Job, the resurrection, and his redeemer.

Job 19.25-27.

Same as my article “Dem bones,” you might be thinking, “What does the book of Job have to do with advent?” And again: Resurrection is part of Jesus’s second coming, and in this passage Job speaks of the resurrection.

Job was written in the fourth century before Christ. A lot of Evangelicals think it’s a way older book; even that it predates Abraham and the writing of Genesis! This, despite the fact every scholar can tell you it can’t have been written back then. It’s written in late biblical Hebrew, as we can tell from the sentence structure and all the Babylonian loan-words. Uz, Job’s homeland, was in Edom, and all the people’s names are Edomite. Edom—another name for Esau—is Abraham’s grandson. So why do Evangelicals insist it’s a much older book? Because young earth creationists have told them so. For various crazy reasons, YEC proponents have decided the words בְ֭הֵמוֹת/vehemót (KJV “behemoth”), likely meaning “hippopotamus,” and לִוְיָתָ֣ן/livyatán (KJV “leviathan”), likely “crocodile,” aren’t really west Asian and north African animals like you would reasonably think. They’re dinosaurs. Which makes Job proof humans and dinosaurs coexisted on earth, just like in The Flintstones. So every other bit of historical and linguistic evidence for when Job was written, is tossed aside in favor of their harebrained theory. Job must be really, really old. Gotta be.

Of course an old date for Job would mean resurrection is likewise a very old idea, for the Edomite prophet Job talks with his useless comforters about his own resurrection in chapter 19.

Job 19.25-27 KWL

25“I’ve known my redeemer is living.

At the end, he will stand on the dust left over

26after this flesh of mine was destroyed,

yet from my body

I will see God.

27Whom I will look upon for myself!

My eyes get to see him.

Not another’s—

though my kidneys fail within me.”

When Job fell ill, his so-called friends assumed—as those who believe in karma will—that he must’ve brought his disasters and illness upon himself, thanks to some secret sin, or from hubris which made him imagine he was greater than he was. The fact Job kept protesting, “But I didn’t sin,” simply proved to them he was too proud to acknowledge he had to have sinned. But Job clearly believed in a future divine judgment—that at the end, God will sort out right from wrong, once and for all. And believed he’d be alive to see it. After he’d died and his body decayed into dust.

Job would physically see this. He’d have eyes. And, he admits, he’d probably have to pee really bad. God-appearances have made braver men than Job wet themselves. Although having one’s kidneys fail is also a middle eastern metaphor for an emotional breakdown; it doesn’t have to literally mean a lapse in bladder control, or even organ failure.

Job’s statement is evidence of how, by the fourth century before Christ, the LORD’s followers had adopted (however loosely) the idea of bodily resurrection. After we die, we’re not merely gonna become ghosts and live in the afterlife forever, nor take on some quintessential physical form in the underworld. God means for us to live. When he created humanity, we became living souls; Ge 2.7 he intended his first humans to eat of the tree of life and live forever. Sin got in the way of that plan, but God never ditched the plan. He meant to redeem us; he meant to become human and atone for our sins and extinguish the sin problem. And once Jesus returns—once it’s the time of his second advent—we get to live again.

Yep, Job foresaw that. Not all of it; he doesn’t go into any detail, likely because the Holy Spirit hadn’t given him all the details. But he knew this much. He knew what he said in his book.

Saved by grace, not goodness. [Ep 2.8-9]

Ephesians 2.8-9 KJV

88 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9not of works, lest any man should boast.

There’s a common belief humanity has, that we save ourselves: We go to heaven because we’re good people.

Sometimes because we’re inherently good people; we might act like dirty rotten sinners, but at our core we’re naturally good, and all you gotta do with the worst people is figure out the psychological key to unlocking that good person inside ’em. In Charles DIckens’s A Christmas Carol it was to show Ebenezer Scrooge his happier youth, how everyone else this year would be having fun without him, then threaten him with death. Other people are harder nuts to crack; you might have to give ’em happy pills.

And sometimes because we’re not inherently good; it’s a choice we make. We can choose good—or evil. We can accumulate good karma, or through inaction or wrongdoing, rack up lots of bad.

Christianity doesn’t teach this. Yes, there are plenty of Pelagian Christians who definitely do teach this, but that’s because they’re taking their cues from humanity, not the scriptures. Or they’re cherry-picking the scriptures which say God created humanity and called us good, Ge 1.31 and skip the whole bit where the first humans sinned, and the result is their descendants—us—are corrupt. And need saving. Need a savior. Need Jesus. Need him; he’s not just a fun option.

