More Thoughts About NDEs, Consciousness, Baptism, and Paul's Writings

     Recently, as those who read my blog already know, I’ve been going back through and revising the portions of Scripture I compiled for “The Practice of the Way,” but I’ve picked up and learned more since making those initial, very rough translations from the Greek texts. In particular, I’ve read and become far more familiar with Near Death Experience studies, the first century Stoic philosophers, “cross-religious” mysticism, and I’ve become more familiar with current consciousness studies, theories, and worldviews, in addition to familiarizing myself with the underlying mechanics of what would be considered more “New Age” energy work, muscle testing, and even some energy healing. Reading through Paul’s writings again in Greek and comparing these things to what he wrote has led me to some really fascinating ideas and conclusions.
     I realized something when working through revising Colossians. In Stoic philosophy, as in many philosophical or even religious systems, every human being is or contains a share or a "fractal" of the Logos who Himself or Itself is identified with the God and is the firstborn of the God, and the same with the Pneuma. Similarly in New Age systems of thought, born from both an older Hindu tradition as well as modern quantum mechanics and theory, all human consciousness is in fact a part or "fractal" of the one single, overarching, “big-C” Consciousness.
      I realized this morning that when Paul talks about the "Body of Christ" of which all are body parts, and instructing the Colossians to seize or grab tightly to the Head of the body, which is Christ, he is literally using virtually the same language and saying the same thing about human beings and Christ as the Stoics were saying about human beings and the Logos, and for that matter, a similar concept to what modern "New Agers" and in particular NDE experiencers report about the relationship of the human consciousness to the "Source Consciousness." That is, we are all a part of the same Consciousness with Christ, the Logos, or however you wish to name Him as the functional Head or command center of that Consciousness.
     Thinking again about where it says in Romans 6, "The person who died has been made right from the malfunction," as it relates to the aftereffects experienced by people who have had Near Death Experiences or literal "Death Experiences" and have returned to life (something about which I wrote and explained more in depth in a previous blog post). That is, people who have literally died for a period of time (sometimes quite extended) with either brain death, the stopping of the heart, or both, and resuscitated (or resurrected). The thought which occurred to me is that this is literally a mechanic of death and resurrection regardless of how it happens. That is, a disengagement from one's malfunctioning responses and engagement with the Spirit is a natural and normal result of death and resurrection as is evidenced by people who have had NDEs and consistently display a greater love, joy, peace, compassion, loss of a fear of death, a greater interest in spiritual things, a greater sense of connection with God, and even paranormal or supernormal abilities regardless of the belief system they started with.
     The insight I had this morning about this has to do with “energy work,” “energy healing,” sending positive or loving “vibrations” energetically to another person and so on, all of which can have observable and even measurable effects on the “target” depending on who is doing it and how it is being done. The way a sacrament is supposed to work, theologically speaking, is that it requires the express intention of both the person performing the sacrament and the person receiving it, and that it requires the belief of both parties that what is said to take place is taking place. And I can’t help but think this is very similar to the description of what happens with the energy work among New Age practitioners. Also, while in modern churches, even the Roman Catholic Church, anyone can technically baptize and the baptism considered to be valid, in the ancient church, especially the first couple of centuries, this wasn’t the case. Baptism and Eucharist were only to be done by specific people using specific rites or techniques. While today that seems divisive and outdated, what if it wasn’t meant that way? What if the reason why only certain people were permitted to do it was because these were the people who were actually properly trained and capable of doing it in such a way as to have the originally intended effect?
     Paul makes it very clear in Romans that those who are baptized into Jesus Christ are joined to His death and resurrection. Throughout his letters, he uses this same language and is so adamant about the baptized person’s inclusion into the death and resurrection of Christ it forms the basis of all his other instruction and teaching, appealing to it frequently, as the proper functional source of the Christian disciple’s behavior as opposed to his own malfunctioning flesh. My thought is that this was no metaphor or mere initiation rite. The rite of baptism was initially meant to energetically put or place or entangle the person into Christ’s own death and resurrection or resuscitation experience and in so doing induce the aftereffects of an NDE within the baptized person without actually having to stop that person’s heart. In so doing, that person would experience the death of the ego, the loss of the fear of death, the experience of union with God/Source as part of the aforementioned Consciousness or Body of Christ, as well as initiating the documented paranormal abilities. And this had to be done by someone who knew how to energetically entangle that person (regardless of whether or not they understood the actual mechanics).

