A Journal Journey with Brad Jersak’s “Different” Jesus – Day 14

 

Examining "A More Christlike Word" by Brad Jersak

Day 14 

“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) 

The False Filter	The Biblical Filter
The word OR the Word	The Word THROUGH the word

   I am adding another “magnifying glass” table to include the most recent claim of the BJs that at least some of the traits of God listed in the Bible don’t mean what they sound like they mean. Instead, they are (according to BJ) “anthropomorphisms”, meaning, human traits applied to God in some way that means he doesn’t really have those traits even though the word says he does. For the moment, because I found the last section of the book to be very confusing and nonsensical, here is how I would differentiate between the author’s claim, and what I have understood from my own decades of reading God’s word. 

The Anthropomorphic God	The God-is-who-he-is God
Select traits are treated as human qualities applied to God for illustrative purposes alone.	All characteristics of God described in God’s word, the Bible, are inherent qualities of his divine nature.

   When we apply this to the specific examples BJ gave, the difference between these two views would sound something like this (I’m quoting the author to try to stay true to what he is teaching): 

The Anthropomorphic God	The God-is-who-he-is God
God’s “divine anger, judgment, or wrath” are “ever only anthropomorphisms of parental love aimed at restoration” (p. 52).	All characteristics of God described in God’s word, the Bible, are inherent qualities of his nature and mean exactly what they say they mean.

   SUMMARY: BJ has asked us to believe that we must choose between “the word” (the Bible) and “the Word” (Jesus) because he doesn’t like some of the things the Bible teaches and wants the Jesus he found to be free to correct anything he doesn’t like. One of these major corrections is that any ways the God of the Old Testament is different from the Jesus the BJs have found in the gospels (not the one who is really there hiding in plain view) can be written off as “anthropomorphisms” that illustrate things about God but are not really the way God is. I have already shown that the claim that loving the word of God means we treat it as a higher authority than the Word of God is bogus. Now we will see if is true or false in the word of God that any attribute of God we don’t like can be written off as anthropomorphic.

   Since I am treating this book as a journey along the BJ trail, I am including other things that add to our adventure as they come up. Since my last post, I was reminded of parables Jesus told that revolved around a Master going away on a journey and leaving his servants to operate his affairs the way they knew he did them. Any references to the good and faithful servants meant they served their Master’s purposes even though he wasn’t there to tell them what to do. The bad and unfaithful servants did their own thing, including refusing the delegates he sent to instruct them.

   This picture of a Master leaving his servants in charge of his affairs is illustrative of Jesus leaving his church to carry on his work while he prepares our Forever Home and opens the Seven Seals. He has left us with supervisors (the apostles), but he has also left us a manual, the Bible. When the servants refer to the Bible as “the final authority on all matters of faith and practice”, they do not mean that the manual is more authoritative than the Master who left it for us. We mean that, in the setting where Jesus himself is not personally present (in the flesh), it is Jesus who has left us his word to follow. We consider it the final authority over any of the servants (fellow believers) because none of us has a personal experience or words that will ever subvert what Jesus has written for us in his Book.

   It is in this sense that we must test BJ’s “another Jesus” by the authority of the Scriptures no matter how he unauthoritatively demands that we downplay the authority that is Christ’s through his word. I believe that BJ is working to present his mentors as a greater authority than the Bible so he can remove the evidence that his “another Jesus” is a false god that Paul would have condemned if they ever met. I will stand corrected if the trail BJ has set for us suddenly changes direction and heads back towards the narrow way, but we must think about this as we look at all his invitations. He is presenting other authorities while telling us to downplay the authority of the Scriptures as if they are in conflict with Christ when it is Christ who has given us his word. All Jesus’ authority is in his word, the Bible, as “every word that comes from the mouth of God.” And we will test all BJ’s mentors to see which authority they want us to serve.

   Before we get up from our seats to continue our journey, I will share another personal experience that fits what we are dealing with right now in this book. The day after looking at how BJ was trying to nullify some of God’s personal attributes because he doesn’t like them, someone in our home church shared from Hebrews 1:9. Speaking of Jesus from prophecy it states, “You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.” This is a quote from Psalm 45:6-7,

Your throne, O God, is forever and ever.
    The scepter of your kingdom is a scepter of uprightness;
    you have loved righteousness and hated wickedness.
Therefore God, your God, has anointed you
    with the oil of gladness beyond your companions;

   How does this fit so well into what we are examining of BJ’s claims? It unites the Old Testament Scriptures with the New. It shows God the Father’s approval of something about his Son. And it makes “you have loved righteousness” rhyme with “you have… hated wickedness.”

   This means that we cannot treat “Jesus loved righteousness” as a genuine trait and “Jesus hated wickedness” as an anthropomorphism. They are not in separate paragraphs, not even in separate sentences, and are only separated by an “and” which puts them in the same category. I share that partly to show that God’s word is clear about the Word, that Jesus loves and he hates equally, and partly to show that we should be meeting with God in his word every day and trying to find some other disciples of Jesus we can share our “treasures of wisdom and knowledge” with regularly. We will consistently see God bolstering our faith in what we have read by reinforcing it with the sharing of others.

