Not by Rules (a quip by an orthodox rebel)

"...ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's." I Cor. 3:23

"...I am in My Father, and ye in Me, and I in you." John 14:20b

People may ask us why we're not at "liberty" (so-called) to do as they do. They may wonder why we feel tied down to "rules," and perhaps they suspect that we are not strong enough to stand without them. "You're free in Christ, aren't you?" they say. "Why tie yourself down?" Against these charges, we cannot say a thing, not because our accusers are right but because they will never understand. They will never understand that it's not about us anymore. We've been bought with a price: our souls, our minds, our bodies, our lives---they don't belong to us anymore. They belong to God and Christ, so we ought to live like they belong to God and Christ. You see, it's not about what we do or don't do, but rather it's about what God has done in Christ. He has made us a new creation in every whit, a creature that belongs to God. It is that reality (and not rules) that influences what we do, for how can we be what we are not? And how can we help but be what we are?

-Jon Vowell (c) 2012

Wriggling in the Crushing Grip of Reason (an aside by Bill Watterson)

On timeless truth:

In Christ Alone (practical Christianity as explained by an orthodox rebel)

"For Christ also has suffered once for sins, that just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but quickened by the Spirit...[and He] has gone into Heaven, and is at the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers being made subject to Him. [...] For inasmuch then as Christ has suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind, for he that has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, that he should no longer live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God." I Peter 3:18, 22; 4:1-2

Peter laid down the precedent that we should be different because we are different (1:15, 23). He then unpacks that precedent, explaining what is our purpose and identity (2:9, 15-16). He then gives some practical examples of being different, relevant both to his time and (in many ways) ours (3:1-9). Now he comes to the end of the matter, and that ending is about the beginning, i.e., the foundation for the precedent that he began with. We have seen that we are different as well as what that difference looks like, but the question remains: on what grounds are we different? Granted that we have been changed into new creatures and thus should act accordingly, by what right, power, or authority have when been made new so that we might live new? The answer that Peter gives is the Gospel.

Christ died and rose again "that He might bring us back to God" (3:18), and since He has brought us back to the One who is holy, so we ought to and can be holy as He is holy. Thus, the Christian's one foundation is Jesus Christ the Lord, not just in matters of justification but also in sanctification and glorification. In truth, the whole of salvation belongs to Christ, and none belongs to us. This is an essential truth that we lose constantly, for how often, day-by-day, do we attempt to live holy lives in our own strength and power? And how often do we inevitably fail and wallow in the mire of self-pity? We would be free and much happier if we would understand and embrace the truth that the Christian has neither the right nor the power to be holy on his or her own.

Neither the right, because we have done and could have done nothing to save ourselves. All of our best intentions and best-laid plans crumble into ruin before the awesome ledger of God's perfection. Holiness could not be purchased by us, for all of our currency is filthy rags. Not only are we broken cisterns, but all of our wells have run dry. We will never earn holiness, but rather we must accept it as a gift from the one who has it, viz., Christ, who has become our righteousness (II Cor. 5:21). Thus, we have no right to glory except in Him (I Cor. 1:30-31). Nor the power, because we have neither the strength nor the will to be holy, for it is a divine attribute, and we are mortal, made of dust. Only a holy quickening (Eph. 2:4-8) could make us fit to live the life of God (Rom. 8:10-17; Gal. 2:20).

So you see, though we are different and ought to live differently, neither the right nor the power to be different was ever ours. It has been bought with a price, therefore we glorify God, who has made us fit to be partakers of His difference, and that is the key. The difference that we are and that we live and can live in Christ does not originate in us but in God, for He alone is holy. He alone is not like us. He alone is God. And He alone has raised us to walk in newness of life, to sit together in heavenly places with Christ Jesus, to be holy as He is holy. So let the final word of those who are holy be this: I will not boast in anything---no gifts, no power, no wisdom; but I will boast in Jesus Christ, His death and resurrection. We have gained from His reward, and by His stripes, we are different. Now and forever. Amen.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2012

Live Out Loud (practical Christianity as explained by an orthodox rebel)

"Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your husbands.... Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with your wives with understanding, giving honor unto the wife as unto the weaker vessel.... Finally, be ye all of one mind, having compassion one for another. Love each other as brethren...."

