June 22, 2010: The Negative And Judgmental Jesus Who Wants You To Suffer And Die (Part 2)

Yes, I know that the title of this week's and last week's Pastor's Page is provocative. That's deliberate. By speaking forcefully I honor the literary tradition of my apostolic namesake, who in Galatians 5:12 said that he wanted gospel opponents to cut off their penises, and who in Philippians 3:8 compared everything but Christ to a steaming pile of sh--. All that I write is tame in comparison.

I was asked last week to provide Scriptures to support my contention that Jesus is negative and judgmental and he wants you to suffer and die. Gladly:

Read any of Jesus' sermons (the one in Matthew 5-7 and Luke 6 will do), and you will see that he is very negative and judgmental about sin. He is so strict that he makes Old Testament commandments harder than ever to obey, expanding the definitions of murder and adultery, for example, to include anger and lust and unjustified remarriage. See Matthew 5:21-22; 27-28; 19:9. His standards are so high that he routinely dismisses potential disciples who want to follow him but who don't quite make the grade. For example:

1) A man says he will follow Jesus after his father dies. Jesus retorts, "Let the dead bury their own dead. You go and proclaim the kingdom of God." (Luke 9:60)
2) A man says he wants to follow Jesus, and Jesus immediately challenges his willingness to be homeless: "Foxes have holes and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head." (Luke 9:58)
3) A man will follow Jesus after he says good-bye to his family. Jesus says, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God." (Luke 9:62)
4) In Matthew 19:16-22, Jesus turns away a morally upright man because he won't give all his money to the poor.
5) In Matthew 10:38, he says that anyone who does not take his cross and follow him is not worthy of him.
6) In John 6:66-67, a whole crowd of disciples walks away from Jesus after a difficult sermon. He not only lets them go, he asks the 12 if they want to leave too!
7) Even Peter, who by sheer grace made it through all that weeding out, is blasted for his lack of faith (Matthew 14:31), called the Devil (Mark 8:33), and threatened with excommunication (John 13:8).

And that's the disciples! Active opponents are called thieves and robbers (John 10:8), sons of Satan (John 8:44), sons of hell (Matthew 23:15), snakes (Matthew 23:33), carcass crypts (Matthew 23:27), blind guides (Matthew 23:16), and blind fools (Matthew 23:17). Among other things.

The point is frequently made that Jesus judges sin, not sinners, but that homiletic talking point does not hold up well under biblical scrutiny. It's not sin but sinners who need to have millstones hung around their necks (Luke 17:2), who will weep and gnash their teeth (Matthew 8:12), whose only reward will be earthly renown (Matthew 6:6).

I believe that Jesus is negative and judgmental because we keep giving him so much to be negative and judgmental about. We sin, and we sin, and we sin some more, and we live among sinners who corrupt us and whom we corrupt.

There is only one way out of this stinking mess, only one exit from this iniquitous maze, and that is through suffering and death. You could put it this way: Jesus wants you to suffer more so that you will sin less; he wants you to die so that you will be sinless. He himself "learned obedience from what he suffered" (Hebrews 5:8), because it was God's will to "make the author of [our] salvation perfect through suffering" (Hebrews 2:10). So, while the Buddha Siddhartha Gautama founded a religion on the basis of avoiding suffering, Jesus went the other way and embraced it, postponing the gratification of full joy until after he "endured the cross, despising its shame" (Hebrews 12:2). He insisted that his followers walk that Via Dolorosa behind him, taking either a figurative cross (Mark 8:34), or - in Peter's case - a literal one (John 21:18-19).

Early Christians were eager to share in the sufferings of Christ. Paul wrote that he wanted to know "the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings" (Philippians 3:10), and was committed to filling up "what is still lacking of Christ's afflictions" (Colossians 1:24). The apostles rejoiced in Acts 5:41 not because they were feasting luxuriously but because "they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name."

By the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they taught us that being a Christian was a lot like death. Paul wrote, "our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with" (Romans 6:6), and, "I've been crucified with Christ; therefore I no longer live, but Christ lives in me" (Galatians 2:20). Peter wrote, "He bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness" (1 Peter 2:24).

It is the absence of any rigorous proclamation about the cross that renders so insidious the crap preaching of gospel lite proponents I critiqued last week - Joel Osteen, Robert Schuller, Joyce Meyer, Andrew Wommack. There are many others. They do not see a holy Jesus who hates your sin, who died for it and insists that you die to it. They see an indulgent Jesus who wants to stuff you with goodies regardless of your spiritual condition. Rather than urging us to die to ourselves, take up our crosses and follow Christ, they tell us think positively and buy shoes. Actually, they want you to buy their books and send them money so that they can think positively and buy shoes. Lots and lots of shoes. But you would do better to contemplate the cross of Jesus Christ, and repent of your sins, and meekly plead for God's good and perfect will to purify you no matter what the cost.