The strongest force in the universe

Read or listen to Romans 10

The 10^th chapter of Romans is a continuation of a discussion that boarded this particular train of thought two chapters earlier with the words foreknew and predestined.  They continued with the election of Israel to bless the world.  The last chapter ended on a somewhat depressing note for God’s Chosen People.

To Paul’s credit, he did not know where later translators would break his letter into chapters.

His hope and prayer is that Israel is saved.  They are a people with a zeal for God but they got tripped up in prescribing their own brand of righteousness and gave up submitting to the righteousness of God.

Then Paul makes a statement that as Peter said in his second letter, many have distorted.  Paul said, For Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.

Jesus said that he was not doing away with the slightest pen stroke of the law and Paul says Jesus is the end of the law, and many pit Paul against Jesus.

But there is no dichotomy.

Paul is not saying that Jesus annulled the law.  He is not saying that he did away with the law.  He is not saying that God’s law given as a gift to his own chosen people was flawed.

He is saying that the law was incomplete without Jesus. 

He is saying that the law does have a destination and that is Jesus.

He is saying that Jesus would not do away with the very thing by which we would know the grace of God through Jesus.

Christ completes the law.

Christ ends all other means of attempted justification.

Christ is the terminal point for all of human history up to that point.

Christ is the beginning of all that forever more proceeds.

Christ truly is the alpha and the omega, and where do we find him at work?

In the innermost part of the human heart.  In the place where our humanness would like to know what must we do to get to heaven or how do we stay out of hell; but Christ alone is the key to our salvation.

The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart, because if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.  For one believes with the heart and so is justified and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved.

These are salvation scriptures.  In other discussions, I have pointed out that some verses that Christians like to sling around as salvation scriptures have been taken way out of context.  These two verses are definitely salvation scriptures.

But we have not fully understood them.

This is partially because of how we interpret another set of verses in another one of Paul’s letters.

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
   and gave him the name that is above every name,
¹⁰ that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
   in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
¹¹ and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
   to the glory of God the Father.

Philippians 2:9-11

And so many believe and proclaim with satisfaction that one day God will by brute force bend every knee and exact the words Jesus is Lord from every who has ever lived.  And our human nature—yes especially among believers—says, and I hope it hurts.  You are getting what you deserve.  And sometimes we feel good in that self-righteous moment.

Our standard interpretation of these scriptures is that God will do what he has not done in all of history and extract our free will from us.  He will use the force that created the universe to bring us to our knees and say the words, Jesus is Lord.

That’s sort of accurate.

The key word here is confess. It is an interesting word.  It is a word with which we have attached some undue baggage that probably started accumulating during the crusades and the inquisition of the middle ages.

The Greek word is Homologeo (omologeo) in Romans 10 and Exomologeo  (xomologeo) in Philippians 2.  The main difference is that as it is used in the latter case, it calls the reader to consider all that has preceded it with the meaning. 

And what is the definition of this root word?

To agree

To say the same as another

Not to refuse

To promise

Not to deny

To confess

To declare

To admit what one is accused of

To profess

To praise

To celebrate

Those are hardly words that sound like an almighty being distributing so much pain to the rebellious until they say uncle, or in this case Jesus is Lord.

The newest revisions of the New International Version  use the word profess instead of confess.  The words are not so far apart, except in the meanings we have attached over the last century or so.  When we join the church, we profess our faith.  If you join the Cumberland Presbyterian Church we also give you our Confession of Faith.  It’s not a confession made at gunpoint.

Consider even our flawed legal system in this country.  Don’t get me wrong, for all of our flaws, I will take it above all others in this world.  But consider in what has become the most common outcome in criminal cases—the plea bargain—there is still an allocution.  The judge in the case must hear enough of the facts from the defendant to satisfy him that the offense occurred and that no defense should be pursued.

