Athenian Hymn

So since we are God's offspring, we ought not
Consider that he from us is offsprung
In works of gold or bronze which we have wrought
Or contemplative hymns by poets sung.

For ignorance of man he overlooks
Until a time appointed to repent,
When all mankind be judged for all his works
By one that he hath chosen to appoint,

And proof to us that he who has been giv'n
Authority to judge those he gives breath
By spirit that descends on us from heaven
To send us each by each toward life or death
 
Is this: that he to death did once submit,
But conquered it not he: he conquered it.

Acts 17

Enoch

The doctrine of imputation depends wholly upon Genesis 2:24 and Mark 10:8. The covenant of marriage represents God’s covenant with mankind that is sealed in the union of mankind with his son, Jesus, into one flesh. When God looks upon mankind, upon those who are united in Christ, then God sees not mankind but his only begotten son. 

Still, we must accept if God was willing to crush his only son, then he, too, is willing to crush us. If God is willing to pour out his wrath on his son, how much more shall he be willing to pour out his wrath upon us. And why? So that we might be glorified with the son and with the father. 

Christ says that we must take up our crosses and be crucified with him. If we join him in the covenant of marriage, becoming one in his flesh, then it is impossible for us to avoid oneness with his suffering. For if Christ suffered, then we will not escape suffering. To be united in Christ is to be crucified with Christ. If we do not share in his death, then how is it possible that we can share in his resurrection? What can be raised again that was not first cast down? 

Was Peter not crucified with his own bride? Did she not share in Peter’s sufferings in the same way that we must share in the sufferings of our only husband? How foolish we are to imagine that we, in joining ourselves with Christ, becoming one in his flesh, join, too, with his spirit. 

For if two become one, a man and a woman, do they not join together in the flesh and create a new flesh in their children? Likewise, if two spirits come together, a man and a woman, will they not unite to form a new spirit in their children? 

But what joins together in the flesh must die in the flesh, for never has one escaped the wrath of God upon the flesh, not even the only begotten of the father. But it pleased God to pour out his wrath upon the flesh of Jesus Christ to demonstrate once and for all, his judgment upon sin. 

Our sin, too, is judged if we unite with Christ. 

However, some will say, “I have united with Christ in the Spirit, but not in the flesh.”

How, then, do you suppose to deny the resurrection of Jesus Christ in the body? For do you not believe as it is written, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.”

If Christ is risen in the body, then what was once corruptible has put on the incorruptible. What was once subject to death, has been born again into life. 

If you would deny that you will avoid the wrath to come, then you place all your hope upon a myth of men. You who wait to be caught up in the air, do you hope to escape the wrath of God upon the flesh? For God was pleased to pour out his wrath upon the flesh of his only begotten son. God was pleased to pour out his wrath upon Peter and his wife. God was pleased to pour out his wrath in stones that crushed the body of Stephen. God was pleased to run James through with the blade. God was pleased to sever the head of Paul. Do you, then, hope to escape the judgment of God upon your flesh? 

For you who have been united in Jesus Christ through marriage to him are united both in his suffering and his glory. For since the beginning of the world, none have been glorified who did not first suffer. What has put on death must die that it might be clothed with life everlasting. 

And do not forget, brothers, that Jesus himself has been exalted to judge for himself who his bride will be. He who tells us that he will separate man from man as a shepherd who separates the sheep from the goats, it is the same shepherd who selects for himself a bride and rejects those who do not know him. For he admonishes us to remember the five bridesmaids who did not keep their oil and were left in darkness. So, too, he leaves us with one injunction of despair:

“And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.”

For even Jesus Christ reminds us that a man who is joined to a wife who joins her flesh to that of another man, may separate himself from her for all eternity. For God, though he has chosen to be faithful, even God has declared that one who joins to a husband besides Christ has joined himself to death eternally. Though once married to Jesus, a bride who scorns to suffer in his flesh and hopes to instead enjoy the fruitless promise of another will suffer in death eternally. For there is no resurrection in the flesh outside the resurrection of the flesh of the eternal son, and only those who unite in him will be raised in him. 

For Christ has issued a certificate of divorce to Israel, saying, “I had sent her away with a decree of divorce” when Israel played itself the whore to unite with other gods. Still, even then in his judgment against her, Christ has said, “Return, faithless Israel, declares the LORD. I will not look on you in anger, for I am merciful, declares the LORD.”

