Unforgivable Sin and The Wedding Feast

  The Good News is that Jesus Christ has already saved you, with no past or future action required on your part regardless of whether or not you realize this. Everything can and will be forgiven, including ignorance of Him, except deliberately and knowingly rejecting the truth of Jesus Christ. This is the fundamental and frequently obscured truth of New Testament soteriology. It is practically screamed by Jesus as He recounts the parable of the wedding feast, the invited guests who refuse to come, and the stewards going out and bringing in anyone and everyone they meet on the streets, back alleys, and ditches, the homeless and destitute alongside the middle class and respectable. The salvation of the world is an accomplished fact with no further input required by us. Those of us who know the truth of Jesus Christ are called to be disciples of Jesus Christ, apprenticing to Him and His teachings, so that the world might know the Man who saved them through His disciples. We are the stewards informing the rest of the populace of the invitation to the wedding feast, or bringing them in on stretchers if need be.

Salvation comes only through Jesus Christ. This is a truth which is foundational to Christianity, and cannot and must not be compromised. Jesus Christ alone is “the” Way, “the” Truth, and “the” Life. But the great deception, however intentional or unintentional it might be, is that the Church has set itself up as a gatekeeper for a salvation which has already taken place and is freely offered, declaring instead, "Salvation comes only through the Church." The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches declare this boldly and overtly whereas the Protestant churches and denominations tend to be more subtle and discreet to varying degrees, but their practice and preaching cannot be any clearer. We act like gatekeepers for an event which has already transpired. We seek to "get people saved." What misguided arrogance we have be handed down over the centuries.

Jesus Christ has already died for the sins of the world and risen from the dead. Nothing anyone can do can get someone more saved than they already are because of Jesus Christ. Should a man die in total ignorance, not having rejected Christ overtly or intentionally by any means, he would still be greeted by the God who loves him without limit because of Christ. What is done is done. The salvation of the world has been accomplished. This is why arguing about how one might be saved, and what one must do is absolutely worthless and pointless. This is also why Jesus said to "Disciple the nations, baptizing them." He said, "Preach the good news!" He did not say, "Go get people saved! Go rescue them from the fires of damnation!" Because He had already accomplished this through His own death and resurrection. 

So then what remains? That we ourselves become disciples and disciple the nations as He commanded. That they all know Him through us. That we love as He loves. The His words are spoken through our lips, and His actions performed through our hands just as the Father’s words were spoken through His lips and the Father’s actions performed through His hands. We are not gatekeepers of the kingdom of God but ambassadors of it, and we have forgotten the difference. 

There are only two sins in the New Testament that Christ is clear on them being unforgiven. Deliberate, knowing rejection of the testimony of the Holy Spirit about the truth of Jesus Christ, and refusing ourselves to forgive others the wrongs they have done us. The first is a deliberate, knowing turning away from Christ and rejection of the salvation He has brought for one's own selfish ends and delusion. The second is a deliberate refusal to love the other person as He taught. We are not talking about struggles, we are not talking about difficulties in trying to follow and obey, we are not talking about the ups and downs on the path. We are talking about deliberate choices on the part of the individual to either refuse to love God or to refuse to love their neighbor. It is the refusal and rejection of the God who is love which sends a person into outer darkness, and it is their choice to go there.

The blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is knowing Christ to be true, knowing Jesus is the Son of God, and deliberately rejecting Him for selfish and self serving reasons. This can be done by either the non-Christian who recognizes Christ for who and what He is, or the Christian who has experienced Him, tasted of His Spirit, and become intimate with Him. This was the context in which Jesus described it, and this is the context in which the author of Hebrews brings up the unforgivable, that of Christians having known His Spirit and throwing Him away to return to Mosaic (or shall we say, Pharisaiac/Sadducaic) Judaism out of self preservation or personal gain. These are the people whom Paul references in his letters  as having their god as their belly, and to whom John refers as having come from us but were not genuinely of us. This is unforgivable precisely because the person, in the depths of his hamartia insanity, knowing the truth of Jesus Christ, having experienced Him and shared in His life, has denounced and denied Christ in order to get some selfish worldly gain out of it. 

This was the case with the Pharisees who, knowing Him to be Messiah (it couldn't be more obvious), deliberately slandered Him and sought to destroy Him for their own selfish ends. This was the case also with Judas Iscariot. It is also this state to which the author of Hebrews refers in 6:4-6. As long as one remains in this state, it is unforgivable because they have deliberately and knowingly cut themselves off. Paul, as a Pharisee, was forgiven for his attacks and opposition to Christ because, according to his own account, he acted against Christ in his ignorance. He did not recognize Him for who He actually was. Yet the Pharisees who constantly tried to trap him, and the Sadducee High Priests, Ananias and Caiaphas, knew perfectly well who He was and deliberately worked to destroy Him. Being the High Priests, it was perfectly obvious to them that Jesus of Nazareth was the real Messiah, and thus was a threat to their power. 

