Pesharim

See the Original Open Letter Here.

Love. It’s a simple proposition, really. God asks that we show our belief in Him by our love –our love by our belief. It’s a love that throws everything you once believed in your face. So here I am, Ray, doing my best to show that love to you –throwing your beliefs in your face.

Forgive me for being pointed, Ray, but you don’t believe in God. No, I’m not talking about a simple belief that God exists. That’s granted. Beside the point. I’m saying this, that you don’t have any commitment to God. Without commitment you can’t love. You don’t love God, and therefore, you don’t believe in Him.

Now, understand what I mean by “belief”. Sure you believe God exists, but is that the kind of belief that gives you the power to cast out demons and raise the dead? You can hardly raise your voice, say nothing of raising the dead.

But all else aside, is your’s the kind of belief that fuels true love for God? Ray, do you truly love God?

No, I think not.

Ahhh, Ray, this may seem… unconventional. It might appear audacious –reckless even. But that’s what love is, my friend. That’s who God is. It’s not as if God merely sits in heaven, idly shaking His finger at mankind, and remarking to whoever may care to hear it, “There is, you know, a way out of your sin.” But scarcely raising a finger to coerce us to accept it. No! Never.

I’m sure that if we could see Him now, we’d see nothing of the sort. We’d see a lover maddened by His own passion –truly zealous after His creation. A lover beside Himself with love, who is Himself true love in person. Reckless. Audacious. Uncompromising

That’s why I’m so quick to point out the compromise in your gospel, Ray. Forgive my bluntness, but it’s a self-centered message you preach. You warn the sinner of their sin, and that they inherently face judgment for these acts. You beg the sinner to repent of their sin. It is a monologue on sin. And in light of Christ’s life, a monologue on what must be called irrelevant to one’s salvation. The law was antecedent to Christ, portent to His earthly ministry, but after that ministry it became salvation-historically obsolete. All the talk about the Law in the Old Testament is not primarily to convict us of our sin, as you would have it, but to show us how great a weight was removed by Jesus’ life. You attempt to replace that weight, but I ask, can a corpse feel a weight laid on its shoulders? In the same way, only those who are alive in Christ can realize they’re condition and reliance on Jesus.

And, honestly, for all your talk about sin we remain with hardly any better knowledge of sin than when we started. How can mankind can never hope to wrap our collective mind around such an infinite transgression?

I have said that your’s is a self-centered gospel. I’ll explain. Sin is an aspect of our own soul, but salvation isn’t about us. Its about God. Yet you appeal to fear –allow me to expound:

I once posed to you a question (here). “In one sentence,” I asked “why should a person put his faith in Jesus Christ?” A simple, guileless question that anyone worthy of calling them self a Christian could hope to answer. And you responded, “Without the savior, we will get exactly what we deserve on judgment day.”

But that’s not the rub, you see. Our belief in God should be the same regardless of what we get on judgement day. You’re saying we should believe in God merely for our own sake. –merely to escape judgement. However, would not the nobler instinct be to duly submit to what one deserves, rather than accept what one certainly doesn’t deserve merely to save one’s own skin?

Fear has no place in love, but perfect love casts out fear. Why then would a person put his faith in Christ Jesus? Why would a woman accept a marriage proposal from her finance? Love. Not because she fears life without him, because she cannot continue to live without him –because she loves him. If your only relationship with God is based on fear, then your commitment to Him is empty. There simply is no commitment. You appeal to God’s gift because of fear –you fear eternal judgement, so your nature of self-preservation compells you to accept what anything that markets itself as a free ticket out of judgement. This isn’t nearly.

God only ask that we believe in Him. Simple –or not at all. Yet, how can you cannot truly believe in God if the natural reservation to selfishness still remains? You believe in God? Fine, but do you truly love God? You love the security pretending to love God gives you, because you love yourself. You’ve accepted His offer of love, or so you tell us –or so you tell yourself– but I ask you now, Ray, why do you believe in God? Why?

In light of this, whether we get what we deserve on judgement day or not is purely irrelavant if we don’t have love. Indeed, everything is. Accepting God’s gift just to save yourself is a shameful, ignoble thing to do. No, more than that –I’ll tell you what it is– it’s spittiing in the face of God’s love, and that, anyway, falls a far cry short of my standards of integrity.

The “Way of the Master” indeed.

Well, perhaps you should reaquaint yourself with the Master, Ray. The Jesus I know is not the Jesus of your gospel. Did Jesus quibble and bicker over every sin? Was he sophistic and condescending? Pedantic, litigious and spurious? You’re mistaken, Ray. God did not send His son into the world to condemn the world; His’ passion was not to reveal our sin. He came forgiving sin –eliminating it forever so that His undying love for us could be satisfied. And, in the end, it was –by His death.

You just keep clanging them cymbols, Ray,

Jonathan Brennecke, Pesharim