Dispatches from the Asylum

     "For therefore we both labor and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of those who believe." I Timothy 4:10

     Lewis once called the world "enemy occupied territory." Such a term greatly resonated with his then World War II weary audience. Perhaps a term for the world that would greatly resonate with our current generation is an asylum, and the inmates are running it. The mind of the majority of mankind is gripped in the dumbing and numbing dark of the Devil; their eyes are blind and their hearts veiled. They are the ones bound in the cave, making substance out of shadows, and those of us who try to tell them of the sun will suffer shame and pain; but tell them we must.

     It would help our efforts if we remembered this insanity afflicted upon men by the god of this world. They are indeed the blind men groping at the elephant, mistaking its parts for various wholes. The Man of Galilee has not yet put the mud to their eyes that, when once washed off, allows them to see the elephant in the room. To them, God is indeed trapped in an impenetrable black box: His presence, purpose, and nature are unknown and unknowable. They have not grasped (or do not wish to grasp) the knowledge of His communication and visitation amongst us, that He is there and He is not silent. We who have heard him are not the special keepers of secret knowledge. We are merely the men and women who once were blind, but now we see; we were mad, but now we are sane. All we want is to spread the sanity around.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2009

Holy Life, Holy War

"I will behave myself wisely in a perfect way. O when wilt Thou come unto me? I will walk within my house with a perfect heart. I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes. I hate the work of them that turn aside; it shall not cleave to me." Ps. 101:2-3

"Ye that love the Lord, hate evil...." Ps. 97:10a

"Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good." Rom. 12:9b

The "holy life" (as some call it) is simple on paper but difficult in practice. On paper, we are to love and cleave to the good, while we are to hate and reject the bad. In practice, however, this simple formula is always a war. Of course, before salvation, the struggle was impossible to win thanks to the inward law of sin and death (Rom.7:18-25); after salvation, the Spirit of God sets us free from that law (Rom. 8:1-2): Sin still has its pull, but we no longer have to obey it.
It is that continual and ever-present "pull," however, that drives us insane. Though set free from necessary sinfulness, we still find ourselves fighting against a lingering deadness of the body (Rom. 8:10), i.e., the appetites*. Fortunately, such a fight is ours for the winning in the moment because of Christ (Rom. 8:11) and God (Phil. 2:13). Whereas once our mind agreed with God (Rom. 7:25) but our spirit was dead and therefore could not enforce the mind's desire upon the appetites (i.e., the flesh), now we have (through Christ's atonement) the Spirit of God, who quickens our bodies (Rom. 8:10-11) and enables us to be holy as He is holy (I Peter 1:16).
There is a reason Christ described salvation as a new birth (John 3:3): it is not mere forgiveness only, but also a re-creation (II Cor. 5:17). A new life has been born in us (I Cor. 6:19), a life that can live the life of God (for it is the life of God), the only life worthy of Heaven. Our meriting eternal life and communion with God is based upon the work, life, power, and presence of someone other than ourselves. That is the key distinction between Christianity and the religions of the world: complete and utter dependence on the divine. We cannot save ourselves; only God can.

-Jon Vowell

*I say "appetites" for two reasons: (1) So as to avoid any hint of Gnosticism. I do not believe that the physical body is evil because it is physical. I believe that the physical body is fallen, and thus subject to the corruption of Sin and Death. When that corruption is removed, the body will remain: glorified, yet still physical. (2) So as to explain the "pull" of Sin. This has been a troublesome spot for me. If the "old man" and "the flesh" (which I take to be the same thing) are removed by Christ (Rom. 6:6; 8:1, 9), what then within me is drawn by Sin's "pull"? If I am free from the old life and its corruptions, what then is the motive power in me to sin? I take Rom. 8:10-11 to signify that there is still a part of us that is dead, i.e., the body. Since the mind already agreed with God (Rom. 7:25) and our spirit is now the Spirit of God, "the body" cannot be our mind or spirit. Therefore, it must be the physical body with its fallen appetites. This is what I take it to mean until a smarter head than I corrects me.