Showing posts with label The Cross. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Cross. Show all posts

Friday, March 15, 2024

The boldly heretical anti-trinitarianism of Daniel Lancaster (One of the key leaders of the FFOZ and Torah Clubs) in his own words

Here is the link to the original PDF on the website of Beth Immanuel where Daniel Lancaster serves as the pastor: The Only Begotten Son - By D. Thomas Lancaster

This was published in 2019 and remains an active link on their website.



Beth Immanuel Messianic Synagogue

May 8, 2019 / Iyyar 3, 5779

A Messianic Jewish Introduction to Discipleship, Part Four: The Only Begotten Son

© 2019 D. Thomas Lancaster www.bethimmanuel.org

 

{All commentary below from Pastor Powell will be in brackets, bold and italics to avoid any confusion as to Lancaster’s original words.  The bold section titles are original.}

THE ONLY BEGOTTEN SON

Before being immersed, a person should be instructed in “knowledge about the unbegotten God”

and “understanding about the only begotten son.” Under this subject, we touch on some of the

ideas in Christology—the study of Messiah. This is among the deepest and most mysterious

subjects in the Bible, so this lesson will only introduce a few of the topics pertaining to the

sonship of Yeshua. The material dives into some deep waters, so don’t feel distressed if it goes

over your head at time. It’s enough to get a rough idea of the concepts.

{The opening paragraph reveals this to be a pre-baptism primer for those joining Beth Immanuel, as such we would expect that the beliefs expressed here have not been arrived at in a flippant manner, which adds weight to their deviancy from orthodoxy.}

The Son of God

Yeshua regularly referred to himself as “the Son” and to God as “the Father.” It wasn’t

uncommon for Jews in his day to describe God as their loving Father. Even to this day, Jewish

prayers still address God warmly as “our Father,” and “Father in Heaven.” But there was

something unique about the way Yeshua talked. When he addressed God, he called him “Abba,”

a term of special endearment. When he talked about himself, he referred to himself as “the Son”

that was sent by the Father. After his death and resurrection, his followers began to refer to him

as “the Son of God,” and the “only begotten son.”

God loved the world so much that he gave his only begotten son, so that whoever

believes in him will not perish, but will have eternal life. (John 3:16)

What do we mean when we say that Yeshua is the Son of God and why is he called “the only

begotten Son?” It’s not just because he was born of a virgin. It’s blasphemous to even think that

the Almighty fathered him through his mother Miriam. 

{This is the Hebraic version of the familiar Mary} 

In Greek mythology, the gods routinely impregnate human women who subsequently give birth to demi-gods, but those mythological and idolatrous ideas have nothing to do with the story of Yeshua’s miraculous conception or why he is called the Son of God. So why is he called the Son of God?

{There isn’t much of note in the preceding paragraph, it all could be a part of a perfectly orthodox explanation of the Incarnation, if it wasn’t connected to what comes later…}

Today I have Begotten You

Let’s start with the idea of Messiah. The word “messiah” means “The Anointed One.” It’s

directly related to the Hebrew word Mashiach and the Greek word Christos. That’s where we get

the English word “Christ.” In the days of the kings of Israel, a new king was anointed with oil to

symbolize that God had chosen him and put his Spirit upon him to lead the people. Every king of

Israel was called an anointed one.

God promised that, in the future, the descendants of king David would beget a son who would be

anointed by God’s spirit to restore the kingdom of Israel and conquer the whole world. The

LORD promised King David, “I will be a father to him and he will be a son to Me” (2 Samuel

7:14). We call that promised king “the Anointed One,” i.e. the Messiah.

Son of God is a title for the Messiah. The LORD says to the Messiah in Psalm 2, “You are my

son, today I have begotten you” (Psalm 2:7). The word “beget” means “to give birth to” or “to

bring forth.” In Psalm 2, God says that the Davidic Messiah is called his “son” because he has

begotten him.

When Yeshua was immersed in the Jordan River, the voice of God declared him to be the

fulfillment of the promise made to David. He said, “You are my son.” With these words, the

voice at the Jordan identified Yeshua as the Messiah.

Yeshua asked his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the

Messiah, the Son of living God!” (Matthew 16:16). The two titles were connected in Peter’s

mind. Not long after that, Yeshua took three disciples with him up onto a high mountain. They

heard the voice of God say, “This is my son! Listen to him.” That revelation dispelled any

lingering doubts.

All of these instances point to the connection between Yeshua’s identity as the Messiah and the

promise made to King David, “I will be a father to him and he will be a son to Me” (2 Samuel

7:14). By saying to Yeshua, “You are my son,” the voice at the Jordan River declared, “You are

the Messiah.” By saying to the disciples, “This is my son,” the voice on the high mountain

declared, “This is the Messiah.”

{Up until the next paragraph, there isn’t anything of concern here, and that’s the pattern with FFOZ and their Torah Clubs.  They project an “ordinary Bible study” vibe right up until they include unorthodox teaching that often slips by Torah Club members, or leaves them thinking they can “strain out” the heretical bits and keep the rest.  Hold onto your hats for what is coming next.}

The Logos Becomes Flesh

But what about the idea that the Messiah is God?  How is that supposed to work?

Sometimes people say that Yeshua is fully God and fully man: 100% God and 100% human.

Mathematically, that doesn’t work very well. That would make him a 200% being which, by

definition, would be two different things, not a single person.

{And with this flippant math analogy, Lancaster has rejected the Council of Nicaea.  Given that Jesus is the one and only Incarnation of God, the only example that there ever was or will be of the divine and human combined in one person, why is he so sure that Jesus can’t be fully God AND fully man at the same time?  Whatever comes next, whatever lesser explanation of the humanity and divinity of Jesus that he is about to offer, orthodoxy has already been abandoned by Lancaster.}

But Yeshua is not a math equation,

nor is he a recipe calling for equal parts God and equal parts man, stirred together and baked in

an oven. The spiritual world doesn’t work according to those rules or simple ideas.

{More mockery of the orthodox understanding of Jesus’ full humanity and divinity that the Early Church affirmed at Nicaea.  If Jesus isn’t equal parts God and man, either his divinity or his humanity must be lesser, as we will soon see.  That last sentence jumps out at me, our understanding of the spiritual realm comes from divine revelation, our knowledge of how it works is up to God.  Thus we do not define the Incarnation, and we certainly don’t declare what it can/can’t be based on our preferences.  What we must do, what we only can do, is accept what God has said about himself, and the Word of God tells us that Jesus of Nazareth is both fully human and fully divine.}

Let’s take a look at how the apostles solved the problem.

{Ok, let’s do that…Wait, when does he start quoting the Apostles?  The only two quotes to follow, from John and Colossians, actually speak firmly against this notion that Jesus can’t be fully God and fully man.}

In the previous chapter, we learned that God is the first-cause and that he created the whole universe through the agency of his Word.  The “Word” of God functions as his avatar, so to speak, expressing his being within the confines of the created order.

