The Mercy of God Rescues Us All

Through the Incarnation, Christ participates in humanity, the only humanity there is and in which we all participate. Christ participates in it with us; we participate in it with him. This is how Christ is able to save us, because he participates with us in our humanity.

This is why Paul can say, “Just as one trespass [Adam’s] resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act [Christ’s] resulted in justification and life for all people” (Romans 5:18), and “Just as in Adam all dies, so in Christ all with live” (1 Corinthians 15:22). Humankind, formerly headed up in Adam is now headed up in Christ — because of the Incarnation, and through the Cross.

The mercy of God rescues us from very real consequences, namely, the death that resulted from Adam’s sin, and the bondage to sin that death entailed. That death was never a penalty but a consequence. When God warned Adam (whose name means Man) about eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, God did not say, “For on the day you eat of it I will kill you,” but, “On the day you eat of it you will die.”

It is death that is the real problem, and it is death from which Christ delivers us. “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death — that is, the devil — and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death” (Hebrews 2:14-15).

At the cross, Christ broke the power of death, breaking the power of the devil, and the fear of death that enslaved us — and so the power of sin.

This does not mean, however, that sin can be winked at or simply waved off. No, sin has no place anywhere in God’s creation or in God’s creatures. It must be completely destroyed, not merely sequestered in some dark corner of creation for eternity. For sin is corruptive, destroying the lives of all in whom it exists and defiling God’s creation. That is why it must be thoroughly dealt with and purged from everyone.

God is doing this through Jesus Christ. For it is God’s purpose to bring all in heaven and on earth to unity in Christ, under the headship of Christ (Ephesians 1:9-10). It is God’s will to reconcile to himself all in heaven and on, through Christ, having made peace by the blood of the cross (Colossians 1:19-20).

All the enemies of God’s creation will be destroyed. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. As it is the last enemy, when it is destroyed, there will be no more enemies of God anywhere in Creation. All will be made subject to Christ, and Christ will be made subject to God, “so that God may be all in all” (1 Corinthians 15:26-28).

Oh, hear and believe the good news of the gospel, what God has done in Jesus Christ. For God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting our sins against us (2 Corinthians 5:19).

Christ is Our True Nature

We are already in Christ as much as we are ever going to be, and Christ is already in us as much as he is ever going to be — which is 100%! It is irrevocably so because to undo it would require undoing the Incarnation, in which Christ has united with all humankind. Indeed, it would require the dissolution of creation itself, for all things are created in Christ and hold together in him.

Our salvation in Christ is settled from the beginning. For Christ is the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world, and we are chosen in him from the beginning (Ephesians 1:4).

But there is a sense in which our salvation is progressive as we continue to be transformed, by the life of Christ and the Holy Spirit in us, in our experience of salvation and the redeemed nature we have in Christ.

And there is a sense in which our salvation is future, for we have yet to experience the transformation of our mortal, corruptible bodies into immortal, incorruptible bodies, like that of Christ in his resurrection.

Yet our identity in Christ remains the same throughout. We neither increase nor decrease in him, and he neither increases nor decreases in us. What increases is our awareness and experience of him and our awakening response to him. Our true nature in Christ remains constant, created in the image of God and to be like God, to participate in the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4).

There is only one human nature, of which we all partake, and it is redeemed in Christ, by his participation in this nature with us. And though we do agree with God about sin, the things that do not belong in us and in our life (this is called confession), we do not agree with any false idea that we are of a sinful nature. For Christ is now our life (Galatians 2:20) and through the Incarnation, he shares with us in the only human nature there is and has healed it, so that Christ is our true nature. So instead of agreeing with the false idea that we have a sinful nature, we agree with the gospel, and with the Incarnation, which is foundational to the gospel.

Humanity As the Likeness of God

From the beginning, the purpose and project of creation was to make Man in God’s image and to be like God (compare Genesis 1:26 with Genesis 1:27). It is important to understand that God’s plan was not just to make us in the image of God but also in the likeness of God. Before that happened, though, humankind fell to sin and mortality.

But in the Incarnation, Christ came and joined himself with humankind, uniting with us even in all our brokenness and mortality. Being life, when he finally met death on the cross, he destroyed it, not only for himself but for all humankind. For even at the cross, Christ was joined with all of us.

That is the glory of the Incarnation; it means that Christ did not die on the cross instead of us but as us. His death is not merely counted as ours (a legal reckoning), but his death truly is our death (an ontological reality), so that his resurrection likewise truly becomes our resurrection. “For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:22).

Christ restores us to the image of God, as we are conformed to the image of Christ (Romans 8:29). Through him, we become “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4). That is, through Christ, we become like God, becoming through grace what Christ is by divine nature.

Some have wondered what might have happened if man had not sinned, and the Fall, however we think of it, had not occurred. But we have not been given to know that; we have only been given what actually happened in the economy of God. Whatever happened and however it happened, it happened. Yet God used it to fulfill his divine purpose in Christ, to bring all things in heaven and in earth to unity under the headship of Christ (Ephesians 1:9-10).

The cross, then, was not a waste of any kind. Nor was it God’s Plan B, a contingency in case Plan A failed. For it is precisely at the cross that we see the full glory of God revealed as other-centered, self-giving, co-suffering love. There also — and for the same reason — we see the full glory of humanity as both the image and likeness of God.

The Consuming Fire of Divine Love

The Scriptures teach us that God is love and that God is a consuming fire. That is not saying two different things but saying the same thing in two different ways. For God is simple, not a being of parts that must be held in tension or played off one against another.

To speak of God as love and as consuming fire is to say that the love of God is the consuming fire of God, and the consuming fire of God is the love of God. So, however the consuming fire of God is manifest, it has everything to do with the love of God, and has no expression apart from that love.

The consuming fire of God’s love is a refiner’s fire, purging away the dross and purifying the precious elements. It may be like the doctor’s laser burning away a cancer in the patient’s body. The doctor’s purpose is not to harm but to heal. Likewise, the purpose of the consuming fire of God’s love is not to harm but to heal and restore.

Christ is the perfect expression of God’s being (Hebrews 1:3), which is to say that God is exactly like the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, any interpretation of the Scriptures that portrays God in any way that is contrary to the revelation of God we have in Jesus Christ is an interpretation we must reject as being unworthy of Christ and the Scriptures.