We’re not saved because we’re good people; we’re saved because Jesus is a good person. When we trust him (i.e. the “through faith” part of Ephesians 2.8) he graciously saves us (i.e. the “by grace” part). You’ll find Christians who mix this up and claim we’re saved by faith, but we’re not. Nobody believes their way into God’s kingdom—we believe in Jesus, and he gets us in. So if you memorize today’s verse—and I recommend it—make sure you remember which thing is “through” and which thing is “by.” We’re saved by grace.

Grace is a difficult idea for a lot of people. Including Christians. Mostly ’cause we’re way too comfortable with the pagan point of view. It’s embedded in our culture, embedded in our minds, and hard to shake! God’s kingdom runs on grace, but our culture—even church culture!—absolutely doesn’t.

Atonement: God wants to save everybody!

Humanity’s sins have significantly damaged our relationship with God. But not irreperably. God can fix anything. And he did.

As most of us know from the times other people have sinned against us, some of the time we can simply, easily forgive those sins… and sometimes it’s not that simple. Some sins are mighty destructive. When we wrongly destroy something, it oughta be replaced, but that’s not always easy to do. If you destroy something with a lot of sentimental value attached to it, a simple replacement isn’t gonna cut it. If you destroy family photos, sometimes they’re not replaceable. Same deal when you wrongly kill someone: It’s kinda impossible for us to replace them. God could do it, but we certainly can’t.

So when people ask me, “Well can’t God just forgive all our sins, and that’s that?”—it’s not gonna be that easy. Our sins do damage. We don’t always see or care about all the spiritual damage, but it’s there. God can see it, even though we can’t. So God can’t just forgive us; he’s gotta do damage control. He’s gotta fix things.

That’s what atonement is: God’s act of fixing sin-damage.

That’s what it means whenever we try to atone for evil we’ve done: When we try to fix sin-damage… with various degrees of success. We don’t always succeed. Some of our acts of atonement are actually kinda pathetic. Like when a corporation offers people money to make up for harm they’ve done—and it’s always too little money, unless the courts get invovled and make ’em pay something gargantuan.

The Hebrew words for atonement are כֹּפֶר/kofér, כִּפֻּר/kippúr (which you know from the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur, “day of atonement”), and its related verb כָּפַר/kafár. It literally means “plaster.” You know, like when somebody knocked a hole in a wall. You put some plaster or putty or spackle or cement on it, paint over it… and if you applied the filler properly, the wall’s as good as new. Sometimes better than new, ’cause your plaster is stronger than the drywall you’ve patched. And that’s the word the LORD uses in Exodus to describe what the ancient Hebrews’ ritual sacrifices represented to him: Their sins poked holes in their relationship with God, and needed plastering. It’s a really simple metaphor: Sin breaks stuff, and atonement glues it back together.

The word English-speakers used to use to describe kofér, and its Greek translation ἱλασμός/ilasmós, was “propitiation.” It’s still found in the King James Version Ro 3.25, 1Jn 2.2, 4.10 and comes from the Latin verb propitio, “to appease; to regain the good favor of.” It sorta misses the point of kofér—and of grace. Thanks to God’s grace, we already have his good favor; he already considers us right with him. But sin-damage still needs to be dealt with. We still need to make things right in the universe. God’s just fine—a fact which many Christians still don’t wholly grasp (and occasionally send me rebuking emails to complain I’m making God sound too radically gracious, as if that’s possible) ’cause we still struggle to fathom how deep and wide God’s love and grace is.

Anyway, there used to be a Middle English word, “onement,” which means unity. John Wycliffe used it in Ezekiel 37.17. English-speaking preachers started to use the prefix “at-” with it, meaning in, to describe our relationship with God: We’re in unity with him. Supposedly atoning acts bring us back to this state of unity… but remember, God does grace, so we don’t need to do these atoning acts.

Because Christ Jesus already did the atoning act: He sacrificed himself for the sins of the world. Cl 1.22, 1Pe 1.19 He took care of it. We need do nothing more than accept that he took care of it. We can’t add to it; we’re not good enough to sacrifice ourselves for anything more than our own sins.