{The warning signs should be shouting by now, “Danger! Danger!”  Why is “Word” in quotation marks?  It shouldn’t be given that it is how the prologue of the Gospel of John describes the eternal 2nd person of the Trinity, but it is to Lancaster because the Word that he’s describing is NOT a person at all.  We’re heading toward a form of unitarian monotheism, something that would be acceptable to modern Judaism (and Islam) but something that has been entirely rejected by the Church since the very beginning…An avatar?  Why are we using a term that has less than full personhood associated with it?  The term Lancaster refuses to use is “person.”  The Word is not described as a person (and neither is the Holy Spirit), and honestly neither is the Father, these are simply avatars (manifestations) of the One, not persons.}

Through his Word he spoke and the world came into being. His Word hovered over the waters of creation and said, “Let there be light.” In the days of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, God’s Word appeared in the form of the Angel of the LORD, and in the days of Moses, his Word spoke from inside a burning bush. From on top of Mount Sinai, the Word spoke the ten commandments, declaring, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.” The same Word of God came to dwell in the Tabernacle and spoke to Moses from between the wings of Cherubim over the ark of the covenant.

{Sloppy and careless use of scripture is a hallmark here.  The Spirit of God hovered over the waters in Genesis 1:2, nor is the Word described by Moses as the one who spoke Creation into existence in Genesis 1:3.  So why attribute these things, contrary to the text, to the Word? There is a purpose to Lancaster making these attributions, and saying that the voice of God in the Burning Bush was an Avatar of the Word along with the appearances of the Angel of the LORD, it muddies the waters and sets the stage for what he is about to say…}

When the time came for God to fulfill his promises to the house of David by bringing forth the

Messiah, the Word of God divested itself of glory and clothed itself in a human body. Much as

the Word dwelt in the Tabernacle, the Word came to dwell within the human being named

Yeshua ben Yosef of Nazareth.

{Heresy.  Full stop.  The Word did NOT simply “dwell within” a human being, He was and is a human being because Jesus retains his humanity in his resurrected body.  At the Incarnation God became a human being when the Son was born of the virgin and took upon himself humanity in addition to his eternal deity.  It was not being “clothed” with a human body, but having one, being one of us.  When he switches gears to the Atonement below, this lesser version of Jesus will have dire implications that leave Lancaster (and FFOZ) with a diet version of the Gospel, one devoid of power…According to how Lancaster explains this, Yeshua (Jesus) the man already independently existed, and the Word simply came to dwell within him.  What we have here is full blown Monarchianism, also known as Modalism, a heresy that was known in the Early Church and entirely rejected by it even before the Council of Nicaea (as early as Tertullian, 160-220 AD).  Lancaster is not inventing a new heresy, he is simply recycling an old previously rejected one.}

The Gospel of John says, “The Word became flesh (a human body), and dwelt among us, and we saw his glory: the glory of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).

Make no mistake, this is about as close as the apostles ever get to saying, “God became a human

being.” Of course, they don’t say it in those words, but the apostle Paul says essentially the same

thing in slightly different language. He says, “In him all the fulness of Deity dwells in bodily

form” (Colossians 2:9). 

{Yes! Amen!  The Apostle Paul does indeed say that God became a human being, and not just in Colossians 2:9 (Also see John’s prologue), so why are you denying it?  I know that FFOZ wants to make the Gospel more palatable to the “Jewish perspective” as they define it, but abandoning the fully deity and humanity of Jesus to do it?  Never.}

A Real Human Being

Why didn’t the apostles just come right out and say, “Yeshua is God”? Why beat around the

bush? They refer to him as the “Son of God, the “glory of God,” the “representation” and “image

of God,” the “exact imprint” of God, and so forth? Why do they always seem to take one step

back from just saying, “Yeshua is God”? 

{Those statements are a “step back”?  Only if you want to proclaim Jesus as less than fully God and fully man combined in one person.  Nobody and nothing has the fullness of God’s glory except God.  One cannot miss that John’s Gospel proclaims Jesus as God, equal with the Father, unless what the text is actually saying is secondary to your agenda.  For example: “before Abraham was born, I am.” In John 8:58. Did Jesus’ audience know he was claiming to be God?  Absolutely, they immediately picked up stones to kill him.}

Well for one thing, that’s not a Jewish way of speaking about God. They did not want to imply

that God was two different beings, nor did they want to give people the idea that they were

teaching polytheism. Besides, that wasn’t what they meant. The human body of Yeshua is not

God nor is it the Word of God. When God dwelt inside the Tabernacle, the Tabernacle did not

become God. 

{He said it himself.  Lancaster has made a distinction between the human Yeshua and the divine Word of God; they’re not the same to him, he wants them to be distinct and makes sure to say so.  The Tabernacle analogy is ridiculous.  Of course a tent didn’t become God, what does that have to do with Jesus?  Don’t miss the line, “that wasn’t what they meant.”  It points back to the early question about why the Apostles didn’t simply say that, “Yeshua is God.”  Lancaster’s answer: They didn’t say it because they didn’t believe it.  A laughable conclusion based on the text of the NT, even the apostate Bart Ehrman accepts that the NT text proclaims Jesus to be God (Ehrman erroneously teaches that the Church edited the text centuries after the Apostles to add this idea).}

One might say that Yeshua is God in the flesh, so long as we remember that his flesh is not God.

{“One might say that Yeshua is God in the flesh”??  Oh really, we are allowed to say that the Incarnation is God in the flesh and thus accept what Holy Scripture says and the Church has believed from the beginning!  But Lancaster needs to add a caveat, a distinction that undermines any hope that he will accept this fundamental truth of orthodox Christology.}

The human body of Yeshua is a real human body. Unlike God, it began at a fixed point in time,

conceived and born of a woman. Perhaps this is one reason why he also referred to himself as

“the Son of Man.” The term “Son of Man” is an obscure title for the Messiah, but it is also a

Hebrew idiom that simply means “human being.” Yeshua was the human being who took up

Adam’s job of being the image of God. 

{So, at least we don’t also have the heresy that the Divine Jesus only looked human (Docetism).  Lancaster is willing to concede that Jesus of Nazareth was a real human being.  The “unlike God” segway serves as a reminder that Jesus the man and the Word of God are not one and the same in this heretical view endorsed by one of the primary leaders of FFOZ and creator of Torah Club materials.}

Yeshua was not a fake person that only looked human but was actually a deity in disguise.

In Greek mythology, the gods occasionally masqueraded as men to fool people, but that’s not what

is happening in the gospels. Yeshua was a real person who hungered, thirsted, tired, experienced

a full range of human emotions, felt both physical and emotional pain, and suffered temptation.

But the living God in the form of the Word

{“in the form of the Word” is the Modalist way of not having a true Trinity with three equal persons, the Word and the Spirit are simply “forms” of God, “avatars” God wears for specific purposes.}

dwelt within him and permeated his whole being.

