The Spirit of Jesus
Versus the Cultic Spirit

 

Note: This is a transcript of a taped message. Although writing can never imitate speech, I still try to use dashes, colons, commas, italics, etc. to convey the nuances of speech; I also inserted paragraph breaks and section headings for clarity.

 

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. Galations 5:1

Introduction

There was something about the Spirit of Jesus that brought him into conflict and irreconcilable conflict with Judaism. That we recognize, but what I'm going to suggest is that there is something also about the Spirit of Jesus that is antithetical to the Christian religion.

The Jewish- and the Christian Cult Jesus was born into a religious cult and was a member of that religious cult. I use the word "cult" in the proper and the technical sense of the word, as used by sociologists or historians and others. The members of the religious cult into which Jesus was born were clearly defined and demarcated from the rest of humanity by the practice of "Torah Piety": piety according to the Law. The three most prominent things which marked off the Jew from the rest of humanity were circumcision, Sabbath keeping, and kosher food. And these things alone—let alone all the other laws made it impossible for Jews to socialize with gentiles. Institutionally and legally, those inside the cult were clearly distinguished from those outside the cult.

We also need to recognize that the followers of Jesus became the Christian "cult." I don’t use the word in a pejorative way, but that is the simple fact of the matter:

Christianity became the Christian cult. Institutionalized... and its members became clearly marked, clearly demarcated legally, behaviorally, religiously—from the rest of humanity. That constitutes a cult.

Now it is true that Christianity has become divided divided into a number of Christian cults: The Catholic cult. Or the Lutheran cult. The Baptist cult. The Candle Light cult. The Amish cult. Now it’s true that we don’t generally apply the word cult to ourselves. It’s something we like to reserve for others.

And especially in evangelical circles... we have books such as The Chaos of the Cults. Or the Kingdom of the Cults—which is a critique of fringe movements or non-Christian religions like Hare Krishna and others. Now, they certainly are cults. But when we write or read books like that, we ought to also recognize that we, too, are members of the Christian cult and various branches of the Christian cult.

Now in the case of Jesus, we look at this cult, this religious cult into which he was born, where the people inside were very, very specifically labeled. They practiced Torah Piety. And those who did not, or were not careful to observe the Law, they were called "sinners."

They were:

The Galileans, whose cavalier attitude toward the Law was notorious. Then there were the prostitutes. They were out-and-out sinners... But in those days, further out... yet more renegade—even than [the prostitutes]--were the tax collectors.

And then the Samaritans, of course, they had their label. The Cult labeled the Samaritans. And to be a Samaritan was in the same category as a devil. Jesus’ critics said to him at one time, "You are a Samaritan and a devil." And he gave a lovely answer: he said, "I am not a devil." <light audience laughter> Do you get it? Wasn’t that kind to the Samaritan?

"You are a Samaritan and a devil!" And Jesus said, "I’m not a devil." < more light titters and giggles> And of course the gentiles, the Romans, and other gentiles... they had their label.

The Cultic Spirit And the Spirit of Jesus

Now, the Cultic Spirit always likes to label people especially if it’s a religious cult—with religious labels, because the label determines, it determines the way you relate to people. If you were a good Jew, you were inside the cult; you knew how to relate to others who were inside the cult. You knew you could eat with them, for instance. But if a person were Galilean, or a tax collector, you knew how far to stand back from them. And, of course, if he were a Samaritan or a gentile, you’d stand right back.

But there’s something about the Spirit of Jesus that calls this whole Cultic Spirit into question. There’s an amazing catholicity about the Sprit of Jesus. He completely ignored any religious distinctions. He related to people as people—as if those religious labels did not mean that much. He met them where they were; he brought them healing, or comfort, and forgiveness—where they were. He didn’t ask them to recite a creed, even to say a confession. He didn’t say, "before I can extend my fellowship to you..." take a person aside, and say, "I want to know what you think about the millennium." Or the Calcidonian [sic] Formula of the two natures of Christ. "What is your doctrine of the Trinity?"

Did he do that? No, he met all sorts of people, both inside the cult and clearly outside the cult. And he related to them without paying any attention whatsoever... to religious barriers and labels.

Now that in itself was a terrible threat to the [Jewish] cult. It called the existence of the cult into question. But more than that—and I can say worse than that—Jesus spoke well of those who were regarded as enemies of the cult. He had a good word for the Samaritan, for the Roman centurion, for the Syro-Phoenecian woman. In fact, he said "I have encountered in these people a faith I have not encountered in Israel! Their faith is superior to that of any in the church."

And when you talk like that... you remember in his home church in Nazareth, what did they try to do to him? They ran him out to the cliff, intending to do away with him. Because that sort of Spirit was a threat to the very existence of the cult!

Let’s use a little imagination [to see] how radical Jesus was being: It is like as if a prominent Christian teacher today were to stop off in Chicago, dine with a well-known Matthew figure, and then publicly declare that he is a child of God—born again Saul. Marvelous to fellowship with him. Then he goes over to Saudi Arabia, and he’s fellowshipping over there, with some Muslims. And then over to Burma, fellowshipping with some, ah, Buddhists. And... he makes the amazing statement: "I find in these people, I find in these people a faith far superior to anything I have encountered in the Christian church."

Now what a cathuthel [sic] that would cause in Christianity today. Feathers would be flying, wouldn’t they? His orthodoxy is certainly called into question, because they’re not supposed to be even "savable," apart from this special information of the Christian cult. Let alone to say their faith is even adequate, but maybe their faith is even superior!

As Kantrell [sic] Smith said in the essay recently published in Verdict: "we Christians seem to have a vested interest in the damnation of others." That somehow our sense of security depends on our certainty that they are damned unless they all get into the Christian ghetto!

But even worse than that, Jesus seemed to be more at home with non-religious people than he was with religious people. Isn’t that true? Those outside the community: the Galileans, yes, even prostitutes... and even worst of all, tax collectors! He was more comfortable with them, more at home with the non religious than he was with the religious. In fact, in many respects, Jesus didn’t seem to be very religious at all.

