The Sin of Settling

The Sin of Settling

Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed.
One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.” Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked. Now that day was the Sabbath. So the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to take up your bed.” But he answered them, “The man who healed me, that man said to me, ‘Take up your bed, and walk.’” They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take up your bed and walk’?” Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place. Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.” The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him.
‭‭John‬ ‭5:2-3, 5-15‬ ‭ESV‬‬

A number of amazing things take place in this account. One is the amazing length of time this man was living in that area of Bethesda. With supposedly a healing pool that could have healed him so much sooner, why was he still there? What had happened to him to keep him stagnantly remaining in his state when a solution was within his nearly immediate reach?

How he had become an invalid, we obviously don’t know. But we can surmise that it must have affected his outlook very negatively. Safely we can figure he became overcome with doubt, hopelessness and depression. The unfortunate circumstances gave him a focus on his problem, and probably downturned to a selfish focus — a pity me view of life. It was a sinful life. Hard to think so. After all he was an invalid, and our society almost honors the invalid. I am not saying we should not. Such things as Special Olympics have done amazing things for our awareness of the humanness of invalid and challenged people. We are not used to thinking of invalids as sinful. Unfortunate, perhaps, but not sinful, but they are not above that. Jesus would point it out to him later.

We have all gotten in this kind of state for at least a little while, and some of us even for longer. Some never seem to escape it. I notice that by what happened next he never got over it.

Jesus comes upon him and realizes his estate. His question is telling. “Do you want to be healed?”

Let Jesus ask you this question. What would you answer? Do you really want to be healed? Do you really want to see your situation improve, or to escape some problem? Or are you actually comfortable with the way you are—even though you’re miserable? Most of the time it takes getting uncomfortable to reach past where we are at, if we are going to overcome some obstacle or achieve some longed-for goal.

What this man replied to Jesus amounts to some kind of excuse. “Sir, I have no one to help me! Someone always goes in ahead of me! No one just lets me in! No one gives me my fair shake or turn!” Or am I being too harsh to say this about him? Maybe. I am so far away from his situation.

But what can we gather about him by his own answer? Actually we can figure quite a few things that must have been the case for him to make these excuses. For one, he must have had a specific spot in the colonnades that was more comfortable and convenient for him to use as his living area, other than one just next to this pool. Perhaps it was access to food distribution or water that was better in that place. But it was too far from the pool to make it easy for him to get down to it when the water stirred. Yet, he was unwilling to leave the security of that spot for the benefit of getting immediately into that pool. What were the risks of leaving it? Apparently too many for him.

Sometimes, or often times, our focus is on the risks we face in going the direction God wants us to go. We understand he doesn’t want us to stay un-growing in the area he has his finger on. But we feel so many things could happen that we are not comfortable losing. But perhaps this is one of the things Jesus meant by saying we must deny ourselves.

Another thing about this man is he must have held a very selfish focus in the colonnades. Yes, the competition to get into the pool was fierce when it was stirring time! It was every man for himself. No time to help anyone else. Clawing and shoving and even cursing others for beating him to the edge of the pool, every darned time! Did he alienate his fellow invalids? At some point, the focus on his situation no longer allowed him even a shred of hope. His habits left him beyond self-help.

What could he have done so early on and so long before Jesus had found him? I mean, we could brainstorm a number of ideas that would have helped him. He wasn’t immobile; he could move. He could have eventually camped out right in front of the pool, no matter how long the sacrifice of food, water or relief. He could have befriended some other blokes and encouraged them to help each other, starting some sort of Invalid Mutual Aid Society. “We will help you get into the pool next, and then you can help me get in, and we will all stick together until we have each had our turn!” He would have felt better about his neighbor invalids then as well. He could have become a positive influence in that place, and risen to be a respected leader even. The possibilities!

But whatever the possibilities he had before him, he did not choose any of them. Languishing in his self pity and hopelessness, Jesus did another amazing thing and mercifully healed him anyway!

Why Jesus did that we can only guess. Perhaps he was hopeful that this show of mercy was enough to get this man’s eyes off of himself. The next amazing thing is that it didn’t work.

