The Eternal Executioner
But I will warn you whom to fear: fear the One who, after He has killed, has authority to cast into hell; yes, I tell you, fear Him! Luke 12:5 NASB
Fear Him– Yeshua, the Platonist. No, maybe he’s a Stoic. Don’t worry about what can happen to you while you live. Worry about what can happen to you after you die. A little bit of Platonic dualism (the material/evil world versus the spiritual/good world) and a little bit of physical denial (become immune of experiences in this world). Is this what Yeshua has in mind? Is he the first advocate of the “end times” point-of-view? Is he suggesting that the only thing that really matters is escaping Hell?
We could read the verse this way, but to do so would be to miss the point of the context. Unfortunately, those who want to scare us into Heaven often miss the context. The very next statement is: “Are not five sparrows sold for two cents? Yet not one of them is forgotten before God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows.”[1] Perhaps Yeshua is less interested in scare tactics than he is in asserting the overwhelming care of God. Perhaps the statement about worry is simply the foil for a statement about love.
But we don’t think about this intentional opposition, do we? We get caught in the fear of our unworthiness and our worries about the afterlife so we never make it to God’s total concern for us. We read the statements about the number of hairs on our heads as if they imply, “You can’t get away with anything because the omniscient Policeman will always make you pay.” Simply because we know very well all of our failures, we assume that this lesson from Yeshua is about punishment—eternal punishment in Hell, rather than the counterpoint to a glorious statement about how much God values us. We are victims of centuries of institutional trauma. We hear the bad stuff and filter out the good.
So let’s reconsider. What was Yeshua’s message? There is no question that he abhorred hypocrisy. He was a reformer, calling the people back to Torah obedience. But was he the divinely authorized Judge and Jury? Hardly! In fact, in this same chapter he specifically denies that role. He leaves out the last part of Isaiah’s day of wrath. He chose to forgive when he could have condemned. Everywhere we look (almost), we find the manifestation of passionate care, ultimate concern, and intimate identification. Oh, he might some day come as the arbiter of justice, but that will be later—much later. The context is about solicitude. The scare tactics only heighten the difference.
“Blasphemy of the Spirit” appears in this passage. What trauma that has involved! Am I guilty of the “unforgiveable sin”? What is it? How do I know? What if I make such a terrible mistake? Am I condemned to Hell forever? Ah, how we filter out the good news in favor of the psychology of retribution. Now where do you suppose we learned that?
Topical Index: Hell, fear, punishment, blaspheme, Luke 12:5
The “Eternal Executioner”, in that great day of Judgment, does not assert His will – execute His will – and obliterate ours: no, Judgment Day is where He lays down His will and AGREES with ours! Those who want life and forgiveness and mercy get it. Those who want the chimera (that does not exist, of course) called their ‘own way’: those who have made the choices of death in the face of all objections from the prosecution – all chances that mercy offered and grace administered – finally get exactly what they have been choosing, too. All the choices of sin are the choices of death: unrepented of, death is still what we actually want. Judgment Day is not where God gets what He wants: instead, it is where God agrees with us and lays down what He wants for us in favor of what we have already chosen. I think Execution Day is where we all get exactly what WE chose because God has finally – FINALLY – agreed with us: finally allowed us the ultimate effect of our choices.
Will we hide ourselves behind His robe of rightly-relating, thus returning us to the web of life, in that day, or will we continue to insist on bringing our own attorney and standing on our own cognizance: our ‘own way’?
I think one of the big problems with being created in the image of God is that we, by design, can extrapolate that, whatever we observe when we look at ourselves, we can choose to throw back at God and accuse Him of. Sinners (um, that would be those who think they are “gods”), then, are going to (naturally) conclude that God has all the characteristics that they are already employing. Thus, we accuse God of what we ourselves are. To the extent that we are being bad I think we can think of Him the same way. No wonder He has to tell us that His thoughts are not our thoughts and His ways are not our ways! This is not a ‘natural’ conclusion for us: we who are stuck inside the paradigms free will apparently operates out of. Love can reproduce (image) itself in what it loves, but sin cannot reproduce itself by overriding love back. God made us in His image, but, just because we want to “be as gods” we don’t get to make Him in ours – get to attribute our awful characteristics back onto Him. Although I think there is certainly no lack of trying!
Laurita,
I have also thought this could be the way it is: “Judgment Day is where He lays down His will and AGREES with ours!” The possibility has encouraged caution in my actions, but not quite as often as really needed. That’s how I know my love for Him is sometimes only mental assent, when I really don’t love “in deed.” The struggle is real.
May everyone celebrating the Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread, in the TW community, have a blessed Shabbat, and may we each be the vessel of forgiveness and deliverance for others encountered on The Way.
Thank you.
Skip’s comments concerning 1Jn 4:18 (TW, ‘The Art of Perfection’, February 18,2019) is relevant and provides further insight…
“…perfect love casts out fear…” Halellujah!
It’s always about our choice!
“Now choose life.” Deut 30:19
“Then choose for yourselves this day whom
you will serve.” Jos 24:15
Always, it’s you choose. And you choose now.
Now is the time.
And who are we, these people who have chosen?
“You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy
nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare
the praises of him who called us out of darkness into his
wonderful light.” 1 Pet 2:9
Thank you, Lord, for my gift of faith to choose You!
I keep seeing myself in that mirror! I see how it’s all about ME, always turning things around and twisting until I get the comfortable view, the best angle to really see clearly all the imperfections. Choosing to see the worst, the negative, the reflection of evil and darkness. Let there be Light! Life is about LIFE eternal LIFE, not about “how does this affect me “and my will, my weaknesses my concerns, it’s about life flowing and us going along with it. Our focus on the LIght of His Love, and seeing Him in everything, reflecting His image cause that all we see. That laser that outshines everything else and exposes the truth. Discoveries like hidden within our fits of self-pity, whining and complaining it was really just ME again nursing my thumb. Even the prayer burdens we carry, what a bad joke sometimes as when examined I finally see that it was really about how it affected me more than them. I have to ask myself sometimes, “who do you think you are”? Calling God a liar with my deeds and actions, veiled from myself and others sometimes as I don’t want to see that image/reflection of who I really am as I don’t know how to handle it or what to do with that. If I get my eyes off myself long enough I realize that Yeshua carried my “burdens” my pain, my suffering and sorrow my death and my life. He just lets me see and experience enough to help me turn my eyes to HIM. The lifting of my head to His Glory that He is enough, more than enough. No shadow of turning with Him everything “out there” unafraid to be who He Is, not fearing exposure as sin has no place in Him to reside. He doesn’t compare Himself with others, He knows who He is and He knows His Father. My eyes get a vision check now and then and I realize that I see things differently in His Light and He keeps showing me more and more. I am leaving behind the world and its lust of the eye, lust of the flesh and pride of life. Not by anything of myself other than my need for Him and His life and Love. I don’t have a life without Him. He is the one in whom we have to deal with, a one on one, a LIVING GOD not a dead idol that we can boss around and move where ever we want, that we can hide and cover up when we want, a deaf-mute, frozen in the molding of our making, and it’s easy to bow to that! I still get to have my own way! But with The Living God, He does what He wants to do and the flesh doesn’t like that or want to bow to that and be told what to do. When you realize that you meet at death’s door and realize that you have no life without Him you bow in surrender to His great kindness and overwhelming LOVE.
Hope all that was understandable I tend to run things together.
Blessings this Passover everyone.