Realize that in these cases the defendant sometimes lies.  Who’d a thunk it—criminals sometimes don’t tell the truth.  Many judges will just accept whatever the defendant has to say just to clear the docket.

Would God accept a false confession?  Would it be OK for someone to bear false witness against themselves.  The words, Jesus are Lord, are absolutely true but would God accept them as a confession if the one who said them still rejected God?

Would God accept a forced confession?  Even our legal system still rejects these.  Words elicited by thumbscrews, water boarding, or some time on the rack generally don’t fly as a real confession.

Let’s consider one more aspect of this confession or profession of faith that is articulated in the words, Jesus is Lord.  This comes from another one of Paul’s letters.  This one is to the church in Corinth.

Therefore I tell you that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, "Jesus be cursed," and no one can say, "Jesus is Lord," except by the Holy Spirit.

1 Corinthians 12:3

Let’s see if we can muster a coherent though from these parallel messages from the same author.

If I confess with my spoken words that Jesus is Lord and truly believe in my heart that God raised him from the dead, I will be saved.

Yes!

One day every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

Yes!

No one can say Jesus is Lord without the Holy Spirit.

Yes!

Does that mean that one day everyone will call upon the name of the Lord and be saved?  Does it mean that one day everyone speaking by the Holy Spirit will confess or profess or proclaim or celebrate with the words, Jesus is Lord?

That sounds really good, but there is a whole bunch of other stuff that sounds like hell, and a lake of fire, and a garbage dump, and just really terrible consequences for those who do not profess or confess Jesus as Lord and Savior.  Do I just ignore these parts of the Bible?

I don’t recommend it, but we must not ignore what we read today either.

No one can say Jesus is Lord  without the Holy Spirit.  One day every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord.  The one who confesses Jesus as Lord believing he is who he said he is—the One that God raised from the dead—will be saved.

I asked earlier if that when we read the words every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord, if that meant that God will do what he has not done in all of history and extract our free will from us.  He will use the force that created the universe to bring us to our knees and say the words, Jesus is Lord.

And I said, that’s sort of accurate.

For the words that Paul wrote in all three letters to be true and consistent with who we know God to be from what he has revealed to us, the force that created the universe and the same force that will bring us to our knees and give us no choice but to say, Jesus is Lord, must be love.

Could it be that love will shatter every hardened heart on earth, above the earth, and below the earth?

Could love be the most powerful force that ever existed?

Could love be on the same level as God?

You think if God is love, somebody would have told us about it.

I can’t make the difficult passages in the Bible go away and be faithful to God.  And there are significant consequences to rejecting God.

But my fidelity to God is no less compromised by ignoring these words that we considered today.

So I must consider all that has been revealed to me, excluding none to make my understanding easier.

And it could be that many, very many must go through hell to get to good news.

For some that hell exists right now.

For others, it may be an age beyond this one.

We are not diving into another word study right now, but consider that the words from which we derive eternal also mean age.

Paul tells us not to try to ascent to heaven or descend to hell but to believe in your heart the words desiring to come out of your lips.

Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.  But we have believed these words.  We are assured of our salvation. 

But many have not heard and have no assurance or comfort.  They are adrift in a meaningless life.

How are they to call on One in whom they have not believed?

How are they to believe in one whom they have not heard?

How are they to hear without someone to preach to them?

How are they to proclaim him unless they are sent?

Faith comes from what is heard and what is heard comes through the word of Christ.

Heaven and hell are difficult to fully understand.  Jesus gave us parables and figures of speech to help, and with the mind of Christ we grow closer to understanding them.  And we too often consider them faraway places or  even ultimate destinations, which surely they are.

But they are also here and now.

Jesus said the Kingdom of God is within you, it is breaking out all around you.

And if we would look around us, we would also see people going through hell right now.

I don’t believe that any marriage that maintained Christ in the center has ever failed.  I’m not talking just a church wedding, but those cases where Christ is truly Lord of both lives in the marriage.