In the New Testament, we learn the gospel-shaped truth that God is love. Love is not a possession, an item in God’s divine toolbox to be brought out as the occasion arises. Nor is love a choice God makes, extending it to some while withholding it from others. Nor is it an attribute that must be held in tension with or balanced out by other divine attributes. No, it is much deeper than all that: God is love (1 John 4:8). It is the nature of God to love — always. So, any interpretation of Scripture that portrays God as in any way contrary to Christ’s self-giving, other-centered love, or the New Testament teaching about love, is an interpretation we must reject as unworthy of Christ, of the gospel and of love.

God has always been the way he is revealed in Christ. He has not changed from the Old Testament to the New; he has always been the way Christ has revealed him in the New Testament. The understanding the Old Testament writers and prophets had about God was not full and complete. But Christ has now come, and he is the full and complete revelation of God, the perfect expression of God’s being.

In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being. (Hebrews 1:1-3)

That really is a night and day difference, but it does not mean we ought to dismiss the Old Testament Scriptures, as if the revelation of God given to us in Jesus Christ has done away with them. Quite the opposite, for Christ said that the Scriptures are about him:

You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me. (John 5:39)

We ought to read the Scriptures, then, but we ought to read them through Christ and the gospel, with a Christ-centered, cross-shaped understanding. Otherwise, we are liable to end up with ideas about God that are simply unworthy of Christ and therefore unworthy of God.

The idea, then, that God should ever act in any way that is retributive or intends harm to anyone is thoroughly unworthy of Christ, and ought to be rejected — love simply does not act that way. Rather, we ought to see the consuming fire of God as the expression of God’s love, intended not for harm but for healing, not to destroy but to restore.

Death Has An Expiration Date

The last enemy to be destroyed is death. (1 Corinthians 15:26)

Death has an expiration date, for it is the last enemy to be destroyed. After that, there are no more enemies of God. No beings at enmity with God. Anywhere. After death is destroyed, there is only life. For death is nothing more than the absence of life, and where death itself has been put to death, there is no longer any impediment to life or any lack of life. Paul continues:

For he “has put everything under his feet.” Now when it says that “everything” has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ. When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all. (1 Corinthians 15:27-28)

When death is finally eliminated, all that exists, everything that has being, everything God has created, will have been made subject to Christ, brought into alignment with Christ, put in order under him. And Christ himself will be made subject to God — not in regard to the eternal and internal unity of the Trinity, but in the economy of our salvation.

And God will be “all in all.”

A Christ-Centered, Cross-Shaped Interpretation of Revelation 19

In a previous post, Luke 24 and Reading the Scriptures, I made the point that we ought always interpret the Scriptures in a Christ-centered, cross-shaped way. In this post, I seek to apply that to the interpretation of Revelation 19.

There are several things to note about reading the book of Revelation in general. First, the book is, by its nature as apocalyptic literature (the title in Greek is Apocalypsis), a highly figurative, highly symbolic literature with high hyperbole. It is not given as a literal exposition of anything but is given to John the Revelator through signs and visions.

Second, interpretation of Revelation is famously controversial and has been subject to all kinds of interpretation — some preteristic, some futuristic, some historistic, some spiritual — and the Church has never settled on how it should be approached, let alone what it means. Indeed, the Church did not receive it into the canon without great difficulty. It was not generally accepted in the East, just as the book of Hebrews was not generally accepted in the West. But in the end, both books were finally received by both East and West and are deemed authoritative for the Christian faith.

Third, because of the highly figurative nature of the book, and because of the extreme difficulty of coming to any agreement about what it is about and how it should be read, the book of Revelation should not be used to establish doctrine.

So, fourth, the book of Revelation becomes something of a Rorschach test. That is, what people often find in it is what they bring to it to begin with. For example, some who see God as retributive, see Revelation 19 as showing Christ in a retributive mode. Others, such as myself, do not.

But here is what I do see about Revelation 19: I see Jesus coming to judge injustice and to wage war by his justice. The nature of divine justice is that it comes to set things right in the world. We see the justice of God most clearly in the Cross and the Resurrection, where Christ destroyed death and the power of the one who held the power of death — that is, the devil (Hebrews 2:14-15).

In Revelation 19, Jesus shows up on the scene with his robes dipped in blood. But whose blood is it? Has Jesus suddenly become a killer, a shedder of other people’s blood? No, that would be quite opposite to how Christ is revealed in the Gospel, as other-centered, self-giving love. But the blood that stains his robes is his own. For the Lion of Judah is the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world for the sins of the world. So the blood on his robes has been there from the beginning of the world — his own blood, shed for us.

His name is the Word of God, and out of his mouth comes a sword. It is not a literal sword; it is the Word of God that is quick and powerful and sharper than any double-edged sword, and it comes to discern the thoughts and dispositions of the heart (Hebrews 4:14). He comes to judge the motives and purposes of the heart, to eliminate those motives that do not belong so as to properly establish those that do. The judgment of God that comes to remove wickedness is not pleasant to endure. But it comes to heal, not to harm, for it is God purging evil from his good creation, so as to restore it to God’s original intention.

So the nations and kings of the earth are dispatched, in Revelation 19, in a very drastic and seemingly final way. The language is highly symbolic. Evil is being destroyed from God’s creatures, and it is a very serious business. But it is not intended to harm or destroy any of God’s creatures; it is intended to purge the poison of evil out of them and heal them.

Whatever happens to the nations and kings of the earth in Revelation 19-20 is not God’s final word about them. For in Revelation 21, we meet them once again, and in a very surprising way. Throughout the book of Revelation, they have been at enmity with God, embracing wickedness and making war against the Lamb and his faithful ones. But in Revelation 21, where do you suppose it is we meet them? In the Holy City, the heavenly Jerusalem that joins together heaven and earth. The City where the Lamb of God is himself the temple, the meeting place of God and humankind. The City where there is no darkness and no night, for the Lamb of God is its lamp and light. The city whose gates are never shut — never shut!

And into this City come the nations and kings of the earth, bringing their tribute with them (Revelation 21:24-26). They have been purified, for nothing impure can enter the City (v. 27). Throughout Revelation, they have been spoken of in the worst terms, but now they come into the City, purified, purged of evil. So, whatever happened to them in Revelation 19-20 is not the final word on them. Whatever happened to them was not to harm them but to heal and cleanse and purify them. (See After the Lake of Fire and Fire, Brimstone and Torment.)

Now, my interpretation is no more determinative of the meaning of Revelation 19 than yours or anyone else’s. But it is the one I see: Christ in his glory and goodness rescuing the world, even the most vile in it, for whom he has shed his own blood. In a word, what I see here is the gospel — I can only bear witness to it. And I am content that it is a Christ-centered, cross-shaped interpretation, which is as it should be.