The Plain Truth About Jesus

I know we have the "pious, religious Jesus." But he never taught in a religious setting—not very often, at least. We have one account of him trying to teach and talk in a religious setting, and they ran him out to the cliff—and that was in his home church.

But mostly, it was in a secular setting, and when he taught, he—I’m gonna talk about this later—he wasn’t a Bible basher, either. He generally conveyed what he had to convey in stories, many of which were very entertaining. (Jesus was a great entertainer, too.) And he told some stories that were outrageously funny, to lampoon the piety of the pious, and to encourage the outcast.

In His Steps

So Jesus was more at home in a non-religious setting, using non-religious jargon; he didn’t very much use the religious jargon. He was very comfortable with non-religious people. Now, can you imagine today a good Baptist, a good Lutheran, a good Mennonite, a good Adventist—if you’re "good" in that kind of setting, you generally lived in your own world, in your own social circle, don’t you? "Birds of the feather flock together" kind of principle.

But what if you were known in your community, in your fellowship, to be really more comfortable outside than you were inside? But even worse than that, Jesus actually ate with tax collectors and sinners. Now in our western setting, of course, we don’t generally get the full impact of what that means. We think, "uh, well, that’s sort of, um, could be a social grace, in certain respects permissible." But as one scholar well said—he makes a statement on the significance of Jesus’ eating with such kind of people:

"to understand what Jesus was doing in eating with sinners, it is important to realize that in the East—even today—to invite a man to a meal was an honor. It was an offer of peace, trust, brotherhood, and forgiveness. In short, sharing a table meant sharing life.

In Judaism particular, table fellowship means fellowship before God; for the eating of a piece of broken bread by anyone who shares in the meal brings out the fact they all have a share in the blessing which the master of the house had spoken over: the unbroken bread.

So, in the setting of the East—and in Jesus’ day—when people ate together, they were saying "we forgive one another, we accept one another, there are no barriers between us, and together we have fellowship before God and share in the one life of fellowship."

Jesus’ eating with them shows he has already accepted them, he has already forgiven them. There are no barriers between him and those sinners with which he eats.

According to the Law—yes, the Law of the Old Testament—it was even unlawful to eat with such people. Jesus was clearly breaking the Law! But we press it further than that. Why did Jesus eat? These weren’t ordinary meals. These were banquets. Why banquets? Because Jesus came announcing the reign of God. And the reign of God is accompanied by God’s great end-time salvation. And according to the Prophets of the Old Testament, when the reign of God arrives, with his end-time salvation, there would be a great party in Israel. There would be unheard-of celebration. As Isaiah says in one place, why it’ll be so great, the time is coming when the Lord will make a Great Banquet. He himself will provide the banquet.

It'll be a great party, with the best cuts of meat and the best wine on the leaves—that doesn’t mean grape juice, silly. <laughter from audience>. And there will be unparalleled rejoicing to accompany the announcement of the reign of God.

So when Jesus comes, announcing the reign of God, the time has come to celebrate. He refuses to allow his disciples to fast like the disciples of John the Baptist. No fasting! The day has come to call the Banquet, to rejoice. And Jesus conveys the idea that in this end-time period, the party, the banquets have begun, so he goes around eating, drinking, calling banquets, and eating, and fellowshipping, and rejoicing in this salvation with the sinners, with the poor, with the oppressed, with the outcast, the tax collectors... And he said, "why, soon, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob themselves are gonna join this party."

It's like in Washington, D. C., during the week of the presidential inauguration. What happens? Before the final ball takes place, there’s party making. Why the whole city is in the spirit of celebration, isn’t it? And there’s partying all over the city of Washington. And it finally culminates in the great inaugural ball. Now in the setting of Jesus, the final consummation—when Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are gonna be there to join the fun!--well, that hasn’t quite arrived, but it’s pretty close. And the celebration, and the rejoicing, and the music, and the eating, and the drinking, and the Son of God there... yes, the great Representative of God—he is there!

And with him—surprise of all—all the "wrong" kind of people. <chuckling from audience>

Easy Repentance

Jesus is the life of the party. He’s a great story teller. He doesn’t Bible bash them. He tells them stories, legends—things to... engender the great spirit of rejoicing. And as I said before, some of the stories of Jesus are really outrageously funny. And you can hear that the party can be quite boisterous! And some critics say, "Hey! What’s going on in here with this Teacher? He’s a wine drinker and some kind of gourmet!"

And they weren’t saying he was a grape juice drinker, ‘cause there’s no criticism in that. And some, of course, were spies and gate crashers, maybe listening at the keyhole. And many of these folk never found anything to laugh and rejoice about. In fact, their faces were longer and longer, as they saw and heard what was going on. But as for the oppressed, the poor, those on the outside, the deprived, they were there... they could hardly believe their good fortune. And their repentance, well, it was a repentance of joy.

You know, in Judaism, it’s taught that repentance was very necessary. Now, there’s nothing wrong in that of itself. Judaism had a very, very clear doctrine of repentance. But in their doctrine of repentance, they admitted the possibility of folk outside the Law—you know, those recalcitrant Galileans, and others—they admitted the possibility of them being saved, if they repented; but in their understanding, repentance for such people was going to be very, very hard. And for tax collectors, it would be so hard as to be practically impossible.

But Jesus turns the whole thing around, and what happens is that the repentance for the sinners—people who were self-evident even to their own conscience, oppressed with a sense of helplessness and hopelessness—repentance for them is so easy that they find it scarcely without even seeking it! Because it’s the fellowship of Jesus and with Jesus. That brings them repentance. Rather than repentance opening the door to fellowship with Jesus, Jesus’ graciousness brings them a surprising and very easy repentance of joy.

And repentance turns out to be hard for the "good people." What a surprise. Now the whole Spirit of Jesus, the amazing catholicity that meets anyone, all people; it doesn’t regard any religious distinction at all. Labels mean nothing. Religious differences mean nothing.

