The View from the West Mesa

This week, we’re going to start with two quotes from Dallas Willard, both from his The Spirit of the Disciplines. Here they are: One specific errant concept has done inestimable harm to the church and God’s purposes with us—and that is the concept that has restricted the Christian idea of salvation to mere forgiveness of sins. …It becomes understandable why the simple and wholly adequate word for salvation in the New Testament is “life.” “I am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly…” Forgiveness has been the center point of much of Christianity since Jesus was here. More than once we read of the need for sacrifices for forgiveness, and we are told that Jesus preached a gospel of repentance for forgiveness of sins. Forgiveness of sin has been a constant of Man’s relationship with God. Getting rid of our sins, “as far as the east is from the west,” has held the attention of many believers over the years. We have used multiple rites and rit...

If YHWH picks you to be one of His spokesmen, you can be pretty sure of two things. One, this is a great honor if you can pull it off; and two, your life is going to get pretty problematic really soon. A cursory review of the people who have been tapped by God (not the modern, "I'm a prophet" sort of people; the real ones in Scripture) will easily bear this out.  Hosea is a wonderful example of this. Perhaps best known for the story of he and his wife, Hosea is directed to take a wife of whoredom. As the story progresses there are a number of infidelities and reunions between the couple. Eventually, Hosea's wife Gomer, gives birth to three kids. Now if you're a prophet, not only does your life become problematic, but various aspects of it will be used to help spread the message YHWH wants communicated. Such is the case for Hosea. Those three kids are named by YHWH Himself and they aren't flattering names. They mean, in order, Jezreel, No-Mercy (or Not-Pit...

The glory of YHWH is humanity fully alive. This sentiment, ascribed to Irenaeus and echoed by Dallas Willard is a succinct statement of the greater enterprise. The Creator crafted human beings in His image and established them on the planet, in the midst of the greater creation on purpose. That purpose? Full life, right here, right now. The gracious God of creation loves to bless; loves to be gracious. Creation itself is the playing out of that essential goodness. We are told that people are made in the image of God – you are that image of Divinity. Many theories of Christianity tell us that the image has been marred, in some cases beyond recognition or reclamation, but these theories are wrong. As the Genesis writer reminds us, the reason God requires life for life for any creature that murders a human is that people are the image of YHWH. We are told this in chapter nine, well after the description and affects of the Fall. Adam’s failure – and Eve’s – has not changed the reality tha...

Sin. Such a small word but with huge ramifications and not really understood. There are various definitions of sin available for various purposes ranging from "missing the mark," to "breaking the Law." All the available definitions are appropriate in their contexts but all are themselves a bit off the mark. If we are made to be cosmic, world-class, YHWH-image Lovers, then sin it seems at its core, is not-Love. In other words, anything that is done (intentionally) against the wellbeing of the other, against the building up, the glorifying of the other is not-Love or sin. To get a better picture of sin, we can look at its opposites in YHWH's revelation. We are told that the fruit of the Spirit is akin to a laundry list of good character attributes. We might start in Galatians 5, but that is not the only place we find the fruit of the Spirit. So then, patience, kindness, gentleness, even self-control are descriptors or evidence of the sort of Love we are after...

John tells us that YHWH is Love and Jewish Scripture reiterates that that He as and extends steadfast love toward people, especially those who He has called to be His people. This love though is not what we often call love. It isn't romantic, emotional, or even familial love as we know them and yet, it is all of them. To have divine Love is to express that Love and to do so willingly and fully. Love, even as we experience it in its specific essence is self-giving for the good, the benefit, the building up of the other. Love in its positive, self-giving aspect is to glorify the other person. When we say that we are to glorify YHWH, we mean that we are to laud, to give ourselves for Him, to point others to His Love, mercy, and kindness. We glorify YHWH by the ways we live, the reasons we give for what we do, the value He has in our lives and the potential He has in others' lives. YHWH's complaints about Israel is that she has not done this, routinely. She not only has ...

Israel was intended to be the image of her God in the world, the bearer of blessing and good news for all the nations. Her history with YHWH was at best an inconsistent witness to this image. The Law, the leading of YHWH, His protection and blessing of Israel was not for her alone, but as a witness to the entire world of what faithful discipleship to YHWH could mean for every country. Every country, every nation could be caught up in the gracious mercy and blessings of YHWH if they would simply heed what Israel was supposed to have demonstrated - what she was supposed to have become. Israel was to be the very embodiment of YHWH and as such become a priest for the world until the world itself could become one with YHWH. Being the image of YHWH wasn't a secret; we are told in Genesis that YHWH made Man(kind) in His image. There have been various ideas about what being the image of YHWH means, including being spirit beings or having souls; being able to use logic and critical...

A cursory reading of the Jewish Scriptures reveals that YHWH is concerned about two primary topics. The first is Israel's fidelity to Him. It was YHWH who called Abram and YHWH who called Israel from Egypt. Finally, it was YHWH who had mercy on Israel and brought her from exile in Babylon. There are a number of reminders of these realities throughout the Jewish Scriptures. He has been faithful to Israel and He expects she would be faithful to Him. Fidelity then is one topic that is recurring in Jewish Scriptures. The second recurring topic is the kind of people Israel was supposed to be. The expectation is that they would reflect their God, His character in their relationships with each other. Of particular importance to YHWH is the behavior of Israel's leaders - her kings, prophets, judges, and other organs of the state. The behavior of the populous is as important, but the maladies affecting Israel are routinely placed at the feet of those in power.Two recurring themes fi...

This post is the first in a short series looking at the gospel and its relative simplicity. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On one hand, the gospel is rather simple. The gospel is simply that God loves you. There it is; it is that simple. God loves you. There are a number of concepts and realities bound up in that phrase but that truth is the basic, life-validating truth we call the gospel. Those concepts and realities are characteristics of the context of the gospel events related in the Gospels of the New Testament. The coming of Jesus as YHWH incarnated, to live among us and to die for us is surely the quintessential coming of God into the world, but it isn’t the only time God has come for His people. Christianity, rightly so, has focused on this coming and dying of Jesus as its central event. We are told that it is Jesus who has reconciled people to God; that it is Hi...

Salvation is not a once in a lifetime event. Having responded to God at some point in our lives does not admit that we can stand on that event forever. It is not accurate, in an absolute sense, to suggest that at some future point we can stand before God and justify ourselves because we had done such and so at some time in the past. We are not able to say that we had let go at some point, or that we had been baptized, or performed some penance and therefore God must accept us. Because salvation is more appropriately described as a relationship, a state of existence, it is not properly or completely defined by a legal state or by some act. We either are saved, in relationship with God, submissive to Him, or we are not. We cannot say "I may not be in submission to God now, but I once was." We either live in concert with God or we do not. What God wants is people who seek Him, who want to live with Him, in Him, and to have Him move through them. This living is imperfect and God ...