I mean, really. Jesus meets him later and tries to open his eyes further with a gentle rebuke. “See, you are healed now! Don’t you see the blessing you have received? Are you going to continue to be so selfish and sinful? You have the opportunity to change all that before the worse thing possible would happen to you.”

Not in so many words is it stated, but by what this man does, he shows how much he resented Jesus’ warning and exhortation. He went and tattled on Jesus to the Jewish leaders. The next verse in John tells us that Jesus was persecuted because of what that man did.

Hopefully, and it is my prayer for you, that you will see the opportunity of God’s mercy he has graciously extended to you. You may not see it yet, but open your eyes and look. Jesus still stands at the door and knocks.

The Cause that isn’t There

Another Cause for Causation?

Here I am, continuing on the idea of my previous soapbox topic of causation verses influence. I think this is another distinction to consider. 

There is a very special verb usage in the Old Testament that we need to be really careful of reading too much into its translation into English. Did that last sentence sound klutzy? Well, let me rephrase that. One verb structure of Biblical Hebrew is in danger of being misunderstood when it is translated into English. Let me show you with a few examples.

Jeremiah 13:11

“For as the sash clings to the waist of a man, so I have caused the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah to cling to Me, ” says the LORD, “that they may become My people, for renown, for praise, and for glory; but they would not hear.”

Ezekiel 36:12

“Yes, I will cause men to walk on you, My people Israel; they shall take possession of you, and you shall be their inheritance, no more shall you bereave them of children.”

Ezekiel 36:27

“I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.”

A certain verb form in Hebrew takes a basic verb like “he snored” and turns it into one where one acts upon someone else, like, “he made her snore.” The problem with this verb form is there is no accurate way to really translate it. We always have to add words into our translation that go somewhat beyond the intended meaning. In other words, we always usually add the words “cause,” “make,” “bring” or some such word that I think implies causation. 

In Hebrew, it is still one word.

But what does it do? It allows the translation of much activity in the Bible, especially that attributed to God’s actions toward mankind, to be taken as caused action! This goes way beyond the writers’ intended meanings.

Teaching by example

How should this verb usage be understood? Every “cause” joined to a verb usage in the Old Testament should be understood in its natural context and NOT be used to insinuate causation.

Let me illustrate this by one idea. Perhaps you go to a parent/teacher conference to discuss your child’s progress in school. During your conference time, the teacher says, “And here are some projects I made your child do to help her understand this one concept.”

Now, unless you are Amelia Bedelia, you probably did not do a double-take at that statement.
I mean, would you have understood that teacher to have forced or caused your child to have done those assignments? Probably not. You wouldn’t have batted your eye at it.

For a teacher to say, “I made them do their class exercise today,” in no way implies causation over her students any more than you saying, “I made my child do her homework.” More than likely, because the student wants to accomplish the goals that you set before her, she will cooperate and do her schoolwork.

I caused them to translate this correctly

So, when I read a verse that says, “I have caused the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah to cling to Me,” I am not thinking God actually took over anyone’s freedom of will. I am thinking God set up the opportunity and situation such that His people could see the real benefit of clinging to God and have the easiest possible choice for it. Otherwise, it seems rather self-contradictory for God to later say they refused Him.

One of the ways God may get us to do something is to incentivize us. He doesn’t have to force or overpower our will, like some theologians may propose. By persuasion and opening us up to see the real good that comes from a right relationship with Him, God can bring us to the threshold of choice. But the power of actually walking over that threshold is still our own.

Of Bouncers and Bees

“No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day.”
John 6:44

“I drew them with gentle cords,
With bands of love,
And I was to them as those
who take the yoke from their neck.
I stooped and fed them.”
Hosea 11:4

Is there not a cause?

I have recently had some discussion with some who are persuaded that God’s work in saving the soul of a person is fully causal; in other words, that God overpowers their will, making them submit to the grace of the Gospel. This is part of a Calvinistic doctrine called Irresistible Grace, or Sovereign Grace.