This Spirit of Jesus that could see the good and the faith of those outside so-called "faith" and praise them. The Spirit of Jesus that could be at home with non-religious people, whether they had any religion or no religion, apparently made no difference. But he could embrace them in his fellowship and declare to them, "and yours is the kingdom of heaven," invite them to God’s end-time salvation, and to tell them that it’s their good fortune to sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of God.

The Spirit of Jesus who comes as the eating and the drinking man not to be an ascetic to hive up from the human race with a little group of people to be the "elect remnant" out there in the desert, separated from everybody else with a spirit of eliteness—but an amazing catholicity of Jesus to join the human race. And to embrace men everywhere without distinction.

Oh! What a threat to the cult!

Why, they saw the handwriting on the wall: either this man has to go, or the cult’s going to perish.

Spirit of Jesus A Threat To Christian Religion

Now there’s another very threatening aspect of the Spirit of Jesus. It threatens not only the religious cult of Judaism, but this Spirit of Jesus—I’m gonna suggest it’s equally a threat to the Christian religion. It wasn’t only a scandal then, it’s still a scandal today! Jesus Did Not Worship Scripture We turn to another facet of the Spirit of Jesus: it’s the way Jesus used the Bible.

And I’m going to be bold enough to suggest that we have in our heads these sort of pious traditions about how Jesus used the Bible, and how he’s a model for us (I wish he were a model for us). But, our presuppositions do not harmonize with the evidence.

First of all, let’s think of the way The Cult uses the Bible. In Judaism, religion is strictly controlled by Scripture. Any institution must have a written constitution. They saw in every way how their religion might be controlled by Scripture. Of course they had some oral traditions and other things, but for them, that only helped to explain the Bible and interpret the ancient Texts—to show how people in a modern sense could apply the ancient texts. In that they were no different form us.

And the Sadducees, they never believed in any oral traditions anyway. They just accepted the Law as it was stated. They were no less the opponents of Jesus.

The cult seeks to live out a religion strictly controlled by Scripture. But when we look at the evidence about Jesus, he of course accepted it as a Jew. He accepted the Old Testament as authority, but not in the same way as the religious cult.

To Jesus, the Old Testament which was the only Bible in existence was authority, but it not supremely authority.

The supreme authority... according to the New Testament story, Jesus again and again asserts his own authority above the Law, above the Torah, above Holy Scripture itself!

And where the situation demanded—because of the new thing God was doing—Jesus did not hesitate to go beyond what was strictly written in scripture.

And there was plenty of evidence that he could break Holy Scripture, and did do it on numerous occasions.

Why, read the Sermon on the Mount. He not only explicates and radicalizes certain texts, but he contradicts others. He said, "you have heard that it was said, and this is what it says in the Bible... the scripture says ‘an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth,’ but I say unto you, don’t you behave that way at all."

What about that? And the Bible says—the only Bible in existence—said to the Jews "you shall not eat unclean foods; there is a distinction between the clean and unclean foods." And Jesus comes along, according to Mark, and he declares all foods clean. And then he said, "you have heard that it’s said of old time, ‘he that would divorce his wife must give her a bill of divorce,’ but I say unto you, don’t you behave that way at all. That’s not what you are to live by."

A Jew would say, "aren’t we to live by scripture?" Jesus says "no, that is not sufficient, and it is not adequate, and it is not the way of my kingdom." And the scripture says, "you have heard it said of old time, and it’s written in the Scripture, ‘be careful to perform your vows,’ but I say unto you don’t make any at all."

Jesus asserts his authority as supreme; he doesn’t teach on the authority of "the Bible says." He doesn’t teach even on the authority like an ancient prophet: "thus saith the Lord." But what’s his favorite saying? "I say unto you." He’s not a rabbinic teacher, standing under the Text, being a servant of the Text. Jesus does not come to be the servant of Holy Scripture. He turns the whole thing around, and he makes Holy Scripture the servant to himself, and it’s a witness to him.

"And life is not in that," he said to the Jews. "You search the Scriptures because you think that is where you get Eternal life; but that is a witness to me." He is eternal life.

Moreover, Jesus used the Bible quite freely in places. He teaches things not in the Bible, and beyond whatever you might find in the Old Testament. These are new teachings. Certainly, he can go back to the Old Testament and take out stories and images to try and explicate and illustrate the new thing that God is doing. But Jesus’ teaching is clear beyond the bounds of scripture.

And mostly, when he teaches, he doesn’t even take his point of departure from the Bible. But he begins with a story, something in contemporary life. And thus he teaches.

You Don’t Need the Bible

And perhaps most surprising and shocking to most of us Christians: I can find no evidence in the story that Jesus taught his followers to live strictly by the Bible. It’s not there. The only thing he seems to exalt is that they study the Scriptures to see there a witness to himself—not as a rulebook by which to live by.

He has now become the Living Shepherd, the Living Torah. Search through the record; read the story. Why isn’t Jesus like Judaism, contemporary Judaism? Running around everywhere with the text. Why isn’t he like modern Christians? "The Bible, The Bible, The Bible." "You must live by the Bible, You must live by the Bible." "You must live out of the Book." It's not there conspicuous by its absence.

And when Jesus meets with his disciples for the last time, to give his final instruction, he’s telling them he’s about to leave and they’re very sad. Does he comfort them by saying, "There’s going to be something to take my place. After I leave, you’ll have it written out, and you are to live by the book!" The amazing thing, he says nothing about scripture, nor even the importance of it!

He doesn’t commission the writing of the New Testament; he says nothing about that. He doesn’t even tell his disciples to write it out after his departure. And the Gospels weren’t written for 40 or 50 years after his resurrection anyway. Most of that by second- and third-hand witnesses. No, Jesus doesn’t really exhort his people to live like Judaism, a religion strictly controlled by the book and by the instruction of the book. And neither do the apostles.

They use the Bible like Jesus: to be a witness to Jesus. They interpret it sometimes quite liberally, quite freely in the service of the Gospel. That's their hermeneutic.

