Reconciliation or Appeasement
Appeasement is a counterfeit of
reconciliation.
Appeasement denotes an abuser/victim
relationship where the victim is expected to satisfy the selfish
demands of the abuser by paying whatever is demanded in order to
'repair' the relationship.
Reconciliation is the restoration of a
relationship of mutual respect, honor and love, a relationship where
both feel completely safe from any exploitation from the other.
When Jesus said He sanctified Himself,
it meant that He made Himself totally safe so that any human being
could trust Him to be safe enough to approach God without fear of
being exploited, censured, shamed or rejected.
When Jesus said that to become His
disciple we must deny ourself, take up our cross and follow Him, He
was explaining that the way to achieve restoration of wholeness in
relationship is to deny our own urges to exploit and choose rather to
become vulnerable, following the example of Jesus in making ourself
safe like God is safe, even to the point of laying down our own life
rather than taking advantage of anyone else or exploiting them in any
way.
This is another useful lens through
which to see more clearly how salvation actually heals and restores
God's design for creation and relationships. Every sinful attitude is
one that engages in or encourages a victim/abuser relationship in
place of an equal value type relationship of selfless love and
respect in humility. Sin involves defining everyone based on relative
value (commerce and hierarchy thinking) and causes us to leverage
relationships to gain advantage over others. Sin also involves the
use of laws made to be enforced through whatever means required to
either entice or intimidate people into compliance to them. Yet this
approach relies primarily on manipulation through fear rather than
encouraging the selfless service of love, and it erodes the delicate
bonds of true love.
Fear, selfishness, exploitation,
relative value – these are all fundamental elements of the kingdom
of darkness and have no place whatsoever in the kingdom of heaven. To
be sanctified means to be cleansed and separated from all of these
toxic elements in our thinking and relationships and to be restored
and reconciled to the heart of the Father who has demonstrated in
Christ that He is completely safe and is worthy of the trust of the
most vulnerable of the creatures He has made.
One of the main issues of contention
that must be settled before God's designed for governance can be
fully restored in the universe is the question of how safe God is
with absolute power. So long as any of His children insist that He
must resort to violence, intimidation or fear tactics to accomplish
His will, some will cling to the lie that God cannot really handle
power and still remain consistent with the ways of pure selfless
love. This was one of the original arguments of Lucifer that launched
his rebellion in heaven. Yet the cross, properly understood and
appreciated, is the ultimate example of the saving truth that God is
the light of love, and that in Him is never the slightest taint of
darkness, exploitation or intimidation at all (1 John 1:5). This is
why the true message of the cross is the most potent argument to win
our respect, adoration and trust, for properly understood it is
designed to reconcile us into trusting His heart as we come to see
that God is completely safe. Only when we come to believe with our
heart that someone will never, ever exploit their power to take
advantage of our weakness can we open our own heart up to make
ourselves completely vulnerable so as to enter into true intimacy
with them.
Emotional healing can only take place
in an environment where we can come to believe that it is safe to be
vulnerable without fear of being exploited again. Then as we
increasingly feel safe within secure boundaries of love and respect,
our heart can begin to dare to trust someone more to find the extent
of just how safe they really are. Our heart is designed to crave
love, but in an atmosphere of safety where we can be vulnerable
without fear of being exploited. This is what intimacy is all about,
and intimacy is the ultimate experience our soul was created to
enjoy. Intimacy without exploitation brings the ultimate level of
satisfaction to our heart and is what salvation is designed to
restore in us. But to arrive there we must receive enough evidence to
trust that the one we open up to is worthy of our trust and will
never exploit us but always has our best interest at heart
themselves.
Obviously in this sinful dangerous
world it can be very difficult to find people who can be trusted to
this degree. In fact, the only truly safe human being who ever walked
this planet is the Son of Man/Son of God who came to demonstrate in
person that God can be totally trusted to never exploit anyone. This
is the very opposite of the lies embraced by our first parents that
plunged us all into the mess we find ourselves in today. Jesus came
to expose and refute every lie of the enemy that makes us afraid of
God and fearful that He will at some time exploit His advantage over
us in some way. Because we experience exploitation to some degree
from nearly everyone we meet, we have a very hard time believing that
God will never use His advantage to harm or exploit us at some point
in time.