I am not ashamed to say I fully reject this idea. The objection I get all the time to my objection is the assertion that if we allow a person to actually have a choice in the matter of his salvation, then his claim that he exercised his free will to accept Jesus takes away glory from God, and this person is actually rising up in pride that he chose salvation. Oh my! Scandal! Isn’t this person just using the free will ability God gave him in the right way?

It is true that God does govern some things with a law of cause and effect. God applying the adequate cause will always get the desired effect. This is how God governs the inanimate creation, such as planets and atoms. He also does this over the non-moral animate creation, the animals and plants.

When it comes to free will moral agents, however, God has to use something else to allow them to be accountable and receive blame or praise for evil or good. God gives the power to choose. This we call free will. When God gave this ability to angels and men, He had to relinquish using cause and effect upon them. If God ever does cause a person to do something, then He suspends the accountability for those actions. The Bible tells us that at key times God has done this in order to accomplish certain plans. You may recall that a few times, God hardened Pharaoh’s heart (or will).

What tips the scales

But for every place in the Bible you see God doing that, I assure you, you can read dozens more verses that show God speaking to man’s own ability and need to choose, to obey, to repent, whatever. One thing is clear in the Bible: God cannot make or force man to love Him. Nor can he give man so much evidence of his existence that it will overpower his will, forcing him to believe.

Take these verses that speak of God “causing” man to do something, and those that speak of free will, and put each type on a side of a balance, you will get the free will verses far outweighing the other. But some think that you have to take the free will idea, funnel them into the far fewer verses about causation and somehow make all the free will follow under causation. That is one of the largest self-contradictions and most absurd things ever proposed in religion.

One of the greatest issues that is never taught adequately from the pulpit is the clear distinction between a CAUSE and an INFLUENCE. And this is where so much confusion and many false notions come from. When it comes to getting man to love his Creator, God has only one thing He can use: INFLUENCE and PERSUASION. All the things we talk about, such as the Grace of God, the power of Jesus on the cross, the drawing of the Holy Spirit and the demonstration of the love of God, are means of persuading and influencing a person to yield his heart to God. Sometimes, God can even pour enough influence on someone to the very threshold of choice, but He cannot push him over it.

A big push or pull?

Let's illustrate causation first. Suppose you may be sitting at church during service. Perhaps I came as a guest speaker for one sermon and I come up to the pulpit. Now, you have the power to choose to leave. You feel like being polite though and choose to stay, to see what I will say. Obviously, and thankfully, just my presence at the pulpit didn't force or cause you to leave.

But while I am talking, a couple of buff and burly bouncers from the local nightclub come in. They come close to you, each one grabs one of your arms, and they lift you off the pew and off the floor. You kick and struggle, but they are too strong for you. They soon walk right out the doors taking you with them.

My friend, that is causation! You had no choice, you had no say in what they did to you. And you left the church. But, not voluntarily. No one can blame you for leaving church early!

Now, what about an influence? The first thing we must say about an influence that is different from a cause is that it can vary in strength.

A cause—when God uses it—always is just strong enough to overpower a person’s will. It obviously can’t be weaker than that, can it? But it won’t be stronger than that either.  Why would God need to exert anything stronger? I think God is the most efficient in the use of his attributes.

Some influences are weak or gentle, and some, as I mentioned before, may just bear pressure upon someone to nearly, but not actually, force his will.

A weak influence may be someone saying, “Do you think you should read your Bible?” But what about a strong one? When God brought the plagues on Egypt, it was partly to show judgement on their gods. However, it also was a strong form of persuasion. “Hey, Pharaoh, you won't let my people go? Very well, then, I will influence you a little bit, to get your permission to let them go!”

Let's get back to my speaking engagement at your church. I think I can influence you to leave the building. The choice will be entirely yours. Unlike the bouncers,  I can't pick you up and carry you out.

But let’s say I pull out a jar. I show you there are some bees inside this covered jar, just minding their own business. Now I shake this jar and get these bees a little agitated. Then I open the jar and let the bees loose in the sanctuary.

