Discipline or Punishment

There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. (1 John 4:18)

I am being confronted ever more closely by commonly accepted paradigms about love, punishment and the truth about how God relates to us. Because all of our intuition, our social norms, our culture and upbringing and our shared 'common sense' beliefs are infected with lies about God due to the distorted assertions of the accuser, it is a constant struggle to embrace truths that seem to fly in the face of what makes sense to us.

In the last day or two I came across a quote on Facebook that grabbed my attention. This is during a time when I am grappling with thoughts stirred up after finishing a book challenging our assumptions about God using violence in any way, shape or form. I am having discussions with people along these lines that raise doubts and serious questions as to how this can really be true. And I have questions of my own that I do not want to ignore, but neither do I want to rely on false criteria to satisfy them.

Here is what I read on the internet that caught my attention. It is a contrast between discipline and punishment and reminded me immediately of the above verse that I have been pondering for quite some time now.

Discipline: Meant to guide and help children, gives children the tools of self regulation. It builds self esteem, respects, heals, encourages, emotionally supports and facilitates trust.

Punishment: Adult Oriented, Imposes Power and Control, Lowers self esteem, Humiliates, Hurts (physically and/or emotionally), Angers, Embarrasses, Discourages, Emotionally abandons, Frustrates.

As I compared these thoughts to what I am learning from John, it suddenly occurred to me how clear this passage is on this topic.

In verse 8 John states explicitly that God is love. Most of us won't argue with that but we generally either are ready to list exceptions to it or choose to redefine the meaning of love to include some elements of violence when considered necessary. But even non-Christians are struggling with this issue because violence and force somehow don't seem to make sense as a legitimate description of love. Violence is related to the word violate which seems to be more closely associated with sin than with rightousness. We are quick to talk about violations of various laws as being wrong. Yet when it comes to violence we seem reluctant to embrace the idea that God refuses to resort to such methods and instead may use ways that are beyond our current appreciation or comprehension at this point.

I know that in my own upbringing it was acceptable to use violence, as in spanking, to punish children for nonconformity to parental expectations. I also know that my brother to this day insists that I did not have near enough of this treatment and as a result I have been malformed in my character. Yet this whole belief that violence is an integral part of God's plan for our lives seems to conflict with the clear messages about Him that I find in the writings of John.

If God is love and pure agape love cannot exist if anything dilutes it, then the above verse seems to preclude punishment being involved in the tactics of anyone choosing to live in true love. The purpose of punishment is to instill fear and depends on sufficient fear to be induced so as to deter the recipient of the punishment and others observing it from making any more choices similar to what brought about the punishment. This is the common logic for applying punishment. But though it may sound logical to many, its effect on the heart is always more damaging than beneficial.

I say this from tragic personal experience, both my own and that of those I have punished. Yet the problem that I struggle with is that because I have never been mentored by anyone who could demonstrate any viable alternative methods based on real love for effectively dealing with rebellion and resistance to authority, my brain has very little to draw on in times of stress created by disruptive behavior by others. I still don't have the answers that everyone wants to know on these issues.

Yet just because I cannot envision viable alternatives to using punishment, force and violence because of my own sad lack of resources does not imply that they do not exist. This is the problem I believe we have with trying to perceive a God who does not need to resort to violence in spite of all the reports about Him recorded in Scripture that seem to imply the opposite. This is where the real dispute sharpens, for as soon as assertions about a non-violent God are raised, many are sure to ask about specific incidents in the Bible where it is assumed God did in fact employ violence to get His way.

But this is often where the discussion gets off on the wrong track. We want to argue about whether or not reports about God using violence are accurate or not while neglecting to face the much clearer statements about what God is like from His own Son who came to show us the truth about Him. And as one of the closest confidants of Jesus, John seemed to have the clearest grasp on the truths that Jesus tried to convey more than any other Bible writer. So why do we find it so hard to believe what John so urgently seeks to get across to us about God?

There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. It seems clear here that God, who is love, is not compatible with fear in any way. In fact, John is stating here that anyone who is still involved or addicted to using fear has still missed the main point of the gospel; they are not yet perfected or matured in love. This verse shows unequivocally that fear and punishment are intimately associated with each other and both of them are outside the boundaries of what is acceptable for anyone wanting to live in love.

It is starting to become clearer to me that the enemy of our souls will stop at nothing to discredit love. It has been reported that he even denies its very existence and this fact is evident when one considers the wide variations of how people define the word. Almost no one is willing to believe that God is as loving and selfless and humble and kind as Jesus made Him out to be. We seem hell-bent on diluting the purity and intensity of an agape love that so challenges our sense of reality, assaults our common sense and challenges everything we have ever assumed or learned from religion.

I have come to believe that fear, along with deception, is our greatest enemy intended to keep us away from God, our only source of life. That is why I am so compelled to seriously question the assertions by sincere Christians that there has to be allowance made for a certain amount of fear and even punishment and force to deal with problems that sin creates. But because this directly contradicts these plain statements about God by one of the disciples who came to best know Him, I feel that the weight of evidence is stronger in favor of believing in a non-violent God than in the more traditional and religiously acceptable views about Him.