     What if this was the whole reason Jesus Christ died on the cross and resurrected, so that those who chose to be His disciples could be freed, made right from their egos or their malfunctioning minds through grafting His death experience onto them through baptism without them having to physically die, so that they could experience those same aftereffects which are now reported by Near Death Experiencers? I've written many times before about Jesus' death not being about God being satisfied with blood in order to forgive. But this isn't that. This is about Jesus Himself as the Logos exploiting what is perhaps a mechanic of a physics we don't really understand in order to provide a solution to our human malfunction.
     If this is the case, this understanding would have a great deal of explanatory power on a number of level regarding not only what Paul wrote about, but also the experiences of people within the NDE and New Age communities about a number of things.

The Elephant in the Church Sanctuary

 There is a huge elephant in the room where modern Christianity is concerned, and very few within the churches that really want to have an honest conversation about it. We all know that it is there. We may even whisper about it to each other, seeking to find a solution to it or understand why it exists at all. But actually seeking real solutions to it can be enough to have you excommunicated, called a heretic, and have your life turned upside down and forever changed.
     Pick up a Bible and read the Gospels. Then read the book of Acts. Then, if you're really serious, search into the Early Church Fathers and the writings of the Church leadership prior to the Council of Nicea. Now, compare what they describe as a "normal Christian" and a "normal church" with an "average Christian" and a "normal church" almost anywhere in the world today.
     Do you understand now what the elephant in the church sanctuary is? Put plainly, they don't match. They don't match at all. Not in structure, not in form, not in practice, not in teaching, and not in displays of power. And it does not matter what denomination it is being compared with. It still does not match with what is described as normal Christian philosophy and practice, nor with what is described as normal, regular church philosophy and practice. We can all read the description of the way it started, the way it is supposed to be and what is supposed to be on display; and we all know that no matter how "good" a modern church might be, it does not match the original standard.
     And no one wants to be honest about why this is the case. The common excuses are either that those in the past were "super-saints" or things were supposed to fizzle out after so long of a time, or in the more extreme line of excuses, people just don't have enough faith, or it was all just a bunch of myth and hyperbole.
     The honest truth about why the modern churches don't look like the ancient churches is because they're neither teaching nor practicing what the ancient churches taught and practiced. As much as they talk about protecting the "ancient faith," what they're teaching, regardless of denomination, is relatively novel and new. For the Catholic Churches, it's a religion which really formed around the fourth century and was dictated by Roman imperial politics. For the Protestant churches and their descendants, its beliefs and practices which are mostly no older than five hundred years, and deviate in many places severely from what is actually recorded even as they proclaim to be returning to the "ancient faith."
     Consider this truth carefully. Those same religions, organizations, and spiritual communities which profess to "believe in Jesus Christ" and follow Him and do everything in His name, claiming to be His disciples, at their core are nothing like what His original disciples taught and practiced because their core teachings developed long after the original churches. There is also the complication that the Gospels and letters the original churches left behind are frequently if not always translated with the express purpose of bolstering the more modern teachings instead of the ancient ones.
     There is a saying which I have come to appreciate, "If you keep doing what you're doing, you're going to keep getting what you're getting." Another similar one is, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result each time." The modern churches, and modern Christians, have been doing the same thing over and over again for centuries, each time expecting a different result, and each time being upset and surprised when they get basically the same result. It genuinely disturbed me when, attending a church conference a couple of years ago where the topic was how the church should respond to changing cultural and spiritual challenges such as the deconstructionist movement for example; it genuinely disturbed me that what was advocated and celebrated was the message to "stay the course!" Using the image of a ship during a storm. The thought which continuously comes to my mind with this image is that you don't keep the ship on course when it's about to run into the rocks, or run aground. A good pilot will take the new conditions into account and steer the ship in a different direction to avoid the serious hazards and dangers.
     Unless the churches stop doing what they've been doing, protecting theologies and belief systems (and sometimes weaponizing them against certain groups of people) which didn't even originate in the ancient church, and seriously look at why the ancient churches were different, and what they did as disciples which made them so much different and more transformative, then we will continue to get more of the same, and people will continue to leave what they've been told is Christianity for something else that feels more real, not realizing that they were never taught what Christianity really is to begin with.

