Examining "A More Christlike Word"
by Brad Jersak
“For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.” (Paul’s concern from 2 Corinthians 11:4)
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The False Filter |
The Biblical Filter |
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The word OR the Word |
The Word THROUGH the word |
We have now explored the viewpoints of Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22 as invited by our tour guide, Brad Jersak. What he described at these two locations was quite different than what we could see with our own eyes. But we pick up with him talking about this: “Christ authentically co-suffered our affliction and bore our despair with us, not once did his Abba turn his face away” (p. 46), and now we pick up with him continuing to try to prove the point we have just shown is false.
So, he says that this belief of his is “just
as the Word of God said:
32 Look here: the time is coming (in fact, it’s now arrived!) when you will be scattered, each of you to his own place. You will leave me alone—though I’m not alone, because the father is with me. 33 I’ve said these things to you so that you can have peace in me. You’ll have trouble in the world. But cheer up! I have defeated the world! (John 16:32–33 NTE) (p. 46).
He then makes the conclusion: “That’s
Jesus’s revelation of Abba on Good Friday! Not pouring out his wrath on his Son
but united with him and with us in his suffering. Not turning away. But ‘God
was in Christ reconciling the world to himself’ (2 Cor 5:19 NASB)” (p.
46).
My head is spinning trying to keep track of
how he is weaving all these things together. First, what Jesus said in John 16
is another example of a different statement at a different time about a
different thing. This does not address Jesus’ words on the cross a day later.
No one would dispute whether the Father was with Jesus in his ministry. All I
will say on this is that it wasn’t “Good Friday”, so different words, different
day, different focus.
From there, BJ takes us on another tour of
the voices that spoke into his life about Jesus on the cross. I don’t need to
examine them because it is only what he says about Scripture that I can test in
this journey. So, my next focus is this statement,
They helped me see from Scripture that the violence of the crucifixion was our doing—humanity’s great murder of God in the flesh—and that the cross represents God’s nonviolent response of self-giving love, radical forgiveness, and redemption (pp. 46-47).
Let’s look at this in point form:
2. The claim is that “the crucifixion
was our doing”. That is partly true, but not to the exclusion of what God was
doing. I will just put Peter’s apostolic word on the matter, “this Jesus,
delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you
crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men” (Acts 2:23). God’s part +
man’s part. Not one or the other.
3. Again, the wording “humanity’s great
murder of God in the flesh” is an attempt to leave God out of the picture, but
the failure of leaving God out of Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22 already shows that is
not going to work here either. We can look at every reference to how man was
responsible for Jesus’ crucifixion. That still leaves us with everything it
says about God’s plan of redemption through his Son.
4. Does “the cross represent God’s
nonviolent response of self-giving love, radical forgiveness, and redemption”? That
depends what “nonviolent” means. Is “violent” used to flare the meaning of
God’s role in the crucifixion so it sounds like something he would never do?
The issue is whether Jesus was punished in a substitutionary way for our
atonement. Thinking “violence” is not required, at least in relation to God’s
side of the crucifixion. So, if “violent” is used to cover the whole package
deal of Jesus on the cross, it is the wrong word to use for God, and
“nonviolent” simply is misleading.
5. Nothing about the cross from a penal substitutionary atonement viewpoint nullifies that on the cross “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). All we need to know is what Scripture says on the matter.
My main point here is that “violence” stands out as a trigger word that seems designed to create the sense that God would never have done that, hence God would never have done anything penal or substitutionary (not sure about BJ’s view of the atonement yet). I would say, pick a better word to differentiate between what God did and what people did because they are both taught in Scripture.
Next phrase, “It was Christ’s opponents who
demanded a sacrifice, while God the Father’s great love—not his wrath—was
revealed in Christ on the cross” (p. 47).
1. Again, it is only partly true that
it was Jesus’ enemies who demanded a sacrifice. In the “this Jesus… you
crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men” sense I agree. But that is
not separate from the fact that Jesus was also “delivered up according to the
definite plan and foreknowledge of God”. Each part in its place, and it is
wrong to make people think they need to choose between the two.
2. Also again, yes, “God the Father’s
great love… was revealed in Christ on the cross.” That part of this is agreed.
3. But, “not his wrath”? I am not sure
if this has been addressed yet. I know it is part of the issue in disproving
the penal substitutionary atonement work of Christ. But if that is the point of
distorting both Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22, then this plan has already failed.
