ATHOL DICKSON

God of Discipline

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We Are All Addicted
We Are All Addicted

Do you worship discipline?  I once had the privilege of giving a kind of commencement speech to a group of men who were graduating from a Salvation Army rehabilitation center. All of the men had been at war for six months against the powerful urge to drink or to do drugs, and all of them were about to leave the program to continue the battle in a hostile world. I was asked to speak because several staff members of the center had read The Cure, and thought I might have something useful to say to their graduating residents. That novel has now become a favorite in several rehab centers that I know of. Probably they like it because it rings true. I wrote it from personal experience.

In the heady flower child days of my late teens and early 20’s I did a lot of drugs and drinking, and developed a serious “problem” with amphetamines. I was also homeless for a time. But since I don’t struggle with alcoholism and it’s been decades since I had the urge to do drugs, some might wonder what makes me think I can offer meaningful advice to people in a rehabilitation program. The truth is I fight the very same battle every single day, for I am just as deeply addicted as any of those men, and you know what?

If you have a pulse, you’re an addict, too.

Sin is nothing more than the original addiction. It reveals itself in countless ways, but make no mistake about it: we’re all in the same condition, one way or another. So here is what I said to those brave warriors, a few words about the cure, offered in the hope that it might help you, too…

Everything I’m about to say assumes you men who are about to leave this place are Christians. If you are not a Christian, then what I’ll say won’t make much sense to you, and all I can offer you in the way of advice is, come to your senses and submit yourself to Jesus Christ. You do not want to be on your own when you walk out of here.

It may be that some of you were not Christians when you first walked into this place, so you may only recently have learned about God’s amazing grace. In that case, let’s make sure you fully understand the thing that saved you. Many people think grace is mercy, but they aren’t the same at all.

Mercy is when you’re guilty and the judge decides not to throw the book at you. Mercy can actually be a bad thing, if it comes at the expense of justice for the wife and child whom you abandoned for cocaine, or the pedestrian you hit while driving drunk, or the shopkeeper you robbed to get a bottle or a fix.

But grace is always good. Grace is when the judge does the right thing, when he goes ahead and throws the book at you because you’re guilty as charged, but then he comes down from the bench and suffers your punishment for you. And as every Christian knows, that’s exactly what Jesus did for us. That’s the whole point of the cross. God sentenced us to death for what we’ve done, which was only right and just, but Jesus took our punishment, so we are innocent in God’s eyes now.

Now, what does God expect from us in return for this? Absolutely nothing. God’s son died for us. How could we ever pay that back? We’d have to die to make it up to Him, and what good would that do when the whole point of the cross was to save us from our punishment? So it makes no sense to think we could do anything “in return” for this amazing grace. We can accept it. Period. That’s all. We can’t repay God. We can’t serve him. We can’t even obey him.

Yes, you heard me right. I just said we can’t obey God. But before you start thinking they let some kind of a pagan in here to talk to you, some kind of wolf in sheep’s clothing, let me quickly mention that the Apostle Paul said exactly the same thing in the Bible. He said, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do…I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do, this I keep on doing…. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?”

See? Paul said it a long time before I did. We cannot obey. I don’t know if Paul was an alcoholic or addict, but he sure sounds like it when he says, “What I hate, I do.” I hear that, and it’s like he’s quoting from the Big Book (although of course it’s really the other way around). He’s saying, “we admitted we were powerless over alcohol.” He’s saying he “made a searching and fearless moral inventory of himself,” and he came up short. So if you’ve ever secretly felt guilty because it seems like obeying God is still impossible for you even though you’re a Christian now, if you think you must be weaker or more flawed than other Christians, damaged goods, then I want you to remember this: even the Apostle Paul agreed with the first step. Even Paul found his life unmanageable. Does that mean he was an alcoholic or a drug addict? No. But Paul was an addict all right. We’re all of us addicted to some kind of sin, one way or another, and as far as God is concerned there are many secret sin addictions which are just as bad as doping or drinking.

So, Christians, since we were powerless over our sins before we trusted Jesus, and we remain powerless over our sins today, obviously it’s a waste of time to ask, “What can I do?” But did you notice that question Paul asked at the end? He asked, “Who will rescue me from this body of death?” That’s the smart question to be asking. Who will rescue me? Because if there’s no way you can win a fight, you need to be rescued. And praise the Lord, when a Christian begs for help, he will indeed be rescued.

