, and some Pharisees demanded that Jesus silence the proclamation. Jesus answered them, “If these keep silence, the stones will cry out.” Five days later when Jesus died, quite literally the stones cried out as an earthquake shook the temple, ripping the veil in the temple from top to bottom, and the sun was eclipsed from sight.[2]  I will suggest that judgment and wrath are written into the software of the natural order. I suggest that God’s judgment is programmed into the genes of living things and the smallest atoms and particles of the physical universe.

When reading the book of Revelation we observe that most of the destruction described comes from natural causes. Chapter eight describes hail, fire, mountains falling, celestial objects crashing into the earth, and a catastrophic level of water pollution. Chapter nine adds insects (locusts), while chapter sixteen proclaims a series of environmental disasters—poisoning of the sea (v 3), a pandemic of disease (v 2 & 11), climate change resulting in excessive global heat (v 8-9), darkness (v 10), drought (v 12), and finally earthquake and lightning with giant chunks of hail (v 17-21).

The irony is that humanity was created to govern nature rather than be dominated by nature. In Genesis 1 God created humanity to rule the animals, and in Genesis 2 God gave humans a garden to manage. In the New Testament Jesus expanded human authority to include the wind, the waves, and the fish, and they obeyed him. The progress of disease and death was reversed wherever Jesus touch was felt, and we are called and destined to do the same.

Inspired by the Spirit, Paul reveals in Romans 8:18-25 that all of creation is waiting to enter into the glorious liberty of the children of God.[3] This suggests that the natural order will find its potential only under human direction. 1 John 3 tells us that we are God’s children already, but what we will be is not revealed. We only know we will be like Him (v 1-2), and according to John in Revelation 20:6 we will share his authority. The trajectory towards a new and liberated humanity was initiated at the Incarnation, and if we belong to Jesus, at the resurrection we will share in his authority over the entire universe.

Today our attempts at controlling the environment are doomed to failure. When we go on our own to rule and exploit nature, nature inevitably strikes back with vengeance. The judgment and wrath of God does not only reside in the human heart whereby we accuse and excuse ourselves (Romans 2:12-16), but also is encoded in the software of the natural world.

In Genesis the deceiving serpent stole the promise of our human potential from us, and only He who is the Truth can restore our humanity to us. The promises of human progress by education, science, political and social progress I described in the opening paragraphs are a proven divisive, dangerous, and destructive deception. They result in the opposite of what was promised.

I conclude with John 3:19. “And the judgment is this: though the light has come into the world, people have preferred darkness (deception) to the light because their deeds were evil (NJB).” But also from the same writer, “If we confess our sin, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sin, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9 AV).  The effects of sin are social, but the forgiveness of God in Christ is highly personal, and those who know Christ are in the best position to address the issues of life and society, not by making up rules, but by living in grace everywhere and all the time.

“Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place (2Co 2:14 NKJV).”

ABBREVIATIONS

NRSV: New Revised Standard Version

NJB: New Jerusalem Bible

AV: Authorized Version

NKJV: New King James Version

[1] The Biblical story gives us the broad picture into which we can place the results of research. Living in a science oriented culture, we need to become bi-lingual and understand both languages.

[2] According to Chinese sources, a solar eclipse occurring at about the time of Christ’s death caused tremendous consternation for the emperor of China at that time. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g72Mb8wEdcI.

[3] . In The Return of the King J. R. R. Tolkien’s king arrived at the end of the story to “set things right.” Humanity was created to govern, and we are born with this capacity and a deep desire to make things right.