And more than, read the whole book of Romans. Where in the book of Romans does Paul exhort the Roman community the importance of even living out of the Bible? He doesn't mention it. Read the epistles of John, where he confronts heresy, and he wants to protect the church from error. Why doesn't John in 1 John, 2 John, 3 John for goodness sake!--Why doesn't he say something about "if only you'd study the Bible, you would be protected"?

He says nothing about it. It's conspicuous by its absence. Hey, what's going on here? And most surprising of all, look at the Galations situation. Paul goes down to Galatia. The gentile people, they don't have an Old Testament background. He preaches the Gospel, not by explicating texts; he tells what God has done: his action in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ; and the witnesses, they received the Spirit.

Then back in Jerusalem there are other Christians, they are scandalized by what Paul is doing: "He simply preached the Gospel; these people have become believers in Jesus, but Paul is a very deficient evangelist. He hasn’t told these people how to live as Christians!"

So what do they do? They tuck their bible under their arm you know, the Hebrew bible and they race off to Galatia, and say "yeah, Paul has brought you to the Gospel, but he hasn't told you how you ought to live. And here is the book that you are to live by. You are to live by this book. You are to live out of this book."

You know one of the amazing things in the book of Galations? That again and again Paul uses the terms "the Law" and "the Scripture" interchangeably. "The Law" means "Jewish scripture," "Hebrew Bible" if you like "Holy Scripture." Take your bible, [and] go home if you want a real shock. See in Galations 3: 19-25, and in Galations four, verses twenty down to about thirty, where Paul repeatedly uses the expression "the Law" and "the Scripture" interchangeably. In Galations 3, he says "the scripture has locked up, has imprisoned all men under sin," and in the very next verse he says "the Law imprisons all men under sin." And then in Galations 4, he said "tell me, you who desire to be under the Law, don't you read what the Law says? It is written `Abraham had two sons..." And further down he says "the scripture says `cast out the bondwoman.'" So Paul... goes one to the other. Now what does that mean?

Are you daring to draw the conclusion?

Living Under the Scripture Isn't Living Under the Spirit!

To live and use the book religion, a Law religion, a legal religion like Judaism imprisons. It's a prison house of people. It makes them bite and devour one another. But now that Christ has come, now that the Spirit has come, now that we are in the new age of Jesus Christ, you are no longer under the supervision of the Torah—which means what?--Holy Scripture! And if you live by the Spirit, you're not under the Law!

It’s time we wake up, Christians. [The term "The Law"] meant the [same] Holy Scripture the Judaizers, or Jewish Christians, brought down to Galatia! Paul said "we’re not going back to that system." Now it's true that Paul could use scripture, but not like that. Not as a rule book, as a constitution, as a book of rules that you follow, and you followed out rigidly, blindly to the letter. But he could use the scripture, of course, as a testimonial to Christ and use it in the service of the Gospel. But not, but not, I repeat, as a rigid, inflexible rulebook of human behavior. And, I say, where did Paul get that freedom from? Where did he get that spirit of using the bible like that? He got it from Jesus!

Jesus, he was the audacious one, if you don't like that. And can't you see that Jesus used the bible like that? He dethroned it from its supreme supremacy, and he made his spirit, he made himself supreme. And he made the bible the servant of himself. And he used it in the service of the Gospel. And sometimes freely! Taking scriptures I'll even be radical enough to say, look at the evidence he even would even take some scripture out of context if it suited him in the service of the Gospel or some argument.

That was the great battle in Galatia. Now that Spirit of Jesus Christ, that freedom with which he not only related to people and ignored all those religious distinctions, but that freedom with which he used the scripture and showed them how the New Age has come and it is no longer necessarily the supreme rigid Law, but he himself, the living Spirit, the resurrected one, an always-living presence with his people... to set the image of Jesus before your mind, to be impacted by the Spirit of Jesus Christ, and to live, in faith, in his living presence, with his image set before your mind, and then to interpret all things, including the bible, in that light, and in the service of his gospel, that's the way to live.

That's a breathtaking freedom. It was too much for the cult. That called it into question. That would destroy; it would destroy traditional Judaism if this thing were allowed to go on.

Let me say, it will destroy traditional Christianity, too. And so the conclusion was He must go. Either he goes or the whole religious cult would perish.

And thus the Great Battle was joined.

 

Jesus' People-Centered

All who rely on observing the law are under a curse; The law is not based on faith Galations 3:10,12

Introduction

This is my final opportunity now to infect you with a spirit that will really make you dangerous in the religious scene. And I take up the area of the ethical spirit of Jesus. We see here the great clash between the religious Cult and his spirit. We’ll see a great difference between the way the Cult defines right and wrong and the way Jesus looked at right and wrong.

Cults Obsess Over Sin As always, where you have a religious cult, sin has to be defined legally (you know, even membership is a legal thing in the Cult). And right and wrong has to be "written down" and defined legally. And sin is law based. The attitude, the concept of sin is law based—a law-based concept of sin.

On the other hand, Jesus’ concept was not based on the law, the written code; but his whole approach to the question of right and wrong was people centered and people oriented. You see this illustrated, of course, in the account of the Gospels in Jesus healing the man with the withered arm:

Here were the good guardians of the cult, with their Torah, waiting for Jesus to break the norm, to break the rules - because it was the Sabbath day. And here Mark makes a surprising statement: "Jesus looks upon them with anger." He saw the hypocrisy of it. Why? They didn’t care one whit about that poor man! Their concern was not for people; their concern was to maintain the rule of the cult! (Because, always, where you have a religious cult, the supreme sin is to break the cultic taboo, whatever it happens to be.)

And they were waiting for Jesus to break the rule. And he certainly did. He said, "you hypocrites!" He was angry because [of] their insensitivity and lack of compassion for people. He said, "you hypocrites! You yourself break the Sabbath in order that you can circumcise a man on the eighth day." In other words: "you would even be willing to cut off a little bit of skin. You’ll break the Sabbath to do that! And here, you call me into question because I give a man wholeness and restore his arm."