Romans 8, Revised from "The Practice of the Way"

 

There isn’t a single thing then which is at present a judgment against those who are by means of the Anointed Yeshua, not operating from the soft tissues of the body but from the Pneuma. Because the Torah of the living Pneuma freed you from the Torah of the malfunction and from Death by means of the Anointed Yeshua . Because the powerless thing of the Torah—by means of which the Torah was weak through the soft tissues of our body—the God having sent His own Son in what looks like malfunctioning soft tissues also surrounding the malfunction judged against the malfunction within the soft tissues, so that the regulation of the Torah would be fulfilled within us who don’t operate from those soft tissues of the body, but from the Pneuma¹. Because those folks existing from the soft tissues of the body mind the things of the soft tissues, yet those from the Pneuma the things of the Pneuma. Because the mindset of the soft tissues of the body is death, yet the mindset of the Pneuma is life and peace, because the mindset of the soft tissues of the body is hostile as far as the God is concerned, because they aren’t submissive to the Torah of the God, because neither can they be; and those existing by means of those soft tissues can’t please God². But you don’t exist by means of the soft tissues of the body but by means of the Pneuma, if in fact the Divine Pneuma resides within you, but if someone doesn’t possess the Pneuma of the Anointed, this person doesn’t belong to Him. Yet if the Anointed is within you, the body is in fact a corpse because of the malfunction yet the Pneuma is life because of a right state of being. And if the Pneuma of the One who raised Yeshua from the dead resides within you, the One having raised the Anointed from the dead will also make your dying bodies alive through the Pneuma residing within you.

      Therefore then, brothers, we are those obligated, not to the soft tissues of the body to live in line with those soft tissues, because if you live in line with the soft tissues of the body, you are intent on dying; yet if by the Pneuma you make the business of the body dead, you will live. Because as many as are led by the Divine Pneuma are Divine sons. Because you didn’t get a pneuma of enslavement again resulting in panic, but you got a spirit of adoption with which we cry out, “The Father is Abba³!” This Pneuma testifies together with our pneuma that we are Divine children. And if children, also heirs; Divine heirs in fact, and co-heirs of the Anointed if in fact we have the same thing happen to us as happened with Him so that we would also receive reputation together with Him.

      Because I figure that the sufferings of the current period of time aren’t worthy facing the impending glory to be revealed for us. Because the eager expectation of the creation eagerly welcomes the unveiling of the sons of the God. Because the creation was subjected to useless idiocy, not by mutual consent but because of the one having subjected it, upon the hope that this creation also would be freed from the enslavement of this decay into the freedom of the glory of the children of the God. Because we know that every single creation laments together and has the pains of childbirth together up to the present time; and not just this, but having the birth-certificate of the Spirit we also ourselves lament within ourselves eagerly welcoming the adoption, the slave-purchase of our bodies. Because we were rescued with this hope; but hope being looked at isn’t hope; because who hopes for the thing he’s looking at? But if we are hoping for the thing we aren’t looking at, we welcome it eagerly through patience.

    And in the same way also the Pneuma renders assistance to our weakness; because we don’t know what we should pray insofar as there is a need, but the Pneuma itself obtains an audience on our behalf with non-verbal expressions; and the One scrutinizing these hearts knows what the mindset of the Pneuma is, because in synch with God he obtains an audience on behalf of the holy. And we know that for those loving the God everything works together resulting in good, for those being summoned in line with His plan. Because those whom He knew by experience beforehand, he also marked out beforehand as formed together with the image of His Son resulting in Him being the firstborn among many brothers; and those whom He marked out beforehand, these also He summoned; and whom He summoned, these also He made right; and those whom He made right, to these also He gave His reputation.