Since Jesus is God, it makes God himself our plaster. We have him patching the cracks that sin made in our lives—in much the same way the Holy Spirit was sealed to us when we first turned to God. But don’t play with that metaphor too much, lest you get the idea it’s okay to poke holes in your life so God can putty them with more of himself. We’re not meant to keep on sinning so we can get more grace. Ro 6.1-2 Instead look at your life as a wall full of holes, patched over by God. We might imagine it as flawed; we can’t get past the idea of all the holes beneath the paint. But God nonetheless considers it a perfectly good wall. It serves its purpose: It keeps out the wind and rain. It keeps prying eyes from looking through it. It keeps listening ears from hearing better through it. It provides shelter. We can hang pictures on it. And so on, till the metaphor breaks down and we just get silly. But you get the idea.

God wants us, and our relationship with him, repaired, back to the way he originally meant things. He doesn’t want to knock us down and start again from scratch.

“I don’t need forgiving.”

So yesterday I wrote about those Christians who can’t stop praying the “forgive me” prayer—and if that’s because they’re anxious about their sins, they need to chill out; God’s forgiven them. Long long ago. He’s got you covered.

Then there are those people, often not Christian… but some of ’em are absolutely sure they’re totally Christian. And these folks think it’s ridiculous to worry whatsoever about their own forgiveness. Because they can’t imagine anything they’ve done which needs forgiving. Not from God; not from anyone. In some cases they’re kinda offended we’d even suggest they need forgiving.

I was talking with a Christian pastor about this phenomenon some years ago, and he just shrugged and said, “Typical human depravity.”

But no it’s not typical. It’s an extreme human behavior. What we have here is a narcissist. Here I refer you to what Psychology Today has to say about ’em:

How do I spot a narcissist?

Narcissism is characterized by a grandiose sense of self-importance, a lack of empathy for others, a need for excessive admiration, and the belief that one is unique and deserving of special treatment. If you encounter someone who consistently exhibits these behaviors, you may be dealing with a highly narcissistic individual.

What’s the difference between narcissism and pathological narcissism?

Pathological narcissism, or narcissistic personality disorder, is rare: It affects an estimated 1 percent of the population, a prevalence that hasn’t changed since clinicians started measuring it. The disorder is suspected when narcissistic traits impair a person’s daily functioning. That dysfunction typically causes friction in relationships due to the pathological narcissist’s lack of empathy. It may also manifest as antagonism, fueled by grandiosity and attention-seeking. In seeing themselves as superior, the pathological narcissist naturally views everyone else as inferior and may be intolerant of disagreement or questioning. “Narcissism.”

God has forgiven you.

Frequently I meet Christians who can’t stop praying the “forgive me” prayer.

• Sometimes because it’s already part of their rote prayers. “Forgive us our debts” (or “trespasses”) is already part of the Lord’s Prayer, y’know. And part of many other memorized prayers.
• Sometimes because they sin a lot. All Christians sin, but these folks figure they sin way more than average—and let’s be honest; maybe they do! So they have a lot to apologize to God about.
• Sometimes because they’re under the misbegotten belief that once you become Christian, you spontaneously stop sinning. Well, they’ve not stopped sinning… so they’re kinda worried about their salvation. Did the sinner’s prayer take?—’cause sometimes it doesn’t.
• And sometimes because they’re in one of those dark Christian churches which tell them every time they sin, it’s like they personally have crucified Jesus all over again. Which, if you’re the literal-minded type, is a traumatizing thing to believe. So of course these folks are begging forgiveness all the time.

Lemme address that last idea a bit more. The whole “crucifying Jesus all over again” idea comes from this verse:

Hebrews 6.6 KJV

If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.

In context it’s not talking about just any sins. The author of Hebrews is writing about apostasy—about quitting Jesus—and how Christians who’ve had the full experience of God’s grace and the Holy Spirit’s supernatural power can’t just casually quit Jesus, then come back. These people didn’t quit Jesus; they sinned, but they didn’t commit that sin.

Problem is, dark Christians are gonna insist they kinda did commit that sin. If every sin alienates God (and it doesn’t), then every sin is functionally the same as quitting Jesus. Every sin is apostasy. Every sin has the power to plunge us into fiery hell: If we die with unrepented, unconfessed sin in our lives, we’re going to the hot place. Yeah God is gracious, but not that gracious.

So you can see why these people are constantly begging God’s forgiveness: They think they’re constantly dangling over hellfire, and their relationship with God is like a thin bungee cord which might not actually be able to hold their weight.

It’s awfully hard to think of God as love when you’re living with this kind of stress. Sure doesn’t feel like love. Feels like God is only moments away from pouring a bowl of heavenly fire upon you. Feels like the sins of the world might trigger the same response upon our country too… which is why so many dark Christians are big fans of Christian nationalism: Screw democracy; we gotta purge evildoers! But I digress; let’s get back to their mental picture of a very unforgiving God.