I want to touch on the issue of law
here briefly. The use of law in our world is artificial and is
arbitrarily enforced through means of imposed punishments which is
contrary to how God's laws operate by natural cause and effect. Yet
religion and the earthly societies we live in rely so heavily on
artificial laws designed to leverage rewards and punishments to
maintain order, that we find it extremely implausible that God's
natural laws alone could ever possibly be effective enough to
overcome all the power of evil. Yet this is in the very message of
the cross, for Jesus refused even for a moment to indulge in any
desire for artificial law enforcement to get back at His enemies.
Jesus came to demonstrate that God
would rather allow us to exploit Him even to the point of death
rather than indulge in a single instant of reacting the way sin
causes us to react. Peter points this out in his reflection on the
cross years later as in amazement he recounts how Jesus demonstrated
the greatest vulnerability the universe has ever witnessed in
response to the assault of all-out exploitation launched against Him
intended to elicit even a hint of resentment or offense.
In fact this is what you were called
to do, because Christ suffered for you and gave you an example, so
you should follow in his footsteps. Christ never committed any
sin. He never spoke deceitfully. Although he was abused, he
never tried to get even, when he suffered, he threatened no
retaliation, but left everything to the one who judges fairly.
(1 Peter 2:21-23 FBV, GW, CEV,
NET)
The experience of the cross then, was
both a human and demonic assault on God attempting to prove the
original assertions of Satan that God harbors dark motives which in
turn justifies His creatures harboring similar motives. This means
when we indulge in resentment or desires for revenge, it isn't fair
for God to rebuke or correct us because we are merely giving
expression to what is lurking deep in His heart. This is at the very
core of the charges against God by Satan and is one of the pivotal
issues that must be settled before the trustworthiness of God can be
truly vindicated. Until this issue of God's character is settled in
every mind and heart, it will be impossible to defuse the power of
evil, for evil relies on this question remaining unresolved, giving
excuse for it to continue to flourish.
The teachings of appeasement as being
required to satisfy God's presumed offense over sin is possibly the
most sinister tactic of the enemy to keep us afraid of God and unable
to trust His heart to the degree that is necessary to be fully
reconciled to Him. By reversing the message of the cross to mean
things completely opposite of its true meaning, Satan launched yet
another coup against God's government that is now sponsored, promoted
and championed by the very people claiming to represent Him. Yet the
foul teaching of appeasement theology is simply a rework of the
original lies about God's heart invented by Lucifer in heaven that
started the whole sin problem to in the beginning. These sinister
lies: that God cannot be trusted to be consistently selfless, and
that artificial law enforcement is essential to supplement natural
law when it fails to maintain order and avoid chaos, actually
perpetuates evil.
Lucifer initially claimed he was
offering an improvement on God's system by introducing the idea of
artificial boundaries to keep moral beings from straying too far
outside God's will. These additional boundaries would consist of
artificial laws that would be artificially enforced to bring pain
through artificial penalties. Thus fear of suffering would provide a
security fence which Lucifer asserted would protect the universe from
the chaos that might happen should anyone exploit their freedom to
disobey the natural principles of heaven. What he failed to realize
is that by introducing the new factor of fear, love itself would be
undermined and would the results would eventually end in death, not
security.
We see the cycle of sin and violence
played out in earthly societies where governments oscillate between
freedom for people to choose for themselves and live according to the
natural laws of cause and effect, then strict law enforcement that
increasingly strips people of their freedoms in the name of greater
security. Yet the latter is a mirage that is impossible to
accomplish, for robbing people of personal freedom in the name of
improving security only leads to tyranny and increased exploitation,
because in sinful hearts power always corrupts and absolute power
corrupts absolutely.
The key difference that must be noted
however is that the One who actually does have absolute power does
not follow this mantra's logic, because He is not selfish or even
able to be tempted by selfish desires. The original lies of Lucifer
about God harboring secret desires of selfishness are the same lies
that spawn every other lie that must be defeated before evil will
lose all its deceptive power over our thinking. God never needs to
rely on intimidation, coercion or artificial enforcement of His laws
to compel anyone to come into alignment with His will, for these
methods are corrosive to the nature of love needed for finding
fulfillment in intimacy between hearts filled with respect and
affection.