The soul that commits the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is a soul that rejects the Love of God because it is the God who is love. This is a soul that has made its choice to love the darkness deliberately and reject the light. This is an insanity that is willfully incurable, that knows there is a cure and slaps it away, devolving into further derangement and delusion. This is also the depth of Lucifer's insanity, and many if not all of his demons. There is literally nothing more which can be done because they do not want anything done, and so they must be secured away to stew in their own self reinforced insanity, and burn with their own delusions.

It is a revolutionary and controversial thought to consider that the Buddhist Abbot who honors both “Lord Buddha” and “Lord Jesus” would enter the wedding feast before a baptized Christian who has knowingly turned away from and against Christ. The ignorant person who may not have worked towards Christ, but has never rejected Him as such will find himself being generously given a wedding garment. The man who is not knowingly against Christ in God’s eyes is welcome to the wedding feast as for Him. God is not willing that anyone should be destroyed, but that all should come to repentence. Christ did not come to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. Our evangelistic message was never to be the gatekeeper’s message of “you must go through my booth alone in order to cross,” but to go and tell people they may cross freely, the toll has already been paid, the party is waiting for you on the other side.

The Tao, The Dharma, and Life Itself

 I've been encountering the word "Dharma" a lot in the book I've been reading on Bodhichitta. This shouldn't be surprising. "Dharma" is a Sanskrit word (the Pali cognate being "Dhamma"), and is a key term in Buddhism. Within that belief system, it is used much like the term "Gospel" is within Christianity, and it's usually used to refer to the teachings of the Buddha, Gautama Siddhartha, which can guide one to enlightenment.

Initially, I thought it meant something like "truth" or "teaching" in Sanskrit, but today I decided to look it up. It turns out that the actual meaning of the word is a little more complicated than this, and there is no one word in English which can actually express its full meaning. According to the Wikipedia, there are at least twenty different ways in which this word is translated into English from the Sanskrit in different writings. “Truth” is one possibility, along with “right way of living,” “law,” “duty,” “justice,” “virtue,” and more than a dozen others.

Why so many variations? Well, it has to do with the concept which the word is trying to convey. According to the Wikipedia article, Dharma means "behaviours that are considered to be in accord with Ṛta, the order that makes life and universe possible, and includes duties, rights, laws, conduct, virtues and ‘right way of living’” (“Darma,” Wikipedia.org. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharma). Finding this interesting, my curiosity was piqued, and I similarly looked up Ṛta. According to the Wikipedia, Ṛta is “the principle of natural order which regulates and coordinates the operation of the universe and everything within it” (“Ṛta,” Wikipedia.org. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ṛta). This caught my attention, because it sounded very familiar to another Greek word I know. Very familiar.

It sounds like the meaning of the word “logos” in Greek. Logos is a very interesting word in its own right. Technically it means “word,” but like the word “dharma” this is really only a fragment of the concept it actually expresses, and it usually isn’t used when referring to an actual fragment of speech (“lexis” or “rhema” is usually used in these cases). “Logos” as such has a long history as an ancient Greek philosophical and theological concept. The Stoics, beginning in 300 BCE identified the Logos as “the active reason pervading and animating the Universe” (“Logos,” Wikipedia.org. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logos). They identified it with “the God” (not the God of the Bible of course, but as an aspect of a kind of Zeus centered monotheism which began to develop). In the early 1st century CE, the Hellenistic Jewish philosopher Philo described the Logos as “the first-born of God” and said, "the Logos of the living God is the bond of everything, holding all things together and binding all the parts, and prevents them from being dissolved and separated" (Philo, De Profugis, cited in Gerald Friedlander, Hellenism and Christianity, P. Vallentine, 1912, pp. 114–15.). And in the Gospel of John, “Logos” is the word used in John 1:1 where he writes, “At the start was the Logos, and the Logos was next to God, and the Logos was God.” It is this same Logos that John writes of when he writes, “And the Logos became flesh and camped out among us…” The Logos is who we refer to as God the Son, the second person of the Holy Trinity, who chose to incarnate, being joined to human flesh in the only recorded instance of human parthenogenesis in the human person of Jesus Christ.

So, returning to the subject of Dharma, when we speak of Dharma, it is just as correct from a Christian perspective to say that Dharma can be defined as behaviors which are in accordance with Jesus Christ, the Logos of God the Father. Everything He taught and practiced is in fact, Dharma for the Christian. Furthermore, as He said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life,” in that He is “the Truth” one could make the case that Jesus Himself is also Dharma in the truest sense of the word. So then, Jesus Christ is both Dharma, and the primal source of all Dharma. He is the standard by which all Dharma is to be held against. 