{Nope.  The Word didn’t “dwell within” Jesus, Jesus is the Word.}

The glory of God shone through him.

When it says that the Word “dwelt among us,” the Gospel alludes to how God’s presence dwelt

in the Tabernacle and the Temple so that he could “dwell” in the midst of his people. It’s similar

with Yeshua of Nazareth. Much as God can be said to dwell in his sanctuary in a unique way, he

chose to dwell within a single human being in a unique way. But unlike the Tabernacle or the

Temple, Yeshua is a person with his own will, his own inclinations, and his own consciousness. 

{Once you’ve gone off the rails, there’s no telling where you’ll end up. Now we’re about to hear Lancaster explain how the Word and Jesus have competing wills.  So, Jesus the man has a separate will/inclination/consciousness that is NOT the same as the Word?  Jesus is some sort of multiple personality sufferer in Lancaster’s eyes?}

For example, when praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, he distinguished between his own will

and God’s will. He prayed, “Not my will, but let your will be done” (Luke 22:42). Come to think

of it, just by praying to God he was making it clear that he made a distinction between himself

and God. Otherwise he would have been praying to himself.

{Good grief, as he often enough does, Lancaster demonstrates no real understanding of the orthodoxy he’s rejecting.  There’s a reason why we can talk about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as their own person, it’s a mystery called the Trinity.  One God, three persons.  As Athanasius put it, “one ousia in three hypostaseis”, that is, one substance/essence with three persons.  Lancaster doesn’t understand this ancient doctrine, so he thinks that Jesus praying to the Father would be Jesus praying to himself, which is nonsense.  There was communication and fellowship within the Trinity before Creation.  That this continues when Jesus walked the Earth in the form of prayer is to be expected.}

The Apostle Paul explains that Yeshua did not “consider equality with God a thing to be seized” (Philippians 2:6). 

{And here we’re abusing Paul to advocate for heresy.  Philippians 2:6 is not saying that Jesus wasn’t equal with God, the Kenosis (“emptying”) passage tells of Jesus’ humility in that he didn’t cling to the prerogatives of deity but was instead willing to set them aside.  By the way, Philippians 2:9-11 reveals the coming glory of Jesus when his divinity is acknowledged by all of creation.  As is common with FFOZ, the passage of scripture they’re citing means the opposite of what they’re trying to use it for.}

Divestment

How does that work? How can the Word dwell in Yeshua, yet make room enough for him to

keep a distinct will and consciousness of his own? 

{It can’t, and it doesn’t need to unless you’ve embraced heresy, as Lancaster here, and need to somehow try to justify it.}

God’s Word dwelt within him much the way your spirit dwells within you. Human beings are

not merely physical creatures of flesh and blood and bone. We are more than just mudballs, and

more than just monkeys. There is a spiritual spark hidden inside of us that existed before we

were conceived, and it will continue to live on after we die. The body is like a suit of clothing

that the spirit within us wears. 

{Now Lancaster is dabbling in Docetism by making the spirit the real essence of us and the body merely a covering.  Our body is not at all “clothing” that our spirit wears.  Afterall, the coming resurrection of the dead is a bodily resurrection.  Given how wrong he is about the nature of humanity, his attempt to use this as analogy to the unique Incarnation of the God/Man is useless.  With each attempt to explain his heresy, Lancaster further cements the truth that critics of FFOZ, like myself, are not “making this up.”  This is what he chose to publish, what he is teaching at Beth Immanuel, and what, God help us, others are accepting because of his so-called “expertise.”}

When the spirit enters the human body at conception and birth, it conceals itself in the person.

You wouldn’t even know its there. It functions within you on an unconscious level, beneath the

surface of your awareness. But it’s very much the real you, deep down inside. In order to become

you, your spirit first divests itself of its heavenly identity and any memories it had. That’s why

you don’t remember being a spirit before you were born. 

{There’s no telling how far down the rabbit hole we will go.  Now Lancaster is claiming pre-existence in heaven of the human soul, with an identity and memories that we “lose” when we’re born.  The Second Council of Constantinople (553 AD) condemned this belief as heresy.}

It’s not exactly the same, but the Word that became flesh in the person of Yeshua did something

similar by divesting its identity to indwell a man and live a real human life through Yeshua of

Nazareth: 

{And now we see the fruit of the poisoned heretical vine.  God isn’t really living a human life, Jesus of Nazareth is, God is just indwelling him through an avatar.  When you abandon orthodoxy, the consequences are legion and grotesque.}

Although he existed in the form of God, he did not consider equality with God a thing to

be seized. Instead, he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the

likeness of men, and being found in appearance as a human being, he humbled himself by

becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:6-8)

Of what did the Word divest itself? He stripped himself of glory, divesting himself of

omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence in order to inhabit a human life. 

{You were almost there, if you replace “inhabit” with “live” you have orthodoxy.  But that’s a bridge too far for Lancaster, his Jesus isn’t a part of any Trinity.}

This explains why Yeshua would have appeared to anyone who knew him as a normal human being. He did not glow, and he did not have a halo floating over his head. This also explains why he didn’t know everything all the time, and how he could have been tempted, and why he achieved merit for his obedience. After all, it wouldn’t have been any great accomplishment for the omnipotent and omniscient God to pass temptations and trials, but Yeshua earned merit and God’s favor by doing so. 

{And now we see what happens with a lesser Christology, we must also have a lesser Atonement (which actually is no real atonement at all, as we will see below.  FYI, orthodoxy acknowledges that Jesus’ suffering and temptations were real, he was a real human being who had laid aside the fullness of divinity’s power during his time on earth.  These “explanations” from Lancaster are as unnecessary as they are heretical…So, for Lancaster Jesus of Nazareth also needs to be a separate man who is only indwelt by the Word (itself only an avatar of God, not a person) in order to make his trials and temptations “real”?}

He himself was tempted in everything he suffered, so he is able to help those who are

tempted. (Hebrews 2:18)

He has been tempted in all things as we are, yet he was without sin. (Hebrews 4:15)

Although he was a son, he learned obedience from the things which He suffered. And

having been made perfect, he became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal

salvation. (Hebrews 5:8-9)

{Nice to see Hebrews quoted, none of these are being used in a way that the author would have recognized or accepted because he most certainly believed that Jesus was fully God and fully man together as one, not this weird amalgam of a human being serving as the clothing for an avatar of God.}

The Suffering of Messiah

Disciples of Yeshua believe that his death on the cross obtained the forgiveness of sins for us.

How is that supposed to work? Doesn’t it seem strange to believe that the death of one Jewish

man, 2000 years ago, could bring us the forgiveness of sins today? Why would the death of

anyone bring forgiveness of sins to someone else?