A Christ-Centered, Cross-Shaped Interpretation of Isaiah 10:5-20

In a previous post, Luke 24 and Reading the Scriptures, I made the point that we ought always interpret the Scriptures in a Christ-centered, cross-shaped way. In this post, I seek to apply that to the interpretation of Isaiah 10.

In a literal reading of Isaiah 10:5-20, we see that God allows Assyria to come against God’s arrogant and oppressive people. Then he punishes Assyria for the willful pride and haughty eyes of Assyria and the king of Assyria. The “Light of Israel” will become a fire, the Holy One will be a flame that burns away proud Assyria. Then the remnant of Israel will return to God and rely on the “Holy One of Israel.”

Knowing Christ’s teaching, that the Scriptures are about him, and thus having the veil lifted from our heart, it is not difficult to identify Christ in this passage: He is the Light of Israel, the Holy One of Israel. And knowing that the Lord Jesus is the perfect expression of God’s being, in whom all the fullness of divinity dwells in bodily form, we must therefore reject any interpretation of Scripture that portrays God in any way that contradicts the revelation of God we have been given in Jesus Christ. God will not act in any way that contradicts how Christ acts and what Christ teaches, or else we should have to conclude that Christ is not really the full and perfect expression of God after all.

So if we read this passage as being about God taking retribution on his enemies, we are reading counter to Christ, who teaches us to love our enemies and do good to those spitefully use us. It is also counter to what Paul teaches us in Romans 12. Does God repay evil with evil? No! But God overcomes evil with good, which is precisely what Paul teaches us to do. So any idea of God doing harm to anyone runs counter to Christ and the gospel, and so, simply will not do. Otherwise, we end up worshiping a false god, a petty, Zeus-like deity. But the true God is like Christ.

But if we can only see in Isaiah 10 a god who does harm to anyone, then we are seeing a god who is not worth worshiping, but a petty, jealous, self-centered, self-seeking deity who is quite different from Christ. For Christ loves his enemies, and love simply does not intend harm. Indeed, in the New Testament, we see, through Christ, that God is love. And harming others is nowhere to be found in Christ’s example of love or in Paul’s description of it in 1 Corinthians 13. Christ does not overcome evil by hate or by harm but by the humility of the cross, and it is in the humility of the cross the we see the glory of God, grace of God, and love of God most fully revealed.

There may be several spiritual, Christ-centered interpretations about what is happening in Isaiah 10 and what Christ is doing there. But here is one that strongly impresses itself upon me: I see that there is a persistent theme of pride and arrogance, not only in the behavior of Israel but even moreso in the behavior of Assyria and the king of Assyria.

Willful pride and arrogance are spiritual enemies of the soul, and so enemies of the people of God. But God allows these spiritual enemies to test his people in order to break them of their own pride and arrogance so that they might return to God in reliance upon him. Then God deals with pride and arrogance itself through the one who is the Light, the Holy One of Israel. This is Christ, who is humble and lowly in heart, and who has conquered the pride and arrogance of the world through the humility of death on the cross.

I am reminded of Luke 22, where the disciples are arguing over which of them should be considered the greatest — they are behaving proudly and arrogantly. In verses 31-32, Jesus says, “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”

Satan wants to have at all the disciples, to “sift” and test them. Jesus does not prevent this, but he tells Simon Peter in particular that he has prayed for him that his faith will not be completely overthrown, so that when Simon recovers in his faith, he will be able to strengthen and stabilize the others in their faith.

This was on the night before the cross, and Jesus saw that pride and arrogance were testing his disciples. But, of course, through the humility of the cross, Christ destroyed the power of satan, the power of pride and arrogance.

In broad strokes, what I find in Isaiah 10 is God’s people are being sifted by pride and arrogance, but then pride and arrogance are destroyed by Christ, and the people of God return and trust in him. Spiritual enemies test them; the enemies are themselves destroyed; the people turn back to Christ; the people rely on Christ. The progression we see here is the progression we find in the Gospel.

This, then, is an interpretation that takes Isaiah 10 as being about Christ and is shaped by the contours of the gospel — it is Christ-shaped and cross-shaped, which is as it should be. And it does not portray God in a way that contradicts the way of Christ.

This way of interpreting is not a novel approach. The early Church Fathers approached texts like this in the same way I have done above. See, for example, how Origen interpreted the genocide texts in the book of Joshua (Reading With the Church Fathers (Part 3/3)). See also St. Gregory of Nyssa’s “Life of Moses” (it is not very long, and it can be found online).

Of course, no one is obliged to accept my interpretation of Isaiah 10, and I make no claim that it is the only legitimate one. In fact, I noted above that there may be many other legitimate interpretations. But any interpretation of Isaiah 10, or any other Old Testament Scripture, that portrays God in any way that contradicts the way and teaching of Christ ought to be rejected as unworthy of the Christian faith. That is because Jesus Christ is the perfect expression of God’s being (Hebrews 1:3). He is the one in whom all the fullness of divinity dwells in bodily form, so that whoever has seen Christ has seen the Father.

Luke 24 and Reading the Scriptures

He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself. (Luke 24:25-27)

Luke 24 records two encounters that took place on the evening of the Resurrection, two encounters that are important for how we read the Scriptures (the Old Testament). The first was when Jesus came upon the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. The second was after the Emmaus disciples came and found the Eleven disciples huddled in Jerusalem and told them what had happened; suddenly and inexplicably, Jesus was standing among them.

The Emmaus disciples had been downcast about what had happened. They had believed Jesus was a great prophet but were now very confused. Jesus had been crucified and was buried, and just that morning the tomb was found empty — and they didn’t know what to think. Now here was Jesus standing before them, though they did not realize it was him. Jesus told them how foolish they were not to believe all the prophets have spoken, about how Messiah must “suffer these things and then enter his glory.” It had all been in the Scriptures, but they had not recognized it. So Jesus interpreted Moses and the Prophets for them concerning all these things. This was no mere recital about bits and pieces scattered here and there; Jesus showed them that the Scriptures are about him, especially how he must suffer and enter into his glory — he showed them the Cross and Resurrection.

When they reached their destination, they invited Jesus to stay with them. Jesus accepted, and at table with them he took bread, gave thanks for it, broke it and gave it to them. In that eucharistic action, their eyes were “opened” (the Greek word is dienoigen, which means to open thoroughly) and they immediately recognized Jesus.

Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened [dienoigen] the Scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:31-32)

Jesus vanished from their sight. They had not recognized him when he first encountered them, though he was clearly visible to their physical sight. But now they could see him clearly in the Scriptures and in the Eucharistic action. Notice the two movements here: Jesus “opened” (dienoigen) the Scriptures to them. Second, their eyes were “opened” (dienoigen) at the Breaking of the Bread.

Why did Jesus open the Scriptures to them? It was because they were closed. Was Jesus carrying around all the Old Testament scrolls and then he literally unrolled them? Of course not. Yet he opened thoroughly the Scriptures to them — not a little, but thoroughly — so they could see that they are about Jesus the Messiah. Before, they had not understood them. Now they did, and now they could see Jesus clearly in them. Before, the Scriptures had been veiled to them, though they had not realized it. But now Christ thoroughly opened them, and the veil was lifted.

In the second encounter, the two Emmaus disciples were with the Eleven in Jerusalem when Jesus suddenly appeared, standing in their midst.

He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.” Then he opened [dienoigen] their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. He told them, “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem” (Luke 24:44-47)

Up until now, the Eleven had not understood the Scriptures. They knew them, they heard them read, but they had not understood them who they are about. They had been with Jesus for three years, hearing his parables and teachings, witnessing his miracles, but they had not understood the Christ-centered, cross-shaped nature of the Scriptures. But now Jesus thoroughly opened their minds to understand them and see they are about Jesus.

Christ thoroughly opened the Scriptures to them. He thoroughly opened their eyes to see him in the Breaking of Bread. He thoroughly opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. He taught them that the Law, the Prophets and the Psalms — the whole of the Scriptures — are about him, about his death and resurrection and glory. And so Jesus teaches us, as well, about how to read the Scriptures: we look for Jesus in them because they are about him. But we will not find Christ in them by literal interpretation; Christ did not give us literalism as an interpretive principle, but he gave us himself as the interpretation of the Scriptures.

As we consider how the apostles and New Testament authors treated the Old Testament Scriptures, we see that they did not read them literally. When Paul speaks of Sarah and Hagar (Galatians 4), he is not giving a literal interpretation. When he speaks of the children of Israel crossing the Red Sea (1 Corinthians 10), he is not giving a literal interpretation. Or when he speaks of the Rock in the wilderness (1 Corinthians 10:40). No, he speaks of them all very differently from what a literal interpretation of the corresponding Old Testament Scriptures would yield. By the literal method, we would never see that the crossing of the Red Sea is about baptism, or that the Rock followed them in the wilderness, and that this Rock is Christ. Paul understood what Christ taught both the disciples and the Jewish leaders, that what Moses wrote was about Christ. “These things happened to them as ensamples,” Paul tells us. The word for “ensample” is typos. Paul expressly identifies them for us as types, which indicates that their meaning is about something else — and that something else is Christ. A type is

In Hebrews 10:7, the author observes that what is said in Psalm 40:7 is about Jesus the Messiah. Then he quotes the passage: “Then I said, “Behold, I have come — in the volume of the book [scroll] it is written of me — to do your will, O God.” The “scroll” here is the scroll of the Law, that is, the Torah. The phrase “volume of the scroll” does not merely mean there are bits here and there in the scroll of the Law that are about Christ, but it indicates that the whole of the scroll, everything wrapped around the spindle post of the Scripture scroll, is about Jesus.

It was not only the New Testament authors who treated the Scriptures as being about Christ, but so did the early Church Fathers. St. Irenaeus, for example, wrote Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching, in which he shows how the Apostles and the Fathers preached Christ. The stunning thing about it is that the early apostolic preaching about Christ was not from the New Testament Gospels or epistles but from the Old Testament Scriptures. The Fathers did not arrive at this by literal interpretation but by spiritual interpretation shaped by Christ and the gospel.

Another example is St. Gregory of Nyssa, in his Life of Moses. In this book, Gregory goes through the Moses narratives in the Torah and shows that they are about Christ, the gospel of Christ and the body of Christ.

But here is a counter-example: There was one early Church figure who interpreted the Old Testament Scriptures literally, and that was Marcion. Are you familiar with him? What Marcion saw by interpreting the Old Testament literally was a portrayal of God that is quite contradictory to the revelation of God given to us in Jesus Christ. What he saw by a literal interpretation was a petty, hateful deity not worthy of our worship — and indeed, such a deity found by literal interpretation is a moral monster, hateful and petty, and not worthy of worship. So, Marcion pitched out the Old Testament Scriptures altogether.

But the early Church Fathers did not do as Marcion did. They did not abandon the Scriptures, because they understood something very important about the Scriptures that Marcion did not: the Scriptures are about Christ, through and through. So any interpretation that did not align with the revelation of God in Jesus Christ was rejected.

In Luke 24, we learn that the Old Testament Scriptures are about Christ, and until we read them in a Christ-centered, cross-shaped way, our understanding has yet to be opened to them; they remain veiled to us. But when we learn to read them as testimony to Jesus Christ, the Cross and the Gospel, we will learn to understand them the way the New Testament authors and the early Church understood them.

Below are a couple of examples of what a Christ-centered, cross-shaped interpretation of the Scriptures might look like.

• A Christ-Centered, Cross-Shaped Interpretation of Isaiah 10:5-20
• A Christ-Centered, Cross-Shaped Interpretation of Revelation 19

Cross and Resurrection As Singular Event

The Cross and Resurrection are not two different events but two different views of the same event.Yet many Christians have thought of it as a two-step plan. They have been taught that the Cross was about “paying” for sin, like a debt that was owed, in order to assuage the wrath of an angry deity. Solving the sin problem is step one, and with that neatly handled, step two is solving the problem of death.

With that kind of thinking, many have not known how to adequately think of the Resurrection in relation to the Cross. Some have supposed that the Resurrection is the assurance or proof that the so-called “payment for sin” was accepted by God and his wrath was appeased. But that is not how the Scriptures speak of  either the Cross or the Resurrection. It is not how they present the problem, nor  how they announce the resolution.

The real problem was not sin but death. In Romans 5:12, Paul tells us, “Therefore, just as sin entered into the cosmos through one man, and death through sin, so also death pervaded all humanity, whereupon all sinned” (The New Testament translation by David Bentley Hart).

Death did not come upon all because all sinned. The Greek words eph ho in that verse simply do not mean “because,” though that it is how they have often been translated in this verse. Yet, of all the other places in the New Testament where eph ho is used, it is never translated as “because,” or as having that meaning. (See Whereupon All Sinned.)