Do you think you would stay in your pew? My friend, that is a strong influence. What would you choose to do? You say, “I would just react without thinking, and run out.” True, but you still could suppress your instinctive response and choose to stay, regardless of the consequences.

Come to think of it, I may just run out, too!

The big draw

How are we to take Jesus’ statement in John 6:44? Is it causal or influential?  Really, it is up to your presuppositions how you view it.

God’s drawing on someone can be likened either way. You might think something like drawing water out of a well, or a fish on a line out of the water.

Then again, perhaps it’s like coaxing a horse to come to you using an apple or some fresh grass; or like trying to lure a bear or lion into a trap. True, the animals are instinct-driven, but sometimes you still may not get the results you want.

I will take John 6:44 and related verses as God using influences He feels are appropriate, which many times includes my choice to be involved as a fellow laborer with Christ.

What about you? Will you let God’s influences speak to you and give Him your whole heart?

Camels Harder to Swallow

Grasping at straws

It would seem that so many different arguments against the authenticity of the Bible have fallen by the wayside that some are trying to strain out some fringe “evidences” to uphold the dying idea of a late date for the writing of the Pentateuchal scriptures (the first five books of the Old Testament), particularly Genesis.

This particular argument has come from a lack of evidence of camels in Canaan around the time that Abraham and his family had been sojourning there. I stumbled upon this from a small newspaper article in a Sunday edition of our major metropolitan paper. It was short, and apparently referenced a larger report from some AP source or a more original article.

Considering that over the last few decades many new discoveries have solidly upheld the cultural environment of the various biblical eras and geography, even specific people, such as king Hezekiah, there has been little left for liberal atheistic media, such as AP and major newspapers, to write about in order to discredit the Bible. But that never keeps them from trying.

This story is really grasping at straws, in my opinion. There is no reason why it should surprise anyone to find no sign of camels being used in Canaan in Abraham’s day.

A straw out of place

But here’s the term that needs to be explained first: anachronism. Now in the middle of that word you will notice “chron,” which stands for time, like chronometer, or simply a watch. Basically, an anachronism is where some terms or words are used out of place or time for what really should be used in that context. A true anachronism would be something like a digital watch on an actor being filmed for a 1970’s era movie.

Are there anachronisms in the Bible? Well, yes and no; there are, in one sense, and not in another. Sometimes there is an emendation of a text to help explain more to a reader, but it doesn’t replace an original entry. Does that mean it is not reliable or no longer true? Not at all.

There were times when a scribe, reviewing some text of the scripture scratched his head at some reference, realizing that when others read this they would not relate it to anything of which they had any knowledge. So, the scribe would place a phrase or term into the text to add a timely explanation. Geographical place names are instances of this.

For example, in the beginning of Exodus, we read “Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with  their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh supply cities, Pithom and Raamses.” Exodus 1:11

Now, this can be demonstrated to be an anachronism. The existence of the cities Pithom and Raamses was later than the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt should be dated. Because of what archeologists know about these cities in the delta of the Nile, they date the time of the exodus at about 1200 BC, at the time of Raamses II. Archaeology finds no mention of Moses, or the Israelites at this time in Egyptian history. Because of this, many archaeologists doubt the exodus ever actually happened, and that the Israelites evolved from the Canaanite people within the borders of Israel.

However, fairly recent discoveries over the past twenty years or so have shown sites of other cities underneath the strata, several hundred years older than Pithom and Raamses, one called Avaris, and they appear to have had a significant population of semitic people there, and the population suddenly left.

When the original text was written, it more than likely just read, “They built for Pharaoh supply cities.” After many years, when the memory of those cities’ names was fading, some scribes placed the names of Pithom and Raamses into the text to preserve the location current to their knowledge.

Sip on this straw

But back to this issue of camels in Canaan in Abraham’s time. It is my opinion this is NOT an anachronism. The whole weight of this argument goes like this:

1. There is no fossil evidence for camels being domesticated or used in day-to-day life in Canaan during the period of the Patriarchs (Abraham to Jacob).
2. The stories of the Patriarchs mention the use of camels.
3. Therefore the Patriarchs, if they ever existed, never used camels.
4. Therefore the mention of them in Genesis is an anachronism.
5. Therefore the Bible is (once again!) proved irrelevant and unreliable.