God's government is based on love and
love alone. This is represented by the Tree of Life. In God's design
there is no need for artificial law enforcement to supplement any
supposed weakness in God's government. In fact the very opposite is
true, for if God were to release any sinner, including Satan, to the
natural effects of their choices to violate the law of love as
integrated into all creation, they would find themselves cut off from
the only source of life that exists and the sure result would be that
they would quickly die. Yet this would not be because God was
punishing them for their sin but merely because the absence of life
is by definition death. Yet keeping us confused on this issue is how
Satan maintains fear in our hearts, and fear blocks us from believing
and experiencing the true power of love. So grace, possibly the only
artificial element in God's kingdom (if you want to call it
artificial in some way), is what prevents every sinner from ceasing
to exist immediately because it provides unmerited sustenance and
life while natural law, if allowed to be experienced, would function
just the opposite.
I suspect Lucifer understood God's
graciousness enough from the very beginning to lead him to think he
could construct an alternate system of life where he might leverage
this grace factor to his own advantage. In seeking to convince
intelligent beings to believe his subtle lies about God and enticing
them with grand promises, he was able to get many to join him in his
attempt to construct an artificial reality where everyone could live
selfishly and yet exploit God's grace. Then he could be the god of
this system of living apart from the principles of love while
garnering praise and admiration while wielding power over his
subjects to make him feel more important. At the same time he was
relying on God's grace to keep him alive for eternity. In other
words, Satan knew enough about God's grace that he thought he could
count on it to keep himself alive indefinitely. But he didn't know
enough about it to realize that God was wise enough to find a way to
defeat Satan's apparently airtight logic. Thinking he could checkmate
God, Satan took a huge risk in launching his own kingdom in his
insurrection against God's kingdom based on love alone.
Satan likely felt confident for
thousands of years that his kingdom could last forever, for he was
confident that if God punished him with death, it would only serve to
confirm his allegations against God that natural law was insufficient
to deal with rebellion and artificial law enforcement really was
needed to contain evil. If God punished Satan directly, Satan knew
that evil would be impossible to extinguish. Knowing this about God
he knew God would not destroy Satan and he felt safe.
Sadly most people today still subscribe
to Satan's theories about the weakness of love without question, that
a kingdom of love alone is untenable. Most believe that unless God
threatens to impose death on sinners, it will be impossible for evil
to ever be brought to an end. But Jesus was God's answer to this
checkmate logic of Satan, for at the cross it became ominously clear
to Satan that God in fact could expose his lies so clearly that Satan
would eventually lose all his power gained through deception. Then
there would be nothing preventing God from withdrawing His protection
of grace over Satan's life which will expose Satan and all who follow
him to the natural consequences of their own course.
This final conclusion of the war
against God and His character will be achieved in such a way that
God's principle of love will not compromised in the slightest.
Otherwise Satan's assertion that love is not viable as an effective
means to maintain order and peace in the universe would be justified
and God would be seen as the deceiver and manipulator. This titanic
struggle over who is more trustworthy to believe is the war we find
ourselves in as these two opposing forces urgently seek our
allegiance, for who we trust as having the truth determines the shape
of our character and ultimately our destiny.
Paul urges us to be reconciled to God
because of the cross of Christ. Yet tragically the message of the
cross has been turned upside down by religion, insisting that Jesus
died to appease an offended God rather than the other way around. For
most of my life this false gospel of appeasement distorted my
perceptions about the meaning of the cross making it impossible for
me to understand how it was supposed to arouse any affection for God.
I was told repeatedly that the cross was the greatest demonstration
of love ever witnessed in the the universe. Yet as hard as I tried, I
could never put the story together in a way that looked anything like
love. The closest I could come was that somehow Jesus died to protect
me from His angry Father in heaven, yet this made no sense to my
heart. So I couldn't honestly praise God for the gift of His Son if
that meant believing twisted views of why Jesus had to die. Yet for
years I could not discern anything better in the story of the cross
that made good sense, so I tried to avoid it or settle for tolerating
expositions about it while continuing to pray for more understanding
and simply waiting until God might chose to reveal it to me.