Okay. In God’s process of salvation, at what point do you believe he forgives you?

Election: God did choose you, y’know.

ELECT ə'lɛkt verb. Choose for a purpose or position, like a political contest or a job.

2. noun. A person (or people) chosen by God for a purpose or position. [Often “the elect.”]

[Elector ə'lɛk.tər noun, election ə'lɛk.ʃən noun.]

I grew up with a Christian mom, a Christian upbringing, and lots of relationships with people who happened to be Christian. Whole lot of opportunities to have God-experiences.

It’s kinda like I was set up. As if stuff was deliberately stuck in my path to influence me to become Christian.

Obviously other Christians haven’t grown up the same way. Things were a lot less Christian, a lot more pagan—or they grew up in another religion altogether. But at one point in their lives they were obviously nudged in Christ Jesus’s direction. Maybe they had a rough patch and Christians showed up to redirect ’em to Jesus. Maybe a miracle happened and they realized, not just that God’s real and here, but that Jesus defines him best. In some cases Jesus even personally showed up and told them to follow him. He does that.

The fact is, God wants to save everybody. Jesus died to make it possible, and everybody’s been given the invitation to come to Jesus, become adopted by God, and enter his kingdom. Everybody. Without exception. He’s not turning anyone away. (Unless they clearly don’t want him—as proven by their defiant, godless behavior. But that’s another discussion.)

But. Even though God’s invitation is for anyone and everyone, there are lots of individuals whom he makes a particular effort to save. Like me, ’cause he clearly set me up to become Christian. Like most people who grow up in a Christian family, or in a predominantly Christian country or community.

Like you, more than likely: When you look back on your life, chances are you can think of many situations where God got your attention, moved you into place, and came after you. Some of them were subtle, and some of them were outrageously obvious. Hey, whatever got you into his kingdom! But God definitely, specifically, wanted you.

Christians call this idea of God choosing us election.

Born sinners?

So I discussed original sin—the human self-preservation instinct, distorted into an innate self-centeredness which means we’re inevitably gonna sin. It’s just how we’re wired. Unlike Jesus, who has a built-in divine nature which way predates him becoming human, which makes his first instinct to never sin… our first instincts work the other way.

Thing is, many other Christians don’t describe original sin this way. At all.

Most Christians are of course Pelagian, and think there is no such thing as human depravity and original sin. They figure humans are born blank slates, and could choose to be good as well as evil. God created us good, Ge 1.31 so they figure our natural tendency is towards good… and society messes us up, so blame it.

And then there are dark Christians who go to another extreme: They think original sin means we’re born evil. Born sinners. They don’t figure we’re merely born with selfish and sinful tendencies; we’re born with all the sins of Adam and Eve and humanity already on us. We’re born cursed. We’re already guilty of sin, and every newborn baby fully deserves the death penalty.

Wait, what?

Psalm 51.5 KJV

Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.

Lamentations 5.7 KJV

Our fathers have sinned, and are not; and we have borne their iniquities.

Think of it this way: Say you were born to poor parents, not wealthy ones. They have no money, which means you gotta suffer the consequences of their lack of money. You gotta live with their inability to buy you comforts, or even basic necessities. They can’t afford nutritious foods; you gotta eat ramen every day, and grow shorter than average, with low bone density, and maybe scurvy. They can’t afford an orthodontist; you’re gonna have an overbite, and bad teeth, and grow up ugly. Meanwhile the rich kids down the street are going to nice prep schools, and someday expensive universities, which’ll get ’em well-paying jobs… so they can pass their family wealth down to their own children.

Is this fair? Well, wealthy people will claim it’s entirely fair: Your parents are poor because they aren’t clever enough. And if you’re not clever enough, you’ll remain poor too. Use those brains! Pull yourself out of the quicksand by your own bootstraps!

But enough about caste systems and social Darwinism. You see the general idea: The folks who insist we’re born sinners, think of “sinner” as our caste. It’s not what we do; it’s what we are. It’s the caste we’re born into. Nobody escapes it; nobody gets born into a non-sinner caste. Doesn’t matter if you manage to go a few years without ever violating any of God’s commands: If you’re born a sinner, you’re invariably gonna muck it up eventually. Because you’re a sinner.

Um… what about Jesus? Wasn’t he born into our caste?

