This post can now be found along with pictures at http://www.richardpepper.ca/summer06.html.
You might have to refresh the screen or scroll down to get to the right section.
However, I want to add a couple of qualifications to this section:
"Rest Hour: Met with Pete Dearborn and talked about Acts 2:23. Even though the godless men were accomplishing God’s set plan, they were accountable for their wrong actions and motives and deceit. As well, their plan was to kill Christ FOREVER, but nothing they could do could stop God’s plan to raise Him from the dead. By God’s Grace there will be a resurrection for me as well and no one can stop it."
I acknowledge that my identification of myself with Christ in this paragraph has its limitations.
1) I do not claim (and never have claimed) to be sinless as Christ was. In breakdowns fault is shared by many, if not all, parties (including oneself) and requires skillful discussion to disentangle it, in order to achieve a resumption of the relationship. I am/was at all times prepared to participate.
Presumably Christ never went through this and so His example is irrelevant in this regard. Here we may have to look to Paul and Barnabas and Mark (for a bad, but eventually good example?).
2) I do not call anyone "godless". Christ was turned over by the "godly" (in a sense) Jewish leaders (though motivated by their evil agenda) to the "godless" Romans, i.e. pagan idol-worshippers, apparently estranged from "God" (YHWH) -- even though they (especially the soldiers) may simply have "good men" (in the everyday sense of "good") just doing their jobs.
In considering how our lives are to follow Christ's pattern, it gets tricky because of the ways His life varied from ours. In fact, His mission of dying for the sins of the world was necessarily unique.
However, there is still a way in which we, foreshadowed in our baptism, go through deaths and resurrections, oftentimes with the deaths brought about by people with, let's say, less-than-perfect motives and actions for which they must give account to God* -- leading to God-ordained resurrections. Each of us finds ourselves in their shoes in others' lives as well.
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* Except, you might argue, for those of us whose sins (including future sins) are forgiven and forgotten by God. This is a bit of a problem with this theory. Suggestions?
Please note:
ReplyDeleteI believe that the motives, actions, agendas of all the parties involved in the horrendous crime of executing Christ were complex.
The section in which I discuss the parts played by the Jewish leaders and the Romans could be construed as blaming entirely the former (or worse "the Jews") and letting the Romans off as "just following orders".
Let me emphasize that I was referring to *the Jewish LEADERS and only those involved at that time in history*.
In addtion, the Roman LEADERS (notably Pilate) do not come off very favourably in the accounts, though one could argue that keeping the peace by any means was simply doing his job.
In which case, we also have to consider John's description of the High Priest making a similar reasonable argument for getting rid of Christ (AND in fulfillment of prophecy).
Perhaps in this ugly world, evil happens every day as a result of ALL of our just doing our jobs -- but is overruled and shaped by God into good.
The danger is then that we will just throw up our hands, seek pursuing good and do evil that good may come. Tricky stuff.