The Jews thought Jesus spoke
blasphemy and declared, “He is worthy of death” (Matt 26:66 NIV). Even Paul said,
“I too was convinced that I ought to do all that was possible to oppose the
name of Jesus of Nazareth. And that is just what I did in
Jerusalem. On the authority of the chief priests I put many of the saints in
prison, and when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them” (Acts
26:9-10 NIV). Most of us can identify with wanting to an enemy put to death,
but what I grapple with is the manner of death. I can’t image wanting even someone who
I call an enemy to be tortured. When
Pilate asked the people what he should do with Jesus the people shouted, “Crucify
him” (Matt 27:22 NIV).
1 comment:
Gail;
-----I enjoy drilling into the Bible’s concept of righteousness. The Bible bids us to desire righteousness. We can never completely do, think, or feel righteously until He redeems our bodies as well (that is, when our bodies die or we are raptured.) We can not even desire righteousness completely; the falsehood that we yet are as men being the nature of these bodies through which our minds flow unto final expression. But desire is in front of everything we do. Even those things we do which we do not want to do are done from desires too deep in our hearts for redirection by our conscious determination. Sometimes we are left so high-centered by our inner beasts that all we can do is choose to desire righteousness and hold to the conscious choice until the beast and all his bad influences deflates, yielding some traction to our better judgment set on desiring to do what is right. Even when we do not know what is right in a particular circumstance, and in the face of certainly not knowing what is right for all things, we can yet desire righteousness by understanding righteousness as being what the Lord desires for any and every situation. Righteousness is merely everything being right relative to everything else according to the Lord’s standards.
-----Then I get really confused about the deaths of my enemies. I seek what is good for my enemies according to the Lord’s desires. Unfortunately, I hardly know what that is, so mostly I am left desiring what only the knows is good for them, because what is good for them is good for me and everyone else and the Lord, too. That’s just how right works. If that’s hard to comprehend, it is because our minds are made of experiences in this world where nothing can be good for everything. This is no place of perfection, so we have no experience with perfection for perceiving complete and total righteousness. Shoot. Being someone else’s enemy, as I am sure that I am more than I would like to imagine, maybe my death would be good for one of them.
-----We overrate death. It is nothing more than the removal of the veil our bodies are to perceiving the rest of reality where God dwells, for those whose spirits have been made alive in the Lord, or where He does not, for those who have not been wise enough to call on Him. In fact, lately I’ve been pondering death in light of Proverbs 16:4 - the Lord has made everything for His purpose. Death is certainly a thing. Each of our deaths are certainly each things. So even our deaths, in whatever ways they might occur, serve His purpose. Therefore, all I can wish about the death of my enemies or my loved ones or my own is that they all serve the purpose of His righteousness perfectly well. That way I can feel comfortable about dying when I have to, or pulling a trigger if I have to (God keep us from such necessities.)
Love you all,
Steve Corey
Post a Comment