The problem was not that death came upon all because all sin but that all sin because death came upon all. The early Church understood the true problem to be that of our mortality; that is, we all die.

We do not die because we sin; we sin because we die. The answer, then, was not to treat the symptom, sin — sin could be and has been forgiven. God demonstrated “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). God did not need to be appeased in order to forgive us; God was already kindly disposed toward us, and forgiving of us. “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them” (2 Corinthians 5:19). The Cross was not the purchase price of God’s forgiveness but the manifestation of it.

The Cross and Resurrection do not merely address the symptom (sin) but gets at the root of the problem: human mortality. The only way death can be overcome is by life, more particularly, by the One who is Life. It is through the Cross and Resurrection that death is defeated, by the life of the One who could not be defeated by death — because he is life, the source of all life from the creation of the world.

At the Cross, Christ did not go down to defeat, waiting to see if there would be victory, that is, the Resurrection. The Resurrection reveals that the Cross is the victory, that Christ disarmed the principalities and powers (Colossians 2:15), cast out the “ruler of this world” (John 12:31), destroyed the works of the devil (1 John 3:8), and through death destroyed the one who held the power of death (that is, the devil), and set free those who were held in bondage all their lives by the fear of death (Hebrews 2:14-15).

That is how the power of sin was broken, by breaking the power of death, and the power of the one who held death, thus breaking the bondage of the fear of death. (See Trampling the Fear of Death.)

In the Cross and Resurrection, Christ fully experienced death and death was overcome, inevitably, by Life. It is one event, but we see it in two different ways — and both of those ways are beautiful.

God Suffers With Us

At the Cross, Jesus, in whom all the fullness of divinity dwells in bodily form, suffered for us, with us and as us — this is the truth of the Incarnation. God suffers with us.

Through the cross and resurrection, Christ has not only delivered us but has redeemed all the suffering we experience — even the sufferings of our present crises. It is all eternally redeemed by the cross and resurrection, from the beginning of time. For, in Christ, time and eternity are irrevocably joined together, and to undo this union would require undoing the Incarnation. So, even as we experience suffering in our time, it is already redeemed by the faithfulness of Christ through the cross and resurrection.

Notice, it is the crucified and risen Lord Jesus who encounters Saul on the road to Damascus and says, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” It was not, “Why do you persecute Christians,” or “Why do you persecute the Church,” but “Why do you persecute me?” Crucified and risen, yet Christ was nonetheless suffering persecution in and with his body, the Church.

Christ Trampling Death, Bestowing Life

Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and on those in the tombs bestowing life.

I love the icon of the Anastasis (Resurrection). Beneath the feet of Christ are the broken gates of Hades (the place of the dead) which could not prevail against him and his body, the Church.

See, at the bottom, that the “strong man” has been bound and his house has been plundered (Luke 11:21-22).

Christ has destroyed the one who held the power of death (that is, the devil) and set free those who were held in slavery by their fear of death (Hebrews 2:14-15)

See Christ taking the hands of Adam and Eve, lifting them from their graves — and with them, all humankind. “For just as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:22).

Rejoice! And believe the good news of the gospel.

The Love of God is the Fire of Hell

“The love of God is the fire of hell.” ~ St. Isaac the Syrian

What St. Isaac speaks is nothing more than the truth that God is love. Love is not merely what God has or does but what God is. So God always acts toward everyone according to love. Always. Because God is love.

Even in hell, then, God is love. God is not retributive because love is not retributive but always seeks what is best for the loved one.

But it is like the old proverb that the same sun melts wax but hardens clay. The difference is not found in the sun but in the materials upon which it shines. Likewise, the difference between heaven and hell is not a difference in God’s disposition but is found in the heart of the individual. God does not act any differently towards those who experience hell than towards those who experience heaven. The difference is found in each individual and his or her orientation toward God.

God’s orientation toward everyone is always the orientation of love. Those who turn toward God experience the love of God as it truly is, that is, as love. But those who turn away from God and resist God are turning away from love and resisting love, so the love of God seems to them a torment. It is not that God intends to torment them, but the disposition of their heart perceives the way of God as torment.

So, the love of God that is the light of heaven is also the fire of hell. What is needed in those who experience it as torment, or hell, is repentance, a change of attitude toward God, which God has made possible through Jesus Christ.

The Final Word on Hell

When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all. (1 Corinthians 15:28)

Whatever happens in the meantime, in the end, God will be all in all. This is Christian universalism in a nutshell. This does not deny that there is some sort of hell or torment. It only means that in the end — whatever hell there may be in the meantime, whatever its intensity or duration — God will finally be “all in all” (1 Corinthians 15:28).

God being “all in all” cannot be anything less than universal without it meaning that Christ’s atonement was less than successful and God’s victory less than complete. It would leave the condemnation that resulted from Adam’s transgression finally greater and actually more encompassing than redemption and reconciliation through Christ’s act of obedience. And the apostle Paul would have been mistaken, in Romans 5:15-21, in supposing that the result of Christ’s obedience, and the grace of God, was so much more extensive than was the result Adam’s transgression.

In Romans 5:20, Paul says, “but where sin increased, grace multiplied all the more.” He did not say, “grace multiplied almost as much” or that it was almost as effective. But if God is not finally “all in all,” in its plainly universal sense, then the redemptive act of Christ and the grace of God will have been not quite as effective as was Adam’s transgression. Almost as much, perhaps, but not fully and completely, and certainly not “all the more.”

The devil has taken an awful toll on earth, my friend tells me; and, yes, that is true. Who has not experienced that in one way or another; and perhaps many people may experience it even beyond this present life. But all of that is only in the meantime. However, if in the end, God is not all in all, then the devil will have ultimately taken an awful toll on the victory of God.

To whatever extent that toll finally endures (if any), by just that much will God’s plan of reconciliation through Christ have failed. The result of Adam’s transgression will have proven to be more effective and pervasive than Christ’s faithful act of obedience. The lie of the deceiver will have been more persuasive than the love of God. And Paul would only be able to say, “Where sin increased, grace multiplied a little.” Or perhaps, “grace multiplied almost as much.” But not, “grace multiplied all the more.”

Imagine all you want, then, about what happens in the meantime — about hell and judgment and suffering, and people shaking their fists at God — but that is not the final word on anyone or anything. The final word belongs to God. It is a word of love, because God is love. The final word is that God, who is love, will be all in all.

