A Little More on the Deity of Jesus in Philippians 2

Philippians 2:9-11 

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

It's not getting any easier or less deep than verses 6-8! Paul is still talking about the nature of the man, Jesus. God exalted Jesus and gave Him the name above every name. Verses 10 and 11 are two more all-inclusive statements. Every knee will bow, every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord. There is none greater, on Earth or in heaven, than Jesus. This means that Jesus is God, or (how absurd!) Jesus is greater than God.

Philippians 2:6-11 is a remarkable, deep, picture of the nature of Jesus. Paul said what he meant, and meant what he said. The curious thing is that, unlike similar passages in Colossians (1:15-20 and 2:9-10) the nature of Jesus is not Paul's main point. In Colossians, Paul was correcting errors in how the church in Colossae understood Jesus. In Philippians, Paul is referring to Jesus' true nature to illustrate the extreme to which Jesus regarded others as "more important than" Himself and looked out for the interests of others as well as His own.

Spong'ed – The Revised Non-Standard Version of Noah & The Ark

Most of last week I paused in reading Why Christianity Must Change or Die to write the blogs I posted Saturday and Sunday. I really thought nothing could beat the, “Where did he find that in the Bible?” straw man argument that was the topic of Saturday's post. Little did I expect what awaited me in the very next paragraph!

“Noah's Ark” has to be one of the all-time iconic Sunday School stories! It combines Noah's years-long obedience to God, God's command over nature and God's judgment against wickedness – much more than just cutesie pictures of animals walking into a gigantic boat! John Shelby Spong's version of the story (chapter 3, “In Search of God”, page 50) is, to say the least, bizarrely fanciful. And though he represents it as how the Bible tells the story, I doubt many Sunday-Schoolers will recognize it as he tells it. Without further ado:

God was a great warrior, it was said, and occasionally the wrath of this warrior deity turned against human life. The great flood was interpreted as one such incidence of God's warfare against sinful creation. When the rains ceased and the floodwaters began to recede, the scriptures suggested that what had actually occurred was that God had laid aside his weapon of war. In that era where the bow, together with its projectiles called arrows, was the primary weapon with which to attack an enemy at some distance, God, the distant heavenly warrior, was said to have laid the divine bow aside. Since God was conceived of as a Being of enormous size, this divine bow had to be large enough to cover the heavens. Since God was magnificent in splendor beyond human imagining, this bow had to include all of the brilliant colors of the spectrum. So when God laid down the divine weapon and ended the warfare designed to punish the sinfulness of humankind, the sign was the divine bow, called the rainbow, that covered the sky. It was an ingenious interpretation, and it lasted until scientists figured out how rain reflects and refracts the rays of the sun into the colors present in a beam of light.

I urge anyone even slightly so inclined to read Genesis chapters 6-9, the entire story of Noah and the flood. Spongs' fanciful version of the story – which he attributes to scripture – is almost at complete variance with the account in scripture! Genesis has: no warrior god; no warfare against “sinful creation”; no divine bow and arrows. The arrows strangely disappear from Spong's fantasy of the divine bow being laid down and becoming the rainbow … maybe Spong's god ran out of arrows?

I'm left wondering … where in the world did Spong get this nonsense version of the Noah story? As weird as his version of it is – it, at most, slightly resembles the account of scripture – more important is the reason he cites it. He claims the Noah story, his version of it, is evidence that man created god in man's own image. His “evidence” is bogus. I cannot imagine Spong not ever having read Genesis 6-9 and thereby knowing his version is bogus. So again, Spong has … LIED. Any 10-year-old who has attended a theologically conservative church for more than a couple of years would instantly recognize Spong's version of the Noah story as utterly false! So it again appears that Spong's intended readers are people who have little knowledge of the scriptures. And he is taking advantage of such persons' lack of knowledge and their trust that he would not knowingly deceive them!

Deceptions like this have me wondering what point there is in my continuing to read Why Christianity Must Change or Die!

Regarding the "Occupy" Movement

I never said this blog would be exclusively religious, and I know some "out there" (in the real world) will whole-heartedly disagree, but I'm going to say this anyway.

The Occupiers claim to represent the 99% of Americans who are not rich. Curiously, I am very far from rich - in money and material things, within the context of the USA - but no one from their movement ever asked me my opinions of their ideas. Yet they speak for me? I guess they know what's good for me better than I do.

Excuse me while I pry my tongue out of my cheek. 

The Occupiers, to me, seem to be a .1% or .01% who are bent on recycling one of two failed ideas: the communes of the 1960s and 1970s; a Leninist-Stalinist-Maoist-style planned/command economy. Both ideas are proven failures, though the former less bloodily than the latter.