What happens in the cult is that ethics becomes terribly distorted. It sends people on a flea hunt. <audience laughter> Looking for specks of sawdust, when they can’t see the great redwood log! That’s how distorted Jesus says [is their] whole concept of right and wrong. The speck of sawdust becomes bigger to you, more important than a whole redwood log.

And what happens is that sin becomes trivialized.

Talking the Talk Oh, yes. There’s lot of talk in every religious cult. Their favorite thing to preach about often is sin. Lots of talk about sin. Witch hunting against sin. Sin! Sin! Sin! Such talk against sin. But all that really does is trivialize it. Because everything becomes totally distorted.

The big sin, of course, is whatever breaks the cultic taboo. I’m sure the Jews can get some justification from stories in the Old Testament... and that type of thing.

Here is Samson in the Old Testament, who is surprisingly frank—not [much] different from our western culture. But it tells us about Samson: it says he sleeps with a harlot all night and he does things that are quite scandalous but it doesn’t seem to affect him. He goes out in the morning, picks up the big gates, throws them away as if they're nothing. And someone cuts the hair of his chinny-chin-chin, and he's had it. <audience laughter>

In contrast, the amazing thing is that Jesus rarely uses the word "sin." That’s a surprising thing as you really read the Gospels: he often avoids religious jargon. But certainly he doesn’t have any theories of sin. He doesn't tell whether supports the Triducean [sic] theory (I'm referring a little bit of church history here) of sin, of how it originates, nor the creationist theory, nor the federal nor governmental theory of sin, or the imputation of Adam s transgression and how it works either federally or governmentally. Do you know the difference? Well, you ought to! <Brinsmead chuckles to himself> He asked none of that!

Of course, they wanted to know in his day theories of sin. They'd meet a blind man: "Now," they said, "how does the theology of sin work with this blind man? Did he sin or did his father sin?" You know they wanted to know all the theories of sin.

Jesus wipes it all aside. Parable as Moral Critique And the surprising thing is, to expose evil, he tells stories in which he turns the whole world upside down. Now I want you to get the central thrust of all the stories of Jesus. What’s he getting at?

He tells the story of two debtors. And, of course, this he does to expose how they can’t see where real evil is. They were chasing the specks of sawdust, you see. They were straining at the gnat, waiting for people to break the cultic taboo. They couldn’t see the log!

"Now," he said, "there were these two debtors. Now the first one, he owed his boss millions of dollars." That’s what it means in this setting. He was millions of dollars in the red. He had stomach ulcers worrying about it. He was taking sleeping pills...

The boss heard about it. He said, "Listen, Jack, forget about it. I can cover that. I’ve got resources to meet that. Let’s go on. Our friendship means more than that debt. Come on, now! Forget it! Throw your sleeping pills away. You’re free!"

Why, Jack oughta gone out so free, he oughta had springs in his legs. Now when he meets Bill, who owes him a few dollars, he oughta been, "forget about it, Bill! Instead of giving me those just miserable 10 bucks, here’s 10 more!" On his way, he goes.

No, someone owes him just, just an insignificant thing. And you know what he did? No spirit of forgiveness. Now Jesus says, "that’s what you Jews are like." It's this spirit of alienation, this attitude of others, with which you relate to others—that’s the big thing that makes you so unlike your Father in heaven and keeps you alienated from God.

And then there’s, the Pharisee and Tax Collector story. Now the Pharisee, no doubt about it, he’s a good fellow. He does everything the Law says he ought to do. And he even has enough humility to thank God that he’s not like the tax collector.

Now Jesus says, this self security of the good Pharisee and his attitude toward others who are not within the cult it's more of an offense to God, it’s more of a distortion of what man is meant to be. It separates and alienates you from God more than the scandalous behavior of the tax collector. It's far, far worse!

In the story of the elder brother, the older brother, who always does what’s right, he’s in a worse position—it’s harder to reconcile him to the Father—than the boy who lives with harlots and eats with pigs!

And I could go on with all the stories of Jesus. What he is showing is [that] the attitude toward others—the thing that alienates you from sympathy, from compassion, from solidarity—the thing that alienates you from your neighbor, that’s the thing that alienates you from God. That’s the big log that you’re not seeing in your preoccupation with rulebook religion.

You see the thrust of the people-centered ethic?

But what is the essence of this spirit of alienation, which he says is the great evil? It's embodied in The Cult. Because the religious cult is simply the expression, the corporate expression, the institutionalization, the legitimization of that spirit! So the spirit of the Cult so far as being a bulwark and a defense against evil, a protection against sin—the spirit of the Cult itself is the expression par excellence of the thing that separates man from God. You see the point?

What an exposure! What a threat to the Cult—at its very heart. Of course the challenge of Jesus is just applicable to the Christian Cult, with their biblicism, with their institutionalization of the Christian religion. Wherever you have an institutionalization .. all institutionalization is based upon the genius of law, and constitution, and a code of conduct. And whatever the religious situation is, where people live in the religious cult, the supreme sin always is that which breaks the special thing of the cult.

Look, if I said I'm gonna begin a new Christian thing... Jesus said, ‘if the eye offends you, cut it out.’ Okay? Pluck it out. Now we have to do something drastic to prevent our eyes seeing things that we ought not see. So what we need is a special form of dark glasses that will prevent you to see anything evil. All ‘right? This, of course, proves that we are better than anyone else. We are the elite people of God. Because the sign that we are the true people of God—of course this is ridiculous, but I’m using an illustration. We all wear a certain type of dark glasses that distinguishes us from everyone else: those within from those without, the sinners from the non-sinners... here we are. We are the special people. We wear the dark glasses.

Now, naturally, in that sort of situation, what would be the sin par excellence in that group? Forget about being unkind, uncompassionate. You could be as judgmental as you like. In fact, you go around, judging everyone who doesn’t wear your dark glasses. The sin par excellence is not to wear dark glasses!

You see? It always happens. In a religious cult, the supreme sin is to break the taboo; and how it becomes magnified!