But Judah, seeing the harlotries of Israel has suffered an eternal judgment. For Jesus returned to Galilee to gather the lost sheep of the North, the faithless bride who repented and returned to him. But he has turned his back on Judah, who scorned his faithfulness and sought to end the covenant of marriage through the death of the covenant maker. For in the moment that Jesus Christ died in the death of the cross, the covenant of Moses ended, for who can keep a covenant with the dead, for it is written, “For where a will is involved, the death of the one who made it must be established.” For Christ at once died unto the Law and unto the flesh, and in his death was freed from his covenant with both Israel and Judah, and in his resurrected body made free to join himself to any who would share in him. 

As the prophet writes, there is no longer Israel; there is no longer Judah; there is no longer Gentile, nor slave not free. There is only Christ. If then, there is only Christ, then where are you? You are in Christ: One in his flesh. One in his death. One in his resurrection. One in his body eternal. One in his spirit. 

For Christ himself prophesied when he said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” And what is a temple if it is not the house where God dwells? And if God dwelt in the body of Christ as a man, and that body was torn down, was it also not rebuilt? For the body that is destroyed in death is also rebuilt in life. For if even Jesus did not avoid the consequence of sin, himself being holy, then how do you hope to avoid the consequence of sin, though his holiness is imputed to you? You deceive yourselves, you who hope for the second coming preached by the false prophets, who teach you to hope to avoid the judgment of death. For who, since the beginning, has avoided death?

For it was right that Elijah, though carried away in a chariot of fire in the flesh, returned in the body of Elizabeth to suffer judgment in the flesh when he declared in power, “And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God.” For how does John bear witness, saying, “I have seen” if he has not seen the son with the father? And did Jesus not say, “If you are willing to accept it, he (speaking of John) is Elijah who is to come.”

But Enoch, of whom it is written, “By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found, because God had taken him. Now before he was taken he was commended as having pleased God. And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” But Peter, James, and John bore witness to the voice of God when Jesus the King was transfigured in his earthly body, without surrendering to death, to stand with Moses and Elijah, their bodies also transfigured, and heard the voice of God declare, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” If God were pleased with Enoch, who escaped death once, then for what purpose would God crush his only begotten son in death though he had pleased him “well” when Enoch had pleased him in less abundance? For if Jesus, who was to come in the flesh was less pleasing to God than Enoch, then why has Enoch escaped death when the son has not? And if Elijah escaped not death, but was sent again to proclaim the coming of the promised Messiah, then how has Enoch avoided judgment in the flesh? And is it not written that Moses’ body was hid by God so that it was not found, though Michael and the Devil disputed over it? But indeed the body was found and was glorified with Christ and Elijah in the presence of God and the disciples. Is it that Moses and Elijah and Jesus are all three glorified in transfigured bodies, but Enoch remains in corruption, having pleased God more than the Holy One of Israel? 

For if Enoch, having lived one year, has escaped death, then the cross is no cross at all, but only a clever trick. For I assure you that Enoch, too, has tasted death in the death of Christ and has not avoided judgment. As it is written, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith.” Scripture does not read, all but Enoch have sinned.

For Enoch, too, having believed in Christ by Faith, received a covering for sin, just as the shame of Adam was covered in the skin of an animal, and as the ark of the testimony was covered in mercy sprinkled with blood, and we being covered in righteousness by the blood of Jesus Christ, there is none, not even Enoch, who has escaped the judgment of death and blood and drawn near to the father by pleasing him by faith in a manner to avoid death. For it is by faithfulness that God subjects us through death, for Christ himself, being "the way" to the father has established that way through death. For even in faith death must come, for it is by faith that Christ descended into hell and death so that by faith he might ascend, once and for all, in glory to the father. How then does Enoch escape death, once and for all? Is he a better Christ, having pleased God more to avoid being cursed in death? For the blood of Jesus is of no use to Enoch, having been justified by faith in God alone, avoiding the judgment of sin in his flesh meted out upon the only begotten. 