      What then will we say to these things? If the God is on our side, who is against us? Who even didn’t hold back His own Son but handed Him over on behalf of all of us, how wouldn’t He also charitably give to us all things together with Him? Who will bring an accusation against the Divine chosen? God is the One making them right. Who is the one judging against them? The Anointed Yeshua is the One who died, yet more being raised, who also is at the right side of the God, who also obtains an audience on our behalf. Who would part us from the love of the Anointed? Crushing or distress or being hunted or hunger or nakedness or danger or single edged sword? Just like it had been written that, “Because of You we are made dead the whole day, we were calculated like sheep for slaughter.” But with all these things we are beyond victorious through the One having loved us. Because I have been convinced that neither death nor life nor messengers nor princeps nor things in the immediate present nor things impending nor powers nor height nor depth nor some different created thing can part us from the love of the God which is by means of the Anointed Yeshua, our Owner.

1Just as it was said in the text in Jeremiah, “I will write my laws in their thought processes, and on their hearts...”

2No definite article

3Aramaic for “Daddy”

Romans 7, Revised from "The Practice of the Way"

      Or are you ignorant, brothers (because I’m talking to those familiar with the Torah), that the Torah has ownership of the human being for as much of a time as he should be alive? Because the woman subject to the living man has been bound by the Torah; yet if the man should die, she would be shut down from the Torah of the man. Therefore then with the man alive she will be revealed an adulteress if she is with a different man; yet if the man should die, she is free from the Torah, with her not being an adulteress being with a different man. So that, my brothers, you also were put to death to the Torah through the body of the Anointed, for the purpose of you being with a different one, the one who is raised from the dead, so that we should produce fruit for the God. Because when we were responding by means of the soft tissues of the body, the feelings of the malfunctioning behaviors which were active through the Torah were within the parts of our body, resulting in the production of fruit for death; but at this point in time we were shut down from the Torah having died by means of what we were held down by, so as for us to be enslaved with the fresh quality of the Pneuma and not the old quality of the written letter.
     What then will we say? Is the Torah itself an error? Absolutely not; I wouldn’t have become familiar with the malfunction if not through the Torah; because too I wouldn’t have instinctively known attachment if the Torah wasn’t saying, “Don’t set your heart upon things.” Yet the malfunction having taken an opportunity through the command accomplished every attachment within me; because separate from the Torah the malfunction is dead. And I was alive apart from the Torah at one time, but the command having come the malfunction revived, yet I died and this command which was for the purpose of life was found inside of me resulting in death; because the malfunction getting an opportunity through the command deceived me and through it killed me, even as the Torah on the other hand is holy and the command holy and right and good.
     Has then what is good for me become death? Absolutely not; but the malfunction, so that the malfunction would become glowingly visible, is manufacturing death through what is good, so that the malfunction would become excessively malfunctioning through the command. Because we know that the Torah was born from the Pneuma, yet I myself am biological having been sold like a slave subject to the malfunction. Because I don’t know from experience what I’m accomplishing; because I am practicing, not this thing I wish, but I’m doing this thing I hate. Yet if I’m doing this thing which I don’t wish, I am agreeing with the Torah that it is beautiful, but I am currently no longer accomplishing it, but the malfunction residing within me is instead. Because I know that the good thing doesn’t reside within me, that is, within the soft tissues of my body; because the willingness is at hand within me, yet the accomplishing the good is not; because I’m not doing what good thing I wish, but I’m practicing this bad thing I don’t wish. Yet if I’m doing this thing I don’t wish, I myself am no longer accomplishing it but the malfunction residing within me. I am finding then the rule, for me who wishes to do the good, that the bad thing is at hand for me; because I am rejoicing with the Torah of the God in line with the inner human being, yet I am looking at a different Torah within the parts of my body soldiering against the Torah of my conscious mind and taking me prisoner by means of the Torah of the malfunction which exists within the parts of my body. I am a miserable human being; who will rescue me out of the body of this death? Yet thanks to the God through Yeshua the Anointed our Owner. Therefore then I myself am enslaved by the conscious mind to the divine Torah yet by the soft tissues of the body to the Torah of the malfunction.