There is Only One Humanity

For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. (1 Corinthians 15:22)

There is only one human nature, one humanity, of which we all partake. The Incarnation, God becoming man and dwelling among us (John 1:14), was not about creating a new and different humanity — that would have been a species alien to us — but it was Christ partaking of the one and only humanity there is. It means that Christ participates with us in our humanity, even as broken as it is, so to make us whole.

So, the cross saves us in a very ontological way. That is, Christ did not die as one whose humanity was similar to but quite other than our humanity, dying instead of us in a different humanity, and somehow creating a legal fiction to satisfy a legal debt. There is no real connection in that between Christ and humanity.

No, Christ died as one with whom we participate together in the same humanity, dying as us, so that his death was our death, too, because his being shares in our being, in our nature as human beings. His death was our death, so that his risen life is ours, as well. This cannot be reduced to some sentimental way of thinking; is the objective reality of our own being participating together in the resurrected human being of Christ.

In the same way, we are righteous before God, not because of some legal accounting (imputed righteousness), or by receiving it from a source outside of us (imparted righteousness), but through Christ’s very real participation in human being, our mutual participation with Christ in the only humanity there ever was or shall be. This one and only humanity, which was once headed up in Adam is now headed up in Christ, which is why the apostle Paul can make the Adam/Christ comparison so extensively, in Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15.

Consequently, just as one trespass [Adam’s] resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act [Christ’s] resulted in justification and life for all people. (Romans 5:18)

The Byzantine icon of the Resurrection, above, shows Christ, with the shattered gates of hell^* beneath his feet, reaching his hands to Adam and Eve, and raising them from the grave. “For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:22).

^*Hades, the realm of the dead.

Gathering All Unto Himself

At the cross, the Lord Jesus Christ, through whom, by whom and for whom all things were created, and in whom all things hold together, and who by the Incarnation joined himself with all humankind, disarmed the principalities and powers, and broke the power of sin and death and the devil. God was in Christ reconciling the cosmos to himself, not counting our sins against us (2 Corinthians 5:19).

Looking to the cross and the manner of his death, Christ said, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all to myself” (John 12:32). The Greek word used for “draw” is one that is used of fishing nets being drawn or dragged, gathered in.

Christ has been lifted up, exalted, at the cross, where the glory of God has been revealed. And Christ is now drawing all, everyone and everything, gathering all unto himself.

This is the glory of the cross.

All-Encompassing, All-Redeeming Christ

(adapted from Colossians 1:15-20)

Christ is all-encompassing,

In every dimension and every degree.

The fullness of Christ in all things,

the fullness of all things in Christ,

with nothing left out at any point.

All things and everything.

Christ is the firstborn over all creation.

Not some,

not most,

but all.

All things have been created in Christ

and through Christ

and for Christ.

Not some,

not most,

but all.

Christ is before all things.

Not some,

not most,

but all.

And in Christ all things hold together.

Not some,

not most,

but all.

Christ is the head of the body,
the Church.

Christ the beginning,

and the new beginning,

the firstborn from

among the dead,

so that in all things

Christ might have

the supremacy.

Not some,

Not most,

but all.

For it was pleasing to God to have

all fullness dwell in Christ.

Not some,

not most,

but all.

And through Christ

to reconcile to himself all things.

Whether things on earth

or things in heaven,

by making peace

through his blood,

shed on the cross.

Not some,

not most,

but all.

The Unwillingness of God

There are some things God is not willing to do, and this is marvelously portrayed in the three parables that comprise Luke 15. Jesus told them in response to the Pharisees and teachers of Jewish law who were offended that tax collectors and sinners were coming to Jesus, and were even more offended because Jesus welcomed them and ate with them. The parables are about a lost sheep, a lost coin, and a lost son.

The Parable the Lost Sheep
In Luke 15:3-7, Jesus tells of a shepherd who has a hundred sheep, but one has strayed. He puts it to the Pharisees directly:

Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, “Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.” I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.

Clearly, the answer is, Yes, the Pharisees, if they were shepherds, would go out and find that lost sheep. They would not be content with the ninety-nine while one was still out in the wild. The stray was just as valuable to them as the ones that did not stray.

Of course, we think immediately of Jesus in this story, not simply because he is the one telling it but because we recognize him as the Good Shepherd who lays down his lie for his sheep (John 10:11). He is the one the psalm writer cries out for: “Save your people and bless your inheritance; be their shepherd and carry them forever” (Psalm 28:9). He is the one the prophet foretold: “He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young” (Isaiah 40:11).

If the Pharisees would not be content with 99% of their flock, if they would not be willing to leave one sheep behind, why should we expect that Jesus would be. More to the point, because Jesus is the perfect image of God, why should we expect that God would be satisfied with only 99%? But Jesus is the Good Shepherd who goes out searching for the least one, the last one, lost one until he finds it. He simply does not give up. And when he finds it, he carries it home on his shoulders, and there is great rejoicing. (See also Until All Are Home)

The Parable of the Lost Coin
The second parable, in Luke 15:8-10, tells of the woman and the lost coin. Like the first parable, it is very brief, but just as powerful.

Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Doesn’t she light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, “Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.” In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.

Imagine this woman with ten silver coins. They are likely her dowry and so would be very precious to her. But she has somehow lost one. Perhaps it fell into the cracks between the stones in the floor. She still has nine coins left, but she is not content to leave it at that. She is unwilling to let that tenth one go. So, she turns the house upside down searching diligently for it, shining a light into every dark corner, sweeping the floor in case she might hear it clinking in some crevice. She will not give up. She will not even think of giving up but will keep searching for it until she has found it. And then how great will be her rejoicing.

If the shepherd in the first parable points us to Christ the Son, and the father in the third parable, which we will come to next, is like God the Father, it seems only natural that the woman in this middle parable may perhaps be likened to the Holy Spirit. We would not be alone in thinking that. St. Ambrose, back in the 4th century understood it that way.

The Holy Spirit is always bearing witness to of us Christ, taking the things that are his and revealing them to us. How shall we suppose that the Spirit of God would ever stop before every dark corner has been made light, every crevice has been swept clean, and that which is lost has been found?

The Parable of the Lost Sons
Now we come to the longest of the three parables, too long to quote in full here but found in Luke 15:11-32. In this tale, there is a man, a father who has two sons. One day, the younger son comes to his father and asks that his share of the inheritance be given to him. This is terribly dishonoring to his father, tantamount to saying that all he wants from his father is his wealth and that his father might as well be dead. Nonetheless, the father loves his son. Indeed, he loves both of his sons greatly and he gives them both their inheritance.

