The Two Fates

     "That ye may be blameless and pure, the sons of God, without fault, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world [alt: as stars in the universe]." Philippians 2:15

     We are stars shed from the blood of the sun, the sparks of a greater flame that is infinite and glorious, sending us flying upward into the pitch black sky of night. We are in constant rebellion against the dark: we will not conform to its shades and secret sins. Like a new caretaker purchases a rotting old building and begins by replacing a bulb in a dark alleyway: the roaches flee and the caretaker begins his repairs. So we too, having been purchased by God through His blood and pain and having our old deformities set right, we shine in the dark places as our master sets to fix the whole.

     God did not call people to merely escape from Hell; He has called us to bear the fruits of His fire. Read Galatians 5:22-23. There are the fruits of the Spirit; there is the result of being one with the consuming fire. If you have not these things, then you are still a dead ember lying lifeless on the ash heap of the world. A fire is coming for you and your kind, but you will not survive it.

     Hence are our two fates: to burn or to burn. To be filled up by the fiery Spirit of God like an overfilled cup or to be drowned in an infinite ocean of His fiery wrath. To the burning Love or the burning Wrath you must flee. The choice is yours; the results are eternal.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2009

God-Seeker

"...let the heart of them rejoice that seek the Lord. Seek the Lord and His strength; seek His face evermore." Ps. 105:3b-4

The rest of the Psalm gives the grounds for "why" we should seek Him. Like Ps. 78, we are given a mini-history of Israel. Its purpose is stated at the beginning: "Remember the the marvelous works that He hath done." Know this God: see His activities, that they are good; know His character, that He is holy; and then seek Him out, for it is who He is that drives us to Him. The heart of the God-seeker rejoices because this God is worthy to be sought, the only thing worth seeking. He has proven Himself to be the one and only hope, the one and only God, the highest and the greatest, the beginning and the end, the First Cause and the Ultimate Purpose. Taste and see that the Lord is good, and you will desire Him like wine for the soul.
It must be stated, however, that God is to be sought for Himself and not for the mere sake of seeking. Many people (through time and esp. today) are seekers for seeking's sake, and many others additionally believe that they can somehow properly seek God without any established concepts of Him. They stress subjective experience above objective truth(s).
God is a person, and therefore is to be known in an experiential subjective dynamic. However, God is not a person like we are a person. He is holy, i.e., absolutely perfect and complete, and thus has no changes. Therefore, there are definite and certain things about God, things that without knowledge of we will never truly seek Him: we will fall into every ditch and lurch into every side eddy imaginable. God is a person about which there are definite and certain things, things that He has graciously revealed to us through His word, things that He is to be sought for. The true God-seeker understands this: their subjective experience(s) must necessarily be bound to an objective reality or else it will wander aimlessly in the dark.

-Jon Vowell

The Loss of the Sacred: Holy Places, Dark Places

"And Jacob awoke out of his sleep, and said, 'Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not.' And he was afraid, and said, 'How dreadful is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.'" Gen. 28:16-17

For the Hebrews, "house of God" was not a mere term; it was a truth about reality. It was no mere sign divorced from concept; it was the concrete declaration of a meta-physical actuality. For them, the "house of God" (the tabernacle/temple) was the intersection of Heaven and earth. There, the presence of God literally dwelt in the Holy of holies, meeting every year with the High Priest to atone for the sins of the people. It was a sacred place, and thus still dreadful and awesome.
Now, however, the house of God is merely a building for social gatherings, buildings that litter our countryside with all the frequency (and presence) of fast food joints or coffee shops, or any other trapping of American consumerism. Going to church is like going to a rally (or the mall, or a concert, or a press conference, or work), and picking a church is like picking shoes: whatever fits me best. The dread, the mystery, the wonder, the sacred, is gone. We go to church to meet and make friends (or a spouse), increase in head knowledge, receive encouragement, maintain our social status; anything except to meet with God, a thought that probably never even crosses our minds. A "den of thieves" indeed (Matt. 21:13).
In the old days of Christendom, churches were not littered everywhere, and thus they were still considered special and sacred things. Worship was a set and established affair, the same in almost every church, because its purpose was to praise God and prepare you to meet with Him, not to please your emotional needs and aesthetic preferences. The Eucharist was (and is) about meeting with God, face to face, and (from a Roman Catholic view) in the flesh. Views on salvic purposes aside, the common idea was that the whole of believers, by the right of the atonement, could now step into the Holy of holies and stand in the presence of God. Think of that! Even the Hebrews did not have such a privilege, but now we do by the blood of Christ. Yet now even the "Lord's Supper" is reduced to a mere event, one of many, of the social gathering. Who knows what varied reasons we have for partaking of the bread and wine; I doubt they have anything to do with stepping before the presence of the Living and Holy God Almighty.
It used to be that holy places were "dark places" (as Mr. Lewis put it), places of mystery and wonder, of holiness and dread, where God met with man face to face as friend does to friend. Now it is not so: we have thrown open the windows and aired out the rooms, cleaned up the blood and put out the fires, and have consequently suffered a loss of the sacred. We sing songs to our emotional gratification, eat the crackers and grape juice without flinching, have sorry feelings for our sins, and head back into the light of day as though we had done no more than taken a trip to the grocers rather than having just left alive, by the blood of Christ alone, the dreadful place, the gate of heaven, the house of God.