So I declare to you, as the spirit testifies, that Enoch, if you are able to accept it, has returned already in the faith and death of Moses, having learned how to please God by faith, and having been the only man to behold the face of God and live, having already beheld it in glory. Just as the Baptist in righteousness declares his testimony (and his testimony is true) that he hath witnessed that Jesus is the Son of God. And Peter, James, and John, having three witnesses to the three witness, Peter, James, and John in corruptible flesh, Moses, Elijah, and Jesus in the incorruptible, bear witness to the glory of God, giving testimony unto men concerning the glory of God, having witnessed it themselves. For Enoch, Elijah, and Jesus are the only ones to have borne witness to God's glory in the heavens. So, too, are Moses, John the Baptist, and Jesus glorified by a better faith, having confidence not in an invisible testimony, but a visible one. For it is written, in the Law of Moses and the Law of Christ that a thing is established by the testimony of two or three witnesses, and so God, in his glory, called forth two or three witnesses unto himself to bear witness to his glory and the glory of the son: Enoch, Elijah, and himself. For he testifies about himself when he testifies about his son, but himself being the third witness, though his testimony more true because he cannot lie, brought forth two more witnesses to confirm what he had already spoken and declared to be true. Therefore, Enoch and Elijah, having borne witness to the father are declared by God's word to be "the greatest." For Jesus declared that he who wishes to be the greatest must be the most humble, and it is written of Moses that he was more humble than any man on earth. And Jesus declares of John that there was no man born of woman who was greater than he. But no man is humble in himself but only becomes humble, indeed, most humble, by witnessing the glory of eternal God. 

And these three witnesses to the glory of God, being transfigured in the body in glory, were witnessed by Peter, James, and John, receiving the testimony of God and becoming the first human witnesses to behold on earth the glory of eternal salvation in the glorified bodies of the first three witnesses.

With this testimony, being true, I declare to you with power and authority by the holy spirit of God which dwells within me, having testified to these things, too, knowing the depths of the secrets of God, that there is nothing hidden that shall not be revealed, and that God’s holy decrees are eternal and true. 

How is it, some may ask, that you know that Enoch has returned already? I tell you the truth. There are some alive who wait the return of Enoch, having reasoned by the Scriptures, “It is appointed for man to die once.” And Scripture, being true, testifies that Enoch, too, was a man, just as Jesus was a man, even Luke bearing witness to the genealogy of Jesus unto Adam, by whose loins came also Enoch. If Enoch is a man, as Jesus, too, is a man, then how should Enoch avoid the testimony of judgment poured out not only upon all men, but also the only begotten? For God hath sworn by himself (and God cannot lie), that it is appointed unto man once to die, then either Enoch was not a man or Enoch has not died, for all who die, die in Christ or apart from Christ, and if Enoch has not died, then Christ, too, has not died. 

For as Paul writes, “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.”

Enoch, then--if he has not died--having pleased God, is not an heir through the Son, but rather, though himself. And if Elijah has returned to experience death, as testified by Jesus before the death of Jesus, then Enoch, too, must have returned, to experience death. And if Christ has come already, at the “fullness of time,” then either Scripture lies in that it is appointed for man once to die, that the fullness of time had come, or even Jesus Christ himself is a liar when he prophesies, “It is finished.” For it could not be finished if Enoch remains unglorified in the flesh, the only man of flesh who walks in Heaven glorified without dying in the flesh and into Christ. For there are three alone who have ascended unto God in the body, Enoch, Elijah, and Jesus, and there are three who stand upon the holy mountain, Moses, Elijah, and Jesus. Therefore Enoch, having ascended first also descended first. Elijah, having ascended second, descended also second, and Jesus, having ascended last, descended also last, once and for all, that all who descend in death might now also ascend in life eternal, having died with Jesus Christ, unified in the flesh of matrimony unto the son, also being glorified in death, do become much more glorified in God. 

Introduction to an Unwritten Book

This book is about glorifying Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Messiah of Israel. It's a book written by an American Gentile with an Irish name some 2,000 years after the story of Jesus began to unfurl. I'm writing it to explain to you what I have learned about the central message of the Bible, which is a question with which I wrestled for many years before I finally came to understand how the message is not idea, but a person.

Imagine you have a brother. A sister. A friend. It doesn't matter who the person is, but picture someone in your mind who you really love, someone you know others would love, too, if only they came to know more about this person. How many books could you write to convince others that they, too, should love this person you love? What argument would you make? What meaning is there behind this love that you should put it to words? Wouldn't it be better just to introduce your friends to this person and let them learn for themselves why they ought to be in love with each other, too?

So it is obvious that this book is doomed from the start because it will never convince you why you ought to love Jesus. However, I hope that it will convince you to consider taking a step toward him, to reach out just a little toward him and invite him into your life, if only for a few moments. Because perhaps the most difficult and irrational thing that I am trying to do by writing to you is to convince you that Jesus is actually alive, and he is here, right now. He is sitting next to me, and he is standing next to you, and he is waiting for us to speak to him.