And here’s where the idea of being born a sinner, collapses. Except those folks who believe it, refuse to admit its collapse: Jesus, they insist, is an exception. Somehow:

• He’s a special creation of God, instead of the biological product of two people doin’ it.
• He’s the genetic descendant of a woman, instead of a man and his toxic, defective, Adam-descended Y chromosome.
• He has the Holy Spirit in him so strongly, the Spirit blocked any potential sin nature from being formed in him.
• He has a divine nature and a human nature, but because the divine nature is way stronger than the human nature, every time the human nature felt like sinning, the divine nature slapped it around and said, “B---h we’re doing it my way,” and left it cowering in a corner of room, sobbing.

Yeah, that last one was a little dark. But I am talking about a dark Christian theory, y’know. It has dark ramifications. If we’re all dirty sinners since the instant we were created, it means there’s nothing worthy in us for Jesus to redeem. He has to make something good in us, from scratch. But until he does that, we deserve nothing but horror, fear, and death—which implies it’s okay to treat our fellow humans like that. It’s okay to let them suffer. It’s okay to abandon them to their doom. Don’t feel compassion, nor feel bad for people, because they’re doomed, or they’re on their way to ruin: They’re only getting what they deserve, ’cause they totally deserve to stoke the fires of hell.

It’s a very pessimistic and apathetic view of humanity, and doesn’t reflect at all what God feels for us. But that’s not surprising; dark Christians tend to be grace-deficient.

Original sin: We were born this way.

ORIGINAL SIN ə'rɪd.ʒən.əl 'sɪn noun. Innate tendency of humans to sin, inherited from the first humans as a result of their first sin.

Initially God made the universe, including humans, and declared it very good. Ge 1.31 That goodness was undone by sin: Our first ancestors, our representatives in paradise, Adam and Eve, were ordered to not eat from this one particular tree… and did anyway. Humanity got banished from paradise, and now suffers from toil, painful childbirth, and death.

So instead of being born “very good,” like God originally made humanity, every human is now born with a significant birth defect: We’re not innately good. We’re innately selfish. We come out of our mothers’ wombs screaming for what we want: Milk, a clean diaper, to be held, or we’re otherwise uncomfortable and can’t express ourselves any other way. As soon as we gain the ability to say “No!” and slap other people, and lie and steal to get what we want, we do that too. Our worlds revolve around us now. And some of us never, ever grow out of that; ask anyone who works in customer service or government.

It’s called original sin because we humans originated with it: We were born this way. It was passed down from our ancestors; passed all the way down from Adam and Eve. Our slant towards sin is built-in.

The very idea offends a lot of people, who hate the idea we’re innately sinful. They think it’s kinda sick: “What, are you saying a little innocent baby, who never did anything good or bad, was born a depraved sinner?”

Well I’m not. I’m only saying every little innocent baby was born with a self-preservation instinct. We can agree on that one, can’t we? So of course they’re gonna be selfish: They’re trying to live! Problem is, in the pursuit of looking out for number one, everybody else becomes number two—and we’ll shove ’em aside, and not love our neighbors as ourselves. So, y’know, sin. We’re “born sinners” in the sense that sin’s just gonna come naturally go us humans.

Caring for others—like a “maternal instinct,” although way too many mothers have no such thing—is learned behavior. We have to be raised by parents who train us in that; we have to train our own kids in that, and man does that feel like an uphill battle with some kids. Those folks who think humans are inherently good: They learned it right away, and learned it so early and thoroughly they think it’s natural. Nah.

I do admit plenty of Christians claim original sin means we’re born with sins somehow already staining our souls. How’d we commit ’em? I dunno. They have a few theories, supposedly based on bible; I think they’re misquoting bible to promote a rubbish theory.

We sin, and need Jesus’s help.

1 John 1.8 – 2.2.

There are a number of immoral folks who figure if God has a dark side, it justifies them having a dark side. I wrote on this previously: Gnostics and determinists claim God co-opts evil as part of his cosmic plan. So people figure if he’s not tainted by such behavior, there’s no reason they can’t commit the occasional sin… if it’s ultimately for the best.

Funny how often people wind up committing such “occasional” sins. Seems there are an awful lot of these occasions.

But the very idea is rotten to its core. If God has an evil plan, it makes him an evil God. Period. And as John had to point out, God has no dark side. God is light. Not just in the light, like we can be when we follow God: Is light. In John’s other writing, Revelation, he even describes New Jerusalem as lit by the Lamb himself instead of the sun. Rv 21.23 Since Revelation is all apocalypses, I don’t think it wise to interpret that literally, but certainly you get the idea we’re going to live in God’s presence and goodness, where there will be no room for evil. It can’t exist there.