Lord, have mercy on us.

-Jon Vowell

Alone Amongst Other gods

"...the people which are to come shall praise the Lord; for He hath looked down from the height of His sanctuary, from Heaven did the Lord behold the earth, to hear the groaning of the prisoner [and] to loose those that are appointed to death...." Ps. 102:18b-20

Christianity does not worship God because He is a supernatural being, viz., a spirit. As Mr. Lewis put it, there's nothing special about being a spirit; the Devil is a spirit after all. So God is not worshipped simply because He is a spirit.
Neither is He worshipped (or found worthy of worship) because He is powerful, even more so than all the other gods of men. Power per se is nothing; it is the action that stems from the power that matters. A powerful God is not as important as whether or not He is good.
God, however, isn't even worshipped for His goodness. Like power, goodness per se is meaningless without action. Goodness that is static and still is useless; admirable and noble, perhaps, but still useless.
The God of Christianity is worshipped because of incarnation, i.e., His power and goodness, and all that he is (i.e., His holiness), has lead to practical, benevolent consequences in the woop and warf of space and time. Along amongst other gods, the God of the Christian is Immanuel--God with us. Not created by us, projected by us, realized by us or in us; not anything by us. He is "God with us." Our God has come down to us and has brought salvation with Him (Is. 59:15-16), for salvation is the goal of incarnation (I John 3:8b). We had fallen into a deep and miry pit, but He did not leave us there. He reached down to us; or rather, He jumped down to us and lifted us up. He came to us and saved us; and for that we worship Him.
Of course, God can be worshipped for His power and goodness and other things for what they are. However, the foundation of all worship towards God begins and ends with Jesus Christ, who is the demonstration and revelation of God and His holy character. Without Christ, God's goodness and power (and other things) is meaningless to us, without purpose or plan. God without Christ is just another deity; more powerful and benevolent than most, but still just one more in the mix. Christ, however, reveals the reality of the God who is there, a God beyond the invention and intention of man, a God actually "mindful" of man (Ps. 8:4), a God that comes and saves man. Only such a God is worthy of worship and obedience.

-Jon Vowell

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.

Life and Death: Death-Casters

"Thou answered them, O Lord our God; Thou wast a God that forgavest them, though Thou took vengence on their evil deeds." Ps. 99:8

There are two things that we must remember about Sin: (1) in Christ, we are set free from the ultimate condemnation of Sin (Rom. 8:1-2); and (2) the consequence of Sin is still death (Rom. 5:12; 6:23), and that death will be meted out. If we expect otherwise, then we understand neither God and Sin, nor the holiness of the one and the deathliness of the other.
Being forgiven in Christ, His blood continually cleanses us (I John 1:7), and thus no Sin can be laid to our account anymore. However, as free-agents, we can choose to yield to the Holy Spirit or not (Rom. 6:12-13), and thus we retain the power to unleash the effects of Sin (and Holiness). We can be conduits of Death as well as Life. Perhaps if we saw our sinful choices as death-casting, we would take it more seriously. We do not make "mistakes" or "fopahs"; we spread death like a cancer, like a plague, spewing its corruption from our hands, our mouths, our eyes. In addition, perhaps we could also understand God's holiness (and our calling) better: to purge out the darkness, not spread it around.