This argument falls apart when we simply explain why the mention of camels in the accounts of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is not an anachronism. You don’t have to be an archaeologist to do this.

The camel breaks this straw’s back

First of all, it is understandable that the ancient Canaanites did not have camels. They were farming people, mostly. They raised crops and herded sheep, and so forth. They used donkeys for transportation. They would have no use for camels, and they probably couldn’t afford them.

Abraham on the other hand, was not a native to Canaan, but a nomadic immigrant from further northeast, Ur of the Chaldees. And what did he have to travel through to get from Ur to Canaan? You guessed it: desert.  What did they use to get across a desert? Right again! Camels. Camels were domesticated in the Arabian peninsula around 3000 B.C. and in the Mesopotamian region by 2500 B.C., so they were available to Abraham for his journey to the Promised Land.

The main point here is that one man or family emigrating into Canaan from northern Syria is not going to get any notice in the fossil record of the day-to-day life of the patriarchal Canaanites. Most of the things you find in archaeological sites are very commonly-used items.

Take for example our beloved Minneapolis/St. Paul area. Now just by observation, we can see the majority of cars used in the Twin Cities do not include Lamborghinis. In fact, if you went to all the car recycling centers around town, you probably would not find a single Lamborghini rusting away in their yards. Now the reason is obvious. Hardly anyone in the Twin Cities can afford a Lamborghini. But rest assured there is at least one Fortune 500 company executive living in the Twin Cities who owns a Lamborghini.

In that same way, you won’t find any archeological evidence for Abraham and his sons using camels around 2500 B.C., because they had such a small footprint during their sojourns in Canaan. Abraham’s use of camels is justifiable and not anachronistic.

God Speaks Using -- a Pair of Dirty Underwear?

For as the sash clings to the waist of a man, so I have caused the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah to cling to Me.

Perhaps this sounds strange. But there are many passages of Scripture that speak of certain unpleasant things, only the translators have been discreet in their choice of words to make things more presentable, especially considering public reading.

Even the scholars of the Septuagint were apt to do the same. Consider this verse from the Psalms:
“Let their eyes be darkened, so that they do not see; And make their loins shake continually.”
Psalm 69:23

Now this is how it reads in the Hebrew text. But the Septuagint, as quoted by Paul, says:
“Let their eyes be darkened, so that they do not see, And bow down their back always.”

Now you might not think that is an accurate translation, nor even idiomatic equivalency, but it is an inventive way of being more discreet in saying about the same thing. Those translators used a symptom of the original words. I mean, guys, what would you be doing if your loins were shaking continually?

Anyway, before I get even more long-winded away from my topic, let me direct you to the passage in question.

Jeremiah 13: 1 - 11.

Just to make sure, I will paste the whole passage to encourage you to read all of it.

Jer.13.1-11 NKJV “Thus the Lord said to me: “Go and get yourself a linen sash, and put it around your waist, but do not put it in water.” So I got a sash according to the word of the Lord , and put it around my waist. And the word of the Lord came to me the second time, saying, “Take the sash that you acquired, which is around your waist, and arise, go to the Euphrates, and hide it there in a hole in the rock.” So I went and hid it by the Euphrates, as the Lord commanded me. Now it came to pass after many days that the Lord said to me, “Arise, go to the Euphrates, and take from there the sash which I commanded you to hide there.” Then I went to the Euphrates and dug, and I took the sash from the place where I had hidden it; and there was the sash, ruined. It was profitable for nothing. Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying, “Thus says the Lord : ‘In this manner I will ruin the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem. This evil people, who refuse to hear My words, who follow the dictates of their hearts, and walk after other gods to serve them and worship them, shall be just like this sash which is profitable for nothing. For as the sash clings to the waist of a man, so I have caused the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah to cling to Me,’ says the Lord , ‘that they may become My people, for renown, for praise, and for glory; but they would not hear.’”

So Jeremiah was commanded to do a rather odd thing. Buy a sash, wear it all the time and don't ever wash it.