On Belief and Realization

      I was listening to a podcast last night (Andre Duqum’s show, “Know Thyself”) where the guest being interviewed was pointing out that nothing actually “changes” when someone receives enlightenment. There is no miraculous conversion of the person from one thing to another, or addition to what they already are. The only thing which is different is their perception of what already is.
     I’ve been mulling this around subconsciously this morning even as I continue to go through Romans in Greek, revising a translation I already made, and it struck me that, "belief" or “trust” in the New Testament, and "realization" in the Eastern and New Age traditions are the same thing. One must believe or trust that they have already been joined to the Spirit of Christ as the New Testament teaches it, and in the same way one must realize that they are already one with God/Source in the Eastern or New Age traditions. Both involve a recognition, a knowing that internalizes what already is in order to make use of what already exists.
      Human beings were created in the image of God. The great lie of the snake in the garden is that we weren’t already the image of God and needed to do something to “become like God.” But our consciousness, the immaterial part of the human being is still the “image of God,” it is still, as some traditions might put it, a “fractal” of God, a share in the Divine Logos. Even Paul states plainly that Jesus Christ, the Logos incarnate, is "the image of God, the firstborn of all creation," and every human consciousness, having a share in that Logos is also still itself the image of God. But after our ancestors’ mistake, our biological brains, the transceivers that allow us to interact with the world within spacetime, were altered so that we are almost constantly in a kind of survival or threat mode, enslaving our consciousness to this malfunctioning white and gray matter, leading to a functional insanity whose end is death and destruction.
     Deliverance from this is dependent on a realization of what already is, that our consciousness, what we really are, is still the “image of God,” and shares in God being one with God through being one with or a share of that Divine Logos who is Jesus Christ. One must not just mentally assent to it, there must be a realization deep within that takes place that recognizes what is already true. This is why many if not most who claim to believe still fret and worry and just don’t seem to get it. They haven’t had that realization. They’re seeking, so to speak, they want to "believe" and are working towards that "belief," but they are still internally blind to what already is because this internally malfunctioning brain is blinding them and keeping them chained and enslaved to their fear, anger, and bodily cravings.
     The “faith” talked about in Romans is more than mere mental or verbal assent to a thing, it’s a realization that this thing is reality and making use of that reality for oneself, something no one else can do for you. You can tell someone what reality is until you’re blue in the face, but until they “realize” what it is, it will be for nothing. They’ll reply, “I know,” and continue on in their own destructive delusions.

     The cross, the death, burial, and resurrection of the Divine Logos as a human being enables us, either mystically, psychologically, or practically, to shut down that malfunctioning response center of the brain and work from that innate connection of our consciousness back to the Source, back to the God, through the Logos who incarnated as Jesus Christ. It enables us to "die" to that malfunctioning piece of flesh, and to "resurrect" with that fully enabled consciousness in the driver's seat where it belongs without the malfunctioning piece of flesh's interference or self-sabotage. It enables us to function correctly, with the brain returned to its subordinate place as a transceiver for the consciousness which is itself born of God, and with no need for external restraints like laws, rules, or regulations because it is God's own nature being expressed.

     Salvation, or deliverance, in this respect is in fact "by faith," but it is a realization of what is already reality, what is already true, what has already been done, not an initiation of something to become true.

Romans 6, Revised from "The Practice of the Way"

 

     What should we say then? Should we continue by the malfunction, so that the charity of the God would overflow? Absolutely not. Such ones as we who died to this malfunction, how would we still live by means of it? Or are you ignorant that, as many of us as were baptized into the Anointed Yeshua, were baptized into His death? We were then buried together with Him through this baptism into His death, so that just like the Anointed was raised from the dead through the reputation of the Father so also we should walk with a fresh quality of life. Because if we had become grown together with something that looks like His death, we will then be grown together with His resurrection also; recognizing this, that our old human being was crucified together with Him so that the organic structure of our malfunction would be shut down, with us no longer being enslaved to this malfunction; because the person who has died has been set right, parted from the malfunction. Yet if we died together with the Anointed, we believe that we will also be alive together with Him, knowing that the Anointed having been raised from the dead is no longer dying, death no longer has ownership of Him. Because the thing which died, died once and for all to the malfunction; yet should the thing live after that, it would be alive to the God. So also you calculate yourselves to be dead on the one hand to the malfunction yet living to the God by means of the Anointed, Yeshua.