-Jon Vowell

Two Realities of the Christian Life (plus a Third)

"The floods have lifted up, O Lord, the floods have lifted up their voice; the floods lift up their waves. The Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many waters, yea, than the mighty waves of the sea." Ps. 93:3-4

Herein are two realities of a Christian's life: the trials and tribulations of the world and the faithfulness and goodness of God.
That troubles are here equated to "floods" is apropos. We often feel inundated by the cares of life, a seemingly endless stream of discouraging distractions. From the sorrows common to all men (disease, death, etc.) to our own particular heartaches and pains, they are always like a flood: overwhelming and relentless. Scripture nowhere promises that in this life we will have a lack of troubles.
It is good to know, therefore, that God "is mightier" than all the troubles of life, and equally apropos image; for when we are in the midst of struggles, nothing seems "mightier" than it. Thus, it is like music to our ears to hear that our God has clothed Himself with a strength that is mightier that all the waves of sorrow and care (vs. 1).
"Thy throne is established of old; Thou art from everlasting. [...] Holiness adorns Thine house, O Lord, forever" (vs. 2, 5). Herein is a third and final reality, a truth that we all gladly hand our hats on: troubles. though overwhelming and relentless, are also temporal; only one thing is eternal, and that it our God and all that He is (i.e., His holiness). The valley of the shadow of death is a real yet temporary thing; it is goodness and mercy that shall follow you "all the days" of your life (Ps. 23).

-Jon Vowell

The Real Nature of Salvation (A Lecture for Salvation 101)

"The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father do.... For as the Father hath life in Himself, so hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself.... I can of my own self do nothing...." John 5:19, 26, 30

"I am the vine, ye are the branches...without me, ye can do nothing." John 15:5

The implication of these two verses is that what we have (as believers) is what belongs to Christ, and what Christ has belongs to God. This gives an added dimension to the nature of Salvation.
All that God is (i.e., Holy--the perfect wholeness and harmony of His qualities) is what we, as humans, need to be (John 17:3; I Peter 1:16). However, as sinners (i.e., those bound by and enslaved to Sin; John 8:34 & Rom. 6:16) we are separated from God (Is. 59:2; Ps.88:4-5), and thus we cannot know Him and thereby partake in His holiness.
Christ has solved this problem on both fronts: [1] By being the sacrificial payment for Sin (I John 2:2), He ended the separation thereof (Eph. 2; Col. 1:20-22). [2] All that Christ is comes from God (John 5:19, 26, 30), and all that God is has been given to Christ (Col. 2:9). Therefore, it is through Him that we can know God and partake in all that He is (I Cor. 1:30-31; II Cor. 5:21; Phil. 3:8-9).
Thus, fellowship with God in His holiness was our destiny as humanity, but Sin brought by humanity's rebellion cut us off from that destiny. So God sent Christ so that (1) the world may be reconciled back unto Himself, and (2) all that He is may once again be ours (II Cor. 5:17-21). Therefore, we can see that salvation is not merely restored fellowship in the sense that God is no longer mad at us and won't throw us into hell; salvation is the restoration of a fellowship that leads into a partaking of and oneness with God and all that He is. This is the answer to mankind's deepest desires. This is the Gospel, which except a man believe, He cannot be saved.

-Jon Vowell

Real Presence

"...my heart and flesh crieth out for the living God." Ps. 84:2b

The main ignorance both inside and outside the church is that Christianity is about dead principles rather than a living person. Apparently, we are all about rite and ritual and ceremony with empty prayers and readings rather than communion with a living, personal being who is there. In addition, our churches are merely buildings of stone and wood rather than the house of the Holy One. Even holiness itself is nothing more than dead piety rather than an active principle emanating from a living and present presence that dwells within us. We must set this ignorance straight: Christianity is no more about dead formalism or stringent legalism than Christ Himself was; rather, Christianity is about actual fellowship with the living God who is there.
Perhaps the world can be excused for this ignorance, for how are they to know unless we tell them? Thus, we are the more guilty ones. Our lives, our deeds as well as our words, reveal nothing living or present, nothing active or personal. If we are not dead formalists orlegalists (or both), then we are at least pasty-faced moralists, our lives no different from the average pagan or heathen. Christianity, however, is not about dead religion; it is about the living God who walks with us and dwells within us. That reality should be reflective of a difference in our lives, a difference that cannot be simply explained away as mere religion and/or morality. To be "Christ-like" means that, like Christ, people must not know what to do with us because they have been in the presence of the living God, whether they knew it or not.

-Jon Vowell

Holiness (or, The Harmony of Fullness)

"[Moses said,] 'Show me now Thy way, that I may know Thee, that I may find grace in Thy sight...." Ex. 33:13

"Thy way, O God, is in holiness...." Ps. 77:13a (rev. marg.)

