The End Game
Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Thessalonians 5:23 NASB
Without blame – How is this possible? Paul might pray that his followers be found blameless, but we all know the reality. We fail. We sin. We make mistakes. So it really doesn’t matter if Paul or anyone else prays that we be found blameless. We simply aren’t blameless. End of story.
Or maybe not. Our problem is that we think “without blame” is a description of a state of being. Of course, we were probably taught that blamelessness is something we can’t achieve, so God has to make us blameless by some magical spiritual imputation. God passes the blame we deserve to His son who is then executed in our place so that we can be considered blameless. This penal theory of atonement was invented during the Reformation and is still the predominant one among main line denominations. But doesn’t it mean that I am to blame for the death of the son? He didn’t need to die for his own sins. He needed to die for mine. So even if he died for me, how does that remove my blame? I am the cause of his sacrifice, even if it is voluntary.
This kind of thinking leads to the conclusion that blamelessness is essentially a legal fiction. It really doesn’t change my true state. I am still a sinner. I still fail. I still do things that deserve blame. But God pretends that I am blameless. I am supposed to believe that He looks at my eventual, heavenly, eternal state and treats me as if I had already arrived. But that doesn’t change my reality. No matter how much blame is shifted to the son, I still know that I did it. Oh, I can pretend along with God that it doesn’t matter now, but if I am really honest (and I ask those whom I hurt), I know that the blame didn’t suddenly vanish.
All this means that Paul can’t possibly be thinking like a Reformer if he is sincere in his prayer for blamelessness. Perhaps we can unpack some of his thought by paying closer attention to a few critical words. The first is the verb, teretheie, “may be preserved.” The root is tereo, “to watch over, to protect, to take custody, to guard.” We should notice that it is an aorist passive. That means it is a completed action done to us. We don’t do the persevering. God does it on our behalf and what He does has already been done, finished, end of story. What is it that He did? For that answer we need the second word, amemptos, the negation of memphomai, “to find fault.” What God did is not to find fault. By the way, you will notice that it is God who does this. The son plays a role, but not this role.
Now you’ll reply, “Yes, but if God doesn’t find fault as a completed action, isn’t that the same as saying we have a sanctified state of being?” Not exactly. Think like a Hebrew. Why is it that God doesn’t find fault? Is it because we kept all the Torah perfectly? No, not a chance. It’s not about rule-keeping. What is it about? It’s about covenant promises. God doesn’t find fault because He made a promise not to find fault with His children. I know. That sounds like the same legal fiction, but hold on a minute. Because God doesn’t find fault in me, I can stop telling myself that I am not worthy, that I don’t matter, that I don’t measure up to the standard. By the way, I don’t—but that doesn’t matter in this regard. If God doesn’t find fault in me, then why am I doing so? I have been given the liberty to stop acting out my self-defeating identity, the identity I constructed for myself as a result of all my past failures. I am free to change.
This leads to the last important distinction. There is a difference between blame and finding fault. Yes, I know it’s subtle, but it is important. Blame means to assign responsibility for a wrong. It requires someone to 1) to act as judge of the action and determine that it does not meet the standard, and 2) to assign the culpability to someone for this situation. Finding fault does not require assignment of guilt. It only requires recognition of a failure to reach a standard. I can discover there is a lack of compliance without assigning that lack to someone’s responsibility. The NASB translation of amemptos uses a word that automatically includes assigned responsibility. But what Paul might be saying is that at the coming of the Messiah we will be without fault. It’s very much like “no fault insurance” today. Yes, some accident happened, but, no, no one is assigned responsibility.
This also requires a Hebrew point of view. God acts in such a way that we are delivered from our past self-destructive identities. But we still have to change. And for that to occur, God also acts by assisting, guarding, preserving, encouraging and generally engineering our lives so that we have opportunity after opportunity to put the new identity to work. And in the end, when the Messiah comes again, no fault will be found.
Just think about it for awhile.
Topical Index: amemptos, find fault, blame, 1 Thessalonians 5:23
The more I think about this, the more my head hurts, and ibuprophen doesn’t touch this pain. Was this any easier to comprehend for Jewish folks before Hellenization started creeping in?