That does not mean that everything attributed to God throughout the Bible does not raise serious questions that need to be grappled with. But it does mean that the basis and underlying assumptions about what criteria we use to evaluate those reports must first be put on a solid footing before launching into any investigation about why certain stories read the way they do. What appears certain on the surface in many of these stories can quickly change when one is willing to ask tough questions, dig deeper into the context and particularly when Jesus Christ is made the highest and primary criteria for determining what is true and what is false about the nature of God.

This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. (1 John 1:5-6) When we try to weave dark views of God back into the clear revelation found in the life of Jesus, we are in danger of being liars according to John. No matter how religiously correct or plausible or logical it may seem, it is very hazardous to insist that God participates in activities and methods that originated from the father of lies and violence.

An even greater danger is that as we smugly rest on our arguments in favor of justifying our diluted opinions about God and His ways, we actually construct obstacles inside of us that inhibit our own growth and prevent that very love from maturing in our own lives. By denying that God is as perfect and selfless as He claims to be we also dim the image of Him that we reflect and open the door to potential choices to use violence when we come into extreme circumstances ourselves.

I have come to see that this is the real power as well as the scandal of the truth about the cross of Jesus. Rather than being a symbol of a violent God pouring out His wrath and anger about sin onto His Son to appease Himself, the cross is the most extreme exhibition of self-control, compassion and selfless, forgiving love that has ever been witnessed under the most extreme environment of duress designed to induce the very opposite. The fact that Jesus did not resort to even a desire for violence or retaliation during all of that treatment should be the clearest conviction about the fallacy of our insistence on justifying violence and punishment and fear as valid methods to use in any of our relationships.

I believe the underlying reason we are so loathe to give up our beliefs in a God who at times is willing to resort to violence is that we want to vindicate ourselves for times when we fail to respond in agape love but rather react in self-defense or entertain feelings of resentment and desires for revenge. As long as we can claim that there are times when God chose to react in any of these ways, we can justify our own natural desire for self-preservation and self-defense with an excuse we are following His example. But the Old Testament is not completely a reliable revelation of the real truth about God, for it is shrouded in the shadows of misapprehensions and misunderstandings about Him that were never cleared until the true Example finally came in person to show us the Father.

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.... (Hebrews 1:1-3 ESV)

For the Law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the very form of things, can never, by the same sacrifices which they offer continually year by year, make perfect those who draw near. (Hebrews 10:1)

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:8-10, 12-13 NIV)

The Hubble Syndrome

I remember years ago the intense disappointment and even anger on the part of many right after the Hubble telescope was launched into space. The scientific world had great expectations for the amazing pictures that this telescope based in space would provide. But instead of spectacular views of deep space, when the first pictures began streaming back to the receivers on earth it was discovered that the giant glass lens that was at the heart of the telescope had not been formed correctly and every image returning to earth was terribly out of focus and fuzzy.

At first many were in despair. Millions of dollars had been invested in this grand project to peer deeper out into space than people had ever seen before, but now it seemed that all the time, money and efforts that had gone into this grand project had been wasted. And there was little to no possibility of coming up with more resources to build and launch a replacement for that telescope.

But as some might remember, a number of ingenious people immediately began working on an idea to salvage the project by designing software that would compensate for the mistake by rearranging the information so as to recreate it and reassemble it after reception so as to compose a corrected version of what the telescope was seeing. I am sure it took a great deal of effort and careful calculating to create such software, but the results were so effective that the Hubble telescope has been successfully searching and scanning the heavens for many years longer than it was originally intended to do from the beginning. This is all possible only because there is a correcting filter in place to give us images that are actually useful and beneficial.

While this story may seem to be a tribute to man's ingenuity and skill, it actually prompted me to think of something far more important that this story might serve to illustrate. That has to do with the terribly fuzzy and distorted views of God, our Father, our Creator and the only Source of life that we vitally need in order to survive for even a moment. Ever since the lies embedded in sin infected our thinking back in the Garden of Eden, the pictures streaming into our hearts about how God feels about us have been shrouded in darkness, lies and fear.

Throughout the centuries of the Old Testament era from creation until the days of Jesus Christ's life on this earth, views of God varied considerably and even the reports recorded about His dealings with sinners are often confusing and conflicting. The reports about God that we find recorded in the Bible often seem to clash sharply with the explicit revelation of God as seen in the life of Jesus who came for the very purpose of revealing God. Yet we still are faced with the same dilemma as what confronted the scientific world upon discovery of the tragic mistake that happened in the construction of the Hubble.

While it is true that Jesus came to expose the real truth about God and how He feels about sinners, the people around Him and even His closest friends had such damaged receptors due to centuries of confusion and dark reports about God that they found it nearly impossible to interpret the actions and spirit that they saw in Jesus as relating to any God that they thought they knew about. Jesus was so radically different from their conceptions of God firmly settled in their minds that many rejected Him as being a fraud and even a blasphemer. They refused to accept that this humble, penniless carpenter from a no-good village full of misfits with a bad reputation could possibly know more than they did about what God was really like. And besides, many of the things that He taught and did went directly against many beliefs they could clearly prove from Scripture.