Another word which has tremendous difficulty in being fully comprehended is the Chinese word “Tao”. Technically, it means “way, road, or path,” but like the word “Logos” in Greek, and the word “Dharma” in Sanskrit, it is pregnant with philosophical and theological meaning which is difficult to translate. According to the Wikipedia,  “The Tao can be roughly thought of as the flow of the Universe, or as some essence or pattern behind the natural world that keeps the Universe balanced and ordered.” And also “In all its uses, the Tao is considered to have ineffable qualities that prevent it from being defined or expressed in words. It can, however, be known or experienced, and its principles (which can be discerned by observing Nature) can be followed or practiced.” (“Tao,” Wikipedia.org. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tao). This last point, that the Tao can be discerned by observing Nature is reminiscent of what Paul wrote in Romans 1:20 where he says, “For the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity; that they may be without excuse.”(WEB) There is a kinship in the concept of the Tao with both the concept of the Logos and the Dharma.

Finally, as we are looking at what He said about Himself in these two sentences from John’s Gospel, He begins it in Greek with, “Ego eimi,” literally, “I am.” Thing of it is, He really didn’t need to use both words where the Greek is concerned. It’s more common to see just “ego” or “eimi” when someone is describing themselves. Generally, and especially in John’s Gospel, you really only see this combination “Ego eimi” when Jesus is using the Greek translation of the divine name YHVH, “I Am,” to drive home who He is.

With this understanding, we could rightly render from the Greek what He said in John 14:6 as, “I Am the Tao, the Dharma, and Life itself. No one come to the Father if they don’t come through Me.” In these two sentences, He is describing Himself as the indescribable principle of natural order which regulates and coordinates the operation of the universe and everything within it, the first born of God who is the bond of everything, holding all things together and binding all the parts, and prevents them from being dissolved and separated, the God who spoke to Moses on Sinai and all the prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures, and the source of all life and order in existence, and no one is able to come to God the Father if they don’t go through Him.

Consider Jesus Himself

  Part of the problem in the Church is that we begin, understandably, seeking salvation in Christ for selfish reasons and reasons of self-preservation, but we never move on from this selfward looking. Once we believe we are safe from hell-fire, we become little different from the rest of the world in our selfward view. Our supposed salvation, much less the actual words of the One who saved us, make no lasting or practical impact on our outlook or worldview except for the occasional conviction or fuzzy feelings. But this selfward looking is not the path taught by Jesus Christ, and not the salvation offered by Him.

With virtually every breath He took, He taught us to abandon ourselves, renounce anything we were clinging to, forgive everyone who has wronged us, and love everyone be it God, stranger, brother, or the enemy who is cruel to us. The salvation which He offers would have us stop working for our own benefit and happiness and work only for the benefit, happiness, and salvation through Jesus Christ for others, all others.

I've come to understand that my own pursuit towards professional ministry, a good and honorable employment, has been for almost entirely selfish reasons. The desire for stability, the desire for reputation, the desire to fit in and find a home; none of these things are bad or even wrong, but they are selfish and selfish action is not born of Christ, and not what our salvation in Him is all about.

We are to have His mind toward others, we are to love one another as He loved us, we are to keep the same mind of loving kindness and compassion that caused God the Son to incarnate in human flesh because He so loved the world. This is what it means to be His disciple, developing this mind of Christ that so loved the world, that sought to save everyone, that exhausted Himself healing and teaching for the compassion He had and that spoke truth to power out of love for even those plotting to kill Him. We must be intentional about developing this and asking Christ with whom we are joined to be so through us. We must cooperate with Him, and let go of our selfish desires whether they are benign or malign. It is Jesus Christ this world must see, hear, and experience, and not us. What is your faith worth if it does nothing to move you to pursue the finish line for the award of the upward calling of God in Christ Jesus? Is it even faith in Jesus Christ at all?

Consider Jesus Himself.

As I've been translating through Mark, the thing which has stood out is that everything He did was to deny Himself and benefit others. He lived His whole life in submission to the Father, doing and saying nothing from Himself, but only what the Father did and said through Him. Having deep compassion for the crowds, He stayed and healed and taught well into the evening even as He sent His disciples onwards away from the crowds for their own good. Having deep compassion, He not only exorcised the Geresene demoniac, but also granted the Legion's request. His warnings to people He performed extraordinary healings on to not make Him known we're because of the negative effects the crowds would have on the towns and villages He entered, and He wouldn't be able get help to those who needed it. He loved Judas Iscariot right up to the moment he left to betray Him, and rebuked the pharisees in a desperately compassionate plea for them to turn away from what they were doing. All of this was of course before He was crucified, becoming the one sacrifice to take away the sins of the world, and then resurrecting in an immortal body with the promise that all joined to Him will do likewise. To be His disciple is to actively pursue doing likewise and counting everything else as crap and loss. It is such a simple concept that we miss it completely because our brains are hardwired for self interest and self preservation, and this is reinforced by society and culture, especially in the US.

Thinking it through, everything Jesus taught in terms of practice had to do with actively having compassion and loving kindness for the other person, and putting their best interests first. Everything from non judgment, to turning the other cheek, to giving to whoever begs from you and not asking for repayment. The implication here with all of it is that we are concerned only for the welfare of the other person and take no thought for our own, leaving that in God's hands, as he taught. The path of Jesus Christ is the path of Bodhichitta or agape, and there is no place for self interest in it except insofar as it benefits others.