"Be ye holy, for I am holy." I Peter 1:16

Holiness is not mere morality; to"be holy" does not mean simply to "do good." Good action arises from holiness, but it is not the definition of holiness. Holiness, properly understood, means perfection in the sense of absolute completion, without lack or defect. All things that are of their nature lacking or defective cannot partake in such completion (for then it would no longer be completion), and thus holiness is also understood as sanctification, i.e., being "set apart." Subsequently, God alone can be properly called "holy," since in Him is the fullness of all good and true things, and thus He lacks nothing; meanwhile, we who are sinners, fallen and frail, are not holy because as sinners we fall short of God's fullness (Rom. 3:23). In addition, holiness has been understood to be beautiful in that it is the fullness of all good things working and standing in harmony with each other. Thus, older (more medieval) Christians often worshipped what scripture calls, "the beauty of holiness" (Ps. 29:2; 96:9; 110:3; II Chr. 20:21). It is this clockwork perfection, this harmony of fullness, that God has made us for and called us to.
We are not called to good-doing; we are called to God-likeness. We are not here to be moral people; we are here to be encores of the Incarnation (I Cor. 3:16). Christ did not come and die just to simply teach us the Sermon on the Mount, but rather to give us a "righteousness [that would] exceed the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees" (Matt. 5:20). That kind of righteousness is the holy righteousness of God (the righteousness that the law was a portrait of), which is given to us in Christ (I Cor. 1:30; II Cor. 5:21). If we do not reconcile our worldview with (1) our high calling (i.e., the holiness of God), and (2) our amazing gift (i.e., the righteousness of God in Christ), then we will bumble about half awake and living lesser lives.

-Jon Vowell

Wrath in the Context of the Trinity

"For a small moment, I have forsaken thee; but with great mercies, I will gather thee. In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting loving-kindness, I will have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer." Isaiah 54:7, 8

Juxtaposed next to God's love is another immutable quality of His character: holiness. Holiness is defined as "moral perfection," perfection is defined as "completeness" or "wholeness." Within God's character, there is no deficiency, defect, or divide. In can be said that, because God is perfect, that His holiness is a perfect holiness, a whole moral wholeness, i.e., a moral wholeness that is constant. He is not morally whole sometimes and morally unwhole other times; He is in a constant state of moral wholeness. He is 'wholly holy,' so to speak. Likewise, if God is perfect, then His love is perfect as well, i.e., His communion is complete and whole; there is no shadow of severance within God's communal nature. Thus within the Trinity, we see two factors played out: perfect holiness and love, perfect wholeness and communion. It is the picture of absolutely immutable unity.

Whereas the Trinity carries with it the sense of absolute immutable unity, Sin carries with it the sense of absolute immutable separation, separation between God and man, man and man, man and creation, and man and himself. Sin divides; the Trinity unites. Those who are bound to Sin by Adam (and continue therein) are bound (and continue to bind themselves) to division, and the Trinity has no part in them; likewise, those who are bound to the Trinity by Christ are bound to unity, and Sin has no part in them. The Trinity is the fulfillment of communion, while Sin is communion's dissolvement. The two are oil and water: the one displaces the other. The wages of Sin, the natural consequence of being bound to Sin, is separation from God, and separation from God is death (and thus the further separations of man result). To be separated from God, from the Trinity, from absolute and perfect moral wholeness and personal communion, is to be separated from true life, and thus it is death.

The space-time realities of God's wrath upon the peoples of earth must be viewed within the context of God as absolute immutable unity and Sin as absolute immutable separation. When once you bind yourself to Sin, "the death sentence is at work in you," as Mr. Chambers would say. It is at work because what indeed is the natural consequence of turning from God, absolute unity, the source of life? The only other ground to run to is absolute separation, the source of death. When people Sin against God, when they cling to death and separation over life and unity, life and unity withdraws itself from us (for what fellowship has unity with separation?), and we are left to the consequences.

Thus, within the context of the Trinity, we see God is Love, and thus is Savior: He desires communion with us, because it is His nature to desire communion with others. We also see, however, that God is Holy, and thus is Judge: His very presence is the destruction of separation, because it is His nature to be whole and complete. Let no man say that God desires separation, that He desires the death of the wicked; He does not. His holiness demands separation Sin; His love demands communion with us.

"Holiness and Love

Burning forever

In Divine Dance.

Sweep us up into such Joy..."

-Jon Vowell