However, because this hasn’t been tested by Scripture, I simply leave it that
this is unproven. We will make sure it is examined as we continue and let the
Scriptures speak for themselves.
I simply can’t respond in detail to the next
section where BJ gives the opinions of others. However, here are a few comments that
seemed worthy of reply because they directly address what the author believes
is taught in God’s word, the Scriptures:
1. “In Gandalf’s printshop, I was
reoriented to Christ, the gospel, and the Scriptures” (p. 48). If what has been
shared so far is that reorientation, it wasn’t “to Christ”, it isn’t “the
gospel”, and it denies “the Scriptures”, as we have seen in our study of the
Scriptures that were shared.
2. “Again, to challenge it (PSA) is to
risk being condemned as a heretic” (p. 49). I can’t say if that is the case
with others, but my focus is whether someone is challenging the clear reading
of Scripture, which BJ is doing. We have already seen that he has twisted the
meaning of God's word, and that’s all that matters right now since we get to
know the Word through the word. If we distort the word, we get “another Jesus”
as Paul warned.
3. “Abp. Lazar replied, ‘I see your
problem. You worship Molech—not Yahweh’” (p. 49). I know there’s a term for
that, when deliberately triggering words are used to sway people’s emotions.
However, the issue is not whether someone thinks that God giving his Son as a
sacrifice for sin would be parallel to the evils of the religions that
sacrifice their children to Molech (still happening in our day). The issue is
what the word says about what God has given us in his Son. We do not give that
up just because of inciteful (not “insightful”) terminology.
4. “My credible witness was no
namby-pamby liberal—this was a hierarch stewarding the same patristic faith
that gave us the doctrine of the deity of Christ, the dogma of Trinity, and the
Nicene Creed” (p. 49). All I will say is, says who? In other words, as Paul
said, “even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel
contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed” (Galatians 1:8).
The messenger has no authority; it is the word of God that tells us what to
believe about Jesus’ death and what God says about it beforehand (in the
prophets), during (in the gospels), and after (in the teaching of the
apostles). Anything BJ says about his mentors is just what people have decided
to call someone. It is not a title or position from God, so it has no inherent
authority.
5. “That moment confirmed for me,
decisively, what I believed God had revealed to my heart directly and in my
renewed biblical studies: the Father was not punishing Jesus but forgiving,
redeeming, and reconciling us to himself through him” (p. 49). What people
think God reveals to their hearts has no authority, especially when it
contradicts Scripture. And, if what we already looked at is what “renewed
biblical studies” looks like, that means it is unscriptural. What the Father
did in Christ’s death will be whatever the Scriptures say God did through the
death of his Son.
6. “If God truly is Love in his
essential nature,10 the necessity of eternal conscious torment, acts
of divine genocide, and literalist interpretations of wrath fall too” (p. 50).
No, such a case has not been made. Whether the Bible teaches “eternal conscious
torment,” or “divine genocide”, or “literalist interpretations of wrath” will
need to be proved/disproved by Scripture. There is no place for people giving
their personal feelings that “my God wouldn’t…” What matters is what God says
in his word, and how we get to know him by searching the Scriptures as the
Bereans did.
7. “I could no longer live with ‘the
Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it’ when it came to Scriptures in
which the narrator declares that God commands merciless slaughters and the
enslavement of women and children, and even accommodates the rape of enemy
captives” (p. 50). Okay, this is blatant misrepresentation. No, Scripture does
not teach that “God commands merciless slaughters,” nor, “the enslavement of
women and children,” and especially that it “even accommodates the rape of
enemy captives.” That is totally dishonest. I’m letting our Got Questions
ministry explain this, but I confront this misleading description of what is
written in Scripture.[1]
It false.
8. “Yes, that’s in there. I read it,
and so do the New Atheists who mock Christianity” (p. 50). NO! That is NOT in
there. What people “read” they are “reading in”, so this is another
misrepresentation of God’s word.
9. When asking his monk-mentor his
thoughts about I Samuel 15, BJ stated, “‘But the Bible says he did (ordered the
killing of the Amalekites)’”, to which the mentor replied, “‘No, these are the
words of Samuel, a cantankerous old bigot who would not let go of his
prejudice, projecting his own malice, unforgiveness, and need for vengeance
into the mouth of Yahweh’” (p. 51). This is false. How do I know? Because there
is not one place in the Bible, the word of God, that gives that judgment on
Samuel. The Law was clear what would happen to a man who claimed to be a
prophet but was not. It is just as serious when BJ claims his mentor is greater
than Samuel when he clearly is not.