But so many people have gone through divorce in this country, and some of them lived in hell during that time.

We have a heart for the children in this church, but too many children in this country and even in our community have been physically and sexually abused by a parent or relative or a stranger.  Too many have known hurt that no human should ever experience.  Have they not lived in hell?

Many over the past few decades have seen a full life atrophy to a miserable existence with an addiction to drugs.  This has touched every community in this nation, perhaps every extended family.  Is there a better word for this state of existence than hell?

How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!

We live in a time when people need good news.

They need news so good that it goes beyond the tragedy of their life experience.

They need news that transcends the temporary situation.

They need news that says they are not a slave to their past mistakes.

They need news that says they can be born anew.

They need news that they can be a new creation in this very moment.

How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!

This is wonderful news for the world but as this 10^th chapter of Romans concludes—though the discussion does not—we are left with the question, “Did Israel not understand?”

Paul concludes the chapter with God’s displeasure of Israel.  “All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people.”

Once again we conclude with a wonderful promise of salvation for all and a chosen people who have rejected it.  And once again, this extended discussion by Paul is not finished.

Let’s not write off Israel just yet.  Paul has more to say and its in the next chapter so you don’t have to hunt for it if you can’t wait.

As we break briefly in this discussion, consider this one thought this week.

The strongest force in all of creation is love.

Love covers a multitude of sins

Read 1 Peter 4:7-11

Where do you go from the greatest of these is Love?  What else do you need from the scriptures once you receive the counsel to love your enemies?  Have we not fulfilled the law when we live governed by love?

So, what is this love covers a multitude of sins business?

I know that I contend with an age where so many people read their Bible in the in the NFT—the New Facebook Translation. I know that this is an age of eisegesis—putting what you want to believe into the holy scriptures.  I know this is an age where so many do not want to hear the truth.

The truth is just not that popular anymore.

But some things that are clearly in the Bible just don’t seem to jive, at least at first glance.  James and Peter both use the words from the Proverbs, love covers a multitude of sins.

But John records the encounter between John the Baptist and Jesus as he approached the part of the Jordan where all the baptizing seemed to be taking place with these words:  Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

John in his letters again confirms to us that the blood of Jesus cleanses us from our sin—from all unrighteousness.  I don’t know of any Christians who are offended by this verse.  Even the biggest Type-A personality at some point realizes I can’t fix myself by myself.  Thank you, Jesus, for what you did for me on the cross.

You cleansed me.  You took away my sin.  You made me right with God.  Hallelujah!  Amen!  Praise the Lord!

Even David knew that it took divine intervention to cleanse him.  Create in me a clean heart.  I cannot cleanse what I have made filthy by myself.

This is not a controversial topic among Christians.  The Lamb of God took away our sins.  Because of the completed work on the cross, sin and death have no say in where we spend eternity.  We belong to God.  We are brothers and sisters in Christ.  God’s Spirit lives within us.

So, what in the world is this business about covering a multitude of sins.  Is it just figurative language to say the same thing as taking away the sin of the world?  Is it a metaphor that says multitude but means all?  Is it no big deal?

Let’s briefly visit the Greek.  The original text uses a word that was used more in the poetry than the prose of the age.  The word is καλύπτω – kaluptó (kal-oop'-to). 

It means to cover or wash over or conceal.  It is to veil something.  The problem is that too many people read this thinking it veils or conceals something from God.  Many think that such scriptures tells us that our sin is hidden from God.

Consider this odd dichotomy.  The Lamb of God took away our sin and our love hides our sin from God.  Those are hard to reconcile, especially when we know that nothing is hidden from God.

So where does that leave us?  First let’s put this verse in context.  Peter tells his readers:

·       Realizing we don’t know how much time we have left, let’s proceed with clear minds and self-control. Let’s live according to the purpose God gave us.

·       Love each other deeply.

·       Offer hospitality without grumbling.