Irony of Christianity <Brinsmead segues into a story>

There was a Jewish rabbi and a Roman Catholic priest who became close friends, [they were] even [on a] first-name basis: Benjamin and Patrick. And when they got chummy, the rabbi and the priest, ah!

Patrick said to the rabbi: "Benjamin, I’d like to ask you something. Be honest. Fess up now. Have you ever tasted how delicious ham is?" And the rabbi, said "yep, I’ll be honest." He said, "I’ve eaten ham."

"Now," said Benjamin; here was Benjamin’s chance. "Ah," he said to the Catholic priest—you guessed it! He said "I want to know something. You be honest with me now. Come on," he said. "Confess up." Benjamin said, "have you ever experienced sex?"

And the priest said, "well, I’ll be honest." He says, "I have."

And the Rabbi says, "better than ham, isn’t it?" <audience laughter>

I once dined with a Lutheran couple (I’ve been preaching in a Lutheran church as a guest speaker) we were having lunch together. They were an elderly couple. They must have thought I was a Lutheran:

They were very sad. They had a great sorrow of heart. They began to tell me a thing that was like a grey cloud over their lives: They brought up a son in "The Truth." The right way. The right faith! And he departed from it. It was too much for them to bear. "Oh," I said, "what has he done?"

They said, "he’s become a Prebysterian minister. <audience giggles>

"And he doesn’t believe, Mr. Brinsmead, he doesn’t believe The Supper as we do."

Ah, it was too much for them to take. But I was in an embarrassing position. Because I didn’t know whether to laugh in my soup or to cry in my soup, because I don’t believe the Lutheran view of the supper either. So what could I say to comfort these people?

Well, I said, "There’s some positive sides. Think about this: I mean he could be worse than a Presbyterian." <audience laughs> I said, "has turned his back on Christ? I mean, has he left the Christian faith altogether?"

"Oh, no, he hasn’t done that... but he doesn’t believe The Supper... How could he?

You see, that’s the great reason d’etre of that branch of the Christian church. Now, I’m not singling Lutherans out for criticism, but whatever makes you special and separate from everyone else, if you are in that community and if you transgress, if you call that into question—all the sins that you could commit in the world against your fellow man seems to be insignificant compared with that.

There was this certain young Adventist fellow. He’d gone out into the world, went into drugs, he went into immorality... he just about did everything. And his health was broken; he was trying to find his way back, and he still had some dignity left: "well," he said, holding his head high, "at least I never did eat pork." <audience laughter>

Look at the whole history of the Christian movement. Christianity is inherently, the Christian religion is inherently a very intolerant religion. And if we haven’t seen it’ we’re blind to our own history. Persecution, oppression, repression has not been the exception. It is the norm for the whole of Christianity—Catholic and Protestant.

I haven’t got time to digress to give all the instances of all the leading thinkers for nearly 2,000 years. And victory for religious intolerance is not largely the fruit of Christianity, but often of the enlightened, of liberalism, of the deists in this country and so on.

The Great, Pious Luther Had A Potty Mouth

You take that great man Luther. You know Luther himself said, "to sin against faith," he said, "that is big." That is something! That is very serious. "To sin against charity, that is nothing." So anybody who didn’t agree with Luther about the Supper, he could pull the tablecloth up before Zingli [sic], write on it the Latin "hopeless me! I’m costless [sic] this is my body." Jump up from the table, pull the tablecloth up, hold it up before his Christian brother, and say "I won’t listen to your logic; I won’t listen to your reasoning. If God says I should eat dung, I shall eat dung."

And Zingli holds out his hand and says, "well, at least you’re Christian. Let’s shake hands." He wouldn’t even shake hands. To sin against charity, to Luther, was nothing.

Why, as for the Anabaptists, MaLanthum [sic] draws up a document—gentle MaLanthum!--that not only the radical, revolutionary ones, but the peaceful Anabaptists assigns the thing and writes a document that they ought to be put to death. And Luther himself signs it.

Luther rails against Anabaptists—anyone who doesn’t agree with him on the supper or this or that. He can rail against people, other Christians, in language which is diabolical! With dreadful curses and insults, which is embarrassing! Luther takes up his pen against the king of England, calls him a big fool, an idiot that infants ought to mock. And as for those outside the Christian faith—Jews and Muslims—what Luther says is not safe to print.

Even a great soul like Luther, he was so distorted! Western Christianity elevated dogma. Oh, how many people have been executed, because they even questioned a certain aspect: the very, very philosophical doctrine of Trinity was called into question in the Protestant Era and a boy, a mere eighteen-year-old boy, was sentenced to death.

Even though they had an edict of toleration, they paid no attention to it; he questioned the doctrine of Trinity, and the poor kid repents, and he pleads for mercy, but it doesn’t matter. They hang him!

To sin against dogma, ohhh, that’s it. You see how the thing can become distorted? It’s even said of the great Wesley: Wesley was very disturbed about the blasphemous use of God’s name, but not disturbed about the blasphemous use of God’s creature in that Industrial revolution that was abusing the children and oppressing the poor.

There’s a great distortion here. The same distortion that Jesus, of course, unveils and tries to unmask. We ourselves have been guilty of the same kinds of distortion. And we, too, trivialize sin.

Movies: Better Sermons Than those in the Pulpits

Oh, yes, there’s a lot of preaching against sin, but I want to tell you this: don’t be fooled by a lot of raging and huffing and puffing against sin. Within the cult, it’s mostly a trivialization of sin.

And I want to suggest that even the movie industry, if you watch some of those good films, they can give you a better, far more insightful unmasking of human hypocrisy and evil than can the Christian pulpit. Now isn’t that something? The movie industries are better preachers against evil. They understand it far better than those with the cultic mentality.

If you see a movie, like, uh, "Network." Maybe you’ve never seen anything like that. You’re too unworldy, to spiritual. But Howard Bill [sic] acts the part of the "mad prophet of the airwaves." And this fellow, who’s quite mad, he rages against evil in this country. He wants to expose it; he’s crying out against sin. And then comes to his great punchline: "I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take it anymore. And I want everybody who’s listening to my voice, get up right now, and say with me ‘I’m made as hell, and I’m not gonna take this anymore.’