Every Christian believes along with Bill and Bob that there is “a Power greater than ourselves [who] could restore us to sanity.” Every Christian knows our Higher Power is not some wimpy little god “as we understand him,” but a mighty god we could never understand. Every Christian knows God personally, because we have met our higher power in the flesh on the cross. And if Jesus saved us then, He will go on saving us now, unless we start putting faith in our own will power instead of having faith in Him.

Listen now, this is important: Jesus didn’t give us power over sin. Jesus is our power over sin. What this means is, God’s grace wasn’t finished at the cross, it remains available for us right now, this instant, in every moment that we live. We were saved by grace through faith in Jesus, and not by our own works. We continue to be saved in exactly that same way. What good news this is! What a relief!

The secret to a happy Christian life is not to work harder at being sober. In fact it’s just the opposite. It’s to let Jesus do the work for you.

What does this mean in the day-to-day challenge to be sober? It’s very simple. When the devil sends that first little tickle—you all know the one I mean—you have just two choices. You can put your faith in your own willpower, or you can put your faith in Jesus Christ. If you tell yourself “Be strong,” if you put your faith in willpower, you will surely fall. But if you start praying, if you say “Jesus, I can’t win this fight! I’m too weak! Rescue me!” then the Lord will surely step right in to rescue you.

Does this mean Jesus will remove the urge to drink or use completely? Usually not. But you know what? If God leaves that urge in us, it’s because—hear me now, this is really important—if God leaves that urge in us, it’s because that urge is what keeps us turning back to Jesus.

We don’t know exactly what drove Paul to cry out, “Rescue me!” but we do know he wrote in the Bible about having something he called a “thorn in my flesh,” and a “messenger from Satan.” Sounds like an addiction, doesn’t it? Paul says, “Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’” Was Paul disappointed that God refused to take away his thorn, his Satan’s messenger? No. On the contrary he wrote, “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses.” But why did Paul boast about his weaknesses? Here’s the answer in his words again: “I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

Hear that famous line again, Christians. “When I am weak, then I am strong.” There’s your key to a successful life, regardless of your sin of choice. Probably most of you have begged and pleaded with the Lord to take away your addiction. Since you’re here, that means God said “No” to you, just as he did to Paul. And like the Apostle Paul, you should praise God for that answer. Think about this carefully.

Do you really want to put your faith in discipline instead of in Jesus Christ?

If God took away your sin addiction, would you really be a stronger person, or would you be tempted to think you don’t need Jesus quite as much? Would you be tempted to pray a little less? Read His word a little less? Worship Him a little less? Spend less time with other Christians? Focus on yourself a little more, until you are alone again just as you were before you met him at the cross? Sober, but alone and terribly, terribly lost? Is that really what you want? Is sobriety worth that?

Now it’s time for the next battle, and as you prepare to go, I hope you will remember that your weakness makes you strong if you embrace it. Your weakness is a blessing. Don’t fight it; celebrate it, as Paul did. Boast about your weakness and take delight in it, because if you will do that, then your weakness will always point you back to Jesus.

Think about this carefully: your weakness is a blessing.

Don’t ever feel sorry for yourself because you have to fight this battle. Instead, pity the person who seems to find it easy to be “good,” who looks like they have life under control. Pity the poor Christian who is “only” addicted to gossip, or “only” surfs porn on the internet in secret, or “only” lusts for money. Those Christians may look clean and sober on the outside, but because their sin addiction is well hidden they can go for years—for all their lives in fact—without ever getting past the first step, without ever going beyond the entry-level grace they found on the first day they were saved. You, on the other hand, have a particular thorn in the flesh that’s impossible to ignore, so you’ll always find it easier to embrace your weakness, easier to put your faith in Jesus instead of in your own will power, and easier to walk deeper and deeper into the amazing grace that’s always there to rescue you.

The foregoing was originally published on January 6, 2010, at What Athol Wrote and is posted here with minor changes.