Born in a manger. Crucified. Risen on the third day. These are three central facts of the biography of Jesus Christ that those who profess his name believe to be true. Yes, we believe that his mother came to be pregnant by the power of God, not by having sex with a man. Yes, we believe that he was crucified in Jerusalem during the reign of Caesar Augustus by Roman soldiers on the authority of Pontius Pilate in order to squelch an uprising among the Jewish people. Yes, we believe that after being killed and buried, physically dead, that Jesus came back to life, and that he is still alive, to this very day, almost 2,000 years later.

These are the facts that we accept. These are the facts that make us followers of The Way. There are other things, too, that Christians believe, and there are many disputes, even among Christians, concerning many things recorded in the Christian Bible. While I may discuss some of these topics in this book, I want you to know right now that there is only only one single question of theology that I intend to make central in this book, and it is the question that I invite you to consider as you read through these pages. I will not ask you to make judgments about sins. I will not ask you to condemn homosexuality or to choose a particular denomination with which to fellowship and worship. I won't even ask you to believe that Jesus died for your sins. Although I do have opinions of my own about these topics and many, many others, none of these issues are a concern of this book. This book has only one concern, and it is this: Jesus is alive, and he is waiting for you to accept him.

You may think that this is the most ridiculous and most difficult thing to accept about Christianity. You may agree with many others who point to Jesus' teaching about loving others as you love yourself and say that you agree. You may even agree with the diminishing number of people in America who actually believe that Jesus was a real person, that he really did have followers, and that he was, in fact, crucified by the Romans. However, you cannot accept much more than that. You can't accept that he was raised from the dead by the power of God on the third day, and that he ascended into heaven where he reigns in power and authority over all of Creation at this very moment. The last part, I agree, sounds a little hokey, but it is the part of Christianity that matters most. The thing that ought to matter most to a Christian is that Jesus Christ is a risen and reigning king. All power and authority over your life belongs to him alone, and any testimony of scripture or testimony of man is a testimony to this central fact.

In the first century A.D., just a few years after the time of Jesus, the Apostle Paul wrote to one of the early groups of Christian converts in a port city in modern-day Greece, just an hour's drive to Athens. The city is named Corinth, and we call the inhabitants of that city Corinthians, just as we might call residents of California, Californians, or residents of Indiana, Hoosiers. The people of this city in ancient Greece knew about Judaism, a religion that was characterized by a proclamation of the signs and wonders of God, most notably, the powerful demonstrations of a might deity who had freed the people of Israel from captivity in Egypt, but the culture was predominantly Greek. It was a culture of people who had been heavily influenced by the teachings of another man, Socrates, who had taught his students to think for themselves, to be rational, and to question everything. To these people, new converts to The Way, Paul wrote:

Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the follow of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. (I Corinthians 1: 20-25, ESV). 

Yeah, that's a lot of scripture, and I understand that if you are now wrestling with God like I was wrestling with God for many years, then you probably won't find that passage very convincing. But I show it to you to illustrate the starting place for this book, which is this: If you want to understand Christianity, the first step you take is not to take a step into a church. If you want to know what it means to be a Christian, the first step you take is not to read your Bible. If you want to figure out why this man, Jesus, has had such a strong influence upon the lives of so many generations of human beings over the course of the past 2,000 years as nations and empires have risen and fallen, then you cannot understand it even by reading this very book. The first step, friend, is to step toward Jesus Christ. He walked this planet like a man. He died like a man. But he rose from the dead in the Power of God, and he is alive today.

Jesus himself instructed his followers to "seek first the kingdom of God" (Matthew 6:33, ESV). If you are reading this book, then that is exactly what you are doing. I am not suggesting that this book is some perfect tome and that you have finally found a writer who knows all the answers, because I certainly don't know all the answers. However, I do know the Answer, and his name is Jesus. The fact that that you are taking any time to read these words testifies to me that you are already in obedience to Jesus even though you don't even know it. You are seeking the kingdom of God. The only question, then, is whether you are seeking first the kingdom of God. Are there other things that you have placed in priority to this question? If so, you'll need to set those things aside. If you are concerned about paying your bills, keeping up with your mortgage, sending your kids to college, or anything else, then you are not seeking God's kingdom first. Jesus tells us that if we seek first the kingdom of God, then "all these things will be added to you." He says specifically that our daily preoccupations, concerns about what we will eat, what we will drink, and what we will wear, will be "added to you" if you simply seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.