{It isn’t a strange notion if you accept the teachings of the Apostle Paul.  One Jewish man’s death couldn’t do anything for us, the death of the God/Man, the only Son of God, is what actually matters, but Lancaster has already undermined who the Church has always believed Jesus to be, which is who Jesus actually is, so…}

God’s Favor

To begin with, Yeshua found favor in God’s eyes. He lived a life of complete righteousness in

perfect submission to God’s will, but he suffered unjustly. Th apostles teach, “This finds favor

with God, if for the sake of his convictions toward God a person bears up under sorrows when

suffering unjustly” (1 Peter 2:19).

{Over and over again.  Peter isn’t talking about the Atonement, he’s not talking about merit that can be applied to others, this quotation is irrelevant, because it isn’t at all about what Jesus did for us.}

That’s the same way that Yeshua earned God’s favor. Now he is able to share that favor with all of his disciples. When we pray to God or ask him for forgiveness for sins, we do so not according to our own merit or righteousness, but in the merit and favor that Yeshua earned with God. We know that we don’t deserve God’s mercy, but Yeshua does, so we associate ourselves with him. It’s as if we say, “I know that I don’t deserve your favor or your forgiveness, but please remember your son Yeshua and include me along with him.” 

{So, we’re missing something here.  What about the punishment for sin?  What about the darkness as Jesus hung on the Cross or the symbolism of the Lamb of God at Passover?  What about the deep focus in Hebrews on Jesus as a better Priest and a better sacrifice?  The explanation that the man Jesus (remember, Lancaster already declared that the Word and Yeshua are separate) is able to share some extra merit with you and me is far from a sufficient explanation.  This is not what the NT writers have to say about Jesus’ suffering, death, and resurrection.}

The Law of Sin and Death

The Bible also speaks about a principle called “the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:2).

According to this principle, human suffering and death come into the world only as a

consequence for sin. If there was no sin in the world, there would be no human suffering or

death. We would live in paradise. But this theory raises a serious problem. How do you explain it

when innocent people suffer and die? What about when a very righteous person suffers and dies

as a martyr? Obviously innocent people, like small children, cannot be said to have suffered and

died to pay for their sins. They didn’t have any sins. Neither can it be said that the righteous

suffer and die for their sins. Surely there are plenty of worse sinners who go unpunished. Where

is the fairness? 

{Lancaster is attempting to delve into Theodicy, also known as “the problem of evil.”  We do indeed live in a world where sin is far from sufficiently punished and righteousness often goes unrewarded.  What is lacking in this discussion is any connection to Paul’s theology in Romans. The universality of human sin, and the inheritance of the sin nature in each generation is not present.  Also, where is the truth that all have individually sinned and fallen short of the glory of God? (Romans 3:23) When you leave that fundamental truth out of your explanation of God’s response to humanity’s plight, things go awry, as the next sentence will show.}

Judaism explains that when righteous people suffer and die, it comes not as a consequence for

their own sins, but for the sins of others. God even uses the suffering and death of the righteous

as a way to atone for others who otherwise would not deserve his mercy. According to this idea,

an extremely righteous person might suffer for the sins of his whole generation. 

{“Judaism explains” is weak sauce.  Where does this come from, which rabbis taught this?  Is this an idea that predates the life of Jesus, or a modern one?  Lancaster offers no explanation.  In the end, where it comes from doesn’t really matter because it isn’t a biblical idea.  God is a just God.  There are no “righteous people” who don’t need a savior (Romans 2-3), everyone dies for their own sins, everyone needs Jesus.  How then could the acts of righteousness done by sinners (for that is what we all are) produce extra merit before God that could be applied to others?  This notion cannot be squared with Paul’s meticulous explanation of the Gospel in Romans, and fails utterly to connect with Ephesians 2:8-9.  If “Judaism” (Or at least Lancaster’s view of it) believes that a human being could “suffer for the sins of his whole generation” it is flat-out wrong.  No person could ever obtain enough merit for him/herself, let alone for others.}

The apostles applied this same reasoning to explain Yeshua’s suffering.

{No evidence that the Apostles believed anything of the sort is offered, none exists, because they most certainly did not.}

Since he was tempted in all things but without sin, he accrued merit with God. When he suffered and died, it tipped the scales of justice far out of balance. To bring the scales of justice back into balance, his suffering must have been on behalf of the sins of others. This is what the prophet Isaiah predicted the Messiah would do:

{The scales of justice?  God has to balance the cosmic scales?  The thing is, the injustice of Jesus’ death was infinite.  He had no sin, zero. This isn’t a cosmic math problem, Jesus’ death paid for the sins of tens of billions of people (and counting as the years lengthen) because he was fully God and fully man with zero sin, which left death with no claim upon him.}

He bore our griefs, and he carried our sorrows. But we considered him to be plagued,

struck by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced through for our transgressions; he was

crushed for our iniquities. Upon him fell the discipline to bring us peace, and by his welts

(from scourging) we are healed. (Isaiah 53:4-5)

{Yes!  Isaiah 53:4-5 is very relevant.  Isaiah is talking about Substitutionary Atonement, Lancaster isn’t.}

Higher than the Angels

In the Bible, angels are also called “sons of God,” but the Messiah occupies a station higher than

the angels. He is the Son of God on a higher level than they can claim.

For to which of the angels did God ever say, “You are my Son, today I have begotten

you”? Or again, “I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son?” (Hebrews 1:5)

The Messiah is called God’s firstborn and only begotten son. But how does that square with the

idea that he existed since the beginning of creation? Physically, we know he was begotten

through Miriam the wife of Joseph and born in the town of Bethlehem, but spiritually, he was

with God in the beginning. He is called “firstborn” because he is God’s agent

{Again, the Word is an “agent” in Lancaster’s view, not a person.}

through which all things came into being, that is, the Word. If God is the first-cause, the Word is the action that initiates the first effect. This is why Yeshua is called “the beginning of God’s creation”

(Revelation 3:14) and “the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation” (Colossians

1:15). In the days of the Bible, a firstborn son took a double portion of his father’s inheritance. By

calling the Messiah the “firstborn,” this implies that the Messiah was “begotten” before the

angels were created. Because he is the firstborn over God’s household, the angels must pay

homage to him as their superior: When he brings his firstborn into the world, he says, “Let all God’s angels worship him.” (Hebrews 1:6)

{As far as I can tell, this whole section is justifying why Hebrews claims that Jesus (who is a man inhabited by God’s avatar the Word in Lancaster’s view) is above the angels when he was born after they were created.  If Lancaster believed that Jesus was the 2nd person of the Trinity, God from God, true God from true God, light from light, etc. he could just agree with the author of Hebrews without all of the odd talk about inheritance law.}

The Resurrection of Yeshua

Disciples of Yeshua believe some enormous claims about him. How do we know that these

things are true? He claimed to be the Son of God and the Messiah. He claimed to submit to

God’s will completely. The apostles claimed that he lived a sinless life, and they claimed that,

thanks to the merit and favor he earned with God,

{Merit and favor are all we have here, nothing about sin being paid for.)

his disciples can obtain the forgiveness of sins and eternal life, i.e. the resurrection of the dead and a share in the World to Come. They also claimed that he will come again and bring the Messianic Era to earth.  We believe all of these things on the basis of his resurrection from the dead. If Yeshua was a deceiver, a false prophet, a liar, or even a self-deluded madman, God would not have endorsed his claims by resurrecting him from the dead. The resurrection of Yeshua and the empty tomb that he left behind testify that everything he said is true and valid, and everything his disciples

believed and taught about him are also true.