"And go the window," he says, "and cry out to the night air. Come on!" And then you see the big condominium, windows begin to open, and one woman, she sticks her head out the window, and you hear her shrilly voice, "I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take it anymore." <laughter> And a big fellow, he puts his head out, and says "I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take it anymore." Voices all over the country, the cheerleaders of the Mad Prophet of the Airwaves.

Of course the comic irony of it is, and what the film exposes is neither the Mad Prophet nor those who cheer him on have any real idea what evil is or where it is. Now, I’m gonna be scandalous enough to suggest if you want to hear Mad Prophet of the Airwaves, turn on some of those religious programs. <laughter> You can find them all the time. There they are! Haven’t you ever seen them there?

"It’s time to stand up against the evil that is tearing the fabric of our nation! We must take a stand! It’s time to stand up against the secular humanists! It’s time to stand up against these liberals and put prayer back into the school and godly men in the nation!"

And there’s "glory, hallelujah!" You have the faithful applause, right? That’s no exposure of evil, that’s just trivialization. The movie industry has a better insight into evil than that.

Look at "One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest." <laughter> They’re better preachers. If you want preachers against sin, have a look at that. Have a look at the Australian film, "Breaker Marant" [sic]. Oh, what evil is: the hypocrisy of bureaucracy. When good men carry out the letter of the law and prove how righteous they are—that’s when the real evil is done.

Isn’t that amazing?

Distortions, the cultic distortions that come about. But Jesus, of course, with his people-centered ethic, this spirit of Jesus, that will even bend the rule or break the rule, suspend the rule, whether it’s in the bible, whether it’s in the tradition of the cult—if the needs of people, if compassion demands it, Jesus subordinates everything to the needs of people. That’s the ethic of Jesus.

And when you look at his catholicity of spirit, the way which he uses the bible—a freedom from all bible bashing and biblicism (none of that about Jesus). Bible bashers make people uncomfortable, make outsiders uncomfortable. Jesus never did that. And his ethic, of course, which lampoons the supposed "sin," the legal-based view of sin, which only makes people judgmental of others, alienates them from their brother... why, to live in that cult and to live in the spirit of that cult, that’s the essence of evil.

Because, whether it’s in the Christian ghetto or the Jewish ghetto—I don’t care; it doesn’t make any difference—you put up your religious and often very ridiculous distinctions, and by this demonstrates your elitism and superiority over the rest of mankind: this is the thing that makes you unlike God.

It’s the spirit of the cult that Jesus’ Spirit opposes. Of course the [Jewish] cult saw the handwriting on the wall: "he’s worse than Herod! He’s worse than the Romans! He must go!" And so, armed with the Law, they put him to death, and they had—I want to make this point clear—they had good legal grounds to put Jesus to death, because he really broke the Law. And it says there in the Law, "cursed is everyone who doesn’t do everything written." And Jesus didn’t always do it. When the needs of people demanded iIt, he would break or bend a written code. He said man was not made for Sabbath. Sabbath must serve the needs of people. He turned the whole thing around.

So, armed with the Law, they said Jesus must die! They said we have a law and by our law, he ought to die. He’s numbered with the transgressors, not as a I used to think: a sort of imaginary imputation of God, where God counts him as one who broke the Law and he didn’t really break it all. In the eyes of the Law, the inflexible written code, Jesus is no different from a murderer, an adulterer, a thief. So, armed with the Law, the Cult puts Jesus to death.

The Real Significance of Jesus Now, what does the resurrection mean? The resurrection shows us that this is not the end of the Spirit of Christ; but by his death, and the dissolution that takes place in his death through his raising up in his resurrection, his Spirit is released. His living presence into the all the world. It’s just the beginning!

But what happens to the cult that puts him to death, and the Law that puts him to death? The death of Jesus is not the end of Jesus: it’s the end of the cult; it’s the end of the Law. That’s what Ephesians 2 says: By his death, he breaks down the wall of partition; he knocks down all of those religious things, and even the Law—with its commandments and ordinances—that old way, that old spirit has to go!

And what does Jesus do? As Conselman [sic] says in his excellent little book on Jesus, the message of Jesus is something which detaches the individual from the cult! [In Christ alone is] where he finds his security, and opens him up to his neighbor by making love possible.

Isn’t that beautiful? That’s what Jesus does, is detach you from the cult, from the security from the spirit of that cult; it gets you out from that little wall of partition, living all behind there, practicing your cultic, religious distinction. It brings you out from that. It opens you up to the whole human race; it opens you up to your neighbor, and thereby makes love possible.

But as long as you’re in the cult, imprisoned by the spirit of the cult, love is not possible. Because you’ve been alienated by the cult from your fellow man. You are forced to be judgmental, you are forced to be separated from the human race. You have not truly joined the human race and so on...

The $64 Question Now here is the vital question that we have to wrestle with: Did Jesus overthrow that cult at such a price to himself in order that his followers set up another one and found the Christian religion?

I want to suggest it was not Jesus who founded the Christian religion, nor the Christian Church as we know it. It has been a great detour of history, and to a very large extent, a distortion and a misinterpretation of the true intent and Spirit of Jesus.

The Best-Kept Secret in Christian History And I’m not alone in saying this. If I had the time, I could cite some of the best Roman Catholic authors and scholars today and some of the best Protestant scholars today, who say today, we are facing the dissolution of western Christianity; and there’s a growing consensus [that] it wasn’t the intent of Jesus to found a religious organization with a legal membership; it was not the intent of Jesus to found such a religious cult. It was a misunderstanding of the Spirit and intent t of Jesus, or as Consulman [sic] says in his book, "Jesus did not overthrow the Jewish sect in order to establish a Christian one."

"But" you say, "there’s some justification in the New Testament. Doesn’t the New Testament give some support for this development of the organization and the institutionalization of the Christian Church?" I’ll be frank enough to admit you can find evidence and support for that in the New Testament. Although, the total evidence... it looks now—‘cause there’s such diversity in the NewTestament; if you look at Stephen and some of the things Paul said and did (he refused to carry legal credentials from the Jerusalem church, because his idea of authority was charismatic, not organizational)... and various other things in there.