What Jesus Didn’t Know

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Actual Photo of Jesus' Feet (or some very like them)
Actual Photo of Jesus’ Feet (or some very like them)

Recently a friend mentioned a controversy in her life caused by a few people who claim Jesus was born with a perfect knowledge of the Scriptures. They probably believe this because syllogistic logic seems to demand it. Christianity teaches that Jesus is “fully God,” and God is omniscient (all-knowing), therefore Jesus must have been omniscient at birth. They also claim Jesus was never tempted to sin. Again, they apparently base this on the syllogism that Jesus is fully God, and God hates sin, therefore Jesus could not have been tempted to sin. My friend told me these people also claim their ideas are “critical theology.” By that, I assume they mean these notions are essential doctrines, or First Things, which everyone must believe or else we’ll go to hell.

I beg to differ.

It’s dangerous to insist that anything other than a childlike faith in Jesus Christ is necessary for a right relationship with God. But that’s a topic for another post. Here, I want to examine this idea that Jesus must have been omniscient, even as a baby, and could not have been tempted by sin. It’s easy to debunk these ideas from the Scriptures, as we will shortly see, but it’s also vitally important to understand why they can’t be true. Far from being necessary for salvation, they tend to obscure who Jesus is, why Jesus came to earth as the child of Joseph and Mary, and why he died on a Roman cross.

First, let’s do away with the alleged omniscience of Jesus with three simple verses…

The Bible says Jesus “learned obedience” (Hebrews 5:8) The word “learned” is manthanó, used 25 times in the NT to mean exactly what “learned” means in English. Because its meaning is so consistent everywhere else, it’s unlikely manthanó means anything different when applied to Jesus by the author of Hebrews. So the Bible teaches us that Jesus learned. Therefore he did not know everything.

Jesus’ limited knowledge is also revealed in his comments about the end times. See Matthew 24:36. Jesus didn’t even know “the day or hour” of his own second coming.

And in Philippians 2:6-7 it says, “Though he [Jesus] was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being.” Would a “slave” know the Scriptures perfectly from birth? Would any “human being”?

Moving on to the other notion that Jesus wasn’t really tempted by sin, the Bible could not be more clear: “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who was tempted in every way that we are, yet was without sin.” (Hebrews 4:15) So Jesus was definitely tempted exactly “in every way as we are.” There simply is no reasonable way to interpret this verse differently.

Because of scriptures like these, Christianity doesn’t stop at teaching that Jesus was “fully God.” We also know Jesus was “fully man.” This doctrine of “fully God, fully man” is one of the most difficult in the Bible. But paradoxes like this are exactly what we should expect in a book which attempts to teach us about the Creator of the Universe. It isn’t logical to assume that syllogistic logic would apply to the One who created logic in the first place. Such a One exists outside of His Creation; He is not constrained by anything within it.

It isn’t logical to assume that syllogistic logic would apply to the One who created logic in the first place.

Still, we want to understand who Jesus is, and the existence of the Bible proves God wants us to try. So let’s do that.

While it helps to remember that God, by definition, can never be fully understood, it also helps to think about the “fully God, fully man” paradox in terms of God’s fundamental nature, rather than in terms of more specific attributes of godliness or manhood. Jesus was fully God in his core way of being, his fundamental nature, but not in his attributes. That is the deeper meaning of the verses I quoted from Philippians, above. Put metaphorically: Jesus had God’s heart (God’s nature), but human hands and feet (human capabilities). This partial limitation may seem inconsistent with the Almighty Master and Creator of the Universe. but in fact, it’s how the Lord has always been.

Consider a couple of the many Biblical examples: In addition to being omniscient, God is eternal and omnipresent, but God is also capable of being in a specific time and place in a way which is different from other times and places. We see this when God descends to the most holy place in the tabernacle. We see it when God places Moses in the cleft and passes back and forth before him. At those particular times God was there, in those places, in a way that He was not elsewhere.