David, I was reading yesterday about how early that Hellenization occurred, and about all the ‘modern’ perversions and distractions and popular beliefs had infiltrated Israel by the time of Messiah. As shown in the tale of Abraham and Lazarus, the pagan idea of purgatory and hell was certainly accepted; most likely because the leaders were sending their sons to Alexandria to be educated at the university there. It has always been interesting to me that Yeshua did not fight the paradigm His listeners were hearing him under; He just proceeded to make His point using what they already were using. And His point was NOT that Abraham was currently alive looking over the valley at hell!
The Name itself had already been so corrupted the Bearer Himself had to come to set the record straight. And here we are, still stuck in Greece! John himself records that none of the disciples understood that Messiah was going to die, even though there were lots of references to it. They were reading with the popular filters of the day, where the Suffering Servant had gotten sifted out, along with His first coming, in favor of the second coming in glory and vengeance. I wonder sometimes if we are being tempted today to ignore the specifics of the second one (judgment and destruction) in favor of the first one (forgiveness and ‘peace’ and universal reconciliation). Sigh.
I understand. Hellenization was part of the scenery for the Maccabees. But God is the same before and after Hellenization. My question was about untainted Jewish woldview–did those folks have a leg up on getting on the Almighty’s wavelength?
INTERESTING Skip you said it all…
KJV 23And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Hope – Faith IN versus Faithfulness OF is here explained as you referred to in the discussion of hope. Two things come to mind – we must pray that we are preserved blameless and therefore we must have faith that He can preserve us as promised.
This is a reality very few actually consider in their lives. We are tempted, go so far as to start executing our desires then BOOM… Something happens and we cannot. The faithful God through Christ is keeping us without blame… In thoughts we are to blame but by His grace He interferes with our plans and keeps us blameless. Christ as mediator in action God’s saving grace being manifested through this interference. Paul’s prayer and desire being fulfilled.
Without going too much into theology and theories of atonement and justification, when I read the verse in the chapter’s context, I see Paul writing to a community. And I can’t help but think maybe he doesn’t speak at all about me, an individual, standing blameless before God, but rather about us, the Assembly of the Lord, the Kahal of YHVH, Yeshua’s kingdom, Israel.
If we “admonish the unruly” and “encourage the fainthearted” (Verse 14) it means there are “unruly” and fainthearted among us, but as a community we are healthy. If we live according to the instructions in the letter, which are in total alignment with Torah, we’ll be indeed blameless, but as a community!
Good point
True! In community iron sharpens iron, as each is aware of the actions / lifestyle of the other/s, thus challenged to be faultless.
Who is “assigning” blame? ~ Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies; who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us ~
~Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.. ~ (Romans 8.1) Why? Because Calvary covers it all! This is what an “atonement” is! – A “covering.”
He took my sins and my sorrows,
He made them His very own;
He bore the burden to Calvary,
and suffered, and died alone.
How marvelous! How wonderful!
And my song shall ever be:
How marvelous! How wonderful!
Is my Savior’s love for me!
Jesus, (who is the Christ) was the onlliest (?) sinless and “blameless” human being ever to grace this planet. “Which of you convinces (or convicts) Me of sin?”- can only be truthfully spoken by one Man, – the man, the second Adam, the LORD Jesus Christ.
As for the rest of us? Friend, “guilty as charged.” “ALL” (hello) have sinned. You and me brother. You and me sister. And what we sinners need is a Savior. As Abraham prophesied long time ago, “God will provide Himself the Lamb” – and (?) He did.
The promised Messiah has come – and? He came with a mission. His mission was? [both] “to seek and to save that which is lost.” My song of salvation today is also – “I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see. For you see, dear friend, – it is NOT about me! I am (gasp!) not the center of the known universe -He is. He must increase and I (?) must decrease. ~Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under Heaven given to mankind (whether Jew or Gentile, male or female) by which we must be saved.” ~
He, who is the Truth, speaks only truth, and in His own words He has spoken to the ones that will hear His voice, – I AM the Way, the Truth and the LIfe. No man (no,not one) comes to the Father, but by Me. My sin (all of it) is nailed to the cross, and I bear it (neither the shame, nor the blame) no more, ~ Blessed IS the Name of the LORD. His Name is Wonderful!!
Hi Carl, do you have a youtube link for the song you quoted! So beautiful.