The younger son takes it and goes off to a distant land, as distant as his heart is from his father. There he wastes away all he has received, squandering it in reprehensible ways. But then there is a catastrophe: a terrible famine comes upon the land, and the younger son, his wealth now gone, must hire himself out to a farmer who has him feed the pigs — quite a lowly job to begin with, but especially shameful work for a Jewish boy.

After a time, the younger son comes to his senses and realizes the terrible state he is in and how much better life had been for him at home. He decides to go to his father and beg to come back home, not as a son but as a servant.

Now, while he is still a good way off, his father sees him on the horizon, for he has never stopped watching for his son, being unwilling to give up on him. Then the father, in a culturally undignified act, girds up his robe and runs to embrace his son. The son is hardly able to get a word out of his mouth about how unworthy he is to be a son before the father cuts him off, commanding his servants that the best robe be put on his son, a ring placed on his hand and the bests sandals put on his feet — all of them signs that the father fully accepts him as his son.

“Bring the fattened calf and kill it,” the father says, “Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.” So, they all celebrate and are very merry.

End of story. Or not. Remember, there is also an older son — an older brother. He finally becomes aware of all the commotion and asks his servant about it. “Your brother has come home,” the servant says, “and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.” The older brother becomes enraged and refuses to join in the celebration.

But the father loves both of his sons, so he goes out to find the older one, who has distanced himself not only from his younger brother but from his father as well. The older son pours out his fury, about how he has always obeyed and slaved for his father but was never given even a young goat to celebrate with his friends; about how the younger son, “this son of yours,” has whored everything away — and now here is the father welcoming him home with the greatest of feasts!

The father pours out his love: “My son,” he said, “you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.”

The father has two sons and loves them both very much, and he is unwilling to give up on either one of them; unwilling to have the older but lose the younger, and just as unwilling to have the younger but lose the older. He will not be satisfied until both are reconciled and safely home. (See also The Lifter of Our Shame)

God is Unwilling
This is how God is. God is like the shepherd who is unwilling for even one of his sheep to remain lost. God is like the woman who is unwilling to let even one precious coin remain missing. And God is like the father who is not willing to let either of his sons remain unreconciled.

“The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness,” we read in 2 Peter 3:9, “but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.”

See, it is not God’s will that anyone perish but that everyone come to repentance. There is never a point at which God gives up on anyone. Never. God’s love always perseveres, and not even death can finally keep God’s love or God’s will from prevailing.

Random Thoughts

Thoughts culled from my random file, gathered from my Twitter tweets, Facebook updates and Instagrams. About love, forgiveness, divine grace, and finding our lives in Christ. Some have come to me in moments of prayer and quiet reflection, some in interaction with others. Offered as “jump starts” for your faith.

• We are united with Christ not by reason of our faith but by reason of His Incarnation. What we do with that is a matter of faith. We can rebel against it, but we cannot undo it.
• Funny thing. The more I consider Christ, the more my theology changes in conformity to Him ... and that seems to be confusing for some people.
• The judgment of God does not come to condemn us but to restore us. Not to enslave us but to set us free.
• Christ is God’s Yes to us. Faith echoes Amen.
• The Resurrection of Christ shows that the love of God is truly unconditional, for not even death can stop it.
• Eternal life. Eternal love. Same thing.
• We live continually in the presence of Divine Love.
• Whatever it is for which you would be rewarded, that you must beware.
• The confession that Jesus is Lord is a form of anarchy, for it means that Caesar is not.
• If you would see the kingdom of God, forgive one another.
• God always gets the last word, and it is a good word: Love.
• If ever there was a time when God hated anyone, even for a moment, it would be His undoing, for God is love.
• If you are seeking Christ, you will find Him in the middle of your mess and at the bottom of your ditch.
• Faith is not about certainty but about trust.
• Lord, keep me from being part of the strife but make me a part of the peace. Amen.
• Thank God, nothing depends on our certainty.
• Christ is God’s elect who, by the Incarnation, has become one with all of humanity.
• Believe the life of Christ in you.
• Christ is our only true reality. In Him we live and move and have our being, and in Him all things hold together. Everything that moves away from Him moves towards nothing.
• Christ inhabits every broken story until all the world is mended.
• Christian theology does not begin with philosophy or theological abstraction but with the concrete revelation of God in Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit.
• Christ is not only God’s Yes to us, He is also our Yes to God.
• Christ did not come to institute a new moralism but to give us New Life.
• When the brokenness of sin meets the faithfulness of Christ? No contest. When the power of death meets the life of Christ? No contest. Sin and death were doomed by the Incarnation, when God became one with us.
• The Incarnation means that whatever is true of Christ in his humanity is true of us in ours. But it also means that we partake of his divinity and become by grace what Christ is by nature.
• Christ is God’s humanity and our divinity.
• Christ is the image of the invisible God, in whom all the fullness of divinity dwells in bodily form, and in whom we are made complete and become partakers of the divine nature.
• Christ is the True Light who gives light to everyone in the world. Faith is an awakening to the light of Christ within us.
• Sometimes my failures all gang up and fool me about who I am. Sometimes my successes do, too.
• Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us ... for we are all in the same boat.
• We are holy not by keeping a moral code but because God has chosen us in Christ through the Incarnation. It is by faith that we embrace this holiness.
• If it comes down to a choice between prayer and politics, I’ve seen what both can do. I will choose prayer. Every time.
• The gospel means there is nothing so broken that it cannot be mended, for Christ is making all things new.
• Prayer is not a way of escaping the reality of the world but of becoming more deeply aligned with it.

More random thoughts …

The Possibility of Repentance After Death

Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment ... (Hebrews 9:27)

Evangelical universalism entails the possibility of “post-mortem conversion,” that is, the proposition that, though many depart this life without faith in Christ, yet is it still possible for them to come to such faith after they have died.

A common objection to this view has been Hebrews 9:27, “Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment …,” and it is supposed that this precludes any post-mortem opportunity for salvation. It is then further assumed that if one has not come to faith in Christ when they die, all that is left for them is an eternity of conscious torment.