I was taught all my life that the cross
of Christ was the most potent message of love ever given. Clearly the
gospel centers around the cross, but until the definition of gospel –
good news – could actually be proven as good in a more coherent
way, I was reticent to witness in support of the cross of Christ
until I had a compelling conviction in my own spirit that would not
violate so badly my logic and sense. Somehow every explanation of why
Jesus had to die never fit the pieces together in a way that sounded
like good news, for they all seemed to require twisting parts of the
story into contradictions that were avoided when asking honest
questions. Yet I never gave up hope that God might reveal the truth
to me in a way that my heart could actually embrace and that would
bring real life to my soul. So as you see, this issue of the truth
about the cross and why Jesus had to die has been an persistent issue
for me much of my life, for I knew that until it clicked I could not
be much of an authentic, honest Christian.
With my history of persistently asking
questions and being frustrated with evasive or insulting answers
about the cross, you might appreciate why I now get excited when I
hear others asking similar sincere questions that might seem
frustrating or difficult to answer with stock clichés from religion.
I have a rather dim view of a lot of religion because it fails to
lead people to a true knowledge of God and too often perverts the
meaning of nearly every religious word and phrase. I believe most
religion promotes a false gospel that allows power brokers in
religion to control and manipulate and, yes, even fleece many people
into supporting them financially. I appreciate the frustration Jesus
must have felt as two times He entered the temple in His day to purge
it of all the accouterments of commerce and power, trying to purge
out the lies of the enemy so thinking people could see the real truth
about God that can actually save us from our sin. Yet just as in our
day, the religious establishment had too much invested in their
carefully crafted system of monetizing salvation to tolerate such
zeal for the truth about God, so in the end they tortured to death
the very One who came to love them, rather than humbling themselves
to admit that God was that different from what they taught people to
believe. It was the corrupt and politically savvy Caiaphas who
reflected the real disposition of religious establishments all
through history when he juxtaposed Jesus and His view of God with the
traditional religious and political establishments when he declared
that either Jesus had to be eliminated or their entire systems of law
and order would be threatened with eventual collapse.
What is the key difference between the
truth as it is in Jesus and the thrust in religion that presumes that
reconciliation means appeasement of an offended, angry deity needing
to be placated? What is the difference between the true gospel Jesus
brought that sets people free from the slavery of fear, and the false
gospel masquerading as a formula we must embrace to counteract and
resolve our predicament of condemnation and threats of punishment
from God?
First I want to make it clear that
there is not even a hint in Scripture that anything Jesus did somehow
reconciled God to us. This is vital to see to begin to appreciate the
saving truth of the real gospel, for if we imagine that in some way
God needs to change His mind or feelings about us for us to be saved,
we are already trapped in false ideas based on mistaken assumptions
about the real problem of sin. If we fail to understand the nature of
the original problem we will always latch onto the wrong solutions
while ignoring the actual remedy needed to save us from the power of
sin and death. This is vital to grasp given that a world dying in a
sea of lies that grossly obscures the real truth and that can only be
overcome through a true appreciation of the real meaning of blood of
the Lamb and be broadcast with a clear testimony involving the very
faith of Jesus.
The real problem of sin involves our
animosity toward God, never any supposed animosity or offense on
God's part towards sinners. This cannot be overemphasized, and if it
doesn't make sense, then we need to understand the history of how
rebellion and sin originated in the first place. I don't have time
and space here to unpack all that, though it is important for coming
to a true knowledge of salvation. Suffice it to say, God has never
taken offense over anyone's sin – ever! Taking offense is part
of sin itself, but God does not sin. So to insist in our teaching of
salvation that something needs to change in the mind of God to get
Him to let go of some offense on His part in order to forgive sinners
is a lie of the enemy designed to keep us from the saving truth as
revealed by Jesus. No, God never needs to change His mind to be
reconciled with us, for God's heart has never deviated in the
slightest from the very essence of who God is which is nothing but
unconditional love alone. So to attempt to get God to change is an
attempt to get God to no longer love us, and that is a real
non-starter.
With this in view, we can see that in
no way does God need to be reconciled to us. Let this sink in
thoroughly, for the callousness brought about by the false teachings
originated with Satan and taught by religion has greatly dulled our
senses to this. This is a core truth that must be grasped in order
for the actual good news gospel to take root in our hearts. There is
nothing that God needs to change in disposition in order for us to be
saved; all the change needing to happen in order to bring sinners
into harmony with God must take place in us, never in God.
Once this core truth is settled we will
find ourselves confronted with a sea of resistance as people
everywhere will insist we are careening off into heresy and unbelief.