To be a disciple of Jesus Christ is to love all other sentient beings. It is literally that straight forward. No amount of doctrine or dogma, no amount of religious prayers or practice qualifies anyone to be a disciple of Jesus Christ if they do not understand, accept, and strive to practice this basic concept. You cannot be a disciple of Christ if you act and speak in your own self interest, and if you are not consciously moving towards acting and speaking for the benefit of others. Mistakes and learning to do this is one thing, outright refusal and self justification is another. We are called to be disciples and make disciples, and this means denying ourselves and loving all others and teaching others to do the same. This means remaining in Him, submitting to His life within us, and teaching others to do the same. To follow Jesus Christ is just that, to actually follow Jesus Christ.

A Ramble About Agape

“Because God loved the world thus, as He even gave His one of a kind Son…”

“Have this mind within you which was also within Christ Jesus…”

“The person not loving doesn’t know God, because God is love.”

Being moved by the Holy Spirit to do so, I have recently started reading a book, edited from lectures given by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, about a Buddhist concept called “Bodhichitta”. In short, Bodhichitta is where a person ceases to cherish his or her own “I” and works only for the benefit of others. They no longer do any harm, but also actively work to benefit others and relieve them of their suffering in even the smallest way. It is active and absolute compassion and loving kindness which thinks only of the welfare of the other and not of the “I.” Within the Buddhist worldview, Bodhichitta is the mindset of the Bodhisattvas who choose, instead of entering Nirvana, to continually be reincarnated in order to work to bring enlightenment to all other sentient beings with the goal of ending the cycle of suffering. It is to see each other person as someone dear to you who is suffering regardless and indiscriminate of who or what they are and to work only for their good. According to the good Lama, all practice, meditation, religious prayers, concentration, everything a Buddhist may do to gain enlightenment is all virtually meaningless and fruitless without starting on the path of and incorporating the practice of Bodhichitta.

As I have worked through the concepts of this book, one thing I have come to realize is that this concept of Bodhichitta is a one for one translation of the New Testament understanding of “agape,” most frequently translated as “love.” Everywhere you find the command to love in the New Testament, and especially in Paul’s description of agape in 1 Corinthians 13, you might substitute the word “Bodhichitta” for “love” or “agape” and you would be accurate in your translation of what is being said.

Bodhichitta or agape is the loving kindness and compassion that compelled God to incarnate as a human being in order to bring salvation to us through His death, burial, and resurrection. Remember when Jesus says at the Last Supper, “This is My command, that you love one another just like I loved you”? This is the love He is commanding, that we cease from seeking our own benefit and temporal happiness, and act only for the benefit of others, to give up everything as He did for us, empty ourselves as He did for us, and set down our psyches (literally) for one another as He did for us, and not only for us, but also for the whole world.

The commands to engage in this Bodhichitta, this agape, are numerous within the New Testament, numerous and serious. Paul declares in the aforementioned chapter in 1 Corinthians that without this practice nothing of any kind of virtuous or religious action is worth anything. John declares in the fourth chapter of his first letter that the person not practicing agape doesn’t know God, because God is agape. And Jesus Himself repeats Himself again and again on the necessity of practicing agape towards everyone. In spite of the seriousness and obviousness of these commands which Jesus gives, they are frequently romanticized and ignored by Christians, not realizing that they are the very mind of God towards us. As Paul writes to his fellow Christians in Philippi, “Have this mind within you which was also within Christ Jesus…” Instead however, we are inundated with sermons and apologetics demanding that we adhere to rigid theological orthodoxy, and it is this orthodoxy which is held up as the standard, the canon by which everything else is measured, and not the agape which is so clearly commanded by Christ Himself.

How do we love as we are commanded? There are two methods which, when taken together provide a powerful tool. The first is to see Jesus in everyone, and understand that however you treat the other person, you are treating Christ (this is a practice that St. Theresa of Calcutta spoke of as well). The second is to put yourself in the other person's position and realize the hurt, pain, and suffering they are experiencing, especially those who are cruel to you. Where God is concerned, consider His suffering in being intimately privy to every hurtful things we do to each other, and His suffering in knowing His creations have this disorder which causes everyone's suffering. He hates the disorder, but loves all those suffering from it. So we also should use this insight to develop loving kindness and compassion towards everyone including and especially God who loves us so deeply and overwhelmingly. Few suffer more than a parent who must watch a child suffer from a severe psychiatric, developmental, or medical illness. We need to recognize this, and respond with humility, a child's love, and compassion for our Parent.