If you are not familiar with Jeremiah or other prophets, you would be interested to know that similar strange instructions were given to them. Such things as walking around naked, digging holes in walls, laying on one side for days while cooking food over a fire fueled by burning dung, and naming their kids' names more weird than Moon Unit, they were commanded to do, to mention a few. The purpose God had in all these and similar things was to illustrate the message to the people through the experience of the prophet, and so the prophet could be an emotional and empathic conduit for God's message.

This one request seems rather tame when you first read it, especially with our antiseptic translations. But if you look up other translations and do a word study of the term used here for sash, you can get the idea that it was more than just a belt or fanny pack.

In fact, the word actually means a loincloth. Back then they used these to gird up their privates, and in some really non-developed cultures today they may still use loincloths. Today’s equivalent would be a pair of underwear.

Knowing that, reconsider God's command to Jeremiah. He wanted him to put on a pair of underwear, keep wearing it, and never wash it! “Thanks, Lord,” Jerry said,  “that’s just what I need! I already am a menace and an annoyance to everyone in Jerusalem. Now I need to be stinky, too? Alright, what’s the reason for all this?”

Of course, the Lord had a very good reason for this. As the passage above states, God wanted to show  the Jews how He designed his relationship with them to be. “I have caused the whole house of Israel and Judah to cling to Me, just like this loincloth.” But it wasn’t a clean one, if you noticed, even before Jeremiah went and hid it away.

“Oh, my!” you exclaim, “That must mean God accepts me just as I am, even though I am all dirty and smelly with all my sin, that I have not stopped doing!"

No, that is not at all what God is saying. Keep in mind, in what Jeremiah did, he symbolized God and his loincloth represented the people of Israel and Judah. So whatever got the loincloth “dirty,” when it was on his body, came from the one it was clinging to, in other words, God. Umm, would that be sin? I don’t think so.

You see, this whole bit Jeremiah went through was an illustration of God's intimacy with the people of Israel, or at least the intimacy he wished for. So let’s take the idea one step further.

What is the most personal article of clothing you wear day in and day out? (And I am sorry if this seems to get a bit TMI.) Most of us would answer, of course, our underwear. What are the particulars about that? Well, you can safely say that whatever you experience through your day, your underwear is right there with you. It absorbs any sweat you give off, and takes on evidence of all of your private functions—everything. Now you are used to making sure you have a clean pair every day, but what would happen if you wore the same pair for a whole week? Perhaps it might get a little clingy. One thing’s for sure, it would certainly reflect you. Any forensics expert would be able to analyze it and say, “This has you all over it!”

“For as the sash clings to the waist of a man, so I have caused the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah to cling to Me,” says the Lord, “that they may become My people, for renown, for praise, and for glory; but they would not hear.”

So, what does God really want? He wants us to cling to a true relationship with Him, just as close and constant as that pair of underwear. Whatever He may do, His “sweat” should be absorbed by us. And it should show when others look at us, or observe our lives. Are we close enough to God to know what He feels about what’s going on around us? Are we willing to be that close? That’s what He’s always wanted of you and me.

Look how He has been disappointed so much in the past. He’s been overlooked, ignored, rejected and refused.

Let us not continue to contribute to God’s pain, but be ones close to Him to make Him happy.

What Would the Body and the Blood Literally Mean?

“Protestants don’t really believe everything Christ said,” a staunch Roman Catholic said to me. “He said, ‘This is my body,’ and ‘This is my blood.’ But Protestants don’t take that literally, like they say they take the rest of the Bible.”

Besides his many other opinions on things Catholic vs Protestant, this was the most critical challenge brought to me by this person. (I think perhaps somewhere in this person’s past, someone as a Protestant greatly offended him, and that has brought a root of bitterness into his outlook that has guided his religious life.)

But because of this statement, my thoughts turned to the teaching he referred to, the central dogma of the Roman Catholic faith: transubstantiation, the belief and teaching that when a priest consecrates the host and wine during Mass, they transform into the “literal” physical body and blood of Jesus. So consequently, when the priest raises his just-consecrated host and says, “This is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world,” it is to be worshipped as Jesus. (Either this is true worship, or most grievous idolatry—if God does not overlook it as a mere fallacy.)