1 John is written as a corrective to people who develop such messed-up ideas. And, as appropriate for Christians, it’s a gracious corrective. If you’ve fallen for this twisted idea and gone wrong, chill out: Repent, be forgiven, accept God’s grace, and move forward!

Or maybe I’ll just quote John.

1 John 1.8 - 2.2 KWL

8 When we say we don’t have sin, we mislead ourselves, and truth isn’t in us.

9 When we acknowledge our sins, God is faithful and does right by us:

He can forgive us of sin, and can cleanse us of everything wrong.

10 When we say we haven’t sinned, we make him sound like a liar,

and his word isn’t in us.

2.1 My children, I write these things to you so you don’t sin!

And when anyone sins, we have a aide with the Father, Christ Jesus. He does right by us too.

2 Jesus is the solution for our sins.

And not only for our sins, but also for the whole world.

God doesn‘t have a dark side, but humanity surely does. I sure do. So do you; so does everyone. And the only solution to this problem isn’t self-deprivation, isn’t noble truths and an eightfold path, isn’t gnostic revelations of how the universe really works, isn’t to find a bad guy to blame for everything, isn’t any of the usual solutions humans invent. It’s Christ Jesus.

Depravity: Humanity is messed up, yo.

DEPRAVE di'preɪv verb. To make immoral, wicked, or twisted.

[Depraved di'preɪvəd adjective.]

TOTAL DEPRAVITY 'toʊ.dəl di'prøv.ə.di noun. The Christian belief that unregenerate human nature is thoroughly corrupt, sinful, and self-centered.

2. The Calvinist belief that all human nature, regenerate or not, is this way.

[Totally depraved 'toʊ.də.li di'preɪvəd adjective.]

Present-day Christianity has been heavily influenced by popular culture and popular philosophy. And vice-versa. Sometimes for good; sometimes really not.

Humanism, fr’instance. It’s the belief we humans have great potential to do great things. It emphasizes rejecting our instinctive, conditioned behavior, and solving our problems through rational, selfless ways. It emphasizes human rights and human worth. After all, God figures we have infinite worth: He loved us so much, he sent us his Son. Jn 3.16

Problem is, one of humanism’s core beliefs is Pelagianism, the belief humans are inherently good. Humanists insist we were born good, not evil; and become evil because we have evil influences. Like evil parents, evil neighbors, evil authorities, evil media. Those folks taught us to be evil, but we can unlearn it, and choose to be good.

Hence you’ll find more Christians are Pelagian than not. Because being inherently good sounds way better than the alternatives, so we embrace the idea: “We are good. For when God created the world and humanity, didn’t he declare his entire creation ‘very good’? Ge 1.31 And what could be more innocent and sinless than a newborn baby? Certainly we’re born good. But we got corrupted. Stupid parents. Stupid mass media. Stupid government. It’s all their fault. If they’d just leave us alone to do as we naturally will, we could be free and libertarian and sinless.”

Well. Those who think nothing’s more sinless than a baby have clearly never raised one. Why do babies cry? ’Cause they want stuff. And as soon as they’re old enough to swipe it, or shove other kids out of the way in order to get it, they will. As soon as they figure out the word “no” they use it. A lot. Not because they’re inherently good and rejecting their parents’ evil; because they selfishly want their own way, even when it’s wrong.

Humans don’t have to learn to be selfish. We are selfish. Inherently. It’s part of our self-preservation instinct: We have this whole system of pain sensors in our body which warn us if we’re gonna seriously damage ourselves. (Or inform us we’re seriously damaged.) So if animals didn’t look out for number one, they won’t survive.

Humans have simply taken that natural instinct, and dialed it way up. Everything we do is about defending ourselves, getting our way, making ourselves comfortable—physically and emotionally. We don’t always go about it the right way, but we don’t care about the right way, or others’ feelings; we want what we want. If you get in the way of our wants, we’ll shove you aside. Goodness isn’t the goal; it’s about what’s good for us, or what we consider good, or what feels good—no matter how many brain cells it kills.

Humans aren’t naturally good. We have to be taught what goodness is. Problem is, who’s doing the teaching? Other selfish humans.

Yep, it’s corruption all the way down. All the way back. Started with the very first humans. When God first created ’em, they were good. They changed. Lots changed.

Saved from what?

Four things you’re gonna notice about every religion in the world:

• They try to explain who God is, and what he’s like: Caring nurturer, or wrathful disciplinarian? Disconnected first cause, or deterministic micromanager? The sum total of everything in the universe, or totally removed from everything? The object of all our faith and devotion, or not relevant? The only thing that’s real, or doesn’t even exist? Where does he fit between these extremes?—or is he paradoxically both?
• They try to explain what happens after we die: Afterlife, new life, another life, or annihilation?
• Morality: How ought humans live?—in light of who God is, or in light of what happens after we die.
• How ought we compensate our clergy for all the valuable insights they’ve given us? Money? Free stuff? Sex?