The intensity of opposition by religion and even others outside
religion may be relentless, for just as in Jesus' day, religious
authority and power structures that benefited the few and lined the
pockets of those manipulating power will not tolerate being exposed
as frauds and will resist fiercely to protect their turf just as they
did to Jesus.
One of the hallmarks that can be used
to discern whether a teaching is true or is part of the false system
is to check the spirit behind whatever teaching is being presented.
If a teaching or person promoting a certain line of logic relies on
fear to motivate people into conformity to their brand of truth, then
be very wary of that direction. Scripture clearly warns us about
this, for fear is the very currency of the kingdom of darkness but is
not part of God's design for His children. The use of motivational
fear designed to scare people into 'getting saved' can often actually
move them into darkness about God. Even so, in this His amazing grace
can overcome such actions of His enemy to guide people toward a place
where they might be more open to discovering the real truth that
saves. God knows that even though fear may seem very powerful, only
the selfless agape love that originates with God has true power, and
that only as we are touched by this love is it possible for us to be
truly healed. Healing is the actual meaning of salvation rather than
rescue from the out-of-control anger of an offended deity like the
pagans believe and as most of Christianity purports.
For God didn't give us a
spirit of fear, but of power, love, and self-control.
(2 Timothy 1:7)
Fear is what drives the teachings of
appeasement. Love is what motivates true reconciliation.
I want to touch on one more factor in
this discussion of the differences between appeasement and
reconciliation, the issue of sanctification.
For their sakes I sanctify
myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in
truth. (John 17:19)
I recently began to realize that the
word sanctify obviously links to the word sanctuary. A
sanctuary is a safe place. Thus to be sanctified could be seen to
mean being made safe, and this is part of the definition of
saved. To be sanctified means
our being made safe, trustworthy to be around those who are
vulnerable while never seeking to exploit them. Some insist that
sanctify simply means
to be set apart, yet
being made safe involves being made different from most everyone
else, for the norm among human beings is to exploit vulnerability to
some degree or another. So a person who is safe would be a person
very different from others outside the body of Christ where it is not
safe. Given this perspective it is easier to understand why Jesus
would sanctify Himself, for Jesus came to reveal that God is safe and
is not the problem we ever have to worry about. If anyone is going to
exploit our weaknesses it will never be God. This is the transforming
truth with the power that sanctifies us to make us safe like Him.
For both he who sanctifies
and those who are sanctified are all from one,
for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brothers, saying, "I
will declare your name to my brothers. In the midst of the
congregation I will sing your praise." Again, "I will put
my trust in him." Again, "Behold, here I am with
the children whom God has given me." Since then the children
have shared in flesh and blood, he also himself in like manner
partook of the same, that through death he might bring to nothing him
who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might deliver all
of them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to
bondage. (Hebrews 2:11-15)
This glorious truth, that God is far
better than nearly anyone can dare to imagine, is the truth that when
embraced reconciles us back into trusting God's heart fully. This is
the ultimate goal of salvation, to reconcile us back to God by
earning our trust won by the demonstration of Jesus loving and
forgiving His enemies in real time while they do everything possible
to get Him to retaliate. You can only trust someone who is safe, so
Jesus came to debunk every lie against God that makes us afraid and
hesitant to trust Him. This is how we are reconciled to God and which
will solve the entire problem of sin. To be fully reconciled we must
be delivered from every doubt about His trustworthiness and cleansed
of every taint of appeasement theology in our beliefs about how God
relates to sinners.
This theme of trustworthiness is the
main theme of the grandest hallelujah chorus that will ever be
experienced in the history of the universe. God alone is totally
trustworthy, and it is to this end that all the efforts of heaven are
bent on bringing into our lives the faith of Jesus, the testimony of
the Lamb.
But they have conquered him by the
blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they did
not cling to life even in the face of death. (Revelation 12:11
NRSV)
"Worthy are you, our Lord
and God, the Holy One, to receive the glory, the honor, and the
power, for you created all things, and because of your desire they
existed, and were created!"
I saw, and I heard something like a
voice of many angels around the throne, the living creatures, and the
elders; and the number of them was ten thousands of ten thousands,
and thousands of thousands; saying with a loud voice, "Worthy
is the Lamb who has been killed to receive the power,
wealth, wisdom, strength, honor, glory, and blessing!"
(Revelation 4:11; 5:11-12)
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