·       Use our God-given gifts to serve others.

·       Live out God’s grace in the ways the Lord has given you.

·       Be wise in your speech.  People will regard what you say as words from God, unless they are playing for the other team and want to twist them but be wise in your speech nonetheless.

·       Don’t rely on your own strength but on God’s so that God will receive the glory.

All of these things we know and do and sometimes don’t get right the first time or the first 100 times are all to bring glory to God as we follow Jesus.

All of these things fall into a category that we might call love one another.  Those in this body here have heard those words a few hundred times a year.  We have given out wristbands world-wide that say:  GOD LOVES YOU – LOVE ONE ANOTHER.

So as I look at these words that tell me that love covers a multitude of sins, I need to ask, “From whom are they concealed?”

We can’t hide anything from God.  So if the holy scriptures are to truly be in agreement—and they are—then these sins are concealed from a person.  Who is that person?

I am going to ask you to think on and meditate on that the person in question is us.  Remember the challenges that love presents to us.  Love your enemies.  Love is patient.  Here’s one that might seem even more difficult.

Love keeps no record of wrongs.  That one might be even tougher than loving your enemies or practicing patience.  Those who have wronged us are often recorded in our hard drives.  Some wrongs are written into the BIOS or the firmware of our hearts and minds.

We forgive but we don’t forget.  I’m keeping the lesson.  It sounds so sensible not to forget what happened when we were wronged.  But our model is that God forgives and forgets.  He remembers our sins no more.

I can love my enemies.  It takes work, but I can do it.

I can be patient.  I don’t have time to be patient, but I can be patient if I put my mind to it, especially when I know it is what love requires of me.  I just want to be patient and get it over with.

But I don’t know if I can forget everyone who has wronged me.  I don’t know if I can erase the hard drive.  I can be patient because I do something to be patient.  I can love my enemies because I resolve in my mind and bring my heart into that accord, and because I have set my heart and mind on it, I can do it.  I can love my enemy.

But how do I deal with a record of wrongs that is permanently etched in my mind with anchors set in my heart?

Yes, I know that with God all things are possible.  I know that through Christ Jesus who gives me strength, I can do all things, but this record of wrongs stuff is just too hard to manage, at least some of the time.

It seems like I have forgotten every wrong against me, then for no particular reason, that file is fully restored and comes front and center into my thinking.

Maybe, I am just not to the point where I can truly erase that hard drive of wrongs.  But love covers a multitude of sins.  What if the sins covered—concealed—are that record of wrongs that I won’t let go of or just can’t seem to get rid of?

What if while I am growing in faith and living out my salvation, concealing the sins against me from my heart and mind, let’s me grow in God’s grace.

One day, I truly want to forget.  But as I move towards that day, love may just keep those wrongs out of my heart and mind, so I can live out this life governed by love.

When I live a life of love, love reciprocates with this wonderful thing.  It covers over those sins made against me as if I was able to discard that record of wrongs.

OK, I might buy that, but I want to make sure this isn’t some screwball interpretation.  So, let’s consider the proverb.  It preceded what Peter and James had to say by 800 to 1000 years.

Hatred stirs up strife,

But love covers all sins.

That was the New King James which is the same as the original King James save the verbs stirrith and covereth.  Here the same verse in the Amplified Version.

Hatred stirs up strife,

But love covers and overwhelms all transgressions [forgiving and overlooking another’s faults].

The Message offers this translation.

Hatred starts fights,

but love pulls a quilt over the bickering.

Nothing is hidden from God so the covering or concealing or overlooking is what happens to us when love governs.

The proverb tells us that left to our human nature, we fight back when we are wronged.  Hate governs the unrepentant heart.  We fight back.  We get even.  Remember Lex Talionis—an eye for an eye.  That was an improvement over what preceded it, which was essentially the unwritten human law of escalation.

But love overlooks.  Love does not consider the wrong done against us as something to take center stage in our lives.

