I Am Who The I AM Says I Am (Part 3) by Dave Smith

This is part III of a five part article outlining a Wesleyan Anthropology arising from a Biblical Worldview.  (Check out Part I and Part II) Originally an oral presentation for the Wesleyan Church, it has been revised and updated for a broader Wesleyan Methodist audience.

What is our Hamartiology?

Bill Arnold’s third question to establish a “world view story” has to do with “What has gone wrong? What is our Hamartiology?” (As a review, Harmartiology means our understanding of sin, or what’s gone wrong).

We flow immediately from our “orienting story” in Genesis 1-2 to a “dys-orienting” one in Genesis Chapter 3. Yes, this can be seen as Eve’s mis-trust (dys-trust) in Word and voice of God. But the serpent is even more sly as he asks Eve if she would like to employ her God-given authority to add one more tree to the list of “good?” This would be her first recorded act of ruling. She would re-define God’s “no” as a “yes”.

Redefining Good and Evil

Doesn’t this sound like our modern culture today? This “fill in the blank _______” is pleasant to my eyes…this feels good…I am meant for this…This is my truth and God created me for this. Good is now defined as what I desire and even deserve. Evil is defined as what restricts or hinders my personal trinity of un-holy wants, needs, desires. At least as I define it! 

The Hamartiological story continues past the exile out of the garden (Genesis 3) into the life and death struggle between the brothers Cain and Abel (Genesis 4). As they are offering up sacrifices to YHWH, Cain offers grain and Abel offers the first fruits of his flock. God looks with favor upon Abel’s offering (implying it is “Good”) and does not show favor on the grain offering of Cain. The older brother literally takes matters into his own hands as he wants to re-define “his grain as good” in direct opposition to the will of God. Cain violently “cancels” his competition. The text does not explain the divine rationale for this decision. It simply asks Cain to trust God’s judgment. The point is that God and God alone defines the parameters of “good.” He does not need to defend His choices to us. 

When we create a human lexicon of goodness and redefine righteousness, we have usurped the Throne of God and supplanted it with our own rule and reign. We are creating idols. John Calvin declares that the heart and mind of man is a perpetual factory of idols. As we fashion these idols; we discover it is a self-portrait. Thus, when we employ a definition of “Good” that is not in agreement with God, we fall short of His glory and become shaped into the image of the false one whom we now follow and obey. Simply, we become and reflect that whom we worship. 

Let’s move to a NT example of people redefining God’s definition of good: Peter’s Confession of Jesus (Mark 8:27-33). Let’s make sure to read it in context or else we will miss its profound revelation of the human condition. 

27 Jesus and his disciples went on to the villages around Caesarea Philippi. On the way he asked them, “Who do people say I am?” 28 They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.” 29 “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” Peter answered, “You are the Messiah.”

30 Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him.

31 He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. 32 He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.

33 But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. “Get behind me, Satan!” he said. “You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”

The Father – with Jesus’ full approval – has stated that the suffering, rejection and death of the Messiah = Good. In direct contrast, Peter and the other 11 disciples reject (literally: rebuke) Jesus’ plan because they “have in mind” a new human definition of the Messiah and His salvation. Immediately, we overhear Jesus’ counter-rebuke to Peter with these frightening words; “Get behind me Satan.” Jesus’ Gospel story hyperlinks us back to Eden and we discover that the disciples are dys-ordering God’s plan for New Creation and fashioning evil as its new replacement. In summary, we don’t simply make bad choices. We defy God’s good and speak evil into existence.

Why is it so important for us to grasp this dys-orienting story? Well, it’s because others are telling another version of the story which contains their preferred definition of “good.” Rather than employing biblical revelation, they equate “good” with how they personally “experience” life and how they “feel” about themselves. (see Nancy Pearcey, Love Thy Body) This new slant on an ancient story can go one step farther as their story tells them they are “made this way.” You are just as God intended you to be. Without an awareness of the dys-orienting story, their story unknowingly gives life to evil. 

Responding with Love and Grace

What is our “godly” response to their story?  Moreover, why is it important for us to graciously respond with God’s story God’s way? Simple answer: a biblical witness and the larger Wesleyan story is shaped by love. It does not label people unsympathetically as “sinners in need of repentance.” They are, as we were; characters in a story who are “lost and need to be found.” Christian finger-pointing only cements our opposing stories into an “us versus them” narrative. Moreover, we must remember our own not-so-distant past. We embodied their story. It was our story (Col 3:7). But now, we share in the Resurrection life of Jesus. Let me state it this way; it is less than helpful to confront them on the need to be forgiven until they witness new life lived out in us. They are not an evangelism project to be implemented or a broken person to be worked on. 

The role of human-fixer is exclusively the work of the Holy Spirit. Rather, we model for everyone what a life “in Christ” can do to change a human being (Ezekiel 36:22-38, Jeremiah 31:31-34). We must be living-breathing-models of people who have encountered the Living God and made-new. Yes, we must reflect the Imago Dei and radiate what New Creation promises, all the while welcoming others into a new story. The Message translation of 1 Peter 3:15 says this well:

Be ready to speak up and tell anyone who asks why you’re living the way you are, and always with the utmost courtesy. Keep a clear conscience before God so that when people throw mud at you, none of it will stick. They’ll end up realizing that they’re the ones who need a bath. 

Let’s both show and tell the story of hope, as Jesus welcomes all to eat at His table; saints and sinners. During the closing hours of Jesus’ life, the “theologians in us” long for Him to provide a solid theory of the Atonement to explain how His death on the cross takes care of the human sin problem. But instead, He graciously hosted a meal and then told a story of the re-enactment of the Passover. Yes, table fellowship with an ancient story; a story that He gets all of us into! 

Blasé Pascal, in his Pensées, writes that humans are depicted as a broken and desolate creation. But they are nevertheless not left hopeless; for they can be radically transformed through faith in God’s grace to serve the world set before them.  Here are his words of cure for the human condition: 

Men despise religion, they hate it and are afraid it might be true. To cure that, we must begin by showing that religion is not contrary to reason. That it is worthy of veneration and should be given respect. Next it should be made lovable making the good [men] wish it were true. Then show that it is indeed true. (Pascal’s Pensées)

What is my summary of Pascal? Well, really what about Jesus’ summary from John 13, “A new commandment I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you also must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:33-34)