Communes, like the hippie communes of the 1960s, or Plymouth Colony in its beginnings, fail as soon as one (and usually both) of two things happen: lazy people realize they get the same amount of goodies as hard-workers; hard-workers realize they get the same amount of goodies as lazy people.

Planned/command economies fail because a few 10s of thousands of isolated bureaucrats cannot know as much or respond as quickly as 100s of thousands or millions of business people who know their product, their marketplace and their customers.

Recycling failure is stupid!

Spong'ed – The Attributes of God, Or, You Can Spin, but You Cannot Hide

John Shelby Spong (Why Christianity Must Change or Die) continues his man created god in man's own image argument (mentioned in my previous blog post on this topic) by saying (page 49; chapter 3, “In Search of God”):

'... we can see ever more clearly the process of “God creation” that we human beings have always pursued. The attributes we have claimed for God are nothing but human qualities expanded beyond human limits. Human life is mortal. God, we said, was not mortal. Stating it positively, we claimed that God was immortal. Human life is finite. God, we said, is not finite. When we state it positively, God became infinite. Human life is limited in power. God is not limited. Omnipotent then became our positive word. Human life does not know all things. God is not bound by that limitation. Omniscient then became our positive word. Human life is bound to a particular space or by immutable natural laws. God is conceived of as being not so bound. Omnipresent and supernatural then became our God words.

When we unravel the theological tomes of the ages, the makeup of God becomes quite clear. God is a human being without human limitations who is read into the heavens. We disguised this process by suggesting that the reason God was so much like a human being was that the human beings were in fact created in God's image. …

The sentence I have particular problem with is: “The attributes we have claimed for God are nothing but human qualities expanded beyond human limits.” I have just two problems with Spong's illustrations “proving” his argument: the attributes he chose; the attributes he did not choose. If the attributes he chose are considered fully, they actually illustrate how utterly different God is from humans. In the order Spong cites them:

Immortal – this understates Christian teaching, but shows how God and human beings differ totally: humans are mortal, God is not. But it's more than that! God does not merely not die, God is the source of life, as the Creator and sustainer of life. As Jesus pointed out, no human can add so little of an hour to his or her life.

Infinite – if “without human limitations” includes an opposite such as finite-infinite, I'd have to concede this attribute. But I think calling opposites similar is oxymoronic.

Omnipotent – man's power is limited, as individuals, as communities, as nations, as a race, and is bounded by time and space. God's power is not, and God created the time-space continuum we call the universe. God's power is not merely greater, without limits – quantitatively different. God's power is qualitatively different.

Omniscient – as individuals, collectively and across all time, man's knowledge is limited and imperfect (we “know” things that are wrong). God's knowledge is complete and perfect. God's knowledge encompasses what we call the past, present and future. Again, God's knowledge is qualitatively different, not merely without quantitative limits. Also, a man can choose to limit his knowledge by refusing to learn. God cannot: being omniscient is part of God's nature.

Omnipresent and Supernatural – In citing this, Spong unintentionally demonstrates another way in which God truly is utterly unlike humans. Every human being is located at and limited to a particular place in space and time. Not only is God not thus limited (another opposite Spong tries to call a similarity), but, again, God created the time-space continuum by and in which we humans are bound.

God's attributes are not merely human qualities writ large, “human qualities expanded beyond human limits”. These attributes are qualities in which God is utterly different from humans, expressed in human language (i.e., for some reason, not in Vulcan or Klingon). And then there are some Divine attributes Spong did not cite, qualities that further underscore the fact that God is not merely a really big human being. A couple of examples would be:

Goodness – this is expressed in all God does, and is not some static perfection (which becomes imperfect when anything is changed). Being “good” is what God is. How we got this way is another story, but human beings are not fully, totally, always good. At our best, everything we do is limited and flawed; human history is replete with examples of humans' worst, especially the most recent and current centuries. In this attribute, God is not man without limits. God is unlike man, utterly.

Creator – humans have done and do impressive (to human perception) things, using natural materials. But natural materials are always needed for humans to make the useful things. God (in Judaism and Christianity, at least) used no raw materials when He created: God spoke and the universe came into existence.

Examined fully, each individual aspect of God's nature Spong cited shows that the God of Judaism and Christianity is utterly other than human, not a sort of enlarged human-without-limits. But it's when the attributes are considered collectively that the otherness of God becomes awesomely clear, and Spong's idea that God is man writ large is overwhelmingly shown to be worse than laughable.