Yeah, that fourth thing is a bit cynical, but the issue is there, y’know. Even in the benign religions.

But why do people pursue religions in the first place? Simple: It’s salvation. They wanna get saved.

Saved from what? Well, that varies.

Yeah, my fellow Christians are gonna tell you we need to be saved from sin and death. As will I, ’cause we do. That is what Christ Jesus offers. But it’s not necessarily what people are thinking of when they first look into Christianity. Or look into any other religion: Buddhism, Islam, Wicca, Mammonism. Or, because they don’t wanna be told what to believe, cobble together their own belief system so they can be “spiritual not religious.”

Most want to be saved from their circumstances. Their lives suck. They’re addicted to alcohol, food, sex, or narcotics; their relationships are out of control; their finances are insane. Some live in awful countries, with warlords who threaten their livelihoods and lives. And even when all those things are fine, there’s something in ’em which is just dissatisfied with life, and they can’t put their finger on it. So they figure God has the answer. Since this desire is so common, you’ll notice most Christian evangelists talk about being saved from this instead of sin and death. (Hey, a lousy life is no doubt the result of sin, right?) Turn to God and he’ll get your life right, and give you peace no matter what’s going on.

Many of ’em are looking to be saved from doubt. They wanna know why the universe works the way it does: Why do bad things happen to good people? They wanna know who or what God is. They wanna know what happens after death—not because they’re worried about death itself, for they figure whatever happens, happens. It just bugs ’em they don’t have simple answers to these questions. Or at least answers they’re comfortable with.

Many want to be saved from worry. Because they are worried about death: They don’t wanna cease to exist, or don’t wanna find themselves in a black cavernous chaotic nothingness, or are afraid of finding themselves in hell, and worry hell’s gonna look like the very worst horror movies. And again, many Christian evangelists zero in on these fears, and preach almost exclusively about getting saved from hellfire.

What Pelagius did or didn’t teach.

Last week I wrote about Pelagianism, the belief humans are inherently good. It’s a common and popular idea, but it’s heresy. The ancient Christians condemned it at the Council of Ephesus in the year 431.

For good reason. If humans are fundamentally good—not profoundly corrupted by selfishness and sin—in theory it’s possible for one of us to live an uncorrupted life. Without sin. And in so doing, merit heaven all on one’s own. Without Jesus. After all, what might Jesus add to one’s inherent goodness? Nothing but a rubber stamp.

Well. Once the article went live, it annoyed various Pelagians. Some of whom had no idea they were actually Pelagian! They always presumed humans are basically good, and hate the idea we’re not. Likewise they hate the idea they’re heretic, ’cause too many Christians wrongly think “heretic” means “going to hell.” So them’s fighting words.

I didn’t write the article to pick a fight with Pelagians. I wrote it to inform. Most TXAB readers aren’t wholly up to speed on theological ideas like Pelagianism, so I figured I’d write about what it is and why it’s a problem. If any of you were leaning that direction, my hope was you’d pause and say, “Oh so that’s why Christians teach what we do,” and correct yourselves. We’re all wrong in one way or another, and could always stand to make mid-course corrections like that.

But what do people usually do? Exclaim, “No you’re wrong,” then take potshots at the messenger. If we bother to do any homework on the issue, it’s only to marshal arguments so we can take better potshots. I confess; I’ve done this too. It’s jerk-like behavior so I try not to. After all, I might be wrong! But old habits die hard, y’know.

Anyway. The Pelagians mustered the usual arguments, the ones I brought up in the article: They don’t believe humanity is totally broken. All have sinned, Ro 3.23 and they’re willing to admit they’ve sinned too: They’re hardly worthy of heaven on their own merits. But they can’t stomach the idea of humanity gone totally wrong. After all, they know good pagans! Nobody but the most hardcore pessimists and cynics are gonna say good pagans don’t exist.

True. But have any of these pagans achieved heaven-level goodness? Well no; nobody can imagine ’em being that good. Because nobody but Jesus is that good. Because total depravity: Not one human but Jesus, in our every last action, has acted wholly selflessly and sinlessly. Sin is like the sand on a beach: It gets everywhere, and you’re still finding it in your stuff and your cracks weeks after you visited the beach. Sin’s totally corrupted everything. It’s total.