Every wrong committed is ultimately directed at God, whether we realize it or not. Because of who and what He is, He experiences every insult, injury, and violation we commit against any other person in the same way they do, and experiences their hurt right along with them. It is not a mistake or a metaphor to see Jesus and treat as Jesus every other person, as He is fully aware of how every person feels and thinks through His union with the Father. He not only sees and hears through our eyes and ears, knowing what we think and how we feel, He does it with everyone else too. He is the recipient of every word and action we commit as much as the human being who relies on Him for his or her own existence. That we do not depend on His existence for our own, that we treat others and ourselves this way, is a harmful illusion which we need to dispel quickly. To love God is also to love one another, our neighbors, and our enemies. Not that the person, the wave or sound, is God, but the medium which gives them substance and existence is Him. In order to have this mind which was also in Christ Jesus, and in order to imitate God who so loved the world that He sent Jesus, we must see Him in all other people and commit to loving and sacrificially working for their benefit in addition to doing no harm to them. This is what it means to love Yahweh (Existence Himself) your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your might, and to love your neighbor as yourself. There are no commandments greater than these according to Jesus Christ, and they supercede every other religious restriction, rule of life, creed, or code. Love one another as I have loved you. Abandon yourself, pick up your cross and follow Me. Remain in My love. These commands of Christ take precedence over everything else our denominational orthodoxies restrict us with.

Faith in Jesus Christ demands the pursuit of the practice of this Bodhichitta, this agape which is so crucial to the heart and mind of God that the Scriptures declare that He is agape. He is Bodhichitta, just as Jesus Christ is Bodhichitta incarnated as a human being. Without the practice of agape, there is no real discipleship taking place. Without the pursuit of Bodhichitta, can we really say that we believe in Jesus at all?

Towards a Christian Theology of Reincarnation

 "For God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance."

- 2 Peter 2:3

Recently and due to different inputs from different sources, I've been seriously challenged to reconsider my views on the subject of reincarnation. My previous rambles on the subject have all come to the conclusion that it was as impossible from a neurological/psychiatric standpoint as it was seemingly unbiblical, and certainly against Christian orthodoxy. This last point, that it runs contrary to Christian orthodoxy, cannot change as Christian orthodoxy was codified by the seven Great Ecumenical Councils (four if you are Lutheran) by the latter half of the first millennium and nothing I say here will change what was said about the subject of reincarnation. That leaves the remaining two points, that it is impossible from a neurological/psychiatric standpoint, and that it is seemingly unbiblical. It is these last points I wish to address and then move further to a possible framework for a type of reincarnation within a Christian framework.

As I have previously written, the neural network of each adult human brain is unique, and just like you can't run software meant for a PowerPC processor on an x86 based processor, neither can a psyche ("soul"), essentially a set of instructions for neurons like binary code for a computer processor, "run" in an adult brain in which it wasn't compiled. The organization and connections of the neural network in each human brain is unique and constantly changing and adapting as we learn and grow. Each sensory experience we have through our five senses, as well as each thought and insight we have, essentially programs the neurons which our brains are made up of with the different neurotransmitters which are fired from neuron to neuron, building the brain's own software from the memories of those experiences which then is also influenced by the biologically inherited configuration of the neural network of the person in question (inherited moods, disorders, preferences, talents, etc.). One human brain cannot be rewritten with the software meant for another a la "Freaky Friday."

While this is technically correct, my hypothesis did not address the possibility of a human brain's neural network developing in utero around a preinstalled psyche, so to speak. That is, the neural network forms and makes its connections according to a psyche which was already developed or "pre-written." It would be like writing the software first and then developing a unique processor around the established code. Difficult and complicated, certainly, but not impossible; not even for human beings where computers are concerned.

Where the Bible is concerned, this becomes a bit more nuanced in some places. Virtually every Bible scholar is aware of the potential precedent of John the Baptist as a reincarnated Elijah, and that it was Jesus Christ Himself who said it in Matthew 11:14. There is also Jesus' question to the disciples in Matthew 16:13-16 where He asks them who people say that He is. Their first response is that the people thought He was either John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. So then, the question must be asked, if they didn't understand reincarnation as a possibility, why would they have thought this? There is also the case of the man born blind in John 9:2 where the disciples ask, "Who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind?" How could the man have sinned before he was born if reincarnation was not a part of their worldview or understanding? Why would they have even asked these questions? The truth is that a form of reincarnation was a common part of the Hellenistic understanding of the afterlife as written about by Plato in his dialogues surrounding the death of his teacher, Socrates. This understanding of the possibility had passed into Jewish thought by the first century, and to this day the Ultra-Orthodox Jews consider it to be a part of their theology. In opposition to this understanding of the possibility of reincarnation, there is the verse in Hebrews 9:27 which reads, "...and according to as much as it is laid up for human beings to die once, yet with this, judgment..." This verse however does not negate the possibility that the judgment in question might be for a psyche to be reincarnated as a different human being (as in all reincarnational schemes, one is never the same human being twice, and while it might be the same psyche, it would still be different biology and thus a different human being).