Considering – and rejecting as false – Spong's idea that man created God in man's own image leads naturally to a question. How did Judaism and Christianity come to have such a God? The Judeo-Christian God is utterly unlike the pantheons of the civilizations that surrounded Judaism and Christianity. Whether Egypt, the Canaanite, the Philistines, Babylon, Persia, Greece or Rome, all were polytheistic, mixed with animism. Except for the god and demigods of Persia, all their gods exhibited various limitations, faults and foibles. The pantheon of Persia (Zoroastrianism) had a supreme god, and was more dualistic, with aspects of animism, but Jewish contact with Persia came well after almost all the books of the Jewish scriptures were written. Even the one seeming exception to the general polytheism, the Aten worship of Akhenaten of Egypt, was not a clean break with polytheism and animism. Akhenaten's semi-pseudo monotheism still was very different from Judaism and Christianity.

The Judeo-Christian God did not evolve from the pantheons of contemporary religions, but utterly different. Just as there is no evolutionary path from contemporary paganisms to the Judeo-Christian God, neither is there an evolutionary path “there” from eastern pantheism or the animism of various cultures (both of which contradict Spong's, “Man created God in man's image,” theory). Pantheism is likewise utterly different from the God of Judaism and Christianity. Contemporary religions show what kind of gods are produced by human imagination. The Judeo-Christian God being utterly different, from where did He come? Though Spong would reject and ridicule such a notion out of hand, believing Jews and Christians would answer that God revealed Himself to man in the scriptures.

Spong'ed – Of God and Scarecrows

Along with the other things I'm doing (does that sound stuffy, or what?!), I'm continuing to read Why Christianity Must Change or Die, by former Episcopalian Bishop John Shelby Spong. It's slow going, as I'm finding it taxes my patience! It's not that I disagree with almost everything he has to say, though that certainly is the case. Reading books with which I thoroughly disagree is far from a new experience for me. And my main problem isn't Spong's flippant arrogance (which is all too real). Change or Die has me feeling like I'm winding my way through a forest of scarecrows in search of a cornfield!

One of the most basic errors (or deceptions) in advocating an idea is making what is called a “straw man argument”. This consists of falsely attributing a ridiculous or outrageous idea to one's opponent and then demolishing that idea as if doing so refutes the opponent's real ideas. While a straw man argument can arise accidentally from misunderstanding one's opponent, I think straw man arguments are more commonly made knowingly and dishonestly.

Having read a bit more than 20% of Change or Die, my impression is that straw men have been pervasive! While I obviously cannot reproduce here everything I've read, I found a blatant example of a straw man that epitomizes much that I've read so far.

In the context and in support of arguing that most/all religions' concepts of God(s) are nothing more than humans-writ-large, Spong says (on pages 47-48; chapter 3, "In Search of God"):

'Indeed, a closer look at some of these gods we human beings have worshiped historically will reveal that they were recorded as having acted not just humanly, but sometimes in the very worst manner of human behavior. The Jewish God in the Hebrew scriptures was assumed to hate anyone that the nation of Israel hated. The gods of the Olympus, served by both Greek and Roman civilizations, were portrayed in a wide variety of what we today would call “compromised” sexual activities. …

'The familiar Christian God acknowledged by almost all of our European ancestors not only blessed the imperialistic and colonial expansion of those nations in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries but also declared that this colonialist domination of the underdeveloped peoples of the world was the very will of the Christian deity. So under the banner of Christ, native populations in what we today call the third world were subjugated and converted, while the resources of those conquered nations were being extracted from their soil to bring wealth to the Europeans. …'

Where to start?! Well – credit where credit is due – Spong's representation of the Graeco-Roman pantheon is largely correct, though whether they would have acknowledged that their gods' behavior was ”the very worst manner of human behavior” is open to question. But his representation of the “Jewish God” is ridiculous, and what he says concerning the teachings of Christianity is grossly false!

Before justifying my claims, consider who and what John Shelby Spong is. He received his Masters in Divinity degree from Episcopal Theological Seminary in 1955 and was ordained an Episcopalian priest that same year. After serving in several parishes, he became Bishop of Newark in 1976. To say the least, John Shelby Spong should not be unacquainted with the contents of the Bible! Therefore, if my claims above are true – that he badly misrepresents the teachings of Judaism and Christianity – then Spong's straw men are conscious deceptions, not accidents or misunderstandings.

“The Jewish God in the Hebrew scriptures was assumed to hate anyone that the nation of Israel hated.” Really? Is that why God forbade Israel to invade or annex the neighboring nations of Moab and Ammon (unless attacked first), despite the ongoing ill will between Israel and its neighbors? Is that why the book of Judges is a continual tale of God using various nations to bring judgment on Israel? Is that why, in the books of Kings and Chronicles, God used the nation of Aram (Syria) to bring judgment on Israel and Judah? Is that why God sent the prophet Jonah to Israel's enemy, Assyria, to urge Assyria to repent? Is that why God used Assyria to bring judgment on Israel and Judah? Is that why God used Babylon to bring judgment on Judah? And why did God bring judgment on Israel and Judah at all? The “Hebrew scriptures” reveal a God very different from the tribal god Spong claims those scriptures portray.