If you look to the message of Hebrews, that holds up before the Christian the model of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in tents. And he gives the appeal, "Let’s leave the camp and go out to where Jesus is." There ‘s evidence in the New Testament that points in another direction [than tradition].

If we take this view that every witness in the New Testament says pat exactly the same thing, then we miss the whole thing. There is evidence of going down the road of institutionalization and more rigid control, because as the Christian movement grow... There is evidence that some of the leaders of the church lose their nerve, because they can’t get rid of this cultic spirit, even of Judaism. They want to impose their cultic spirit upon gentile Christians. And as disorder and false teachers confront the Christian church, they try to bring in more law and order—and lose faith in the Spirit. And certainly retreat from the radical freedom of Jesus.

A little bit like the children of Israel, camped at Mt. Sinai: you remember, Moses was up in the mountain and did not come back again when they thought he should; they take their model from Egypt and make up schemes to get to Canaan by other means. Did the Christian church do that? There’s evidence; yes, they did.

A Church Off Track But if what I say is true, we’ve gone on a long, long detour in the Christian religion. It’s not good enough to just go back to the Reformers. We’ll have to go right back again.

But if you’re going to say these earthen vessels [the Reformers, and other Christian giants] are absolutely inerrant and infallible (which they themselves don’t claim to be; we don’t know who even wrote most of the documents—the Church did, of course...individuals in the Church, and the Church put them in [the canon]). But if wer’re going to take the rigid position that the documents [are infallible] then there’s nothing more to say.

All I can say is that Jesus came, promising the electrifying message and the freedom of the kingdom of God—and, lo, what takes place? We have this dull Christian Church arise, as the fulfillment of his promise. And we shut up to the fact that the best we can expect now is reformers coming along, like Luther, to overthrow one form oppression and replace it with another. Why, he spoke about the clergy and the monks of his day—the religious professionals. Luther says they’re like fleas on the Almighty’s fur coat. But if that be true, then he brought in some other kinds of fleas: Protestant ones.

And that’s what we’ve had: People engaged in exodus from one form of fundamentalism and they go back into another! (There’s no difference.) And today’s liberators become tomorrow’s oppressors!

Is that the best we can hope for? Is that the true expression of the Spirit of Jesus? I don’t believe it is. The Spirit is against the Jewish cult, is against the Christian cult—it burst through all of that. There is a catholicity, a scandalous catholicity about it. Doesn’t the world need that today, torn apart, facing nuclear holocaust?

The world doesn’t need religion; It’s not gonna help the world to bring them into the Christina cult. We can work our tails off, trying to make Christians of everybody. I think the evidence ought to point to the fact that God doesn’t.

"But Christians Must ‘Belong,’" You Say Someone says to me, "but you must belong." The Cult comes on and says, "but you have to belong somewhere." The problem with the Cult is that they won’t let you belong! That is, they won’t let you belong to the human race. They insist that you have to go into some silly sectarian prison, erect your midwall of partition that separates you effectively from the human race, and hive off into some special, elitist group somewhere that keeps you separated from the human race.

Of course we ought to belong—where Jesus belongs. He belonged to the human race: God so loved the world that he gave him to the human race. And those who have the Spirit of Christ will embrace the human race, without distinctions and religious barriers. What the world needs today is to be infected with that Spirit of Jesus that will free us from all that elitism, and arrogance, and sectarianism, and biblicism, and law-based morality, and free us for others. And bring us from behind that false security. And open us up to our neighbor, making love possible.

I had one pious fellow ask me the other day, "but where do you fellowship?" No, he didn’t say that. He put the emphasis on "where do you have regular fellowship?" Well, I have to admit, at the moment I don’t have regular fellowship with Christians. And I’ll be frank enough to admit I’m more comfortable with nonreligious people than I am in the religious ghetto. It’s very stuffy in there. But he said to me, "Where do you have regular fellowship?" I said the only regular fellowship I really have is with a group of workmen. We just get together once a week. No one professes their particular religion. We’re just a group of pagans. <laughter> We talk about everything: Jesus, politics, economics—no barriers. We accept each other. Marvelous! That’s great fellowship. I’m more at home there.

"But," he said, "how do you practice the Lord’s Supper?"

I said, "we have a bit of Luther’s libation. That’s what we have." I said, "I prefer Heineken’s. We have Heineken’s and potato chips." <laughter and clapping> Doesn’t sound too good, does it? Looks like I’ve done to the devil.

But I tell you what. That’s a marvelous feeling to join the human race. When I was practicing my particular religious piety, they couldn’t even give me meat. But somehow, things are a lot different these days. The biggest problem I have is I get invited to so many parties, that my waistline is not looking too good. <laughter>

Conclusion

But I think the day of the old Christian Ghetto is over. I have no desire to get people into it, I wouldn’t wish it upon them. And what the world needs today is to get infected with a new spirit. Look at how the world is torn apart religiously. Look at the spirit in Ireland and Lebanon: it’s religion. It’s fanaticism. It’s fundamentalism. You can go to the greatest trouble spots there are. It’s not just racial; it’s religious.

And for the sake of the "truth," bodies are being ground up everywhere. Astonishing things being done in God’s name in the world. What do we need? A new approach.

Let’s have faith in the Spirit. The Spirit of Christ, not just the attitude of Christ. The resurrection is the living presence. Let’s believe he is alive! That we can be infected by his spirit. Let’s go out into the world, like those first Hellenists; let’s go out into the world and infect our fellowmen with a new spirit. They can be responsive. Often, people are responsive to the Spirit of Christ who’ve never heard the information on the historical Christ. And in a very real sense, wherever men respond to the Spirit, they are before God real believers in Christ, and will rise in the judgment and condemn many Christians who had certain theological information and were foreigners to that Spirit.

That is the freedom we need, and that will open up a new day.