I confess... Augustine was wrong.

There are times when we humans are faced with what is so obvious that it seems impossible to find a starting place to describe it.  The foolishness of the Calvinist notion of total depravity is one such thing.  How is it possible to read Paul’s words in Romans 7:9 and continue to believe in Calvin’s system (Warfield reminds Calvinists that the TULIP is either a cohesive unit or complete rubbish) or in Augustinian ideas of original sin?  “Once I was alive apart from the law . . .” Someone please point out the depravity part of this statement!  Calvin’s system gets the order of relationship with conviction of sin wrong.  How can that system be trusted to describe a relationship with the living God Himself?  Verse 10:  The commandment designed for life brings death to anyone but God Himself.  In fulfilling the law, Jesus activates the truth of Romans 3:23.  The cross establishes man in sin relative to the law.  For us, there’s no need to look elsewhere in time. In other words, the Calvinist/Augustinian notion that God made everyone before they were injected into the time stream and some were permanently defective is a stupid lie. “All have sinned” happens in time. It is not a part of God’s eternal purpose. Evil does not dwell in our homeland.

No figs for you....come to the Cross!

There is a curious theory of the end times that considers that the blessed of mankind will be restored to the Garden of Eden to enjoy an Endemic Bliss forever.  One obvious problem with this idea is that it makes God’s work of new creation (II Cor. 5:17) nonsensical.  God rested from His first work and no one was allowed to share in His rest before He began (John 1:1 vs. 1:2) a new work (Heb 4:10).  The original work was in the realm of the heavens and the earth which are still in operation.  This realm was established to make an end of the problem of evil.  The contraption of the old heavens and earth (the more uncomfortable the word “contraption” makes you is an indicator of the influence of evolutionary doctrine in the heart) will be dismantled and trashed (Rev 20:11).  No part of an earthly garden will remain to which the redeemed may return. Of course, the majority of those that believe in the “back to the Garden” concept are convinced that they were hovering around the garden in some quasi-spiritual way when it was first planted by God (before the foundation of the world, so to speak) and refuse to countenance the notion that they are humans like everyone else and are subject to the demand God places on them that they meet him at the cross of Jesus!

Not just SOME things...

Romans 8:28. "And we know that all things work together for good to those that love God, to those who are called according to HIS purpose."   I don't know how many times in a year I refer to this verse in one form or another.  My favorite is to remind someone else or myself that it is not in just SOME things where God is working...in all things.  Of course, this promise is only true in the life of a person who has a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ. 

Notice that the verse points to the work of God...something He is doing right now.  Notice also that He is working on that which will be good.  This is the language of Genesis 1.  God created and it was good. The old creation He completed and rested from that work.  The raw material of New creation is not the best stuff from the old creation that has been tweeked to get rid of some tarnish.  The raw matrial of new creation includes the sin of mankind that He alone could bear and transform through His blood to make it usable dirt.  This is not great-great-great grandpa Adam's red clay.  This is blood bought deliverance by the power of love over evil and death.  Only Jesus could make this happen and he did it on the cross at the exactly correct time (Romans 5:6 For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly).
You Calvinists need to quit trying to leap the Garden wall and come to the cross.  God didn't save you before time began.  He will save you at the cross.

Jesus demonstrated love...what is its trajectory when you launch it?

Many thanks to my friend Mael Disseau for making me think about the contents of this post.
The meditation of my heart for this week has been  inspired by Georg Gadamer and my reflections on the picture I came away with when I studied his work, Truth and Method, with Dr. John Sailhamer for a  few weeks in my last best days at SEBTS... God holds us responsible for those things He has embedded in us both personally (like the Knowledge of Good and Evil), and in us as a spiritual community (like "Love is spiritual warfare...it is not in the devil's arsenal!"). That's why Jesus was able to tell the biological sons of Abraham that they were sons of the devil (John 8:37-44); they had intentionally neglected and excluded resurrection from their "theology" (Hebrews 11:19). Even the Pharisees had become practical atheists and worse than pagans because they denied that Jesus IS the resurrection and the life and is NOT a system or process. Why do we keep trying to get Holy Spirit results out of legalistic endeavors? The devil can certainly haul that out of his arsenal....but it's useless to approach him with "show me the love."

Ephesians 5:30-32 "Love sees..." C.S. Lewis

When Paul declares the mystery of Christ and the Church as being related to the one flesh union of man and woman (Genesis 2:24), he does not explain where the parallels begin and end.  It is obvious to anyone who can read the gospel that Jesus descends into the condition of mankind to deal with sin (and, ultimately, evil).  The parallel to Genesis 3 should be easy to discern. Adam, who is not deceived by the serpent or by the woman, (I Timothy 2:14), sees the change that is wrought in her by sin and the fruit and chooses to enter into this new condition with her.  “Greater love has no man than to lay down his life for his friends,” John 15:13.  Adam’s self sacrifice may not have been effective in bringing salvation, but his love was the same in quality as that of his creator and Father. 

...Bear False Witness

Matthew 26:57-75.  In a room built for goodness and understanding, a man stands in the midst of men while Peter sits with the servants and the women outside, wondering what is happening to his friend.  His bravado has ebbed and, as happens with humans, reality has set in. He ponders his recent swordsmanship and watches the stream of scurrilous characters who go into the room where he cannot go.  They go in with a look of hauteur and power on  their faces and come out looking like scared children. "Liars, caught in their lies!" the thought goes through his head.  The first young woman walks through the courtyard and sees him by the fire.  She recognizes him and, before he can stop himself, the reality that has set in pushes its way past his lips and he hears his own lying words. "I don't know Him."  Was that the face of Judas he saw in the crowd as the words echo off the walls.
Finally, two men go into the great hall together and speak words of truth with a mixture of exaggeration that provoke the firestorm of malice: the mainspring of the High Priest's life. Straining to hear, Peter is accused again and then quickly again. Cursing lies crash through the night as the false witnesses who told the truth about Truth Himself (John 14:6) rush past with the look of drunkards who have money from street corner begging -Will Work for ... Lies. Palm Thursday night erupts as men drunk with malice slap Jesus with open palms and High 5 each other with glee.
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.  What if you tell the truth about him with the intention of destroying him?
Day breaks with the true voice of a rooster. Good Friday

Homegrown evil...

It is very surprising to find that so many preachers, teachers and scholars accept the knee-jerk position that demons are fallen angels.  It would seem that a biblical perspective is difficult to induce into human minds. Perhaps this is true because humans are constantly searching for ways of blaming and justifying their sinful condition and choices. There is certainly a limited number (no such nonsense as Calvin’s concept of an infinite number) of fallen angels – 1/3 of the original whole host that God created (Rev. 12:4). 
Fallen angels are in one of two conditions: either chained and imprisoned (Jude1:6) and won’t wander the earth until they are released (Rev. 9:1-11), or, are occupying territory in the eternal homeland of God and will be cast down (Rev. 12:9) from the eternal realm.  There are strict injunctions in the Bible regarding how to address angels, wicked or good (Jude 1:9, Daniel 10, II Peter 2:10-11, Psalm 8:5 and Heb. 2:7-9) and neither Jesus nor Paul use these conventions in addressing demons (Acts 16:16-19, read the Gospel of Mark!). 
Demons originate from human sin.  Notice the converging force of apostolic perspectives from Paul and James in both Romans 7:7-9 and James 1:13-15. These two apostolic witnesses point out the progression of unchecked sin into becoming a breeding ground of active death: demons.