"Lest they be forgiven"

Mar 4:10 And when he was alone, they that were about him with the twelve asked of him the parable. 11 And he said unto them, Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all [these] things are done in parables: 12 That seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and [their] sins should be forgiven them.

Lest? What do you mean “Lest…their sins should be forgiven them”? Doesn’t He want their sins to be forgiven. Jesus seems to be saying something very not-PC in Mark: that He doesn’t make parables clear for the purpose of people not believing in Him. The blow is softened in Luke’s account (so most Christians just skip over Mark’s “lest” and go on to a more comfortable Luke).

For those that do exposit this verse, it is generally taken to mean that Jesus is creating an insider group, separating those who would believe from those who would not. This has been taken as a verse in support of a Calvinist view of the world where those who are inside were predestined to be there and that’s the way God wants it; parables may even be a way of limiting the accountability of those who are going to be damned anyways. And though Calvinism is always tough to swallow, expositionally it’s usually a safe bet (and the side of the argument I usually find myself on).

Today in my Bible study, we went back and looked at where Jesus was quoting from:

Isa 6:9 And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. 10 Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed.

Pretty much the same thing (once you pass it through the Septuagint). First note the context: this is the first message given to Isaiah, immediately after his commissioning.[1] So the context makes this into a pretty important message. And what’s the message? Israel will not listen. But Isaiah isn’t satisfied with his commission. He asks God, “Lord, how long?” (Isa 6:11)[2]. And God tells him, “Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant…” and then goes on to describe exile and a remnant.

When did that happen? From the writing of Isaiah to the present, the desolation of the cities of Israel was either by Nebuchadnezzar (586BCE) or by Vespasian (70CE … :P Just fooling. Anno Domini 70 [3]). But if you look at Jesus’ words, He seems to be applying God’s words to the present situation; He seems to be claiming His parables are the fulfillment of the first part (“lest they see…and hear”). It would follow that the prophecy of desolation is Vespasian’s.

Look closely at the Isaiah passage. The word that caught my attention was: “until”. The implication of ‘until’ is that this blindness is only temporary. Where do we hear about “blindness until…”? A BLB search yields one result:

Rom 11:25 For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. 26 And so all Israel shall be saved…

In this part of Romans, Paul is talking about Israel’s role in God’s plan. Here he describes how Israel’s disbelief benefits the Gentiles: “…through their fall salvation [is come] unto the Gentiles…” (Rom 11:11). In other words, if Israel did not fall, the Gentiles would not have had the chance for salvation. If the Jews would have accepted Jesus as King, they would have set up His throne in Jerusalem and kicked off the Millennium in 32AD; His crown would not have been of thorns and the fealty paid by the Romans would not have been in jest. But Eternity would have been empty save for a few million Jews, peppered with Gentiles like Melchizedek and Rahab.

Why doesn’t Jesus want them to be forgiven in Mark 4? Because if the Jews to whom he preached believed, then multitudes of Gentiles would not be saved. It wasn’t that Jesus didn’t want the Jews to believe in Him; He didn’t want them to believe in him yet. By keeping the Kingdom of God a secret, by encoding it in parables and telling only His closest disciples, Christ was preparing the way for His own crucifixion. By keeping His identity a secret from those people who he loved most, by allowing his beloved ones to suffer from blindness, he made salvation possible for billions. His secrecy made possible a world where He would pay for the sins of the world, and a world where those few disciples to whom he told these secrets would then go out and preach Salvation to all tribes, tongues, peoples and nations.

What sounds like an elitist Jew speaking secrets to an inner circle, actually is a daring and heroic plan to save the world.

[1] In my book, Isaiah in this scene wins the “Best possible direct response to God” award: When God asks in His throne room (filled with recently-described super angels screaming to each other "Holy, Holy, Holy") “Whom shall I send?” Isaiah has the balls (faith) to shout “Here am I; send me.”

[2]This, by the way, is also pretty insightful/ballsy
God: “I’m going to crush them.”
Isaiah: “Yeah I know you’re saying that, but, come on, they’re your people. I know you won’t forever. So, how ‘bout it? When are you going to give up and bless them again like you always do?”

[3] I think I’m going to start saying the full translated phrase from now on. “When were you born?” “In the year of our Lord 1985.”

Miniposts

My Friday-night "Overtopping" explosion has done no good. Ideas beget ideas! I was up to 17 pink notes a few hours ago. So I'll go super short. Here are a few stubs for ideas that should be developed. Comment if one of them strikes your fancy.

Salvation
There seem to be two senses of salvation. There is a sense in which we "have been saved" and another in which we "are being saved." It seems to me that with the past-tense part of salvation, we can also say we have been saved by faith; it is justification (Rom 8); it's focus is on our relationship to God: "Love the Lord thy God..."

The second sense is more dynamic and may seem to require works. This may be where the James "faith without works is dead" fits into salvation. This is sanctification. This 'being saved' depends on the first sense, but it's focus is outwards, on the second Great Commandment "Love thy neighbor as thyself."

If this were the case, both sides of Grace vs. Works would be right on salvation; it depends on the tense of 'saved.'