I invite you now, at the beginning of these pages, to open yourself to accepting that Jesus Christ is alive and well. He is reigning as king over all of the universe (which includes you), and he is ready to solve every problem you have ever had. You may have found yourself so high up to the neck in regrets and your life is so far out of control that you feel there is no hope left for you. It doesn't matter. Jesus can take care or it. You may think that you are such a horrible person that should never be forgiven because you have done too many things that people don't even know about. Maybe you're even so ashamed that you can't bring yourself to admit to anyone all the evil acts you've committed in your life. It's not a problem. Jesus can handle it. You might find yourself in a situation that you don't think is fair, and you can't understand why a loving and wise God would ever let something so bad happen to you, and you may be angry at God for things that have happened to you, your family, or to people you love. I can tell you, Jesus knows something about suffering for things that weren't his fault, and he's a friend who is looking for someone just like you, someone who knows what he went through when he got whipped 39 times by Roman soldiers and was nailed to that stick of wood just for doing his best to follow what he knew in his heart was the right thing to do.

Jesus knows all your questions, and he is so patient and loving that he will let you carry all of that pain and regret and disappointment for just as long as you care to bear it. But understand this: He is walking standing right beside you at this very instant, and the moment you ask him to carry any of it, he will.

So don't wait for the last page of this book to take the first step toward Jesus. If you want to know what it means to be a Christian, the only way to find out is to become one. It doesn't work any other way. You can't pray enough, you can't fast enough, you can't read your Bible enough, you can't go to church enough, you can't feed the poor enough, you can't give money to charity enough, you can't do anything enough to know what it means to be a Christian. The Bible tells us that the thing God wants most from us is simply to believe in faith that he exists. One passage tells us that "without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him" (Hebrews 11:6, ESV). There is no other way. You have to take the first step. Believe in Jesus. Take a risk and know that he is real. As the psalmist writes, "O taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him" (Psalm 34:8, ESV).

What do you have to lose? Everything. What will it cost you to kneel before Jesus right now and to confess that you want to believe that he is real, and that you want to believe that he can take control of every aspect of your life? If you kneel, you lose everything. If you don't you still lose everything. Jesus asks us to consider this question, "For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and to forfeit his soul?" (Mark 8:36, ESV). At the same time, he tells us, "For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it" (Mark 16:25, ESV).

This is Christianity. This is what Jesus says about himself. You can repackage the gospel if you'd like to do that. You can start a whole new religion based upon all the wisdom and experience you have gained in your life. Or, you can humble yourself and admit that 2,000 years of history testify to the fact that maybe this person named Jesus really is who he said he is, and that he can do what he says he can do. Be a fool. Believe it.

Ashes to Ashes, Spirit to Spirit

To repent in dust and ashes
Is to make peace with the dust
For from clay the maker formed man,
And to return to dust man must.

But wind returns not to ground
Nor the life into the soil,
For the breath of him who raised man
Up from mud and death and toil

Will return into the bosom
Of the God who blew it out,
For dust returns to ashes
And spirit, too, no doubt

Hurries back into the spirit
That has raised man up from earth
To conjoin in mortal bloodsoak
More spirit born in birth

When upon the pangs of deathbed
Does the spirit born in you,
Seek return unto its father,
As it was designed to do.

But not one-, but three-, or forty-,
Fifty-one-, or ninety-nine-
Fold from one seed in you wedded
By the planter's grand design.

For a child of god is spirit,
Because God is spirit, too,
So let man return to ashes,
And let spirit carry you

Back again into God's bosom,
Where it was before you were,
And the dust, far less eternal,
Will receive the living Word.

Law, Fulfilled

To sip upon His judgments
And not expect to die,
Though losing win with medicine
That kills all sin in I.

To drink a draught of liquor
That swoons the sordid flesh,
And fall asleep beneath death's keep,
A covenant made fresh.

To swallow up God's mercy
Within a cup of wrath,
And fear no more what lies in store
But dance on Spirit's path.

To taste a sponge of poison
And go weak at the knees,
Then wake in Hell and there go tell
The captives they be free.

To pour wine with Elijah,
Before the throne of grace,
There with my Lord, his blood outpoured,
And look upon the face

Of God, Lord of Creation,
Of God, Ancient of Days
Of God with Us, Alive in Us
Of God, His Name be praised!

Reddit: The Eleventh Commandment

III Peter

I, Simon Peter, the rock upon which Jesus Christ, the Son of God has built His assembly,
Write these words:

Noah, Job, and Dan'El, who have fallen asleep, await the judgment,
To be awakened by the Word of God,
Who calls them from the grave,
In majestic declaration:

"Rise up and walk!"