Now either this teaching is true or it is not (obviously). His claim is that the scriptures teach this, that the words spoken by Jesus at the Last Supper were to be taken literally, not metaphorically, to establish this transubstantiation doctrine as scriptural.

I am not writing this to attack anyone’s faith. I know many devout Catholics who, aside from their particular dogmas, I would say give sufficient evidence of having a heart faith relationship to Christ. Perhaps God has grace for many of our false beliefs, fallacies and misconceptions, as long as they do not turn us to sin against God’s moral law.

Anyway, let’s see what in my mind must be the implications of the reality of this if the words of Jesus were to be taken literally, and what happens at a Catholic Mass is true.

I will start with the Body of Christ. Jesus said of the bread he broke and gave to the disciples, “This is my body, broken for you.” Now, here’s what we know of Jesus’ body in its current situation. Christ’s body was raised from the dead—his body is currently in heaven, and it is made up of cells with DNA that can be traced all the way back to king David. Also, there are a finite number of cells in Jesus’ body that had been offered on the cross and rose again, otherwise, the humanity of Christ is no longer truly humanity. Glorified it may be, but still human, and his cells do not need to reproduce, because they will not die, they are raised incorruptible. All this is straight from the Bible.

Now, if the consecration of the hosts in Mass is to be literally the body of Christ, they must be his real body cells, with the cytoplasm, DNA and all, otherwise it is not literally his body. If we say, it is a re-creation of his body, like a clone of the original, then it is not a literal true fulfillment of the scripture. For it has to be his real body to be literally true.

So Christ’s body cells must be taken from his body in heaven constantly, to be transferred somehow (by angels?) to earth to be “put” into the substratum of the host or bread being consecrated. (By the way, why aren’t the words of consecration in Aramaic or Hebrew, instead of Latin?) Otherwise, there are not enough “real” cells of Jesus’ body to make millions of hosts turn into his literal body all around the world every hour of every day. Then these cells are being eaten, and they need to be removed supernaturally from the recipients’ stomachs before being digested, so they may be re-used into another consecrated batch of hosts soon later. This all seems rather absurd to me, rather than a mystery.

So which is a literal fulfillment of Jesus’ words?

Jesus’ body broken on the Cross.

or        

Cloned cells of Jesus (not broken).

By the way, accurate knowledge of human anatomy and the laws of physics and chemistry were mainly unknown in the time of Gregory the Great, the man who promulgated this doctrine into a full fledged dogma in the Catholic Church. But, maybe you can get away with replicated body cells here, or “proxy” body cells.

However, when it comes to the blood, there are very specific terms to keep in line with if we are to take it literally. In the Gospel of Mark the words of Christ are very pointed: “This is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many.” Mark 14:24. Note the words: if it is literally his blood, then is is literally shed.

Now at this first consecration, Jesus had not shed his blood yet. But we are to take this literally. That means that the blood in that cup (which must be literally what was now in that cup, if transubstantiation is true) was the blood of Jesus that was going to be shed during his passion and on the cross, otherwise it is not literally true. So, I repeat, if then and there it was his actual blood, it must be, for it to be true, that that blood in that cup was going to be shed on the cross. Somehow, that blood had to get from that cup back into Jesus’ veins (before it could be digested in the disciples’ stomachs) and be there in his body to be spilled out for sins at the crucifixion.

Jesus only had about 10 pints of blood in his body that was shed during his passion and crucifixion. Now if the blood in all the consecrated chalices in every Roman Catholic Mass is truly Jesus’ blood, it must be the blood that was shed. Proxy, cloned blood cannot be what is there, because it would never have been shed for sins at the cross. I’m just keeping it literal, now.

Which is the true “literal” fulfillment of this scripture? Which is the actual blood of Christ that was shed?

10 pints of blood in Jesus’ veins.          
(Shed on the cross and during his passion.)

 or
      
Tons of cloned blood, copies of the original          
blood. (Never shed at the cross.)

