Our minds, on their best days, have been deeply affected by the Fall; that act of Adam and Eve that resulted in our falling away from God, in our spiritual death, and in the fracturing of the image of God within us. When we come into a relationship with God through Christ, when we are raised from spiritual death, a process of holistic transformation into the image of Christ begins (see Ephesians 2:1 - 11; Romans Chapter 8).
This transformative process includes our minds as they are engaged in God’s Word, by God’s Holy Spirit, in prayer and communion with the Living God (Romans 12:1 - 2; Hebrews 4:12; Ephesians 4:21 - 24). As Paul demonstrates in 1 Corinthians Chapter 2, the renewal of our minds in Christ holds great promise, to the point where in our union with Christ we have the mind of Christ - in this we have the promise of God revealing wonderous things to us as we learn to “speak wisdom among those who are mature; a wisdom, however, not of this age nor of the rulers of this age, who are passing away…”
And yet, as exhilarating as Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians Chapter 2 are, as promising as they are, and as much as we ought to embrace them, teach them, and humbly submit to the Holy Spirit so that they are manifested in our lives, when Paul comes to 1 Corinthians Chapter 13 he also writes, “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known.”
So I think there is a sense in which we can say, “As good as 1 Corinthians Chapter 2 gets, as deeply as we may have the mind of Christ in this life and speak mature wisdom in this life, on our best days we still face the reality of 1 Corinthians Chapter 13 - we still see through a glass dimly, we still “know in part”. There is a sense in which experiencing 1 Corinthians 2 is dependant on 1 Corinthians 13 - in order to see more, in order to understand more, in order to know more - we must acknowledge how deeply fractured we are and seek God’s light in dependance on the Holy Spirit. Hopefully we will see a little less dimly today than we did yesterday. In the Gospels Jesus seems to take a special joy in giving sight to those who know they are blind - let us be numbered among those who are continually asking our Lord to give us sight and to improve our sight. We require daily vision checkups.
But what happens when an eyeglass prescription is given us that distorts our Biblical vision? When happens when such a prescription causes us to view the Scriptures through an interpretive lens that is not the interpretive lens that Jesus and the Apostles employed? What happens when so many people use this miscorrected vision that it becomes the norm?
One of the things that happens is that we gloss over sections of the Bible that do not support the interpretive lens and we think nothing of it for our interpretive lens trumps the Bible; we don’t consciously think that it trumps the Bible, it’s just that the prescription in our eyeglasses is so strong that we don’t even think about conflicts between our interpretive lens and the Bible, we assume the lens is correct and that we adjust our reading of the Bible accordingly - rather than adjust our interpretive lens. We all have the propensity to interpret what we read in terms of what we want to read and what we expect to read. This is one reason that highway departments place “New Traffic Pattern” signs on roadways when a change has been made to the flow of traffic - we expect to “see” the same traffic pattern we’ve always seen, even when there has been a change; someone needs to get our attention before two vehicles attempt to occupy the same space at the same time to the detriment of all concerned.
Of course, there is always the possibility that Jesus and the Apostles were wrong and that our corrected vision is right.
Could Jesus have been wrong when He told the woman at the well in John Chapter 4, “Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father...but an hour is coming , and now is, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshippers. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” [Italics mine - New Traffic Pattern]. Did Jesus say this would one day revert to the way things used to be?
Could Paul have been wrong when he wrote to the Ephesians (2:14 - 16):
“For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall, by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the Law of commandments contained in ordinances, so that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace, and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity. And He came and preached peace to you who were far away, and peace to those who were near; for through Him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.”
Possibly Paul was wrong, there is not really “one new man”, we are not really built together as a dwelling of God in the Spirit...or if we are, there must be an expiration date.
Perhaps Paul was wrong when he gave us an interpretive lens in 1 Corinthians Chapter 10 and Colossians Chapter 2? Perhaps he was wrong that we are to view the OT has foreshadowing Christ and His People the Church - that Body which consists of Jew and Gentile, indivisible, the “Israel of God” (Galatians 6:16). Perhaps Paul’s emphasis on all of those of faith being the children of Abraham was misplaced? Perhaps Paul was in deep error to teach that “Jerusalem above is free; she is our mother’ [italics mine, New Traffic Pattern].
Perhaps the writer of Hebrews was wrong to teach that Jesus and the New Covenant are better than the Mosaic system? If we are to think that one day God will restore the old system of worship then, using the logic woven through the NT book of Hebrews, that must indicate a defect in the New Covenant; for the logic of Hebrews is that God would not have promised a New Covenant had there not been a defect in the Old Covenant. Perhaps God has realized that the New Covenant is not all He thought it was and it is time to return to the Old Covenant?
No doubt Paul’s rebuke of Peter (Galatians Chapter 2) was in error, how could Paul argue that we must not build again those things which we’ve torn down if, in fact, God is one day going to do exactly that?
Stephen was killed for preaching that God does not dwell in temples made with hands, when all the time God was planning to reverse the New Covenant, split the baby in two (the one new man of Ephesians 2), and destroy the unity of His people in Christ by reverting to an earthly temple and an earthly system of worship. All the time we thought our citizenship was in heaven (Phil. 3:20) when it was here on earth.
Now I see that the center of gravity in the NT was all wrong. Now I see that the OT did not point toward a higher reality in Jesus Christ. Now I see that Paul’s interpretive lens was wrong, as was Peter’s, as was John’s...as was Jesus’.
I must run to the opthamologist and get a new pair of glasses.
On the other hand...could it be...that the emperor is not wearing any clothes?
No comments:
Post a Comment