George’s 12-part Coptic Orthodox warning lands this week on salvation’s payment plan … of which – spoiler alert – there isn’t one. See the column below... - Blessings, Bob

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Labels:12 warnings, Coptic Orthodox Church, Egypt, Galatians 2:20,  George Bebawi, grace, Jesus paid it all, punishment, retribution, transaction

Spirituality Column #871

July 25, 2023

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

‘Whoever Says …’ Part 5

By Bob Walters

“It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” – Galatians 2:20

Before we get to George’s tenth warning to the Coptic Orthodox Church  (background HERE), let’s taste-test the retributive and transactional fine whine of the modern secular and Christian age: “Eye for an eye … A pound of flesh … I want my rights … That’s not fair … I deserve it … You owe me … Jesus paid it all.”

OK, that last one – I know – sticks stubbornly in our collective Christian craws and consciousness. But, oh my goodness – and I agree with Orthodoxy on this one – it is a piece of heresy that misdirects all that Jesus did.  Sadly, this profane, unbiblical, divinity-stripping metaphor – “Jesus paid for my sins” – has become basic modern Western Christian doctrinal exposition and belief while having nothing to do with the divine mission of Christ, purpose of God, or the comforting light of the Holy Spirit.  It puts Jesus and us in the check-out lane, not the Kingdom highway.

God is love (1 John 4:8), not a payment plan.  Jesus came to heal us, not buy us. The Spirit comforts us, not guilt-trips us. Payment, purchase, and guilt have become the default currency, human dynamic, and woeful understanding of Jesus’s divine and perfect sacrifice. 

Yes, we are forgiven, redeemed, and our sins are covered.  But, our salvation is not a receipt of transaction; it is the faithful plan, way, and will of God for us to return to His Kingdom.  God does not buy us like slaves, He adopts us like children. Only if we so choose are we slaves of our own love and so let Jesus live in us in faith and sharing.  It is love, not guilt. Renewal, not price.

“Price” puts believers on the wrong path of payment rather than grace.  Errantly, it is how we process the Cross of Jesus and translate it, coarsely, into the gaudy modern aesthetic of transaction.

Anyway … What did Jesus pay? Who did He pay? What did He buy? Here’s George:

“Tenth: Whoever thinks that the Lord paid the price of sins on the Cross, and that the Father has punished him and lighted on him the fire of divine justice; has by this tasted the bitterness of straying away from the Apostolic teachings that the disciple of the Lord [Paul] taught saying, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). He has lost the fountain of salvation, the Cross, the seal of baptism and the chrismation, because he has not been sealed by a seal of punishment and retribution from the son, but by the seal of righteousness, love, forgiveness, and renewal.”

This one is a real jolt for most Western Christians because in all things we think in terms of payment and punishment.  Jesus is different.  Paul says we are not sealed – i.e., restored to life – by God’s punishment, but by God’s love and Jesus’s life and obedience. Today’s culture thinks in terms of price and retributive justice, but Jesus is a divine sacrifice and a gift in grace.  He is not paying God; Jesus is freeing us and opening to humanity the only gate to the Kingdom of God, which is faith in Christ.  His life in us gives us life with God.  We don’t get an itemized monthly bill (thank God).

(And by the way, “chrismation” is the Coptic rite of what Catholics and others call “confirmation,” or doctrinal acceptance into the Church body.)

God – Father-Son-Spirit – wants our faith and obedience freely.  It is not a march of guilt or control by fear, it is the glorious truth joining our lives with God’s love.  We short-sell ourselves thinking we are a tradeable commodity.  No, we – humans – are God’s favorite Creation, created in His own image.  Here’s one way to compare and accept the mystery: I don’t think my own children owe me anything.  I just love them and feel no debt either way.  True loyalty is love, not price.

Alas, we will not escape this miserable doctrine of payment anytime soon.  It is claimed in almost every modern hymn and burbles up in almost every prayer. Why? Likely because payment is easy to understand; grace is not.  Heresy – or even inept metaphors – hurt us, not God, and are a low comment on our righteousness and present joy, not God’s.  Besides, the check – if one still insists on payment – has already cleared.  George’s final warnings eleven and twelve are next week.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com), long ago, gave up calculating the value of his salvation.  The coin of God’s realm is thankfulness that returns to us as joy and love.  Praise God; Jesus lives.