So, if these things are so, the cloning of his body and blood cells is not sufficient to be a literal fulfillment of the words of Jesus at the Last Supper and therefore is no more “literal” than a metaphor. For a clone of his cells, may look and be in all other respects the same, but they were never in his body, nor ever suffered nor were shed at the cross.

So, in my mind, to hold onto this belief, you must pile on absurdity on top of absurdity to make it consistent with its claims.

The Breath of Life

When we look at the creation of mankind in Genesis, an important aspect of that event discloses a very special insight. Of course, I have to talk about the Hebrew text in particular.

Let’s look at the verse in question.

And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.

Genesis 2:7

The specific phrase I am focusing on is “the breath of life.” In the Hebrew it is pronounced neesh-maat cha-im. It is a compound noun of two words. Want to guess what they are?

This phrase is not used many times, but it is actually easy to discern the meaning of its context. “The breath of life” is the special thing God imparted to mankind to bring him moral agency and self-awareness. Let’s analyze this verse before going on. A few points are in order.

Perhaps you may recall that with all other aspects of creation, it was done as “God said” and it was so. God apparently made everything outside of himself, very distinctly. The impartation of life to man was different, because it is the only instance mentioned.

The neesh-maat cha-im was something DIRECTLY imparted to man by God. It notes he breathed into man this breath of life. Not until here is such a direct, intimate connection borne between the Creator and his Creation. Scripture is very clear that up to this point, God spoke and it came to be—God’s previous operations were less direct than this.

This phrase is important, and it’s easily distinct from another phrase related to animal life in general. Animals are said to have a “breath of life,” but in Hebrew it is ruach cha-im, and ruach could also be rendered soul, spirit, wind and, in general, air, because ruach can be very broad in its usage and meaning.

But the Bible gives significance to phrases. For example, in the New Testament, Paul uses two specific phrases using the word baptize: one is “baptized into the name of Christ;” the other is “baptized into Christ.” Each has a distinct meaning and refers to different things: the first refers to water baptism; the other refers to an effective result of one’s conversion to Christ.

The same is true about these two phrases: ruach cha-im refers mostly to animal life, and man in general with them as animate life; neesh-maat cha-im refers, I believe, to the life of mankind specifically. I think the context of this can bear this out.

So, the next time this phrase comes up is in Genesis 7:21-23.

And all flesh died that moved on the earth: birds and cattle and beasts and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, and every man. All in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life, all that was on the dry land, died. So He destroyed all living things which were on the face of the ground: both man and cattle, creeping thing and bird of the air.

Now some translations read the 22nd verse as if it applies to all living things on the land. But a case can be made in the Hebrew text for it to read as a parenthesis expanding on the mention of man, something like: “and every man—all in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life, all who were on the dry land—died.”

Here the phrase is compounded with ruach, neesh-maat ruach cha-im.

The point here is that ruach may also apply to man, but neesh-maat (breath of) does not apply to animals. If you would look up all the other uses of this word, breath, you would see it either applies to man or to God.

So, what’s the point or insight of all this? I conclude from the nature of this phrase, and its implication of being God’s direct imparting of spiritual life to man, that that spiritual nature of man is immortal, or eternal. Not in the complete sense as equal to God’s immortality, because God is self-existent and fully eternal (without beginning or end). But mankind is, may I say?, half-eternal. That is, though people have a beginning of life, their spiritual existence will be forever.

There is no other scripture that may explicitly say so, but is there need for more? What, would you say, is the nature of God’s breath? Would it not to some extent have the same essential nature and qualities as God, not in degree but in kind?  These qualities include mind, free will, emotions, as well as immortality. Do you think God can or could or would wipe out his own existence? Can God “stop”  his breath? In the same way, I think, it would be against God’s nature or character to wipe out man’s spiritual existence. Though I would not go so far as to impinge upon God’s omnipotence.

Therefore, I don’t think there is any basis for saying that the immortality of man’s soul is only conditional, or granted on salvation, or that we will be annihilated if we are lost. We each in our conciousness have an eternity to face.