Many Christians today assume that we no longer have that problem. We say that Jesus was the one who He said He was, the representative of God, the Son of God. Yet in claiming we believe that we often overlook the fact that our own receptors are still terribly damaged and deformed and that our preconceptions and misapprehensions about God seriously distort how we perceive even the life and death of Jesus. Not only are the messages about God from the Old Testament in particular confusing to us, but now even the testimony of Jesus has become obscured with centuries of added lies about just what He is really like and why He came to die for our sins.

What we desperately need, just as the builders of the Hubble telescope needed, was something to make accurate corrections to the incoming information so as to recreate a picture that actually is similar to the original view that has been lost for so long. Yes, Jesus came to do that for all of humanity and even for the rest of the universe. But in the intervening years the enemy of our souls has successfully reinserted dark views and distorted meanings and worthless traditions that have once again shrouded the earth with deep darkness about reality. How can we catch a glimpse of the true glory of the Father as displayed in the life and teachings of Jesus with all of these intentional distortions now in place?

Jesus knew that this was going to happen for His enemy is very predictable. That is why during His last hours of teaching with His disciples just before His death He shared with them His solution to this very problem. There is in fact an Interpreter that has been appointed by heaven for the very purpose of correcting in every person's mind and heart incoming information about the real truth about God if that person is only willing to allow God to install it into their system. This Interpreter has many names, for it has many functions; but its sole purpose is to be a corrective filter or template in each mind to undistort the many confusing and conflicting ideas that inhibit us from being drawn back into harmony with the principles and the perfect society of heaven.

But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you. (John 14:26)

Without the Holy Spirit it is inevitable that our distorted minds will misinterpret and misapply the many bits of information we receive about God. There is no end to the examples of distorted notions about reality, about God and about eternity that have proliferated over the centuries and that infect our minds and hearts today. But Jesus came to turn around the course of history as it sank deeper and deeper into the darkness of ignorance about God and His love. And since that time the Holy Spirit has been available to anyone in a much more intentional way to provide the true light about God that originates with God; light about what is really going on and who He really is and how He feels about us.

As I have meditated over weeks and months on the passages of John 14 and 15 and now in parallel the whole book of 1 John, I am starting to catch glimpses at a deeper level for the first time in my life of bits of the glory that are starting to seep into this world. This light of glory is predicted to soon overwhelm the whole world with the brilliance of the real truth about God. This is prophesied in Revelation 18:1 and I am starting to pick up the vibes of many from all directions who are starting to see this glory themselves more clearly. This is a God thing and not something we can initiate. But if we choose to quit resisting and allow the Spirit to reframe our views of reality in the light of the real truth about God's agape love, this Spirit Interpreter sent directly from Jesus will reveal to us the glories that far eclipse the stunning images of God's universe that the Hubble telescope has delivered through the interpretive corrective software that clarifies its pictures.

As I look at the passages around this verse from John 14, from verse 23-27 and compare it with chapter 4 in 1 John, I am starting to resonate with excitement as I finally begin to feel the effects of having that Spirit reveal some of the original truths about God that have been hidden from me for so long. Jesus says here that those who love Him, i.e. those who become exposed enough to His love and allow that love to be reflected back out of their lives, are going to be the very ones with whom God and the Son will be able to abide. These passages are full of references to abiding, both us abiding or dwelling in God and vice versa. I feel we have hardly scratched the surface of comprehending and experiencing just what that describes, but I do know that I want that to be my own experience much more than what it is now.

The exciting thing that catches my attention in this is that as this passionate, selfless, God-like agape love begins to transform me into reflecting the very likeness of God, that process will expel all fear from my heart and life. That for me is incredibly good news and is the same exciting news that Paul and the other apostles so passionately preached for years with unstoppable enthusiasm. This is the good news that electrified and impassioned all of the early believers and created shock waves all over the world until it was eventually neutralized through the infiltration of deceptions and distortions that brought confusion and darkness back into the church.

Since, therefore, the children share flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared the same things, so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death. (Hebrews 2:14-15 NRSV)

All fear ultimately is connected in one way or another to our fear of death. Fear of pain, fear of rejection, fear of loss, shame or anything else is all traceable back to the fear we have of death. This is the focal power of Satan' kingdom, the main method by which he keeps us enslaved and blinded and discouraged and confused. Fear and death are the real enemies and the devil has used deception and accusations against God to enforce this bondage ever since he started his revolt against God in heaven.

Jesus came to reveal the fraud, to expose the lies about God that have kept us in fear of God ever since Adam and Eve hid in the bushes. Now after decades of even more lies piled on top of the clear revelation of God in the life and death of Jesus, it is time again to have another even grander exposé of the real character of God through a willing group of individuals who allow the Holy Spirit to channel His righteousness through them as a final witness before the whole world of what God is really like.

This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.

The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him.

By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. We love, because He first loved us.

Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. (1 John 1:5; 4:8-9, 17-19, 11-13)

After this I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority; and the earth was made bright with his splendor. (Revelation 18:1 NRSV)