The memory of these things that was placed within you,
Like a Sower who scatters the Word of God,
That grows in the well-tilled hearts of the Sons of Man,
Declare these things to you:

Depart from the lusts of the flesh,
Depart from the wickedness of sin,
Depart from the received texts,

And enter the Kingdom of the Living God,
Who reaps where He has not sown
And gathers where He has not planted,

Who calls forth from water, earth,
Who calls forth from heaven, fire,
Who calls forth from death, life,
Who calls forth from darkness, light.

I, Simon Peter, who write these words to you with my own hands,
Declare unto you:
I have seen the Lord,
Upon His holy mountain,
With Moses at His right hand,
With Elijah at His left hand,

And with Peter, James, and John still dwelling in tents,
To offer sacrifices to the Living God.

What sacrifice can be offered to Holiness but holiness?
What partaking in the Living Word can be partaken but the word of our testimony,
Which is true?

Out, scribes!
Out, pharisees!
Out, lawyers!

The testimony of the Spirit is the Spirit,
Who testifies in five loaves of bread:

The Witness of the Self.
The Witness of the Prophet.
The Witness of the Father.
The Witness of the Works.
The Witness of the Scripture.

Who is this Jesus, but He who sets man free from bondage?
Who is this Christ, but He who indwells you now?

Let Peter testify to Jesus,
And Peter is not Peter,
But a Rock,
Not Simon,
Nor the scribe,
But the Word of God,

Who brought forth dry ground from water,
And established upon it,
A sacrifice to be consumed
Before the priests of Baal.

The Non-Metaphor of the Cross

23And He was saying to [them] all, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me. 24"For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it. 25"For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world, and loses or forfeits himself? 26"For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when He comes in His glory, and [the glory] of the Father and of the holy angels. 27"But I say to you truthfully, there are some of those standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God" (Luke 9: 23--27, NASB).

This familiar passage from Luke 9 records an interchange between Jesus and his followers in which Jesus instructs that one must "take up his cross daily" in order to follow him. This is a difficult passage to understand. After all, how can one daily take up a cross when one cannot die a physical death every day? I suspect that the word daily might provide the foundation for the most common interpretation of this passage, which is that in order to understand the fundamental precepts of Christ, we must recognize that we are, in fact, spiritual beings, not physical beings, and that denial of our fleshly instincts is necessary in order to enter the Kingdom of God.

This interpretation is supported in Paul's writings when he reports to the Galatians that he has already "been Crucified with Christ," yet is still living "in the flesh" not as himself but as Christ. Paul argues that the crucifixion of the flesh of Jesus represents the judgment of our own sins that have been revealed under the law, and that by faith in Jesus Christ, we become free from the judgment of that sin, having shared in Christ's sufferings, but having also been glorified in his resurrection.

This provides a foundation for the standard application to daily living of this passage from Luke, and it is neither a poor interpretation of Jesus' words nor an inaccurate description of the Christian ethic. Indeed, the general attitude of denying one's own will and seeking instead the will of the Father in Heaven is fundamental to Christian living.

However, when Jesus makes this statement to his would-be followers in Luke 9, we read the passage incorrectly when we interpret it solely through the lens of Pauline orthodoxy. In doing so, we miss the most obvious problem: Jesus had not yet been crucified when he made this statement.

Christ makes many references to his own method of death as he approaches the final Passover in Jerusalem. Indeed, in Luke 9:22, immediately preceding the passage in question, Jesus says:

22"The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed and be raised up on the third day."

Still, it is obvious from various texts that even though Jesus was providing specific and non-metaphorical predictions about his death and resurrection, that the disciples did not understand what he meant. John writes:

32"And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself." 33But He was saying this to indicate the kind of death by which He was to die (John 12:32-33).

And Mark writes:

31For He was teaching His disciples and telling them, "The Son of Man is to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill Him; and when He has been killed,He will rise three days later." 32But they did not understand [this] statement, and they were afraid to ask Him (Mark 9:31-32).

So it seems that when Jesus tells his followers that they must "take up their crosses," they were not completely certain what Jesus had meant by that, and they certainly could not have, at this point at least, believed that Jesus was referring to a symbolic representation of denial of the fleshly lusts in favor of good, spiritual life that can be lived "in the flesh," as Paul writes. No, the followers of Jesus must have wrestled with a more literal and more specific message, and it is this message that Jesus offers to his followers--a message they must have understood--that modern Christians and theologians are as reluctant to accept as any Law-fearing first century Jew.