      Don’t then let the malfunction reign within your body which is subject to death for the obedience to that body’s longings, neither offer the parts of your body weapons of wrong to the malfunction, but offer yourselves to God like alive from the dead and the parts of your body weapons of a right state of being to God. Because your malfunction will not have ownership of you; because you are not subject to the Torah but subject to the charity of God.

      What then? Should we screw up because we aren’t subject to the Torah but subject to the charity of the God? Absolutely not. Don’t you know that to whom you offer yourselves slaves for obedience, you are slaves to whom you obey, either of the malfunction resulting in death or of obedience resulting in a state of right being? Yet thanks to the God that you were slaves of the malfunction yet you obeyed from the heart as far as which type of teaching to which you were handed over, yet having been freed from the malfunction you were enslaved to a right state of being. I am speaking humanly because of the weakness of the soft tissues of your body. Because just like you offered the parts of your body slaves to being dirty and to this lawlessness resulting in the lawlessness you practiced, in this way now offer the parts of your body slaves to a right state of being resulting in a state of being holy. Because when you were slaves of the malfunction, you were free with respect to a state of right being. What fruit then did you possess at that time? By which you are at present ashamed, because the goal of those things is death? But at present having been freed from the malfunction yet having been enslaved to the God you have your fruit as far as a right state of being, and the result, the life of the Eternal One. Because the compensation you receive from working for the malfunction is death, yet the charitable gift of God is the life of the Eternal One by means of the Anointed, Yeshua our Owner.

My Understanding Of What Paul Was Trying To Say in His Letter To The Romans

      Lately, I’ve been revising the translations I made for my book, “The Practice of the Way” with the intent of republishing it as a second edition. After working through the life of Christ again, mostly from the Gospel of John, I’ve started in on the letters and have reached the chapters of Romans which I included in this volume, and to be honest, I’m finding myself having a harder time actually translating this work than I should be.

       I’ve worked through it, translated through it so many times over the past thirty years that I’ve lost count. I probably know the Greek text of Romans better than I know any English translation of it. There’s just no good reason for me to be stumbling over the text. I feel like the Greek makes perfect sense to me, but when I try and render it into English I fall flat on my face, and I can’t explain that. I go back and look up the expanded definitions of words I already know and have looked up a dozen times before, and I still can’t seem to render into English what my consciousness, what my soul is telling me that it is supposed to say or mean.

      Part of this, I know, has to do with my hyperliteralism, a holdover from my Asperger’s from before my neurofeedback treatments. I’m still very left brain dominant, and still not used to using my right brain or allowing it much freedom, especially with this. I’m stumbling over the actual words trying to either use the lexical definitions or create newer, more modern English ones, and the final result of neither approach looks or sounds right to me, but I know deep within that the standard translations found in versions like the King James Version, the New American Standard, the New American Bible Revised, or the English Standard Version are off. I know it, but I’m tripping up on the actual words trying to render what it is supposed to say into English, and the translation, and what Paul was trying to say, is suffering because of it.

      In chapters one and two, Paul begins by trying to describe the downward spiral of human beings due to our common human ancestor’s mistake in the garden (from the opening chapters of Genesis) and the resulting malfunction, which he doesn’t actually mention until chapter five but assumes everyone knows what he’s talking about until then. He works off of the assumption that this resulting malfunction is located within a human being’s flesh, that is, the soft tissues of the body such as muscle, sinews, and organs, but doesn’t directly state this until chapter seven. What he does directly state is that the God is vehemently, passionately angry at this malfunction (as opposed to the human beings themselves) and what it has done to us, and has judged against this malfunction for the destruction it has caused. Where we were created as the genuine image of God, we now fail to measure up to that image because of this malfunction. For this reason, because the malfunction is inherited and physically based, it’s not possible for this malfunction to be corrected by just doing what the law of Moses, the Torah, says, and in fact, keeping the Torah, or any regulation or rule no matter how well intentioned, can and does actually exacerbate the malfunction. Everyone is born with it and it is the reason why our common human ancestor and all of his descendants began dying to begin with. It doesn’t matter if someone is circumcised or still has a foreskin, they are still affected by this malfunction and the flawed and erroneous behaviors it produces create a kind of insanity within everyone affected, making us unable to experience the God, and are destroying us and will eventually lead to the total destruction of the human race.

