Love and Law: Saved by Free Will from free will For Free Will

The Sanctuary Downtown / Relentless Love

“Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth,” said God to Adam on the sixth day of Creation. Imagine if my wife and I didn’t catch His “drift,” so to speak, and used our “knowledge” (scientific and technological knowledge) to “create” a life on our honeymoon night. At best, we’d create a monster — an animated corpse. In 1987, my father had emergency open heart surgery. I hopped on a plane and arrived at the hospital just after he had come out of that surgery. What I found was more horrifying than Frankenstein’s monster. The motions of life were being imposed upon his body by machines external to his body as if he were an animated corpse; he was on “life support.” I wondered where he was and if he was. Watching him come off of life support was one of the greatest experiences of my life. All the parts of his body began to miraculously do what they had been forced to do by the machines, as if each part suddenly and freely chose to be Dan Hiett. He opened his eyes, smiled, and said, “I love you.” It made me wonder, “What is Life?” It only takes a little reflection to realize that “the survival of the fittest” doesn’t explain life but rather the limitations of individual lives, that is, death. It’s something far more miraculous that would explain why one cell would sacrifice for a body full of cells, or why one member of a body would bleed its life into another member of that body, or one man would sacrifice his life for an enemy whom he called “friend.” That’s “the sacrifice of the Fittest.” Your life is literally a communion of sacrifice in freedom. And that’s where we ended our message last time. The Iron Giant chose to be “Super Man”; the fittest chose to be a vessel of mercy for humanity chose to be vessels of wrath. he chose to sacrifice himself for all that had made him their enemy; he was their scapegoat. Pieces of his body rained down all over the earth. People treasured those pieces (his grace created faith), then those pieces came to life and drew all of humanity to his wounded head, which smiled like my dad smiled when he came off of “life support.” I wept like a baby in the theater, not just because the Iron Giant was a living person, but because all who loved him (freely chose him) were no longer monsters but living persons, and not just individual persons but the body of one person — the Super Man, the “Eschatos Adam.” I wept because I realized that the Bible had said this all along: We are predestined for freedom; we will all freely choose to be who we truly are — The Eschatos Adam. 1 Corinthians 15:25, “For he (Jesus) must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death... When all things are subjected to him (God), then the Son himself will also be subjected to him (God) who put all things in subjection under him (Jesus)...” In the fourth century, Gregory of Nyssa argued that Paul must be referring to the subjection of Christ to His Father in us, His body. He subjects us to the Father from the inside out and in perfect freedom. Next verse, 1 Corinthian 15:28b, “...that God may be all in all.” It’s so clear, and Paul says it over and over again. And yet over and over again, people say, “That can’t be, for God has given us ‘free will.’” What is “free will”? A will… free from what? And free to what? The only thing free from everything would be nothing (“chaos”) or the Uncaused Cause. Free “from” and free “to”: We all want to be free to will whatever we want to will, but then find ourselves alone and unable to want what we have willed, for all that any of us really want is love — but love requires the existence of other free wills, that is, “persons” who might not will what we have willed. Was Adam created with a free will? Perhaps you’ve never met a fully created Adam. The first one could choose one thing over another thing, but he couldn’t choose the Good in freedom, for he didn’t know what it was. He found out what it was by taking the Good, which is evil. Which made him hide from the Good, which is bondage to evil. So, will he ever choose the Good in freedom? It’s actually everything our Father has been working for since the dawn of time: “Free Will” in Adam. “Free will” is so hard to talk about because it’s really not mentioned as such in the Bible. God says “choose” in the Old Testament. But no one seems to be able to choose the Good, unless they’re of “the house of Joshua” (Hebrew for ‘Jesus’) or have had heart surgery (“the circumcision of the heart”). In the New Testament, we discover that apart from the Grace of God in Jesus, we’re all “dead in our trespasses and the uncircumcision of our flesh.” Some English Bibles do mention “freewill offerings.” It’s one word in Hebrew, and it refers to a sacrifice, which is so weird, for who freely chooses to sacrifice? Actually, the Temple (Tabernacle) was to be built with “freewill offerings,” but Solomon and Herod built the stone temple with “forced labor.” Jesus said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” Because of our theory of penal substitution and absurd notions of justice, we actually think that in the temple, our Father was venting His anger toward us by torturing sheep and goats, drinking their blood, and consuming them with fire. That’s monstrous. The Temple was to be a national barbecue full of feasting, but . . . also blood rituals. The rituals were all about choosing life by surrendering life, for the life was in the blood, and for the nation to live, the life must flow from the throne and then back to the throne like a river. From outside-in that still looks rather monstrous.... On the Day of Atonement, the High Priest would take the blood of sacrifice behind the veil and sprinkle it on the “Atonement Seat” on top of the Ark between the cherubim to make “atonement” for the sins of the people. But it didn’t work, for then the High Priest was to confess the sins of the people over a goat — the Scapegoat — who would then bear “all the iniquities of the people” into the wilderness. Isaiah describes the Messiah as the Scapegoat. And at the end of Isaiah, He comes in from the wilderness and freely chooses to sacrifice Himself. He tramples the winepress alone, making blood that’s wine and wine that’s blood. The old stone temple operating under the law reminds me of my dad’s body on “life support.” And the church on Pentecost reminds me of my dad’s body, rising from the dead and smiling at me. “Destroy this temple and I will rebuild it in three days,” said Jesus, the Scapegoat. Like Isaiah, John describes Jesus as the Scapegoat . . . and as God, as if God were saying, “Blame the goat. I am the Goat. Now you have no one to blame but me. And you are the wilderness into which I have descended.” In the wilderness, John the Baptist cries, “Behold the lamb (In Hebrew, “lamb” can refer to goat or sheep, and Jesus is both, for He fulfills all the law) that takes away the sin of the world.” What’s the sin of the world? It goes back to that tree, which is also the atonement seat on the holy mountain and in the Sanctuary of your soul. When we took knowledge from the tree, we took the Life from the tree and began to call it our own. We are the wilderness into which the Life has descended like a Seed and in which He is entombed in death. But when He rises from the dead, He draws us back to the tree, where we see that what was taken has always been given — it’s fore-given from the foundation of the world. And the one forgiven much, loves much. “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His son to be the hilasmon [atonement on the Atonement Seat] for our sins.” Jesus is “the Life” returning to the Tree, like blood to the heart, and bringing us with Him. Do we have free will? God is Free Will, and His Will is Jesus. God is Love; Love is Free Will; Free Will is Jesus. I am His Body... and Bride. If I think love is a law (knowledge of Good and evil), I crucify the Christ; I rape my husband, and everything dies. I have created a monster, and together, we all create a beast: religion and politics. If I see that Love is the Life, who has always given Himself to me, I freely surrender myself: my empty self, my proud, and shameful self — I surrender myself to Him, and I bear the fruit of His Spirit in me. You can’t make Love, but when you surrender to Love, you will give birth to Love, and Love will fulfill the law in you — you will give birth to the true you and an entire new creation. And when this happens, you won’t be proud, you will be forever grateful. Free Will in you is Love in you, which is God in you, making you and all of us in His image from the inside out. Through you, He is being fruitful and multiplying and filling the earth. We are saved by Free Will from “free will” for Free Will. 1 Corinthians 15:58, “Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” Free will has us. We are the Free Will of God. We are His Creation. Having known the evil, we will forever choose the Good in freedom. You have been predestined for absolute Freedom. That’s Eternal Life. [Click here for a list of questions for reflection and/or discussion related to this sermon]