Crucifixion, according to Roman law at the time of Jesus, could only be applied to specific groups of people. And most notably, the sentence could not be passed upon citizens of Rome. According to Kohler and Hirsch:

Originally only slaves were crucified; hence "death on the cross" and "supplicium servile" were used indiscriminately (Tacitus, "Historia," iv. 3, 11). Later, provincial freedmen of obscure station ("humiles") were added to the class liable to this sentence. Roman citizens were exempt under all circumstances (Cicero, "Verr." i. 7; iii. 2, 24, 26; iv. 10 et seq.). The following crimes entailed this penalty: piracy, highway robbery, assassination, forgery, false testimony, mutiny, high treason, rebellion (see Pauly-Wissowa, "Real-Encyc." s.v. "Crux"; Josephus, "B. J." v. 11, § 1). Soldiers that deserted to the enemy and slaves who denounced their masters ("delatio domini") were also punished by death on the cross.

In fact, crucifixion was so horrible a punishment, that the Roman politician Cicero noted:

Wretched is the loss of one's good name in the public courts, wretched, too, a monetary fine exacted from one's property, and wretched is exile, but, still, in each calamity there is retained some trace of liberty. Even if death is set before us, we may die in freedom. But the executioner, the veiling of heads, and the very word “cross,” let them all be far removed from not only the bodies of Roman citizens but even from their thoughts, their eyes, and their ears. The results and suffering from these doings as well as the situation, even anticipation, of their enablement, and, in the end, the mere mention of them are unworthy of a Roman citizen and a free man. Or is that, while the kindness of their masters frees our slaves from the fear of all these punishments with one stroke of the staff of manumission, neither our exploits nor the lives we have lived nor honors you have bestowed will liberate us from scourging, from the hook, and, finally, from the terror of the cross?

It is obvious, then, that Jesus' audience clearly should have understood Jesus' most obvious message, and indeed, the very unambiguous, literal, non-metaphorical command to follow Jesus to death, and to anticipate the punishment of the state for doing so. Jesus commands that his followers primarily fear God, not national law. They must follow God's commands with the cross on their backs, ready to suffer the penalty of execution by the state daily, that is, at any moment. The message of Jesus is quite clear, but perhaps we are so blinded by the crossbeam in our own eyes that we fail to see it. We refuse to believe that Jesus could possibly mean that we must refuse to submit ourselves to the state when it interferes with our submission to our heavenly king. But there can be no other way to understand Jesus' clear message to his followers: Follow me, and expect punishment from the state in doing so.

Sadly, two thousand years later, Christians are as blind to the Gospel as were the Jews of the first century. We still look to salvation through the state, but such thinking is antichrist. Jesus clearly teaches that his kingdom is "not of this world" (John 18:36), and he refuses Satan's offer to give Jesus "all the kingdoms of the world" when Christ was tempted in the wilderness (Matthew 4:8-9). Jesus responded to this final temptation:

10Then Jesus said to him, "Go, Satan! For it is written, YOU SHALL WORSHIP THE LORD YOUR GOD, AND SERVE HIM ONLY.'"

If any would seek to follow Jesus, then, not only must we deny our fleshly desires, nailing our sins to the cross in the Body of Christ, but they also must expect to be persecuted--even to death--by the state. Make no mistake, our sins must be nailed to the cross, but we must be prepared, also, to allow our bodies to be nailed with them.

Mother's Day

Consider who has placed a seed in you,
Who brings forth what He has in mind to do.

A mother is no more than flesh and blood
Surrendered to the mighty will of God.

What did you do, except receive a seed,
And wait for it to grow, and then to bleed?

Then cursed the Lord for what He caused to grow
By power you will never see nor know.

"Aha! Look on the mighty work I've done!"
"For from my womb has come a one from none!"

Oh foolish harlot, on your dragon ride
Unto your death, for God has been denied!

For He is who has caused in you to grow
From holy seed above on earth below,

And breathed into your womb a living breath,
That lives with neither care nor fear of death.

But you, who bask in glory of this day,
Receive your mother's prize, then fade away.

For less you must become and greater He,
Who in you life has formed and caused to be.

Orders of Ephesus

What, then, is God mocked?
Certainly not!
For who has sought Truth and found a lie?

Look outward: There is the Cosmos.
Look inward: There is the Cosmos.

And how will you know the Truth when you find it?

It is not discovered in agreement,
For fools agree to their own destruction.
For thieves agree to their own temptation.
For pimp and prostitute and john agree to their own enslavement.

Who will disagree but the one who agrees with the One?