Life Expectancy at conception
We like to think of ourselves as civilized because our "life expectancy at birth" has gone way up after all our babies stopped dying from diseased we figured out how to prevent. But we would still look like barbarians if we calculated our life expectancy from conception, counting the millions who don't make it out of the womb because of abortion. Perhaps our life expectancy hasn't changed since the Dark Ages.

Axioms
We all have to make assumptions about our worldview. Do we have to assume God? In what sense can we 'prove' Him? I had a friend strongly disagree with the Cosmological argument on the grounds that we could not know the nature of the universe 'before' the beginning. I then made the argument that if we could not know before the beginning for certain, we must at least be agnostic about it; we would have to consign it to an axiom or assumption of our worldview.

Was this a valid argument? Are we able to be more confident about God's existence on purely logical grounds? Or is God an assumed precondition of the universe?

Evil Is Singularly Human
I was discussing the difference between Humans and the animals and I argued that our absurd (in Evolutionary terms) altruism was something that set us apart. After a bit of discussion on that, my discussants (<-- I thought I made that word up... spell check isn't underlining it) suggested that no other species commits acts of evil. After reflecting, I think I agree. We are the only gratuitously evil species. Even in cases where it is against our best interest (survival or social), we'll commit terribly evil acts. This, I think, supports the view that Man is a Moral being. That is, he has the capacity to go above and below the call of instinct. I previously only focused on how he went above it in altruism, not below it in malice. Whew
Down to 9 pink notes. Single digits. Now it's bedtime.

Henry

Two months ago on a plane to New York, I met a man named Henry. We talked pleasantries for a few minutes, but got into intense conversation rather quickly. He asked me about my research, so I showed him the pictures I had taken and described my research. It turned out that he was a scientifically-minded actor who was very impressed that I was (in his mind) actually a scientist.

God guided the conversation to spiritual things through me, and that's when things got good. I found out that he had a religious background (Episcopal), but has fallen away from the faith and had embraced atheism for the sake of reason. Most of the conversation was spent discussing his security in Atheism; I presented the rationality and defensibility of the Christian Faith.

Before parting ways, we exchanged contact information. I sent him an email when I returned, and he asked me for my mailing address. I provided this, and before I knew it, I had received a letter, handwritten and on nice stationary. He said he appreciated the conversation and it opened his eyes to the possibility of there being a God. But, in the end, he talked about how he couldn't imagine God hiding from us behind the universe.

I sent him a letter explaining that God wasn't hiding; He was everywhere. His beauty could be seen in the sunrise, the shadow of His love could be experienced in human relationships and so on. Through all this I had been praying rather hard for him, harder than I had for any other stranger I had shared my faith with.

The letter I got back blew me away. He said that he longed for my faith, that my letter was refreshing in the cynical darkness of New York. He asked honest questions about my motivation; why I did what I did in religion and life. It seemed that the Holy Spirit spoke to him in such a powerful way that he would completely change his tone. I wrote a letter back that encouraged him to stop longing for faith and just to believe.

By this time I had gotten an interview at Cornell in New York city (the medical school is in the city; the main campus is in upstate New York). I realized I would be able to see him when I went for my interview. I called him and arranged for it. I realized that with such a broken spirit, salvation was close. I prayed and even fasted for him before I left. I had all of my friends and my church praying for him.

I had arranged to meet him on Monday afternoon at 4PM. My plane got in late. His plane got in later. I had no time on Tuesday to meet because of my interview and early flight. For most of the day, I was rather upset with God for seeming to set up such a perfect opportunity to share with him and then to cancel it. I was very disgruntled as I rode the subway and then the bus to catch my flight.

Then, right before I reached the terminal, I got the burning in my belly to change my flight. I had tried to make it a later flight, but there were none on that day. I had nowhere to stay and didn't even know if he was going to be able to meet. If he was free, I didn't know where he'd be. But I did it. I changed my flight to 9AM of the following morning.

I took the bus and then the train back into the city. I decided I'd walk around Times Square until 6pm when he got off of work. With my rolling suitcase, I went through the crowded streets, in awe and disgust at the bustle and materialism of that place. I decided to stop and go to McDonalds to sit for a while. I left a message with Henry and then nursed a Mr. Pibb for half an hour. At 6:05PM, he called me. When I told him where I was, he was surprised; I just happened to be a few blocks from where he was. He walked over and met me in the McDonalds.

He recommended a diner, so we walked and talked on our way there. Upon arrival at Astro Diner, we got to the meat. Then, over the next three hours, we would discuss many things. After discussing it, he admitted that he would probably be happier as a Christian. He also said that Christianity was more rational than Atheism. Eternally, it would probably work out better for Christians than for him. He even had experienced a miracle on Good Friday when he was a believer. We discussed freewill, and he admitted that he had only the illusion of control over his life. But this was all he wanted. This was everything to him: to have the feeling that he was in control of his own life. He was willing to give up everything else for that. He compared himself to the character Cypher in "The Matrix," who knew the Matrix was a lie, but knowingly preferred the lie to the truth.

I have never had a more candid conversation with a non-believer. Never have I heard somebody who was so completely honest about their motivations and intentions. Unfortunately, his intentions were purely selfish.

We agreed to continue corresponding, and he left for home. I later made my way back to the airport and spent as much of the night as I could unconscious, hunched over a food court table.

I hope that God moves in his heart; nothing more can be done with his mind. He has no other hope for salvation.