As for his claim about, “The familiar Christian God,” Spong is playing a deceptive bait-and-switch game, and he must know it. When speaking of the “Jewish God”, he refers to the “Hebrew scriptures” as the authoritative source of Jewish teaching. Spong understands the necessity to cite authoritative sources. In the same way, Spong knows that the New Testament is the authoritative source of Christian teaching. Yet, knowing all this, Spong did not derive his characterization of, “the familiar Christian God,” from the New Testament, or even allude to the New Testament! Why? Because the New Testament directly and diametrically contradicts Spong's blatantly false characterization of Christian teaching! I do not doubt that Mr. Spong could cite, by the ream, sermonic and published rantings from Christian clergy of the 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th Centuries rationalizing all manner of nationalism, racialism and racism. But to a word, those sermonic and published rants are contradicted and condemned by the New Testament. Those clerical rantings are not authoritative Christian teaching! And John Shelby Spong understands this very well (or if he doesn't, his scriptural knowledge is less than what a first-year seminary or Bible college student should have)!

So I'm finding it very trying to continue reading and working to understand some one who, putting it bluntly, is a bold liar. Putting it bluntly again, if an ordinary Christian like me can spot and call out his lies, John Shelby Spong is not even a very good liar!

More from Just Under the Clouds

It's been over 8 weeks since I last weighed myself, so I don't have a new, magic, here's-where-I-am number. I haven't gone on a crazy binge or even simply been eating a little too much (I hesitate to call what I'm doing, tracking and watching what I eat and exercising with some regularity, a "program"). If you're losing a pound or two a week, a very reasonable and respectable rate, weighing yourself every couple of weeks poses problems. If your "method" isn't consistent - same scale, approximately similar time of day, similar clothing and shoes - your progress can be diminished or exaggerated as a result of having eaten an extra (or one less) meal, or a different pair of shoes, or wearing jeans instead of light exercise shorts. So I've been focusing on doing well: eat right; find "right" things to eat that are enjoyable; regular, challenging (for me) exercise (which I can't imagine being enjoyable).

But there are tangible, if less measurable, signs of progress. Many of the XL shirts I've been wearing since summer are fitting loosely. The 38 waist jeans I started wearing in August, which were marginally comfortable (not close to sausage-like, though), are now quite comfortable and getting loose. The belt I started wearing in July, starting at the 2nd notch, is now at the 5th and last notch, and comfortable (time to get out the drill!). Last Sunday we went to Kohl's and I learned that some L shirts fit. There are limits on shirt size reductions - my broad shoulders and my greater than average height waist to shoulders - that I probably am close to reaching. I doubted whether I would be able to go from XL to L (other than those that are also denoted "Tall"). So this is cool and a bit unexpected! I also tried on - and bought several pair - some 36 waist jeans. I'm not sure about comfort, but if I had to, I definitely could wear them without damaging the jeans or me. I have not worn 36 waist jeans since college, maybe not since high school! We aren't on Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig, but losing weight (and not accidentally self-disrobing while walking down the street) is still expensive.

I'm also preparing - "training" sounds way more athletic than I am at this point - to do a 5K run-walk with my son. He runs marathons and half-marathons (approximately 26 and 13 miles, respectively), so I expect to see him at the Start and the Finish of this ~3 mile event. But it's something that, just a year ago, I would never have imagined doing! So, for the past week I have been doing something I have not done since high school, running ... for tortu ... errrr ... exercise!

So I'm still making progress in becoming less of a man than I've been. I'm now at a point - weight and clothes - that I don't think any of my kids have ever seen me, possibly excepting my oldest in her infant and toddler years. It's progress. Maybe for my 40th high school reunion next year (if there will be one) I can be around the weight I was when I graduated! In immediate prospect, the holidays are coming, and planning moderate ways of thoroughly enjoying family, food, and thanking God for His blessings and love are the current challenge.

Keeping Balance

It occurred to me this morning while driving to work that keeping spiritual balance is interesting. I'm always looking at Scripture wanting to see what is practical, what applies to my daily life. It's not a bad habit! But what about more abstract and doctrinal stuff? It's certainly there in Scripture! Do I give that second or third place in my attention? Not a good idea! That God is eternal, the Creator, that Jesus is God, and so much more are not exactly practical on a day by day basis, but such things speak to the nature of the universe and the nature and character of God. They speak to my nature as a human being and to the nature of the One in whom I have placed my faith and entrusted with my life!

It all seems so mind-bogglingly huge, but then ... what kind of God would I have if I, a creature, could understand the One Who created me?