10. Now we get down to the central point
of this false teaching, and the reason BJ requires his readers to believe the
“word of God” can be corrected by “the Word of God”. His monk-mentor declared,
“‘NO! Jesus is the Word of God. And any Scripture that claims to be a
revelation of that God must bow to the living God when he came in the flesh. ‘No
man has seen God at any time, but God the only Son, who was in the bosom of the
Father—He has made him known’’” (p. 51). This is false. No Scripture is in
conflict with the Word of God, only with the way people find in the Scriptures
the God and Jesus they want to find. I have already shown that it is not “the
word OR the Word,” but, “the Word THROUGH the word”. Nothing we know about
Jesus is apart from the word, and nothing about Jesus in the flesh contradicts
what the Scriptures reveal about Yahweh. People claim contradictions, hence the
need to remake God to fit their “another Jesus”, but nothing about Jesus in the
gospels contradicts Yahweh in the Scriptures the Jews had available to them
during that time. I trust I will have opportunity to show that Jesus never
challenged or corrected the Scriptures while he was here in the flesh when the
author leads us through his views on those matters.
11. “What Vladika made crystal clear is
the truth that every conception of God has always been incomplete and
imperfect. Only with the incarnation of Jesus Christ do we arrive at the final
and perfect revelation of God—fulfilling, completing, cleansing, and/or
correcting all previous revelations” (p. 52). I am very cautious about letting
BJ tell us what is crystal clear truth! However, did Jesus fulfill and complete
what was revealed in the Scriptures? For sure. Did he cleanse or correct them?
Not even close.
12. “…if there is a God (forever a faith
statement), that God is Love. And God is Love only, for every other attribute
of God must ever only be a facet of that one pure diamond” (p. 52). “God is
Love”? Yes, absolutely and clearly revealed. “God is Love only”? No, absolutely
not. His nature is multi-faceted, and to suggest “love” is the whole diamond
with all the other attributes facets of that, the Scriptures would have to say
that. The BJs have a bad track record of misrepresenting Scripture, so we would
definitely need to see this stated in Scripture if it were true. Otherwise, God
is the diamond and all his attributes are the different facets we look through
to see him as he is. Love is one facet, but not the only one. But there is no
doubt that the facet of God’s love never violates any other facets of his
nature. The same can be said of his justice and holiness, that God’s love never
violates these attributes.
13. After reiterating the same kinds of
claims without Scripture, the clear statement of belief is, “There is no divine
anger, judgment, or wrath as over against God’s love” (p. 52). Again, that
isn’t Scripture talking. I’m waiting for us to get to the Scriptures the author
thinks say this. We can list every Scripture in the Bible about God’s love, but
all they will tell us is that God is love. They will not (unless they happen to
address the issue) tell us what to believe about God’s wrath. The verses in
God’s word about God’s wrath tell us about God’s wrath just like the verses in
God’s word about God’s love tell us about his love. It’s “the word” that
reveals “the Word”, so we will not agree with such an unfounded claim without
testing it by Scripture. I would do that here, but I suspect the author will
come to this in greater detail further along the journey, so I will save my
points until then.
I was going to move on to the next leg of
the trail but, as I rounded the bend, I discovered a valley full of windfall
that will need a fair bit of time to traverse. So, I believe I have journeyed
far enough for today. We covered a fair bit of ground that tells us where the
author is trying to lead us. However, with so many misrepresentations of God’s
word strewn along the path, I not only remain unconvinced of his claims, but
believe we have enough evidence that BJ’s “another Jesus” is not found in Scripture,
but in the fabrications of those who see in Scripture only the Jesus they
wanted to find there.
And, after decades of travelling with God through his word, seeking to know what the apostle Paul called “the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27), I have never had to deny something I found in the word to believe what I was learning about the Word.
© 2024
Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8
Email: in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)
A More Christlike Word © 2021 by Bradley Jersak Whitaker House 1030 Hunt Valley Circle • New Kensington, PA 15068 www.whitakerhouse.com
Jersak, Bradley. A More Christlike Word: Reading Scripture the Emmaus Way. Whitaker House. Kindle Edition.
Definitions from the Bible Sense Lexicon (BSL) in Logos Bible
Systems
[1]
What does the Bible say about rape? https://www.gotquestions.org/Bible-rape.html
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