When we are talking about reincarnation within a Christian, New Testament context, we cannot be discussing "karma driven" reincarnation, at least not for the Christian. In traditional religions and worldviews such as Hinduism and Buddhism, the cycle of reincarnation is driven by the karma of the person in question. Good actions, thoughts, and words produce good karma, and bad actions, thoughts, and words produce bad karma. In these belief systems, one's karma, good or bad, drives one's reincarnation into a good existence, a bad existence, or anywhere in-between the two. The entire cycle of reincarnation is seen as a kind of purgatorial suffering within Buddhist thought, the goal being to escape the cycle altogether. But with the Christian who has been joined to Jesus Christ, his karma, his actions, words, and thoughts, good or bad, have been wiped out by Christ's death, burial, and resurrection. Whatever sins were committed have been completely cleansed and forgiven, and whatever "good works" which might have induced a "good reincarnation" have been negated in favor of the person of Christ. Put simply, there is no active karma left for those in Christ to induce another reincarnation whether of one's soul or of one's "consciousness." Their karma has been negated and simply no longer exists.

If we were to explore this concept of karma further, it could be seen as being generated by what is commonly called "sin." As I have written and spoken of many times before, "sin" is in fact a malfunction of the human brain which over-excites the hypothalamus into making every decision a survival decision involving fear, aggression, feeding, or sexual responses depending on the agreement with or aversion to the thing, person, idea, or concept. It begins in childhood with what pleases or displeases the child and moves on to agreement or disagreement with rules which also produces either pride or guilt. That which the person agrees with or is pleased by is "good" and that which the person disagrees with or is displeased by is "bad." At its best it can produce a relatively moral person, and at its worst, a severely deranged, mentally ill, or psychotic person. The only cure for this affliction is the death of the body, but, especially in adults, by the time that death comes about, the psyche is already programmed with this malfunctioning brain and influenced by it. The errors caused to the "software" by the malfunctioning "hardware", so to speak, could be seen as what is called "karma." Thus, the only real cure is for the psyche to be conjoined to a Being who is without this malfunction, and this is what occurs at Baptism, the public profession of one's faith in Christ (literally the "Sacrament of Faith"), according to Romans 6.

So, those who are joined to Jesus Christ at the death of the body have no karma to speak of to induce another reincarnation. This however does not preclude the possibility of those not joined to Christ still in possession of karma which could, according to those traditional eastern religious systems, potentially induce more reincarnations. So then the question becomes, exactly how far does the salvation offered through Jesus Christ extend, and does it just wipe out the karma of those who explicitly join themselves to Him, or does it extend to the karma of every soul or consciousness of every human being who has ever lived? As John writes in 1 John 2:2, "and He is an appeasement about our sins, yet not about just ours, but also about the whole world's." In short, must someone explicitly join themselves to Christ in this life or "accept" Christ in this life in order for their karma to be wiped out? And if it already is, is explicit acceptance of Christ the more important as saving, or is explicit rejection of Christ the more important as damning?

This is not a question to be asked lightly. That salvation is through Jesus Christ alone is a central tenet of the New Testament, and Jesus Himself said very clearly and in no uncertain terms that, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." But He also said in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, "The one who is not against us is for us." He also said that the only sin which would not be forgiven "in this age or in the age to come" is the Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. In the context within which He spoke, He was warning Pharisees they were crossing a line when they called His exorcism by the Holy Spirit the power of the Satan (or Beelzebub). But the great sin of the Pharisees was that they explicitly rejected Jesus Christ even though they could plainly see the testimony of the Holy Spirit about Him through the miracles and healings. In other words, they knew who He was and explicitly rejected the testimony of the Holy Spirit concerning Him. This was and remains unforgivable as it is also found described in the Letter to the Hebrews of those Christians who knew the testimony of the Holy Spirit, had seen and felt His power themselves, and then had rejected Jesus Christ to return to Mosaic Judaism. There is also the parable of the wedding feast to consider, where those who were invited but refused to come to the wedding were left outside and all the poor and homeless were invited in to feast instead as long as they wore the wedding clothes given to them. So then, by the explicit testimony of Jesus Christ, everything can be forgiven, presumably even ignorance of Him, except explicit rejection of the testimony of the Holy Spirit about Jesus Christ, and thus explicit rejection of Jesus Christ Himself.

A second case where Jesus Christ Himself explicitly states that a person will not be forgiven is in the case of unforgiveness. This condition is repeated in the synoptic Gospels and is reinforced with the parable of the unjust steward who, having been forgiven an unimaginably large sum of money by his owner went out and had a fellow slave thrown into debtor's prison for a measly sum owed to him. When the owner of both found out, he threw the unforgiving steward into prison and sold off his family members to pay his debt. Jesus' warning is clear and explicit at the end of the parable in Matthew 18:35, "Thus will My Heavenly Father also do to you if each of you doesn't forgive his brother from your hearts." And also in Matthew 6:14-15 where He says in no uncertain terms, "Because if you forgive human beings their violations, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you. Yet if you don't forgive human beings their violations neither will your Heavenly Father forgive your violations." A relevant point here for our purposes is that the word in the Greek for "forgive" actually means "let go of, detach, release." In other words, He is saying that your wrongs will not be let go of if you don't let go of the wrongs by human beings. Notice two things here, the first is that He does not specify wrongs against you specifically, and second, you are also a human being. So then the possibility also comes into play that we must forgive those wrongs not directed at ourselves, and also those wrongs we ourselves have committed and hold ourselves responsible for; in other words, we must forgive ourselves as well.