Jesus is a flesh and blood manifestation of that same thing: God constraining certain aspects of himself as He chooses. Jesus has always been that aspect of God which penetrates Creation, the “craftsman at God’s side” “through whom, by whom, and for whom all things were created.” Jesus has always been Jacob’s ladder, which attaches heaven and earth, that aspect of the Lord which connects with Creation. He’s the “man” who appears before Abraham at the Oaks of Mamre, who has feet that need washing, and a belly that needs filling, before continuing down to Sodom to decide if it should be destroyed. He’s the “man” who wrestles with Jacob until daylight by the river, of whom Jacob later says “I have seen God’s face and lived.” When the Bible says Adam was created in God’s likeness and image, it means the human race was originally created in the image of Jesus. So on one level, Jesus has always been “fully man” as well as “fully God.”

But after the Fall, when corruption entered Creation, Jesus came to Israel not as the Craftsman in whose perfect image Adam was created, but instead as Adam was in his post fallen, corruptible body. It was necessary for Jesus to come that way to balance the scales of justice, as the “second Adam” (see 1 Corinthians 15 and Romans 5) who was the life for Adam’s life, the eye for Adam’s eye, the tooth for Adam’s tooth. Deuteronomy 19:21 gives us that “life for life” definition of justice–God’s definition–and nothing in the Bible retracts it, therefore if justice was to be restored, it had to be that way.

Had Jesus’s mind and body been something more perfect than yours or mine, his sacrifice would not have been truly just. He would have been too much; his sacrifice would have carried too much weight; it would have tipped the scales too far, and that would have added yet more injustice to the universe instead of reestablishing the cosmic balance our world so desperately needs.

 

Nature And/Or Nurture

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How is gender preference determined?Recently I read about the latest Christian to have his First Amendment rights trampled by the government in the relentless march to normalize homosexuality. Among the usual christophobics (a word I just made up!) who were commenting on the story was a woman who called the man an “idiot” because “He actually thinks people choose their sexuality.”

Do you follow the logic?  She was saying if sexual orientation is caused by genetics, then we have no choice about our sexual desires, so acting on those desires is no sin. This is supposed to be an irrefutable argument against the traditional Christian prohibition of homosexual acts, and by proxy, an irrefutable argument against Christianity.

It’s common for Christians to counter this argument by insisting that homosexuality is rooted in learned behavior, not genetics. Returning to the comment thread at the link above, notice “Mary” who responds by writing “He’s no idiot! Sexuality IS a CHOICE!”

Whether true or not (and the latest science seems to indicate the truth is somewhere in-between) it’s a poor response for two reasons: first, it’s theologically incomplete, and second, it misses an opportunity to get people thinking about what Jesus really did for us all on the cross, and why it had to be done.

Of course Christianity teaches the common sense fact that we’re morally responsible for our choices. Pretty much every religion teaches that. What most other religions don’t answer is the question:  Why is sin is so tempting? Why are we more tempted by one particular sin than by another? Why do we choose to do things even when we know they’ll harm us or those we love?

Christianity has a core doctrine which answers all of these questions, a bombshell of an idea that makes Christianity different, which is this: we’re compelled to make bad choices; it’s in our DNA.

We’re compelled to make bad choices; it’s in our DNA.

This is called the doctrine of “original sin.” The name comes from the original sin, the first sin, which according to Christian theology, caused a fundamental shift in human nature.  Although most analogies fall short, in this case there’s a nearly perfect parallel. Think of sin as a harmful and addictive drug which alters the chemistry (or genetics) of the mind, causing an irrational compulsion to take more of the harmful drug. And just as addicted mothers often give birth to addicted babies, Christianity explains that the compulsion to sin was passed down from the first sinner to the next generation, and so on and on throughout the generations, right down to you and me.

Does this mean we can’t help sinning? Yes, absolutely. The proof of this is in everyone you know, because of course nobody, not one single solitary person, is or ever has been perfect.

Does it mean it’s unfair or unjust to punish sin because it’s “only natural”? Of course not. Clearly, there must be deterrents to keep us from stepping outside the limits of acceptable behavior, whether we’re born with a desire to go beyond those limits or not. In fact, the more deep seated a sinful desire may be, the greater the argument for limits on that desire. Think of any of the Ten Commandments (or at least the last five if you’re an atheist) and then imagine a society without such limitations, and you’ll quickly see my point.