{Somehow, some way, we’re found the truth again.  The Resurrection is indeed foundational to our belief in Jesus.}

The resurrection of Yeshua endorses all of his Messianic claims and his teachings about the

coming kingdom. His resurrection also provides evidence for hope in a future resurrection of the

righteous and a share in the world to come. Finally, the resurrection of Yeshua proves that he is

the Son of God. In fact, it declares him to be God’s son:

He was physically descended from David, but he was declared to be the Son of God in

power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead. (Romans 1:3-

4)

In summary, Yeshua is regard as the “only begotten son” of God on the basis of three

indisputable things. He is the Messiah the son of David, and therefore the heir to the Davidic title

“son of God” as it says in Psalm 2, “Your are my son, today I have begotten you.”

He is the Son of God on the basis of the divine Word made flesh. The Word was begotten of the

first-cause from the before the beginning as the firstborn “son” over creation, and the Word

inhabits and fills him.

{The distinction between Yeshua the man, and the Word continues, the Word didn’t become man in the Incarnation, it merely “inhabits and fills” a man.  This is not at all sufficient, and was rejected soundly by the Early Church as heresy.}

Finally, he is declared the “Son of God … by his resurrection from the dead.” The evidence of

the resurrection confirms his claims. Yeshua invites his followers to join the family as sons and daughters of God too. When we become his disciples, we join his family. He becomes the elder brother, and we become children of his Father. We enter into the family and enjoy the same intimate relationship that the Father and Son share together:

For in the Messiah Yeshua you are all sons (and daughters) of God, through faith.

(Galatians 3:26)

And because you are sons (and daughters), God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our

hearts, praying, “Abba! Father!” Since you are no longer a slave, but a son, now, as a son

(or daughter), you are an heir through God. (Galatians 4:6-7)

 

 

Pastor Powell’s Conclusions: As someone who has taken on the role of teacher, and who is actively sharing his views with a global audience, the beliefs of Daniel Lancaster are profoundly important for they permeate what he teaches (i.e. the published materials of FFOZ and Torah Clubs).  Contrary to what his (and FFOZ’s) defenders claim, these teachings are deeply and profoundly unorthodox and literally heretical given that they were specifically rejected by the Early Church and declared to be heresy by its Councils.

1. This teaching is Modalism, it is anti-Trinitarian, a rejection of the Council of Nicaea, and wholly unacceptable, it has more in common with the teachings of the Jehovah’s Witnesses about Jesus than it does with anything in historic Christianity.

2. A lesser view of Jesus taints the purpose and meaning of the Cross.  Instead of Substitutionary Atonement (or any variation of atonement thereof), we have here in its place the notion of the balancing of the scales of justice, instead of sins that have been paid for, we have sins that God chooses to ignore because of Jesus’ extra merit.  This too falls short of what the Gospel proclaims and the New Testament teaches.

3. Teachings like this eviscerate any “about us” statements that are put forth by Beth Immanuel or FFOZ (see below).  While it may be convenient or strategic to allow people to assume that they haven’t rejected the Trinity, this is the direction in which they are leading people, and it is neither a part of historic Christianity nor Messianic Judaism, but instead a cult that like the JW’s and LDS before them, have chosen to follow “prophets” into the wilderness.


Also from Pastor Powell -

For comparison: Below is the Statement of Faith created by FFOZ (FFOZ Statement of Faith)

Note that at first glance this statement does not appear to be anti-Trinitarian.  However, when read in light of Daniel Lancaster’s stated beliefs above, phrases like “he reveals himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” are recognizable as a form of Modalism.  Likewise, the opening phrase, “There is one God” is seen more clearly as not simply the assertion of traditional Christian monotheism, but rather of a Unitarian Monotheism more akin to the “Jewish perspective” (as FFOZ defines it).

With respect to Jesus, their statement of faith doesn’t mention that the Word is only an avatar, or that the man Jesus (Yeshua) had a separate will and consciousness from that of the Word (as claimed by D. Lancaster in the text above), but if the Word is only a manifestation of God, and not a true person, this sort of lesser Christology is inevitable.  Jesus cannot be fully God and fully Man (as Christian orthodoxy proclaims) if the deity indwelling him is only a power and not a person.

With respect to the Holy Spirit, once again we’re looking at what is missing.  In FFOZ’s statement of faith we only find mention of what the Spirit does, nothing that speaks to who the Spirit is.

As such, this statement of faith from FFOZ follows the pattern that I have highlighted over and over again: publicly acceptable softer and ambiguous versions of their beliefs combined with deeply unorthodox teachings mixed in and/or revealed to insiders (see for example the Malchut 2022 videos in parts 2 & 3 of my seminar).  This is the answer to the objection that has been raised over and over by true believers as to why their local Torah Club isn’t the same as what my research into FFOZ has revealed: The truly disturbing beliefs are mostly shielded from public scrutiny.  This pattern follows other cult-like tendencies that have been documented (like the severing of family/church ties), and is yet another cause for concern about this organization and this movement.

God

There is one God: “Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God, the LORD is one” (Deuteronomy 6:4). “He is God; there is no other besides Him” (Deuteronomy 4:35), the unbegotten God, first cause, and single source. He discloses Himself in the testimony of creation and through the Scriptures of the Jewish people, and he reveals Himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, interacting with His creation as the Father working through the Son and in the power of the Spirit. (Genesis 1:1; Deuteronomy 6:4; 1 Corinthians 8:6; Ephesians 4:4–6)

Yeshua

Yeshua is the Son of God, the Messiah, the Eternal One in whom all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form, and who is the Word who became flesh and dwelt among us, and whose glory we beheld, the glory of the uniquely begotten Son of God, full of grace and truth (John 1:1–14; Colossians 2:9).

The Holy Spirit

The Spirit of God comforts, teaches, leads, indwells, and empowers all whom God regenerates (Acts 9:31; 1 John 2:27; John 16:13; 1 Corinthians 3:16; 2 Timothy 1:7).


Thursday, January 25, 2024

Did the Apostles fully keep the Torah after Jesus’ death and resurrection? A response to the claim of FFOZ

In the past year and a half, I’ve read a lot of things written by the leadership of First Fruits of Zion.  While individual misinterpretations of the biblical text and Early Church history abound in their published materials, correcting these errors does not seem to move the needle with those who have fallen under the sway of Boaz Michael, Daniel Lancaster, and the rest.  What would it take?  How much of a rejection of God’s Word is necessary to demonstrate the danger of this path?