What do you see in the sky?
A star?
A planet?
A comet?

What do you see within yourself?
Desire?
Greed?
Lust?

What is the Truth?
I see the order of the Cosmos,
Within and without.

Will Plato invoke the name of God and call it Truth?
Will Paul invoke the name of God and call it Spirit?

Look outward, and you may look inward.
There is no agreement in consensus,
But only in acknowledgment
Of the lightbulb that flashes above your own head,
Sudden insight,
Sight that comes from within,
In accordance with sight that looks outward,
A recognition of the Truth that lies inside yourself already.

It is no mystery.
It has been clear since the beginning.
A good conscience,
The stable, firm, immovable Yes! that you knew at two years old.

Yes! I am wretched to steal my brother's toy.
Yes! I am rightly judged for setting fire to the house with matches.
Yes! I am guilty of want unchecked.

Deny the Truth at your own peril,
For even Plato who did not know Christ knew Truth,
And sought it.

The head hurts when the thumb is crushed.
The legs run for help when the arm is torn.
The lips call for help when the gut is stabbed.

Death will come to the body.
And it always comes.

What Truth testifies to unobservable phenomena,
Of ethereal spheres unexplored?
They are located in the chest,
Where God has placed them,
Unseeable with the eyes,
Unhearable with the ears,
Untouchable with the fingertips,
Unsmellable with the nose,
Untasteable with the tongue.

A sixth sense that knows for certain the fifth element,
Hidden beneath earth, water, wind, and fire.

Your consciousness, which concludes
That if you think,
Then you are,
And though you will not,
God will always be.

The Groomsman's Day of Rest

Song of Solomon 8:11-12

Give me but two hundred,
Leave the rest untouched.
Let me tend the field He's sown,
And He will gather much.

He asks five times your offering
That you have shared with me,
A sixth of all he grows in you,
And all the rest for He.

I stand here but a groomsman,
To veil the wedded bride,
To cover what belongs to Him,
Until his coach arrives.

He'll have His own one thousand
From one He sowed in you.
For now, I stand a watchman
Till what He'll do He'll do.

He offers me two hundred
To see His harvest grow,
But on the day He comes for pay,
I'll have to let you go.

For He demands one thousand,
Of what He's caused to be,
So what is thine, is His, not mine,
One-sixth is all for me.

You are a seed He planted,
And all the seed is His,
But He is good, and for this would
He share with me His bliss.

But only two from dozen
The fruit of you is mine.
The other ten belong to him,
For He is only thine.

And what am I, your husband?
And what are you, my wife?
One sixth of me belongs to thee
Together in this life.

But more in me He's planted,
Than you can ever eat,
So give to Him your rest and then
Be in His holy peace.

For we will both be married
Unto the Holy Groom,
And all our love will rise above,
Into His sacred room.

Where He will taste your honey,
And drink upon your wine,
And take his fill of breastmilk,
That he has let be mine.

One sixth is all He gives me.
One sixth is all we share.
The rest will go to Heaven,
For your Groom tarries there.

Love-Sex Confusion

At the end of the weary road,
The Ancient Sphinx asked the weary traveler:
"How is a child made?"

Dry-throated, weak-kneed,
The tired traveler replied:
"By sex."

A hole opened in the sand,
And the hourglass of eternity
Swallowed the sun-scorched fool.

At the end of the desert path,
The Ancient Sphinx asked the weary traveler:
"How is a child made?"

Blistered and star-spotted,
The weathered walker replied:
"By love."

A hole opened in the sand,
And the shifty sea of time
Consumed the half-born wit.

At the end of the winding world,
The Ancient Sphinx asked the weary traveler:
"How is a child made?"

Throat slaked wet with wisdom,
The patient pilgrim replied:
"By God."

And the stone stood silent.

The Chosens' Curse

Be thankful now for Judas,
For love who's been betrayed
Is better than a love that grows
In full light, free from shade.

Be thankful now for Peter,
For love who's been denied,
Is better than a love whose kiss
Has never suffered lies.

Be thankful now for Thomas,
For love who has been doubted
Is better than a love secured
By protestations shouted.

Be thankful now for Phillip,
For love unrecognized
Is better than a love who we
See only with our eyes.

Be thankful for betrayal,
And for for denials, too.
Be thankful for the ways that they
Have hurt love before you.

Be thankful for their doubting
And for their blinded eyes.
Be thankful that love chose them
To see his body rise.

Be thankful to believe it,
If love allows you to,
For if you have believed he did,
Then his love grows in you.