I Pet. 3:1, 7, 8

So far, Peter has laid down and unpacked the precedent that we are those who are different and therefore we should be different. We should live differently in this world; not because we have to, but because it is who we are. The only question now is what exactly this different living looks like. Anticipating this, Peter gives three examples that help us flesh out what it means to live differently. (NOTE: The two uses of "Likewise" and the use of "Finally" show that these examples are all a part of the same flow of thought from chapter 2.)

The first example is the submission of wives to their husbands' role as familial head, a very unpopular notion in our egalitarian-to-a-fault and hyper-individualistic democracy. What is interesting, however, is that the same idea was unpopular to Peter's readers as well. Peter was writing to believers living in Rome, and there was no other place in the ancient world that epitomized the same over-bloated egalitarianism and individualism of modern America. Case in point: Rome was home to the cults of Artemis, Isis, and Dionysus, all of which encouraged a wild and raucous lifestyle for women (think "Girls Gone Wild," Ancient Rome edition). Thus, the believers that Peter was addressing lived in a culture that was absolutely saturated in sex and a desire to act-out in every immoral way imaginable. (Does that sound familiar?)

In order to counter this culture of degradation, in order to live differently, Peter commands the Christian women to "be in subjection" to their husbands. How, exactly? By their "chaste manner of living" coming from the fear of God, who is above all husbands (vs. 2). The idea is that the Christian wives let their husbands (who were most likely unbelievers in this case) know that they were different, that they feared God and God alone by living a chaste life, full of a "meek and quiet spirit" (vs. 4). Such a life would sharply contrast (and thus completely counter) the Godless culture surrounding them, and such a life would show that they were not like everyone else. They had been made different by God.

The second example is for husbands to understand and honor their wives. This is an interesting pair of admonitions for two reasons. First, to "honor" a wife was an outrageous idea at the time. It is well known that the ancient world (in spite of their sexual cults) viewed women as lesser beings than men (and even as the property of men sometimes) precisely because they were the "weaker sex". Peter, however, turns the whole thing on its head: you honor your wife because she is the "weaker vessel" (i.e., physically weaker). To the ancient Roman culture, that logic made no sense; but to those who are different, it makes perfect sense. This is where the "understanding" part comes in. Peter tells husbands to live with their wives "with understanding". This understanding was not just an understanding of their subjective personalities as human beings but also their objective reality as a believer, i.e., "being heirs together of the grace of life" (vs. 7). That was the "understanding" that they were to have, viz., although their wives are physically weaker, they are still the daughters of God and heirs of His salvation, and on that basis husbands were to honor them. That is how they lived differently.

The final example Peter gives is for all believers to love each other, a principle that he laid down before (2:17) and that was first stated by Christ when He explained to His disciples how the world would know that they were different (John 13:35). Their love for each other was not (and is never) based on mere sentiment or shallow toleration. Rather, it is a direct result of the love of Christ being shed abroad in our hearts by His death, burial, and resurrection (Rom. 5:5-8). In short, we love each other for the same reason that husbands are to honor (and by extension, love) their wives: in Christ, we have all been made new, we have all been made different. And in that common difference, we love each other as heirs of the same salvation.