The Lamb of God took away our sin but we still must contend with judging—not the kind that keeps us from making bad decisions, but kind that is condemning of others—as we live out our salvation.

We have been wronged by many.  We have forgiven many, but not keeping a record of wrongs, that some tough stuff.  Until that day when we see clearly and are clearly seen, we might just need some help concealing the sins that others have committed against us from our own hearts and minds.

One day, we will get to where we can forgive and forget.  It may or may not happen in these bodies.  It’s a tall order for sure.

But love—which Paul reminded us never fails—will help us negotiate and navigate this toughest of tasks, even if it must conceal the wrongs against us from us, until our Christian maturity is ready to put them away for good.

Jesus lived a fully human life for about 3 decades.  He was wronged many times.  On his way to the cross, the record of wrongs against him was incomprehensible; yet, he spoke from the cross asking forgiveness for those who were murdering him.  “Father, forgive them.  They know not what they do.”

Our Father in heaven not only forgives us but forgets our sins as well.  That’s our goal as well—forgive and forget.

Why, was it important to spend a little time on this piece of scripture?  We understand our counsel.  Love our enemies.  Be patient.  Fulfill the law by living a life governed by love.  Why do we need this nugget on love covering a multitude of sins?

Because keeping no record of wrongs might cause us to throw in the towel.  We might just say, “What’s the point?  Nobody can do this.  God wants too much from me.”

Keeping no record of wrongs probably does fall into the bridge too far category, at least for now.  But we want to please God by living a life of love.

How can we renew our mind, when the record of wrongs against us won’t give way?

How can we love our neighbor, when some of those neighbors have hurt us badly and we can’t forget that?

How can we be patient, when our human mind is thinking about getting even?

They say that pitchers and quarterbacks have short memories.  They don’t.  That interception is a memory that won’t go away.  The pitch that is now an upper deck souvenir is a moment forever frozen in the mind of the man on the mound.

They can’t truly forget them right away, but they learn to cover over those memories so they can throw the next pitch or start the next series ready to score.

We as disciples of Jesus Christ need to grow in grace.  We learn to tithe and give generously.  We learn to serve others.  We learn to seek the counsel of the Holy Spirit.  We pray and listen for God.  We trust God more and more each day.  We even learn to do this when our own understanding tells us something else.

We are growing in God’s grace.  We have learned to forgive but keeping no record of wrongs is just too tough for us now.  We try.  We think that we have set aside this record of sins against us, then in a moment that file is fully restored.

But we desire so much to be people of light and of love.  We want to please our Lord and Savior and Master.  We do.

So, when we set out each day to live a life of love, love does a wonderful thing for us.  It covers over the record of wrongs made against us.  It helps us grow in all of those other areas while we wait for perfection to come.

And one day, that day will come when we can forgive and forget.  The day will come when we realize that the eternity of living that is set before us is so much greater than any way in which we had been wronged in the life that is behind us.

Until that day—whether it comes in theses bodies or with the Lord—we keep our eyes fixed on Jesus and do our best to live lives of love, letting love do the work of covering a multitude of sins, not hiding them from God but from ourselves so that they do not stagnate our growth.

Thanks be to God that love does for us what our own hearts and minds cannot.

Amen.

Lex Talionis

Read Matthew 5:38-48

Where to begin?  These are some of the most discussed, interpreted, debated, and very frankly ignored scriptures in the New Testament.

 They have been interpreted literally.  If someone sues you and is awarded your cloak, then we throw in the coat at no extra charge.

They have been interpreted historically and culturally.  That is, in the day they were written and within the Eastern culture, it was acceptable to strike a subordinate or a slave with the back side of the hand.  This was a sign of dominance.  Turning the other cheek to the senior offered a dilemma.  

Striking the cheek now presented would require the use of the left hand or the open palm.  Left hands were used for unclean purposes and the open handed slap was something of a challenge to fight, such as in later years the slap to the face with a glove might demand a duel between gentlemen.