   Now, back to the trail before us.

   BJ has listed a variety of people and sources for what he is teaching. He will include them as he elaborates on how we are to see God anthropomorphically. Under the heading, “Discoveries and Proposals: An Invitation”, he gives four bulleted points that invite us to see things his way (p. 54). As this is both the conclusion to chapter three and the intro to the rest of the book, let’s look at these in chart form so we can see what he claims and what I think about it. I will let you the reader decide which appears to be according to God’s word and will. 

BJ’s Invitations	Monte’s RSVPs
I invite you to reorient with me from Bible-centered reading toward Christ-focused seeking—to recognize that Jesus Christ is the Word of God and final authority for faith and practice.	No, we do not want to “reorient” from one to the other. Our orientation is to know Christ THROUGH the word, not apart from the word. We MUST be Bible-centered to be Christ-focused! Again, I denounce BJ’s false claim that when churches refer to the Bible as the “final authority for faith and practice” they mean in reference to Christ. That statement means that in the church where we are dealing with people, we only have the Bible (the manual Jesus left us until he returns) to guide everything we believe and do. His claim that we need to “reorient” from thinking of the Bible as this final authority to thinking of Jesus as the final authority is bogus because we already believe both of those, each in its biblical application.
I invite you to rediscover with me the Christ-centered riches in Scripture so that, in the Spirit of Emmaus, we’ll see the Bible in its entirety gesturing toward the living Lord.	No, we do not need to “rediscover” the Christ-centered riches in God’s word because we already found them. Learning more about them? Yes. Letting the word of Christ dwell in us more richly than ever? Yes. Even seeing that the Bible “in its entirety gesturing toward the living Lord? Yes. That’s what we already believe. But “rediscover” the Jesus BJ has found? No (at least not for me and my house)!
I invite you to appreciate with me the complexity, variety, and genius of Scripture as a polyphonic, multi-genred, epic drama of redemption climaxing in the incarnation of the divine Word.	“I invite you to appreciate with me the complexity, variety, and genius of Scripture”. Yes, I am doing that. Is Scripture “polyphonic”? If meaning that it is like an orchestra playing so many notes and instruments in harmony so we can barely contain ourselves with how they all sound together, then yes. However, if this allows for rogue instruments or voices that are dischordant with the sheet music (the Bible), then we will reject the counterfeit “polys” and hold to the real. Is Scripture “multi-genred”? Yes. It is history, poetry, prophecy, song, gospel, epistle, apocrypha, and in their polyphonic way they all speak of the same Triune God from beginning to end. Is it an “epic drama of redemption climaxing in the incarnation of the divine Word”? Yes. Does the Jesus BJ has found tell that story? Not so far as the journey has revealed, so we will keep confronting those things that are “another Jesus” and appreciate how carefully and completely God has given us his manual of truth so we can test all things.
I invite you to make an honest inquiry of how the so-called “toxic texts” function as a mirror13 that reveals the human condition and our habit of projecting our own un-Christlike images onto God, especially in the form of religious violence.	“I invite you to make an honest inquiry…”. Yes, that’s what we are doing. However, “the so-called ‘toxic texts’” are what Nehemiah described to his opponents, “No such things as you say have been done, for you are inventing them out of your own mind” (6:8). I deny the claim that the passages referred to are toxic about God, or that they are projected onto God by the biblical writers. I deny that there is anything “unChristlike” about God in the Scriptures. And I deny that God did anything “in the form of religious violence.” Those are all fabrications designed to justify the “another Jesus” BJ has found where he wanted to find him.

   This now leads into the next chapter: “‘What are We?’ Reframing Inspiration”. My RSVP’s to BJ’s invitations will continue with this as well, denying that we need to reframe our understanding of inspiration so that his “another Jesus” can tell us what parts of God we need to “correct”. In this, I am not referring to any particular statement of faith about “inspiration”, but defending what the Bible says about itself as telling us what to think of all the Scriptures, including the whole of the Old Testament.

   And here’s the interesting thing: We will need to use the Bible as “the final authority” for testing what BJ is going to say about his Jesus because neither BJ nor myself has an encounter with Jesus as our head that any of you readers are obligated to treat as authoritative!

   On the other hand, Jesus, the Word, has left us his word, and us servants who are awaiting his return sure better stick to his manual in testing everything because the manual tells us that we will face people teaching “another Jesus”, “a different spirit”, and “a different gospel” (II Corinthians 11:4). So when we see that staring us in the face, we sure better pick up the “sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Ephesians 6:17), and both defend the body of Christ and demolish the strongholds of false teaching that have only increased since Paul warned us about them.

 

© 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