Perhaps now we will better understand a rather famous (and perhaps misunderstood) verse: "Always be ready to give an answer to every man that asks you for a reason for the hope that is within you" (I Pet. 3:15). A favorite verse of apologists (who are not entirely wrong for commandeering it), Peter actually has in mind something less specialized and more practical. We are to be ready to give an answer to "every man that asks" us about the hope within us. The question is: Why would they even ask? The answer should be obvious by now: they ask because they see that we are different. Our lives so sharply contrast with their own that they cannot help but ask what makes this contrast so. Herein we see that Christian living is not just a matter of holiness; it is also a matter of evangelism. Or to put it another way, holiness is evangelism. Christian living is not rule-keeping but a declaration, the main way that we "show forth the praises" of God. How we live is meant to be both our worship and our witnessing. Our life is the loudest voice that we have, and as those who are different we would do well to let it live out loud.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2012

Those Who Are Different (practical Christianity as explained by an orthodox rebel)

"...for you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people, that we should show forth the praises of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.... Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul.... For so is the will of God, that with well-doing you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men --- as free, but not using your liberty as a cloak for maliciousness, but as the servants of God."
I Pet. 2:9, 11, 15-16

In chapter 1, Peter set down a precedent that we (as Christians) are to be different because we are different (vs. 15 & 23). He then spends the first part of chapter 2 unpacking that difference and then the rest of the book on putting that difference into practice. Though his applications are somewhat unique to his time, the precedent and subsequent unpacking are universal.

The first thing that the precedent entails is our purpose, which is laid down in 2:9 when Peter says that we should "show forth the praises" of God. In the Greek, "show forth the praises" is "aretas exangeilhte," and it literally means to revel/proclaim the heroic and mighty deeds of someone (specifically God, in this context). Herein is our purpose as those who are different: we are to tell God's story, especially in regard to our own lives. He has done heroic and mighty deeds, namely rescuing us from the kingdom of darkness and translating us into the kingdom of His Son (Col. 1:13). We will not hide such things away, but rather we will show them to the generation to come, proclaiming the praises of the Lord, and His strength, and His wonderful works that He has done (Ps. 78:2-4). Thus is our purpose: to proclaim God to be the hero that He is, both at our salvation and in our day-to-day sanctification.

The second thing that the precedent entails is directly related to the first. It is our identity, which is laid down in 2:16 where Peter says, "As free, but not using your liberty as a cloak for maliciousness, but as the servants of God." In the Greek, "free" is "eleutheros," and it was the word for a "freeman". In the ancient world, a "freeman" was someone who had been a slave or debtor but had been set free by someone (usually their master). Thus, even though they were legally free, they always considered themselves indebted to the one who had freed them, living to freely serve them out of love and gratitude. Herein is our identity as those who are different: we are the freemen of God, who has set us free not for freedom's sake, but so that in our freedom we might live unto righteousness (I Peter 2:24b; Rom. 6:18), which is the truest expression of our gratitude and love as well as the truest proclamation of who God is: the Righteous One who has set us free.

Perhaps now you are beginning to see the whole picture. We are the freemen of God, and as such we are the "servants of God," and we live to show forth the mighty, heroic deeds that our Lord has done, viz., saving us from the power of Sin and the wrath of God. That is who we are and what we do, being those who are different. We are free, but our freedom is a means and not an end, a means to give ourselves in love to the one who freed us, and to praise Him, and to show forth His praises to those who are as we once were: enslaved to Sin in dungeons of darkness, never knowing the freedom to love and serve God.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2012

Believe Your Beliefs (practical Christianity as explained by an orthodox rebel)

"...but as He who has called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of living...being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which lives and abides forever...." I Peter 1:15, 23

Christian living is holiness and nothing less. It is not bare morality that we are after but God-likeness, for holiness means (esp, in the Greek) the unique attributes that make God separate and unique from Creation, i.e., the attributes that make God God. Unfortunately, holiness too often boils down in people's minds to mere rule keeping: dotting i's, crossing t's, and checking off all the boxes. A vigorous duty for duty's sake. That is not holiness, however, but legalism. Holiness is not about keeping the rules because they are rules. Rather, holiness is about being different because you are different. In other words, you are not trying to be a good little boy or girl because you know that you should be. Instead, something has fundamentally changed inside, a foundational transformation wherein you feel compelled to live and act and be this, that, and the other. It is as if another life has been birthed within you, which makes perfect sense if you have been "born again". You have died, and now Christ lives within you (Gal. 2:20). Therefore, you are commanded to be holy because the holy God dwells with you. You are commanded to be holy because that's what you are. Thus is the truth and the mystery.

