October 15, 2005 2:17 PM

I think we can at least admit that God is wise and leave the rest to faith. We have that assurance that something worthy of suffering in general will be displayed to the eyes of all. That is the reported promise of Jesus to the disciples in advance of his resurrection.

For the sake of argument, let us say, as rational beings, that we believe the world is best kept in a religion, due to the particular make up of the human as a free being, and then let us imagine how we might dream up a story to tell the children, for they then will take it as true, as they do all stories.

Let this be a gigantic fraud perpetrated upon the whole human race for the common good and well being of the species as an example of dignity and worth.

What would we dream up? We must have a man who proclaims the moral religion and lives the moral church and who dies after much suffering, some of which only the sensitive can experience. He is the righteous one. The true one. the one who did it. The guy who obeyed. He obeyed the moral law and declared that only such people can be pleasing to God, only such a person.

Now if we can keep this on a level basis we could establish this guy as a real person who is to be duplicated in the lives of those who voluntarily enter into his kingdom. The image is vivid and is reflected in what every person knows of himself, even if first prompted by this image, namely his own recognized imperative to do what is right himself, just as this Jesus experienced, and how he also, just like this Jesus, whoever he may be. In this wise he can be emulated, and what a prize then we shall have, for we shall have a person who is dedicated to being good, even when the police are not around, and thus an ideal citizen for any government that has the good of the people in mind.

And this image could be easily impressed upon the mind of the young. And they could then be called to enter into the kingdom themselves, just like the knights of the various realms during the middle ages. And so unlike Santa Claus the kids will never question the historical possibility, for they see that it is really only that which they themselves should be anyway, and they know it. And so this religion, as given would serve to appeal to any person who thought about things deeply and in a practical sense. I would even go so far as to suggest that the entire Japanese people are ripe for an en mass embracing of this Christian religion and to take part in this Christian church, for it will make good citizens of all Japanese.

There is no worry that the cooperation between Christians of different national allegiances would lead to submission to a national interest because the clear picture of the Lord Jesus, as he would be presented, would also be the shining example which punctures all self conceit.

A Christian, here understood, experiences this Christian image in his or her heart and wants to cooperate with others in a like spirit for a common goal of universal righteous coupled with universal and warranted happiness.

Hence a British Christian and a Japanese Christian are united in their first allegiance to Christ, and then differ only as each endeavors to describe how Jesus would appear in one’s own flesh. The British Christian will seek to love both the British and the Japanese Christian and so first as a neighbor and then also as a Christian.

We need a treatise on how Christians of warring nations shall interact with each other. Each to do his duty to Christ and to country.

Now let’s wonder what we need we have of the stories and talk about things after Jesus’ death. Morally we really have no need of this, for the picture of morality is given in the tale of the man during his life.

But let’s be practical. We need an incentive to get people to want to join a Christian group, a church, and that is the promise of success, that all the deprivation to be called for would not be able to hinder the success of transformation.

There has got to be some way to get people to honestly believe that given what they know about themselves, that a just God, looking at their total life as a whole, would consign them to hell forever. Let the deprivation of the mortal Jesus be an example of what is to be expected. I mean, that’s a lot. And how I can be sure that it is not just something that you have dreamed up to make be go through all this deprivation in joining this kingdom that you are telling me about. [I am speaking here for the common person.]

And so here is what we do, we find that this Jesus rises from the dead and appears to his disciples and then disappears from view, promising to return just as he had departed.

Now here is how we make hay of the entire thing. The common man is led to understand that if he had not been for the death of Jesus, it would have been impossible for people to enter into this realm of blessed due to a curse of death which had been pronounced by God. They had committed sins and they were going to pay for those sins and it really didn’t seem very hopeful to even try, and rather to opt for the whole thing being a sham. It is then for the sake of people who think like this that Jesus died, in order that they could understand that he meant it when he had told them to take heart, their sins being now forgiven, for he, a man of infinite innocence, had died for this very purpose, that God would see the spiritual identity of infinite innocence and infinite guilt, and would let them cancel out, and so that they indeed would have a fresh start. It was true. Jesus had died in order that your sins might be forgiven in a moral, objective, tit-for-tat way. It was an evil tit which was matched by a good tat, and thus canceled, making it now possible for an individual to conceive of himself as innocent of sin, and able now merely to keep on going, and the promise of this success is then given in the crown of the resurrection. You see, children, Jesus was telling us the truth, it pays to be good.

But now we will want to go even further and take it out of the theoretical plane in the mind, and instead make it practical with a certain, additional reality added by experience.

We have the testimony of those who have entered into the kingdom to report of what has happened to them as servants of the head of that kingdom (known through his son who voluntarily became another one of us). And they assure you that you will actually come, if you live long enough, to relish the kingdom of God, represented by the church or band, you will come to do just that, to relish servanthood and find that you are naturally becoming attuned to kingdom living and are beginning to feel at home, even if tussles with the world continue to plague us.