FFOZ’s claim: The Apostles (and the entirety of the first generation of followers of Jesus, both Jew and Gentile) fully kept Torah.  In their view this was as Jesus intended, his life, death, and resurrection changed NOTHING with respect to full participation in the first-century expression of Judaism, full obedience to the Law of Moses continued to be expected in every aspect of everyone.

This reflects the central historical claim of FFOZ, that until later generations dropped the affiliation with Judaism, Jesus’ followers (both Jew and Gentile alike) were full participants in synagogue life, full participants in Temple worship, fully obedient to every aspect of Torah.

Here is an example of this thesis from FFOZ in action:

The New Testament metaphorically refers to Yeshua’s suffering and death as a sacrifice for sin, but that’s not the same as cancelling the sacrifices.  The boof of Acts shows us that the believers remained engaged in the Jerusalem Temple system long after the death and resurrection of the Master.  Obviously they did not regard the Temple worship as obsolete.  Ever since the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, the sacrifices detailed in the Torah have not been possible and will not be possible until God’s Temple in Jerusalem is rebuilt. – Restoration by Daniel Lancaster, p. 169-170

We don’t make sacrifices today, but only because the Torah forbids us from doing so.  Without a Temple and priesthood, sacrificing is a sin. – Restoration by Daniel Lancaster, p. 173 (emphasis mine)

Caveat: After the destruction of the Temple, the ending of the Levitical/Aaronic priesthood, and the disbanding of the Sanhedrin, many of the requirements of the Torah no longer applied.  This FFOZ freely admits, it would be absurd to contend otherwise as these requirements were literally impossible to keep without the priesthood and sacrificial system being in place.  FFOZ does, however, expect animal sacrifices to resume if/when the Temple is rebuilt, to them Jesus’ “metaphorical” death hasn’t changed anything in this regard.  As Lancaster writes, “the Law of God is eternal.” (Restoration, p. 157) {Note: He isn’t saying the Word of God, context makes it clear that he means the Mosaic Law in its entirety is intended to be an eternally operating system.}

This leaves nearly a 40-year period after the resurrection of Jesus Christ when Jesus’ followers could have participated fully in Torah, as he and they had before his death and resurrection, if it had been Jesus’ goal and purpose for them.

However, to do so would have been to trivialize the sacrifice of Christ to the point of sacrilege.

Here’s why: Leviticus 4:1-2 says this,

The Lord said to Moses, 2 “Say to the Israelites: ‘When anyone sins unintentionally and does what is forbidden in any of the Lord’s commands…

The rest of the chapter outlines the required animal sacrifice.  In the case of an unintentional sin by any of the covenant people, the animal was to be a goat or lamb,

29 They are to lay their hand on the head of the sin offering and slaughter it at the place of the burnt offering. 30 Then the priest is to take some of the blood with his finger and put it on the horns of the altar of burnt offering and pour out the rest of the blood at the base of the altar. (Lev. 4:29-30)

This was God’s command to the Israelites given at Mt. Sinai; it would have been absolutely necessary for the Apostles (and the growing number of Christians) if they were fully Torah observant to take part in this particular sacrifice many times during those decades, for each of them would have had numerous unintentional sins on their ledger, so to speak. 

{Remember, however that the Gentiles Christians would have been barred from in-person participation in the Temple system, the physical reminder of their inferiority that kept them from the inner courts of the Temple would have been enforced on pain of death.  See Acts 21:28}

But neither the Jewish Christians nor the Gentile Christian could have made these sacrifices, not if they understood even in rudimentary terms what the sacrifice of Jesus had already accomplished.  The book of Hebrews would not yet have been available to them, but does FFOZ really want us to believe that Jesus’ disciples were this ignorant of what he had accomplished on the Cross up until they read Hebrews?  Or does the testimony of Hebrews that confirms the abrogation of the sacrificial system not count when you’ve already concluded that, “the Law of God is eternal”?

The writer of Hebrews spells this purposeful God-authored change out in detail:

14 Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. 16 Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. (Hebrews 4:14-16)

The resurrected and ascended Jesus was already the Great High Priest, there was no longer a need for the services of one descended from Aaron.  Why would a follower of the post-resurrection Jesus go to a mere man with a sacrifice?

11 But when Christ came as high priest of the good things that are now already here, he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not made with human hands, that is to say, is not a part of this creation. 12 He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption. 13 The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. 14 How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God! (Hebrews 9:11-14)

11 Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. 12 But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, 13 and since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool. 14 For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy. (Hebrews 11:11-14)

Jesus’ blood had fully and forever paid for the sins of the Apostles, how could they continue to offer that of an animal knowing that they had been washed clean?  The choice was between obeying Torah by repeating sacrifices Jesus had already paid for, or recognizing that his death and resurrection had fundamentally changed the very nature of the sacrificial system by forever eliminating any need for it, and thus changed the Law of Moses itself.

19 Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, 20 by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. (Hebrews 10:19-22)

Even the Temple itself, while it still stood until the Romans destroyed it, no longer contained the true Most Holy Place, for the very body of Jesus Christ was the true living Temple, the one that he promised would be raised three days after it was destroyed.

18 And where these have been forgiven, sacrifice for sin is no longer necessary. (Hebrews 10:18)

It was no longer necessary, the sins of the Apostles, even those they had yet to commit, had already been forgiven.

How then could they be fully Torah observant by offering animal sacrifices without hypocrisy, even sacrilege?  How could Jesus have expected them to remain fully participating in first-century Judaism without continuing in the sacrificial system?

The answer is: They weren’t, nor did Jesus expect them to be.  For Jesus is our Great High Priest, the Holy Temple, the Blood of the Covenant, and the final sacrifice that God ever required.


For convenience this post is also available as a Word document: Did the Apostles fully keep the Torah after Jesus' death and resurrection?

Tuesday, August 23, 2022

Sermon Video: Jesus Christ: A Sacrifice of Atonement, Romans 3:25-26

On one level, the Gospel is as simple as knowing and accepting that Jesus Christ did for your sins, it is a message that a child can grasp and accept.  On a deeper level lie the questions about how this works and why it was necessary.  The Apostle Paul explains that the sins (rebellion against God) committed by those who have, or one day will, believed in Jesus are paid for by his shed blood on the Cross.  Jesus was a sacrifice of atonement, a substitution taking our place whose death satisfied the full and permanent cost of our sins, because Jesus was both God and Man, and because his life was without sin, his one sacrifice can cover multitudes beyond counting.

Tuesday, June 15, 2021

Sermon Video: Jesus leads the way to the Cross - Mark 10:32-34

 For the third and final time, Jesus tells his disciples that death awaits him in Jerusalem.  This time, however, Jesus is leading them there when he says it.  Demonstrating tremendous trust in the will of the Father, Jesus leads the way despite knowing in detail what is coming.  Even though he knows that none of his disciples will be able to stand with him during his Passion, Jesus continues to lessen their anxiety and fear by explaining once again what is about to happen.  Lasly, he ends his prediction with the reminder that death will not be the last word; that three days later he WILL rise again.  As we face uncertain futures, we too know that death is not the end, that the Father holds us safely in his hands, and we too seek to build up the faith and trust in God that will enable us to lead the way, following in Jesus' footsteps.