For a Christian then, the “nature or nurture” debate is a false dichotomy. Every time we sin, we freely choose to do it even though we know it damages ourselves and others.  We need to own that. Unfortunately, we can’t always make amends, which is a serious problem if one believes in justice. And it’s an equally serious problem that every choice to sin is motivated by something deep within us, something which makes us want to sin, some warped and twisted thing that we can’t change because it’s in our spiritual DNA, and maybe in our genes.

So it’s not about nature or nurture. It’s about nature and nurture. And this returns us to the second reason why it’s best not to insist that “homosexuality is a choice.” That response ignores half of what Jesus did for us on the cross, and half of why it had to be done. In the name of justice, Jesus sacrificed himself to make amends (atone) for the damage we’ve freely chosen to do that we cannot undo. He also died to heal (save) us from the warped and twisted sinful inclinations we can’t overcome. That’s why you see Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross explained in both ways in the Bible. In some places, it says Jesus atoned for our sins. In other places, it says he saved us. Like nature and nurture, it’s two different things. Two different reasons Jesus took our place on the cross. And two different reasons to be grateful.

 

A Duty to Be Great

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excellence-mediocrity-sign-100816There’s a list over at over at GoodReads, called “The Worst Books of All Time.” As a novelist and as a Christian, that list saddens me. Why? Because some of those titles include To Kill a Mockingbird, Billy Budd, The Red Badge of Courage, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Forest Gump, Fahrenheit 451, Dune, Stranger in a Strange Land, and The Pearl.

While discussing it with some fellow novelists, one said many books by Christians are poorly written. She then felt the need to qualify her statement by affirming that she thinks there are lots of well-written novels by Christians. Probably she didn’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings, and that’s laudable, but it seems to me she had it right the first time.

It’s true many novels by Christians are poorly written. That’s also true of many other kinds of novels. In fact it’s true of most novels of every kind, and readers let writers get away with it because readers too are mediocre. Most of us don’t really care about excellence in literature, or in architecture, sculpture, painting, dance, drama, government, commerce, marriage, or anything else in life that ought to matter. The list at GoodReads is just one of countless proofs of this which can be seen around us everywhere.

What interests me, is why. In our discussion about the “Worst Books” list, some of my author friends speculated that so many people dislike those novels because they were forced to read them in school and disliked them then. But these books truly are works of genius—most of them are, anyway—so why didn’t we love them in the first place?

The answer has to do with what it means to live in a fallen world. As creatures made in the Creator’s image, we were designed to use our gifts to their utmost, and to savor excellence in our neighbor’s use of their gifts. It’s impossible to imagine the words “good enough” being spoken in the Garden before the Fall. But we did fall, and one of the things we lost was our ability to throw ourselves into living with complete abandon. “Good is the enemy of great,” as Jim Collins wrote (paraphrasing Voltaire). Thus, in settling for good enough, we have rampant mediocrity in the world.

It’s impossible to imagine the words “good enough” being spoken in the Garden before the Fall.

Another thing we abandoned in the Fall was our ability to perceive the true extent of what we’ve lost. When expediency and ego dilute the full potential of even our best writers and artists, the audience, being also lost, doesn’t know enough to care. Therefore they applaud what little they can get, and their applause rewards mediocrity. This in turn inspires the production of more mediocrity, and the cycle builds more and more support for itself until mediocrity seems normal, or even (God forbid) good. Because that lie has become pervasive, the true nature of goodness is difficult for even Christians to remember. Thus we have rampant mediocrity even in the church.

The faithful Christian’s life should always include a sense of resisting mediocrity at every turn. It’s a command and a duty. “Whatever you do, do it will all your heart, as if for the Lord and not for men.” (Col 3:23) It’s no coincidence that this command includes the same requirement for wholeheartedness as the Greatest Command of all, to “love the Lord your God with all your heart….”

How can we love the Lord with all our heart? By living every part of life with all our heart. By not settling. By always striving to improve. In other words, as with all of His commands, the Creator simply wants us to live (write, marry, work, etc.) as we were originally created to live…with complete abandonment to what we truly are, which will reveal itself in the constant exercise of excellence in all our gifts.

Don’t believe the lie of “good enough.” You were created to be so much better than that. Strive for excellence in everything you do. In little things as well as big, live with all your heart.