The trouble with modern Christians, however, is that they don't believe anything anymore. It is a strange tragedy, but it is still a fact. We are in possession of incredible truths, truths that purport to involve themselves down to the most practical scruples of our lives, including how we eat and talk and behave towards others. We have been told that we have been indwelt by the Holy Spirit of the Almighty God of the universe, a gift bestowed upon us because that same God became a man and died, and in dying defeated death. Now by faith in that outlandish yet true victory, we have been "made new," born out of the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of light (Col. 1:12-14; I Peter 2:9b). As such, we walk as aliens and strangers amongst a perverse and crooked generation, among whom we shine like the stars (Phil. 2:15). These are the truths of our holy religion, and yet we treat them like inconsequential abstractions, fanciful thoughts for the occasional Sunday. In the pews we are Christians, but in life we are all practical agnostics. Brothers and sisters, these things ought not to be.

The truths that we believe are not mere thoughts and abstractions. They are practical and actual realities of our day-to-day lives. A holy God has actually called us to His actual holiness, and He actually died and rose again so that we could actually be holy in the here and now, and He has actually given us His actual Holy Spirit so that we can actually live that holy life in the here and now. The question is, do you actually believe that? Even now, wherever you are sitting? Do you believe that you are possessed by the Spirit of God, and that it is He who has called you to be holy, and that it is He who works in you to fulfill God's good will (Phil. 2:13)? If not, then why not? What obstinance or obstacle bars your way? Whatever it is, pray to God that it is removed. Life is never the same when you finally believe your beliefs.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2012

Wriggling in the Crushing Grip of Reason (an aside by Bill Watterson)

On science and religion (and where the two meet):

Boil to Rags, Part 8: Amen (a devotional series by an orthodox rebel)

(See the first post in the series here.)

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life." John 3:16

I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever, for He has given us All. He has given the greatest, the highest. He has given Himself. Life has given Himself for us, has given Life to those who seek and find Him. Now we who were restless have found rest. We who were bound have been set free. We who were dead now live. Our bones were once out of joint, but now they are knit together, and breath has filled our lungs. A living breath, full of passion and purpose, burning with the very heart of God. We only thought that we lived, but that was but death's dream kingdom. Now we dead live. We have been made new, raised to walk in newness of life. A life beyond life, new life, life more abundant and free. Life bound up in holy, intimate communion with the Godhead: hidden in Christ, filled with the Spirit, known by God. For herein is everlasting life, that we might know Him, the one true God, and Jesus Christ, He who was dead and is alive and lives forevermore.

What have we done to merit such favor? What gifts or strengths did we bring to catch the eye of the Almighty King? None. No righteousness. No goods. No power or might. All our righteousness is filthy rags before Him. All our goods are as good as evil. All of our strength is mere weakness. Before the I AM we are No-thing. Yet He has come for us, not because of us but because of Him. Because He is righteous. Because He is good. Because He is mighty. He is Love unstoppable, Life unkillable, and Light unquenchable. His goodness is in giving, a giving of Himself and nothing less. Not on our account, but on His. He loves to love, and He has sought us as His Beloved, not because we are lovely, but because He is God.

What is left for us to say but, "Amen."

-Jon Vowell (c) 2012

Boil to Rags, Part 7: The Last Enemy (a devotional series by an orthodox rebel)

(See the first post in the series here.)

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish...." John 3:16

Everything dies.

Everything fades, fails, burns out, and runs its course. Even secular skepticism cannot deny this one unalienable truth, this last absolute left to willful unbelief. Everything is perishing. Even as we speak, men and animals and plants and planets and stars and all things are moving faster and faster towards a static equilibrium, a silence and stillness and dark and cold. Long after every living things is a corpse, the universe itself will rot away leaving behind dead planets and empty voids, the skull and bones of existence. To those who do not have God, or redemption, or any other hope outside of this material deathtrap called Nature, death alone is crouching at the door, and its open maw will be satisfied with much blood.