Pelagians’ other hangup is that word depravity. It’s the right word; it means “moral corruption.” But I think most of ’em have it in their heads it means something dirtier, more perverted, more nasty. It doesn’t really. If they wanna quibble about vocabulary and use different words, that’s fine; depravity has synonyms. Still, we’re talking about moral corruption: Every single human but Jesus compromises what “goodness” means in order to defend ourselves, feel better about ourselves, and justify ourselves. But we’ve all fallen short of God’s glory. Ro 3.23 We’re all morally corrupt. Or depraved.

All that aside, one odd argument I heard in defense of Pelagianism is that Pelagius of Britain never actually taught what we call “Pelagianism.” It’s all slander. Against a perfectly good and upstanding Christian.

My big ol’ introduction aside, that’s actually what I’m gonna rant about today.

Pelagianism: “Humanity’s not all that bad.”

PELAGIAN pə'leɪ.dʒi.ən adjective. Denies the Christian doctrines of original sin and total depravity: Believes humans are inherently good, able to make unselfish choices, and can be worthy of heaven on our own merits.

SEMI-PELAGIAN sɛm.aɪ.pə'leɪ.dʒi.ən adjective. A Pelagian whom we kinda like.

Every once in a while somebody, usually a theology nerd like me, is gonna fling around the terms Pelagian and semi-Pelagian. Hopefully they know what they’re talking about. Many don’t, and are just using those words to mean heretic. ’Cause in the year 431, the Council of Ephesus declared Pelagianism to be heresy—so whether critics understand Pelagianism, councils, or heresy, what they’re really trying to say is the person’s wrong, and any label will do.

So let’s back up a bunch. A Pelagian, like I said in the definition, believes humans are inherently good. Children are born innocent, and if nothing upends that natural innocence, stay good and wholesome and benevolent. They grow up to be good people. Good enough for heaven.

It’s what pagans believe. Optimistic pagans, anyway; there are a lot of cynics who think humanity totally deserves hellfire. But a lot of us like to think the best of people, and give ’em the benefit of the doubt. Myself included. I’m not unrealistic: I know evil people, and I know even good people screw up, or have times when they act selfishly or deceptively. When they do so, it doesn’t blindside me. But just about everyone believes in karma, the idea our actions have repercussions in the universe and on our afterlife. So many people—unless they’ve quit trying in despair—are usually trying to be good. Or good enough. Or settling for explanations why they’re kinda good enough.

But the scriptures teach otherwise. The first humans were created good, but sinned. They passed down that sinful, self-centered nature to their descendants, us:

Romans 5.12 KWL

This is why it’s like sin enters the world through one man; and through sin, death;

and therefore death comes to every human—hence everyone sins.

Therefore humanity is inherently selfish and sinful. It’s why we need Jesus! We can’t save ourselves, can’t earn salvation, can’t accept God’s love, can’t follow God’s laws, without his help. We gotta depend on grace. Which God provides in abundance, so no sweat.

But if you grew up believing people are inherently good, the idea we’re inherently not is gonna bug you. Humans don’t like to think we’re corrupt or flawed; we like to imagine we’re good! And if it helps to imagine everybody else is good deep down too… well then we will. Even though we’ve tons of evidence of human depravity. We’ll just keep insisting evil is the exception. Something humanity can evolve past.

Hence Pelagianism. Pelagius (390ish–418) was a Rome-educated British monk. He was hardly the first guy to float the idea, but it nonetheless gets named for him: A Pelagian believes humans aren’t inherently sinful. We’re good. So be good!

Bear in mind Pelagius was dealing with a lot of slacker Christians. Fellow Christians and fellow monks would blame our sins on our sinful nature. (Still do.) They’d insist we can’t be good; we’re just too corrupt. We can’t help but sin. And if this is the case… why try? Why make the effort to do better, to be better, to be like Jesus, when our very nature rebels against the idea? Best to just give up, stay the same ol’ sinner, and depend on cheap grace.

Pelagius hated this idea. I hate this idea. Any reasonable Christian should. It’s not biblical!

Romans 6.1-2 KWL

1 So what are we saying?—“Continue to sin, for there’s plenty of grace”?

2 Never gonna happen. We died to sin. How could we live in it?

But Pelagius’s correction went too far: He rejected the ideas of human depravity, and of Adam and Eve’s original sin affecting humanity. He insisted anyone can stop sinning if we just make the effort. That’s what he taught his monks, and that’s what his monks taught Christendom. Particularly Celestius of Rome, Pelagius’s disciple.