So then, where could reincarnation come into play here? First, potentially as an act of mercy for those who cry out to Him from torment. Those who have explicitly rejected Christ and the testimony of the Holy Spirit about Him, I think, can safely be said to be confined to torment upon the death of the body. But then the question might become, what if they cease their rejection of Him? What if they cry out to Him? The orthodox Christian answer to this would be "too bad." But is it impossible to conceive of Him giving those who sincerely cry out to Him a second chance? As long as they continue in their rejection of Him, of course it is unforgivable. But if they do not? What then? He is not willing that any perish but that "all" should come to repentance. And so here, perhaps, we have candidates for reincarnation as a second chance. What about those who have not let go of those perceived violations by other human beings, or even are unable to let go of the things they themselves have done, effectively condemning themselves? I have written previously that God Himself sends no one into torment, but rather those psyches which are attached to their own possessions, unforgiveness, guilt, etc. continue in torment when their bodies die and they are confined to a place where they can hurt no one else but are tormented by their own insanity. Should these cry out to Him, might they also not be given a second chance, or perhaps a third or fourth as He decides? Perhaps our salvation through Jesus Christ is in fact our choice and always has been, and He will give as many chances as sincerely asked to make that choice.

A second way in which reincarnation could come into play is already seen in Scripture in the aforementioned passages about John the Baptist and Elijah. One could hypothesize from this passage that there are certain circumstances when God might ask one of His saints to return to be born into a physical (and yes malfunctioning) body for a specific purpose. In Elijah's case, it was so he could prepare the way for Jesus Christ as John the Baptist. Understand that this would not be in any way a similar case to the previous ones described. These souls would already be joined to Christ upon their reincarnation as it would be inconceivable that He would put them at risk of damnation. There would be no question about their purpose, their finding their way back into faith, or their ultimate salvation. One might also surmise that there would be a full disclosure about what they might be getting themselves into, and that it would still be their choice to agree or disagree (although I can't imagine a situation where one might say "no" to Him). It would also stand to reason that they would have no memories of their previous life either on Earth or in His presence as John the Baptist seemed to remember nothing of being Elijah and was apparently unaware of it.

So, in considering these two possibilities, what must be readily apparent is that either form represents a reincarnation which is limited in scope to certain individuals and not encompassing the entirety of all human beings or the souls of human beings who have lived. It is not based on one's karma, and is not punitive in either case but merciful to the individual in question in the first case, and merciful to other individuals beyond the trusted saint in question in the other.

In any event, whether any of this is approaching accurate, or this is pure fiction remains mere speculation outside the realm of Christian orthodoxy, and that's okay. It is more a thought experiment with seeing what a New Testament framework for reincarnation might look like. And, whether accurate or not, these things remain true that there is no way to the Father except through Jesus Christ, rejection of Him damns, and all those who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved.

A Ramble Against Orthodoxy

"It is time for the Jedi to end."

Among many things which Star Wars fans found shocking about The Last Jedi, this statement ranks up there in the top ten. It was said by an aging Luke Skywalker to Rey, a young woman who had come to him to be trained as a Jedi. The statement was just as shocking to her as it was to the movie audience. The Jedi had been the good guys. They had been the guardians of the Galactic Republic, the wielders of the Light Side of the Force, and the protectors of the peace.

Why did Luke, arguably the last and most powerful Jedi Master at that point, say such a thing. He argued that, being the thing which was holding everything together in a balance of both Light and Dark, "the Force doesn't belong to either the Jedi or the Sith." The Force, in his mind, was greater than the limited understanding of either Jedi or Sith, and both sides had badly misunderstood and limited it. It wasn't just the selfish actions of the Sith which had brought down the Galactic Republic, but the pride and hubris of the Jedi which had blinded them to the threat. More than this, it was the rigid adherence of the Jedi Council to their own strict orthodoxy which had kept them from seeing what truly was.

The Church is not far different from the Jedi in this. In 325 CE, the Roman Emperor Constantine called the first general, ecumenical council of the Church, the Council of Nicea. Constantine was not himself a Christian by any factual account, but he saw that a large portion of his empire had become so, and they didn't all necessarily agree on everything. He saw what he perceived as this "disunity" as a political threat to the peace and stability of an empire which stretched from Spain to Syria and from Britain to Egypt, and took steps to prevent any arguments or infighting among the different bishops and local congregations from become fractures in the state. When the council was called, they were required by him to come to an agreement on Christian doctrine and theology. The bishops who attended referred to what the majority of the Church had always professed based on the writings of Scripture and the leaders and apologists of the Church from the previous three centuries. Whether Constantine had the best interests of the Church at heart might have been debatable, but that the bishops did shouldn't be. They came to an agreement and thus was born the beginning of the Nicene Creed (which was completed at the second Ecumenical Council in Constantinople about a hundred years later), the five patriarchates, the codified canon of Old and New Testament Scripture, and other procedures and regulations of the Church which are still held to this day as the standard of Christian Faith to this day to a greater or lesser degree by every Christian church and denomination on Earth. In other words, thus was born Christian orthodoxy. And this orthodoxy had the force of law within the Church that had Constantine's stamp on it. All those who disagreed in any way, whether that disagreement was benign or not, were branded as heretics and threatened with excommunication or worse. In all, there would be seven Great Ecumenical Councils of the Church, each one dealing with issues of theology about the nature of God, Christ, even the person of the Virgin Mary, liturigical rites and issues, as well as practical matters of governing what was now decreed to be the "Universal" or "Katholike" (Catholic) Church. All local congregations, bishops, and presbyters were expected to comply. The Church had become an extension of the Roman State and vice versa in the name of keeping the empire unified. Seventeen hundred years later however, that empire no longer exists in any meaningful political or geographical form except as a memory.