We think very little of death until it's coming for us or those we love, until we discover that every place wherein our soul has trod is its hunting grounds. Then it is no longer a morbid abstraction. It becomes an enemy: a living, breathing, calculating enemy. An enemy with all the advantages: inescapable and unstoppable. It takes at will and seemingly at random, stealing young and old and friend and foe. Many today laugh and mock the "simple" view of a being whose ways are malicious and meaningless beyond all imagining. But let them taste of death, let their lives be stained by its horror and great darkness, and they will never be so naive again. We have a great foe, the last enemy left to mankind, who touches all of our lives on a relentless day-to-day basis, and he does not have red horns and a pitchfork but a black hood and a scythe. Indeed, the power of death is the Devil's for a season, but in the end even he will have to give up the ghost before that infinite dark.

See, now, why the Gospel is good news. It is not because another sage has taught us morality. It is not because a martyr died for a cause. It is not because a humble rabbi rebelled against his superiors. It is because whosoever believes in Christ shall never die. Death may claim a body, but it will find it a hollow treat, for the soul belongs to death's Great Enemy, the imperishable and incorruptible God-man. When long ago death met the Being of Life and the Life of Being face-to-face in a man, what else could happen but its power crumble like a hollowed-out house before an earthquake? When death swallowed Christ, it was as if a corpse swallowed a live coal and in turn was swallowed up with fire unquenchable. That is the Gospel: the immortal God has scattered the immortal dark. Christ died and rose again, and death has been swallowed up in His victory, and every soul surrendered to that victory shall not perish, for death owns nothing in them anymore.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2012

Boil to Rags, Part 6: Free Indeed (a devotional series by an orthodox rebel)

(See the first post in the series here.)

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him...." John 3:16

Faith is the very heartbeat of existence. The world may doubt faith, but it can never live without faith, for faith is trust in action, a very common and yet a very magnificent occurrence. It touches everything, from the flowers that trust the sky for rain to the child who trusts their parents without fear or question to the very heart of the Godhead Three: their perfect communion breeding perfect knowledge, and perfect knowledge leaping out in perfect trust. He trusts in His will, and into His hands He commits His spirit. So you see, from the highest to the lowest, faith is trust; furthermore, it is trust in another, for where there is no other, then there is no faith. Faith in Self is not faith at all but the very essence of Sin, and what is of Sin is not of faith. Likewise, faith in faith is not faith but foolishness, for faith is an action and not a being, and an action turned back in on itself is aimless and therefore lost. Thus, it is not good that faith should be alone.

Without faith, it is impossible to please God. Without trust, we dishonor Him, claiming Him to be unworthy of our lives and our love. Yet we abandon ourselves to everything else: to pleasure and power, to dominance and doubt, to money and markets, to self and satisfaction, to work and causes and fads and all the unstable chaff of this world. We abandon ourselves anew every day to a myriad of vaporous lovers, but we will neither submit nor surrender to Love Himself. Oh, we will disguise our fear and arrogance by calling it false names like rationalism or "healthy" skepticism or "humble" agnosticism, but we are all liars and self-deceived. Our skepticism is always selective, and we will always trust in our doubts as long as they will keep us both safe from the living God and free for our own will.

Yet the doubting soul is never free, for freedom belongs to faith alone. Doubt pulls one into the self: our lusts and desires and will to dominate our own life. It is a vacuous narcissism that pulls all inward, making a cage out of its own desire. But faith knows no cages, for it is an ever-expanding thrust outward, breaking barriers and walls and bars, discovering newer and newer undiscovered countries and canvases of souls. Never stopping until it touches and is caught up in that Soul whose very essence is faith, an endless giving and receiving, trusting and loving. For in God alone our faith find a resting place where its movements never cease, and thus it is ever-satisfied.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2012