And so I suggest that if the Christian religion and the Christian church did not exist, and we would be well advised to universally subscribe to the idea under which this church would exist and act, we would be well advised to invent it and to agree together, as with the tooth fairy, to tell our children that it is true, and our only justification would be that we would want them to do the same to us if our positions were reversed. Where it is considered ok to believe that Jesus was resurrected and that he was not resurrected, in one church (though certainly different congregations, each of which must presume to be universal in potential, i.e., excluding no one).

Let’s perhaps now imagine that this is something that Paul himself dreamed up. Well, aside from the obvious fault that it is a lie, a person might be tempted to suffer all his ills for the sake of good people, but of the no counts?! So we are to believe that his man died in order that other men might be so psychological affected that they would be willing to cross over and to enter into this kingdom of God. Would God actually do that? the skeptic might ask, would he go to such lengths to make sure that no one could feel that he could not be redeemed at that very moment?

The obvious advantage, of course, is the universal bond between Christians and all humans. The idea is this: we are to live well, but not because we are British or Japanese, but because we are people in this world. That is the contribution of this idea.

And then the resurrection is the icing which makes it appealing to all, for it is the promise of: I wasn’t kidding when I said that your sins are forgiven. They are forgiven. I guess you are willing now to believe me, and to come on in and join me in the kingdom of God.

Now the great contribution that Paul makes to his story is his liberation of Jesus from the Jews. They had almost smothered him. The kingdom has no rule or law but merely the law of good conduct. Yet he had to appear historically as someone and God chose the Jews. but he made it clear that it is the moral law alone, and not a belief, which gets them into his kingdom and his church. He broke the Jewish law to make clear that it was not any reported statue from God that was meaningful, but merely the moral law, for that is what God always and ever commands to those who wish to honor him with their freedom.


3:23 PM According to Paul’s tale, Jesus dies in order to give hope to the hopeless, for those who are so sunk in sin that they have no hope. It is to these that Jesus appeals in his death and resurrection, not to those who are able to stand guiltless (from the time of conversion) on their own, like Zaachaeus and the naturally good gentiles (Romans 2). Those who can not believe that they can be redeemed and so do not even hope for redemption (and where all effort is sheer vanity and absurdity).

And so Paul says: regardless of how bad you have been, if you are able to believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus, you can enter now into the kingdom of God, for he died that all who claim him might have his righteousness, just as he took their own unrighteousness. Thus when you enter into the kingdom of God, you leave all your sins behind you. Your focus is not on the past and retribution and fear, but rather on now and the future (whatever remains) and on kingdom building through some congregation of followers of a kindred spirit with mine, i.e., a want to love the moral law.

The entrance is a transformation which, in my own case, took place suddenly and violently. Each enters on his own and in comradeship with all of a like spirit, no matter the congregation and no matter the organization, for this is a kingdom of hearts.

The glory of God is proclaim in the death and resurrection, but this can finally be dispensed with when it is clear that the Christian mindset has taken strong root.

The story will always be told, and someday it is conceivable that all will believe it, and it shall always serve as a beacon of hope to those who otherwise find reason in themselves to give up hope.

It is the second chance, and a guaranteed one at that, namely that utter righteousness is a practical goal and to be expected.

The Paul reveals: I was an enemy of Christ and now I am his friend. This is the miracle of the resurrection. You can witness it in me. You saw me before and you see me now, and all this is the direct work of the risen Lord Jesus.

I am evidence of the resurrection, for I have experienced it myself when I entered into the kingdom of God through Christ and became his willing and indeed eager servant. It was a transformation like the resurrection and it is available to all who wish to reach out. You think you are hopeless. I was hopeless, for I had persecuted the church and put them into jail. If you are hopeless, then I am double hopeless, for now I know the Jews have no answer. There is only one hope and that is the Christ who shows himself through my life before you and to you. You who are hopeless, listen, if he died and lived again for me, his enemy, how much more will he have died and lived again for you, who are not his enemy, but merely sinners who cannot believe that he is calling for you to become his friend, just as I have become his loving and adoring friend. He call me, the one utterly without hope of redemption, in order that I might, for him, call each of you who quivers in sin.


And so is it conceivable that Jesus dreamed this up and plotted with his disciples?

Or was it the brainchild of the Essenes?

Regardless it would be a great idea to encourage this one religion, the the religion of today (for Islam is the inertia of Jewish materialism), for it results in people who have a commitment with each other and with all to work for a common good.

The Japanese, if they opt for Christianity en mass, will essentially being able to achieve a world where the Japanese were treated with dignity and respect, not unilaterally or only in the eyes of some, but objectively, i.e., from the principle that all people ought to be treated with dignity and respect. They will love each other passionately, as a group, and also, since it is Christian, also for the individual, but where the individual gleans his dignity from being Japanese. I.e., the Japanese are important because all peoples are important.


4:17 PM Jesus dies for all who will claim that death by striving to be worthy of that forgiveness in an entirely different way of thinking and living.