The exegesis continues with allegorical interpretations.  The circumstances described represent how to respond to physical abuse, legal suits, government direction, and financial requests.  Principles in each area can be extracted

The principles are good but sometimes a rough fit.  Consider the admonishment to give not only your tunic but your cloak as well in today’s litigious society.  Over twenty years ago I was in 29 Palms, California.  Don’t confuse this with Palm Springs which is about an hour away and the hangout of the rich and pampered.  I was at the Marine Base controlling a live fire exercise.  Every few days we came in from the field to quarters on the main part of the base.  Each room had a bed, a desk with chair, and a television.  Do you remember rabbit ears?  Your reception was dependent upon how well you could manipulate these small antennae.

Of course, it didn’t matter much because all of the stations had terrible programming and all were sponsored by the same commercials:  Sue somebody, divorce somebody, or come down off of drugs.  California was truly a trendsetter in pitting the nation against itself with legions of lawyers ready to do barrister battle on our behalf.

About ten years later, I was in the middle of government contracting.  This was best value contracting.  That meant the proposal evaluation included a review of the contractor’s ability to do the job, the price, and the track record of the contractor.  I assigned review teams to these.  They always made a good selection.  I like to look at one more thing just to see if there were any red flags among the competing bids.  I purposely left myself out of the evaluation process.  That liberated me to look at one other thing:  risk.  I liked to know how large the legal department was at each company.  A large legal department might signal a company looking to sue if they couldn’t perform he job, underbid, or just saw the government as an easy target.  Taking the principles from the Sermon on the Mount as stand-alone axioms just didn’t seem to fit in the modern world.

So how do we interpret these scriptures?  I suggest we look at the last verse in the pericope.

Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Jesus uses the word therefore to tie in what he is about to say to what he has been saying.  So how do we interpret these teachings?  As Jesus told us to, in the context of being perfect—being complete-as our Father in heaven is complete.

That brings us to the subject of:

Lex Talionis

Nice word, but few speak Latin these days.

 It means the Law of Retribution or Retaliation.

We need laws for vengeance?  It seems that the desire for revenge is seeded deeply within the human heart.  Who would come up with laws about revenge?

God.

Really?  God had to make laws to teach us revenge?

No.  He gave laws to limit the extent of revenge.  It seems that man’s heart was not yet ready for the perfect love of its Creator.  The law limited the extent of the revenge exacted.

You mean like an eye for an eye?

Exactly.

Tooth for a tooth.

Right on the money again.

What if someone lost a hand?

They may take a hand from the offender.

For a foot?

A  foot.

What about a burn?

A burn returned.

What about if one takes the life of another.

Then the law of retribution affords a like may be taken in return.

Where do you find these laws?

This set comes from the 21^st Chapter of Exodus.

I guess that pretty much kept things out of court.

Not really.

What else could there be?

Two men are fighting and they bump into a pregnant woman and the baby comes out but there is no further damage.  They must pay what the husband demands and the court says is fair.

You are making this us as you go along.

Nope.  Same chapter in Exodus.

At least the secular courts have some sanity to them and don’t follow these guidelines.

Actually, they do—especially those in the western world.

You mean I can get sued for an arm and a leg.

Yes.

I have never seen a judgment like that rendered in this country.

You have, but didn’t recognize it.  Up to a point early in the second millennia after Christ’s death and resurrection there were some interesting developments in English law—where we get most of our common law.

OK.

An eye for an eye and a foot for a foot makes for a nation of half blind people with a limp.

That humor is too arid even for my taste.

So the judges of the land started equating a foot with a monetary value.  They assigned a monetary value to a hand, a tooth, and even a life.

So every man does have his price.

Now who’s a little on the dry side?

It just seems sort of odd.

More so that cutting off hands and plucking out eyes?

Point taken.