Sunday, March 14, 2021

Sermon Video: What is your soul worth? - Mark 8:36-37

 The human soul is unique, there's only one of mine, and one of yours. The rarity of each is not its only reason for value, that is validated by the price which God was willing to pay to redeem them: the vicarious death of Jesus Christ. Both of the following are true: trading one's soul for anything in creation (including wealth, fame, and power) is a fool's bargain, and there is nothing that we can (ourselves) do in exchange for our souls. Thankfully, because God is gracious and loving, a solution already exists. What mankind cannot do, God has done. What rebellion wrecked, the Son of God's obedience has remedied.



Sunday, March 7, 2021

Sermon Video: Take up your Cross and follow Jesus - Mark 8:34-35

 What does it take to be a follower of Jesus? The blessings are well known, but what about the cost? Salvation is free, 100%, but discipleship is costly. To be a follower of Jesus is to embark on a path of self-denial (not asceticism, but submission to the lordship of God, to his will), to take up your own cross of self-sacrificial service to others, and to follow after Jesus. Jesus went wherever he could help people, wherever he could make a difference, and he gave them what he had: truth, compassion, and love. We must do likewise.



Thursday, April 25, 2019

A Refutation of: Easter isn't about sacrifice, it's about faith and love - by Jay Parini



The opinion piece from CNN was written by Jay Parini, an author and English teacher at Middlebury College.  It appears that his perspective is that of someone who believes Jesus to be a good example, but not the Son of God, and the Bible to be a useful book, but not inspired Scripture.  My comments on his essay will appear in italics and bold interspersed throughout.

Even when people have no idea about this season, around this time of year there is an awareness that something is happening. A person comes into the office or classroom with a charcoal cross on his or her forehead; a friend or colleague is taking a trip to see family for the holiday; the stores are selling Cadbury eggs.
Certainly the calendar marks off the day as something special, and there is also a general sense of the turning season: the long winter has ended and summer itself winks in the margins of daily life.
Indeed, Easter marks a change, and it has to do with the feeling of rebirth or regeneration. But it is more complicated than that.
I have a visceral sense of all this, having been raised in a fundamentalist household, and my memories of Easter reach back to beginnings: my father, a Baptist minister, understood the centrality of this special day, even the whole Easter weekend. As a boy, I fidgeted through long services on Good Friday and listened to readings of the seven last words of Jesus on the cross, which built up to the resounding: "It is finished."
I recall being quite upset, imagining the cruelty of the sacrifice of God's only son. I thought it was horrific. I didn't want him to have to die for miserable sinners like myself.
Soon enough I grew to dislike this version of Easter, with the crucifixion as some form of blood-revenge. Why would a God who had gone to the trouble to create humanity take such umbrage? Why would he need to put his only son on the cross and see him publicly tortured—brutalized--to satisfy his feelings of disappointment and anger at what his people had done? Was I missing something?

Short answer; yes, you were certainly missing a great deal.  First off, you should be upset imagining the cruelty of the sacrifice of God's Son, it is a horrific death of an innocent man.  Whether you wanted him to die on your behalf or not, isn't the question.  The real question is what God wanted to do, and God was not content to let humanity remain in rebellion against him, was not content to let that rebellion result in the destruction of those he had created in his image.  God decided to rescue humanity, and God alone had both the wisdom to understand what that would entail and the power/righteousness to carry it out.

The famous hymn about being "washed in the blood of the Lamb" sounded, to my young ears, increasingly disturbing. God is better than this, I thought. The human beings he had created were surely good enough for him?

One of the great conceits of the modern age: We can define God ourselves (or eliminate him altogether).  God is holy, perfect, free of any contamination of sin.  "Good enough" is not an option, it is not even close.  To be in the presence of God is to likewise be holy, or to be dead.  The design of the Tabernacle and Temple illustrated this barrier between God and humanity with its concentric layers of approaching God's presence and the limitation of only the High Priest on the Day of Atonement being allowed to enter into the Holy of Holies and see the presence of God between the cherubim of the Ark of the Covenant.  Why would a Messiah have been necessary at all if humanity was "good enough"?  And what would Jesus' mission have been if not the salvation of humanity?  Either Jesus Christ came to save Lost sinners, the only way that it could be done, or he died a failure upon that Cross.

Simplistic ideas about the meaning of the crucifixion still abound, and there is a vast industry founded on what is called "substitution theology." One can easily dig through the Hebrew and Greek scriptures to snatch occasional verses that seem to support this transactional theology, with God in a bargaining mode, needing "payment" for our sins.

This paragraph is dripping with disdain for those of us (that is, anyone retaining the Orthodox Christianity of the Early Church, Ecumenical Councils and Creeds, the Reformers, etc.  Not to mention the authorial intent of every NT author) who understand that what Jesus accomplished on the Cross was a substitute for the punishment that each of us has earned through rebellion against God.  And yes, one can easily read both the Old and New Testament and find passages of Scripture that support the understanding that what Jesus did was a payment for our sins.  This traditional, mainstream, accepted interpretation of the Scriptures on the question of the purpose and efficacy of the Cross is far from "simplistic", it is an awe inspiring act of Amazing Grace, unparalleled love, and selfless sacrifice.

But I've studied the scriptures carefully, especially the gospels and Paul's letters, and I see no reason to capitulate to this downsized version of Easter weekend, with a vengeful God putting up his own son on a cross for satisfaction of some kind.

"I see no reason to capitulate to the Scriptures"  Not exactly what he said, but the essence of the point.  I have no idea how God's willingness to redeem humanity from sin, and in the process destroy the power of sin and death, can be viewed as a "downsized version of Easter".  I am also at a loss how anyone can honestly have studied the Gospels and Paul's letters and not see the repeated quotations of Jesus that this is the plan of God (Mark 8:31 for example: He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again) and the repeated explanations of Paul that this sacrifice was on our behalf (Romans 3:25 for example:  God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished—).  FYI, maybe read the book of Hebrews too, the entire thing is about the superiority of Jesus' sacrifice.

That Jay Parini thinks that Jesus upon the Cross has anything to do with vengeance shows a significant lack of understanding of the theology he has decided to reject.  Holiness, righteousness, justice, grace, love, and mercy are the themes around which the discussion of God's redemptive plan revolve, not vengeance.



In any case, the idea of satisfaction or "payment" is fairly recent, tracing back to St. Anselm in Cur Deus Homo? This treatise, written in the late 11th century, put forward the idea of the death of Jesus as atonement for human sins, a "satisfaction" for the wrath of God.
A century or so later, Peter Abelard famously rejected Anselm's theory, suggesting that the death of Jesus was simply an act of love, showing humanity a way forward, an example of divine benevolence. Jesus lived and died to teach us how to live and die ourselves, or how to "empty ourselves out," as St. Paul says. The crucifixion is first and foremost a prelude to the Resurrection.

