Jesus is not all about you. It's tempting to make the story of salvation entirely about ourselves. In this retelling of the gospel of the Kingdom of God, Jesus lived and died solely for our personal benefit. We've had our own sin problem removed by the cross, and now we can have our best life, every day a new happy adventure of discovering how else God may serve us for our own joy and pleasure. If this is the end of the gospel to us, all the ordinances, disciplines, and commands of scripture become mere vehicles of greater self-satisfaction, methods by which we may put God in our debt, and more effectively use God's grace for our greater personal benefit. Our only ministry to the world in this scenario is to tell others the same lie we've told ourselves, that God, like some great vending machine, has for us all that the world has ever promised us, and that Jesus is our borrowed credit card for the bank account of heaven. Therefore, any inability by a neighbour to find success as we judge success is their own failure to access this heavenly account. We have no further responsibility to help our neighbour in their need beyond giving them the same spiritual tools we've used to further our own ends. At its worst, we may find ourselves actively and intentionally oppressing others on one hand, and justifying our sin by the cross, while simultaneously going to God with prayers of faith or fasting for breakthrough, demanding that our religious efforts be met with God's actions on our behalf. "‘Why have we fasted, and you see it not? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you take no knowledge of it?’ Behold, in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure, and oppress all your workers." - Isaiah 58:3 This is not Christianity. This is not the gospel. At best, this is useless superstition. At worst, this is idolatry, closer to witchcraft in practice than anything at all to do with Jesus. Isaiah describes a different salvation. In Isaiah, the people of God are saved not for themselves, but from themselves. God's people have so overturned their salvation from slavery to Egypt that they now trade with Egypt for war machines to further expand their new kingdom. God intervenes, frustrating their plans for further wealth and power by having them effectively overtaken by another enemy empire. They have sought to become as the empires of the world around them, with their kings and armies, demanding of God a king in Saul, and in so doing rejecting God's greater purpose for them as a beacon of justice, peace, and compassion in the world (1 Samuel 8). They have gained exactly that for which they sought. If the highest power and wealth they desire is that of kings, they may just as easily be destroyed by that same power. And thus they are destroyed by the enemy empires they wished to become. It is in their poverty and need that they turn from their own success and comfort and to God for salvation again. They are brought low so that they may be truly elevated to God's purposes. It will be in their exile that they are returned to their role as ambassadors of God's grace and love in the world. While living as foreigners in the land of their enemy, God sends prophets to them to instruct them in being a blessing to those who have caused their greatest grief. They will plant gardens. They will seek the benefit of the nation against whom they once built armies to destroy. God's purpose for them is reestablished in their weakness.
Me, two years ago, on May 17, 2014 I stumbled upon this today. I wrote this when I was a pastor. Now I am no longer a theist. It’s amazing to read and think of all the ways I’ve changed in the last two years, but the, also all the ways I haven’t.