The early English name for this was Wergild or  Wergeld.

Great, more words nobody uses any more.

It means Blood Gold.  Literally it was the giving of gold or its equivalent for the life or limb taken by an offender.  It was part of both Germanic and English jurisprudence.

I wonder if that’s where we came up with the tooth fairy leaving money under the pillow.

What?

You know, getting a quarter for losing a tooth.

No, no, no…You got a quarter? I only got a dime.

Don’t sweat it.  The rates have gone up a bunch since you lost any teeth.

I don’t think the tooth fairly has anything with assigning monetary value to body parts.

It seems that we have modified this whole compensation thing quite a bit these days in the good ole US of A.

Yes and in several ways.  First we have separated the criminal and civil law.  One for punishment and one for compensation.

And?

We also have expanded the concept of damages beyond reasonable compensation for actual damages and added something we call punitive damages.

You mean like the person gets eight hundred dollars to cover the doctor’s visit for spilling a cup of hot coffee on their own leg and eight million to teach the fast food restaurant that didn’t warn its customers that its coffer was hot as lesson they will remember.

Exactly.  That latter part is known as punitive damages.

Seems like a big step backwards.

How so?

Shouldn’t there be some boundaries on what people can get when something bad happens to them?

Some would say so.  Today the debate is called tort reform.

It’s about time somebody did something!

Actually, God did something very early.  Remember Lex Talionis?

Placing limits on what a damaged party is entitled to as far as retaliation.  Wow, the pendulum surely swings back and forth on this one.

Sure does.

So I guess that God wants us to go back to an eye for an eye?

No.

No?

God wants to bring the pendulum to a complete halt.

You mean like a compromise?  Stop it somewhere in the middle.  God compromising?  Who’d a thunk it?

Not a compromise—a revelation.

What’s being revealed?

God’s heart.

It’s a cardio revelation?

Some might call it a cardio revolution.

I’m guessing that another vocabulary word is heading my way?

Kharisma.

Sounds like charisma.

That’s one of the words we derive from its Greek roots.

And it means?

Divine love, from the Divine Heart, or another word you have heard often—grace.

How did we get from an eye for an eye to grace?

Jesus.

You mean the teachings of Jesus, especially those from the Sermon on the Mount.

Yes, but I also mean Jesus without any qualifying adjectives, adverbs, or other quantification.

Explain.

The world in all of its sin and rejection of God and his love deserved to be judged.  It—we deserved to be condemned. 

I guess the law of an eye for an eye would be more than we can imagine on a world wide scale—more than I want to imagine anyway.

We deserved condemnation but received love.  We received love that we did not earn, deserve, or in any way merit.  We just did not deserve either God’s love or his forgiveness.

But He gave them love and forgiveness.

Yes.  He gave us grace.

So what do we do now?

That’s a question that all Christians should ask themselves every day.  How do I respond to God’s grace?

Any suggestions?

Let God finish the good work that he has begun in us.  Let him make us complete.  Let him perfect us.

And how does this tie in with an eye for an eye?

We return hate with love.

What about persecution?

With love.

Apathy?

Love.

Rejection?

Love.

Unfairness?

Love.

Love?

Love.

I was trying to trick you.

It’s a foolproof formula.

Obviously.

So much so that even those without God know to return love for love.

Love for love:  That’s about all I can manage without getting out of my comfort zone.

We should all get out more.

So all we need is love?

That’s a good one.  What verse did that come from?

Actually it’s the chorus.

To what?

All You Need is Love.

Touché.

More vocabulary…

Matthew 5:38-48 (New International Version, ©2010)

Eye for Eye

    ³⁸ “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ ³⁹ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. ⁴⁰ And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. ⁴¹ If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. ⁴² Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

Love for Enemies

    ⁴³ “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ ⁴⁴ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, ⁴⁵ that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. ⁴⁶ If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? ⁴⁷ And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? ⁴⁸ Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.