      God’s solution to our malfunction, as Paul explains it, is to freely give us through His own charity towards us His own Eternal Life, His own Spirit through a union with Jesus Christ in His death and resurrection, thus correcting or bypassing the malfunctioning flesh as long as we cooperate with Him, “walking in the Spirit” as he describes it. What Paul describes is that He gave this to everyone freely out of His charity towards us, that is, everyone already possesses it and in order to make us of it, rendering the malfunction inert, we just have to trust Him that it’s there and cooperate with Him. He then spends an entire chapter digressing about how it is entirely “Biblical” that a person’s malfunction is corrected by just trusting the God using the example of Abraham in Genesis who also trusted God and it was counted as him operating from a right state of being instead of the malfunction.

      From here Paul gets more explicit about the two states which exist within the human being, calling one the “old human being” and calling the other the “new/fresh human being,” depending on which state the person was cooperating with or, as Paul put it, enslaving themselves to. As far as Paul was concerned, a human being was either a slave of their own malfunctioning flesh, or a slave of God’s life, His Spirit with whom they had been joined. The former leads to death as its natural result, as he illustrated in no uncertain terms in the beginning of the letter. The latter leads to life, and specifically, God’s life within the person. There is no judgment against, no condemnation against those who are cooperating with God’s life within them, that is His Spirit, and His Spirit is incapable of erring or being subject to that physically based malfunction. The malfunctioning flesh however has no hope, no possibility of doing the right thing on its own, because it can’t. The only state of right being is God’s state of right being, and the only way to actually do the right thing is through engaging with and cooperating with God’s state of right being. Any engagement with or submission to one’s own malfunctioning flesh will result in errors, mistakes, flaws, and eventually one’s own destruction and death.

      This is what Paul was trying to say in Romans 1-8 in a nutshell. And really, this is everything he was trying to say. It was never about God being angry with human beings, He was angry with the malfunction. It was never about needing a blood sacrifice to be forgiven, much less a glamour or facade of “righteousness” which could cover us so God didn’t have to look at our filthiness. It was about God fixing the problem by joining Himself to us, combining Himself with us so that we no longer had to be enslaved to this malfunction, and in this way He would break the downward spiral of insanity which the malfunction induced within us, and the flawed, harmful behaviors it caused. In Paul’s later letter to the Galatians, he becomes even more explicit that there is no way to achieve a state of right being just by keeping rules, regulations, or doing what the Torah says. The problem is in the malfunctioning flesh, and it will still be in the malfunctioning flesh no matter how many rules you keep. Rule keeping can’t change the inherited malfunction. As he writes there, “Walk in the Spirit, and you will not bring the desires of the flesh to completion at all. Because the flesh desires against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, and these two things are opposed to one another so that you can’t do what you want.”

      This principle message which Paul sent by courier, probably to Priscilla and Aquila first as they had been returned to Rome for a couple of years at least, to be disseminated to the rest of the Roman groups of Christians, isn’t as well understood as it should be because of many factors both historic and linguistic. And it should be understood because it is literally the underpinning, the foundation of everything Paul wrote in all of his letters. Even John alludes to this understanding in his first letter where he talks about “the one born from the God” and “the one born from the slanderer.” Where Paul talks about the extreme importance of love in his writings, John declares that the one who doesn’t love doesn’t experience the God, because the God is love, and the one who loves is born of God and experiences Him. They may have said things in different ways, but they were in perfect synch with their understanding of both the problem and God’s solution, and it had nothing to do with God wanting to destroy anyone.

      I’m still working through my roadblocks to doing justice to Paul’s thoughts in a translation of Romans, but for now, this is my understanding of what he was trying to say.