It's important to understand that the intentions were not malign on anyone's part. Constantine wanted peace in his empire. That's a responsible and admirable goal for a ruler. The bishops wanted to put to rest any future deviations from what had always been professed and believed, as well as wanting to put to rest any future persecutions against Christians in general. It began with good intentions, and an honest desire for peace.

As more questions were raised, and unity became the all encompassing rallying cry, more theological points and practices were either codified or anathematized (cursed and forbidden). Orthodoxy became the standard of whether or not someone was truly Christian, and, leaving behind Jesus Christ, it became an end unto itself controlled by bishops and church leaders who were increasingly minded politically and more concerned with secular affairs than remaining in Christ or doing anything He said or taught. This mindset carried over into the Reformation as well. The Reformers such as Martin Luther, John Calvin, Arthur Zwingli, and others all saw adherence to their new individual versions of orthodox teaching apart from the Catholic Church as both necessary, and to be enforced by punishment up to and including death if need be. Christians of almost every denomination became the persecutors instead of the persecuted. To this day, even so-called "non-denominational" churches will excommunicate and rail against anyone who believes or preaches even the most minor point of theology or liturgical practice different from what they do and will state outright that those who believe differently are not in fact Christians. "Tongues" churches are adamant that those who do not or cannot speak in tongues are hell bound.

Like the aforementioned Jedi Master, it is my observation and belief that it is time for orthodoxy, and the idea of "orthodox Christianity" or an "orthodox Church" to end.

Jesus Christ doesn't belong to the Eastern Orthodox, the Roman Catholic, the Anglican, the Baptist, the Lutheran, the Calvinist, the Non-Denominational, or even the Messianic Jewish. He isn't exclusive to any of these. The Mormon is just as capable of encountering Him as the most rigid Orthodox or Evangelical. Are they 100% correct in their theology and worldview? No, of course not, but that's the point. None of us are. Could we learn from each other's practices and theological frameworks? I believe so, but to do so would require that we set our insistence on purity of orthodoxy aside and leave it there.

That there is an understanding in the New Testament and Apostolic Fathers of "Who is Jesus and what does He do?" (as a professor of mine stated once as the defining point of Christian theology) is without question. But if you go back and read through them, you'll find not an emphasis on orthodoxy, or a strict theological outline, but an emphasis on practice of, imitation of, and submission to Jesus Christ with whom we are joined through our baptism into His death. The sum of what Jesus Himself taught was to remain in Him just like He remained in the Father, love everyone, and let go of and get rid of anything which obstructs this. The New Testament authors such as Paul, John, Peter expounded on these points, but little more than that if you really get down to the brass tacks. Even the writer to the Hebrews in the New Testament was concerned with the theology surrounding Jesus only insofar as to demonstrate that there was no legitimate return to Mosaic Judaism. A rejection of Jesus Christ is damning.

Paul's whole point in passages like Romans 14 was that we are not all going to agree on certain things, and that's okay. We don't have to answer to each other except in how we have compassion and mercy on those brothers and sister with whom we don't agree. We each of us answer to Jesus Christ. The brother or sister who may accept evolution, reincarnation, or even space aliens is no less a brother or sister in Christ for holding those beliefs if they are holding fast to Jesus Christ in the best way they know how. The homosexual who comes to Christ without renouncing his homosexuality, let Christ work on him and decide what he needs to give up and what he doesn't. You don't need to. The brother or sister who may hold a different view of the nature of Christ or of God, does that really mean they don't belong to Him because they differ from the decisions of a seventeen hundred year old council held for an empire which no longer exists? What is important is that they pursue Jesus Christ, and His death and resurrection. What is important is that they seek to imitate Him in His submission to the Father with whom He is joined. What is important is that they seek to be His disciples. God can sort out the misunderstandings along the way as He sees fit so to do. What cannot however be compromised, and what has been compromised repeatedly throughout history by the insistence on orthodoxy, is the practice of remaining in Christ, following the Way of Life, and loving one another as He taught. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. Without love, as Paul taught, we are nothing, and nothing we do is worth anything to anyone. Without love, we have truly missed the mark and no amount of orthodoxy will save us.

It is time to put orthodoxy away, and return to an embrace of following Jesus Christ.