What is the Context?
But there are a few problems with such a reading. First, it ignores the context. Verse 27 is not a stand-alone statement or a completed thought but is part of a larger discussion about Christ as our high priest, holding him in contrast with the Levitical priesthood of the Old Testament:

For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made with human hands that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God's presence. Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own. Otherwise Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But he has appeared once for all at the culmination of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him. (Hebrews 9:24-28)

The high priest of the Old Testament had to go into the Holy of Holies every year to make sacrifice for sins. But Christ did not come year after year to offer himself as a sacrifice over and over for our sins. He did not suffer many times but only once. Mark the word “once” in the verses immediately preceding and following verse 27; it is the key to the comparison the author makes.

• Christ has appeared once for all to do away with sin (v. 26).
• Just as people are destined to die once (v. 27).
• So Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of the many (v. 28).

Note also the use of “just as” by the NIV (or “and” in several other versions) at the beginning of verse 27. It indicates the continuation of a preceding thought. The use of “so” at the beginning of verse 28 shows a continuation of the thought carried along in verse 27 and completes this portion of the argument the author is making: Just as people are destined to die once, so Christ was offered once, in sacrificial death.

What is the Judgment?
Here, we come to my second point, though still considering the context. The second clause in verse 27 has to do with judgment. If we think of this in general terms, it is worth noting that the author does not specify how soon after death this judgment comes, only that people are destined once to die, and after this comes the judgment. We cannot simply assume that it comes immediately, leaving no room for coming to repentance and faith.

But the author of Hebrews has been focusing our attention on Christ, and that, it seems to me, is how we should think of judgment here. The first part of verse 27, “destined to die once” is answered by the first part of verse 28, “Christ was sacrificed once.” So also, the second part of verse 27, about judgment, is answered in the second part of verse 28: “to take away the sins of the many.”

To see how the taking away of our sins in verse 28 corresponds to judgment in verse 27, we need to understand something important about the nature of God’s judgment: it is not retributive but restorative. Our own sense of judgment is often about retribution or pay-back, even to the point of the destruction of offenders — and we tend to imagine that God must be that way, too.

But God’s judgment is always about restoration, for God is love, and love does not seek retribution. God comes to set things right — to set us right. The judgment of God does not come to destroy the offender but to remove the offense. For God did not send Christ into the world to condemn us (John 3:18) but to bring about reconciliation (more on that in a moment).

The judgment of God, then, does not preclude any further possibility of repentance, for repentance and faith are exactly what it is intended to bring about. Think of the many times in the Old Testament when God judged wayward Israel. It was not to abandon Israel forever but to bring her to repentance, for there was always the promise of the day when God would finally gather her in from the nations.

The ultimate judgment of God took place at the cross, where the “once for all” death Christ died destroyed the works of the devil (1 John 4:8), disarmed the principalities and powers (Colossians 2:15), broke the power of death, and the power of the devil, who held the power of death (Hebrews 2:14), and so, broke the power of sin. The cross is where the forgiveness of God was revealed, and the judgment of God made manifest.

The author extends the thought at the end of verse 28, showing that the One who was offered once for our sins, “will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.” The death of Christ brings salvation — and that is the judgment of God.

The author of Hebrews is not arguing that death is a “point of no return” that precludes any possibility of post-mortem conversion but showing us something very different, a Christ-centered focus. Nor can we conclude that the future appearing of Christ is the cut-off point for repentance and faith; the author simply does not make that argument.

What is God’s Purpose in Christ?
This brings me to my third point: there are numerous passages in Scripture that clearly indicate God’s purpose is the reconciliation of all things in heaven and on earth through Christ and by the blood of the cross. I have listed several of them in another article, “What If ‘All’ Means All?”, but I will mention three here:

All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. (2 Corinthians 5:18-19)

With all wisdom and understanding, [God] made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment — to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ. (Ephesians 1:9-10)

For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. (Colossians 1:19-20)

In the end, God will be, as Paul said, “All in all” (1 Corinthians 15:28). The reconciliation of all things will not happen apart from Christ, or the cross, or repentance and faith. But Paul does seem convinced that it will indeed happen.

If that is so, and all are finally to be reconciled, then it seems to me that post-mortem conversion is not only possible but is inevitable, seeing that so many people appear to depart this present life without having come to any repentance or faith in Christ. Hebrews 9:27 does not preclude this; it does not even address the question, much less answer it.

What Does It Mean to be “In Christ”?

We hear it a lot — I say it a lot — but what does it mean? Simply put, to be “in Christ” is to be in union with Christ, one with Christ. To be in union with Christ is to be in union with God, one with God, because Christ is God become human. He did not become merely one like us — he became one with us. Christ is fully human, as well as fully divine, and participates fully with us in our humanity, so that we may share in his divinity, sharing by grace what Christ is by nature.

In the modern Western world, we are used to thinking of ourselves and others very individualistically: You are you and I am me, and apart from close biological relationships, we recognize no real connection to each other, only whatever social or psychological associations we decide to have with one another.

But the truth is that there is only one humanity, and we all partake of it. This means that we are all vitally and deeply connected to one another. Whatever happens with one of us ultimately affects all of us, and the loss of one of us diminishes all of us. There is no “us” and “them,” there is only us.

The apostle Paul recognized this profound connection when he compared Christ with Adam. We can see this, for example, in Romans 5:18, where he says, “Consequently, just as one trespass [Adam’s] resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act [Christ’s] resulted in justification and life for all people.” And again in 1 Corinthians 15:22, “For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.”

Just as Adam’s act of disobedience affected all humankind, bringing mortality upon all, so the faithful obedience of Christ resulted in justification and life for all. In both instances, this could only be because the humanity in which we all share is a deep and abiding connection, a union we all have with one another. So, when Christ became human, it was not a union with only some of us but with all of us.

The great mystery of the gospel is that the God who created this one humanity has joined with us in it by the Incarnation of the Son, Jesus Christ. Christ is our union with God. This is not something we must strive for — or even can strive for. But through the Incarnation, we now have this union with Christ, and so with God, purely by the love, will and desire of God. It is not even our faith that puts us “in Christ” or in union with God, but it is solely the grace of God, the faithfulness of Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit that has done this.

What this means for us is that we are “accepted in the Beloved,” as the old King James Version puts it in Ephesians 1:6. The Greek word behind that means that we are fully graced and highly favored by God, and this is though Christ’s union with us. Our faith did not bring this about; the faithfulness of Christ has done it. But it is by faith that we begin to understand and live out the truth of what Christ has already done for us.

So, when we read in Paul’s letters about being “in Christ,” it has nothing to do with what we have done or ever could do, not even our faith, but has everything to do with what Christ has done. It is about the union with God every human being has because of Christ, the Incarnation, and the victory of the cross and resurrection that inevitably resulted from that union.