This "fairly recent" argument is utterly specious.  I suppose you can't trace the idea of substitutionary atonement back to the New Testament itself if you utterly ignore the portion of Scripture that teach it (Matthew 20:28 or Colossians 1:19-20 for example).  It is true, but not some sort of important point, that nobody stated the theory expressed in the NT exactly the way that St. Anselm did until he did it, but perhaps Jay Parini has forgotten about St. Augustine who wrote the following in On the Trinity in the 5th Century, “What, then, is the righteousness by which the devil was conquered? What, except the righteousness of Jesus Christ? And how was he conquered? Because, when he [the devil] found in Him nothing worthy of death, yet he slew Him. And certainly it is just, that we whom he [the devil] held as debtors, should be dismissed free by believing in Him whom he [the devil] slew without any debt. In this way it is that we are said to be justified in the blood of Christ. For so that innocent blood was shed for the remission of our sins…  He conquered the devil first by righteousness, and afterwards by power: namely, by righteousness, because He had no sin, and was slain by him most unjustly; but by power, because having been dead He lived again, never afterwards to die. But He would have conquered the devil by power, even though He could not have been slain by him: although it belongs to a greater power to conquer death itself also by rising again, than to avoid it by living. But the reason is really a different one, why we are justified in the blood of Christ, when we are rescued from the power of the devil through the remission of sins: it pertains to this, that the devil is conquered by Christ by righteousness, not by power.”  The list could go on and on of those who believed that Jesus died for our sins from the Early Church Fathers to the Reformers, but if St. Augustine isn't enough of an example to ignore this paragraph of the essay, nothing else will be.

So this is the "grand vision" of Easter that he prefers?  Jesus lived and died to show us an example of how to "empty ourselves" {To what end?}  How is this a solution to the problem of sinful human nature?  How does this address the fundamental questions of sin, justice, death, and the afterlife?  To think that a perversion of Easter where Jesus dies as some sort of example, and accomplishes nothing else, somehow paints a kinder view of God is ludicrous.  What then of the prayer that the cup be taken away in the Garden?  What then of the refusal to save himself?  The entire Bible falls apart when you jerk away the foundation upon which it is build, to ignore so much of Scripture because you prefer that it say something else is not an option open to those who would have faith in Jesus Christ.

Jesus had faith in God, resting in the arms of an all-embracing love. That's a fancy way of saying that Jesus trusted that all would be well in the end, which is what Easter teaches us. And a crucial text here -- a key one -- is Romans 3:22, where Paul suggests that reconciliation with God, which is a better way to define "righteousness," is achieved through imitating Jesus in his self-abandonment on the cross on Good Friday.

Yes, Jesus had faith in God (more specifically the Father, Jesus himself was just as much God as the Father), and yes, he knew that all would "be well in the end" (Hebrews 12:2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.)  But that is NOT what Easter teaches us.  Hey man, just chill out, it will all work out just fine in the end.  Sigh, We are so far off from Orthodox Christianity and the traditional accepted meaning of Scripture that it is hard to find a point of commonality.  The quotation of Romans 3:22, certainly an important passage, is odd to say the least.  Paul is NOT suggesting that reconciliation/righteousness is achieved through OUR imitating Jesus; quite the opposite in fact.  Paul is stating categorically that our righteousness comes FROM God through faith in Jesus (Note the crucial parallel discussion in Ephesians 2:8-9, For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.).  If only he had kept reading, for in Romans 3:24 the true source of our justification (the repair of our relationship with God) is made clear, "and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus."  Are we to imitate Jesus?  Absolutely.  Does that imitation reconcile us to God?  Not in the least, and for a very good reason.  We have no chance, no hope, of imitating Jesus until AFTER we have been reconciled to God through faith in Jesus, at which point we receive the Holy Spirit who empowers us to live like Jesus.  Neither our salvation nor our subsequent imitation of Jesus is on our own merit, nor does it puff up our pride, all of it is according to God's grace.



I would translate this critical verse in this way: "We are reconciled with God by imitating the faith of Jesus, and we hold him dearly for this." (I always prefer to use the phrase "hold dearly" for "believe," as this is the root of the word. It has no reference to "belief" in the epistemological sense of that term.) There is clearly a huge difference between having "faith in Jesus" -- a nod of assent -- and imitating the "faith of Jesus."

This entire paragraph is meaningless.  You do not have permission to translate Scripture in ways that suit your fancy.  Yes, there can be more than one acceptable translation of the Bible's Hebrew and Greek into English, and they do vary slightly, but not like this.  The original Greek of Romans 3:22 and Jay Parini's preferred self-translation are saying the opposite.  Paul wrote about God's righteousness, available to us through faith in Jesus.  Parini's mis-translation is about our own supposed righteousness achieved through our own effort.

Yes, there is a difference between having "faith in Jesus" (necessary for salvation) and imitating the "faith of Jesus" (discipleship).  One is how we become reconciled to God, the other is how we walk once we have received reconciliation.  He evidently wants to eliminate the need for "faith in Jesus" and replace it with imitating the "faith of Jesus"  Nope, we need both, and we need "faith in Jesus" first.

Easter teaches Christians this, I believe: to emulate the faith of Jesus in the goodness of the universe-- to rest in God, whatever we mean by that great holy syllable, which seems a stumbling block for so many in our highly secular world. It teaches us about what it means to lose ourselves, our petty little selves, in order to gain something larger: reconciliation with creation itself.
Christians all walk with Jesus out of the tomb on Easter morning, reborn as free people, released from the straightjacket of time itself. And this is nothing but joy.

Holy non-sequitur Batman; Jesus had faith in the goodness of the universe??  The universe is not good (or evil), how can an inanimate object have a moral quality?  God is Good.  We are NOT to seek reconciliation with Creation itself (some sort of Pantheism?).  Our sole need/priority/purpose is to be reconciled with God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit).  Jesus died to make that reconciliation possible for us, he was raised to life again to proclaim his victory over sin and death and to give us the hope that if we place our trust in him we too will be raised to life on the Last Day.  

I pity an interpretation of Easter that is about relaxing and not getting too caught up in a busy life.  We need not be liberated from time itself.  We are not prisoners of time.  We, as human beings, are enslaved to sin (rebellion against God).  Our only hope, our only recourse, is to stop trying to dig our way out of the hole, put our trust in what Jesus Christ has already done on our behalf (shedding his blood in payment for our sins and rising from the dead), and start living by the Spirit according to Jesus' example and God's Word.  The true meaning of Easter?  Give me that old time religion, it's good enough for me.  Jesus Christ died for the sins of the world, nothing less; my hope is in the crucified and risen Savior.