That's stretching the analogy somewhat. The parachute can be tested for efficacy, but no man has ever been plucked out of the air by a giant hand (regardless of their confidence in the latter).
And of course, literalizing the analogy stretches it even more.
Perhaps, but there are an infinite other series of social laws that could have been issued. Sharia law, for instance, or the British legal code.
I disagree: what group of people still follow the covenant? There may be some, but the vast majority of the world doesn't, yet we are at the peak of our technological development. There is no more conflict, violence, injustice, and oppression in our non-covenant-following societies than there is the ancient Hebrew societies.
The particularities of the code are incidental. A focus on them gives us legalism. As Jesus said, the letter kills, it is the spirit that gives life. It is interesting to look at what the prophets focused on when they railed against Israel's and Judah's unfaithfulness to the covenant. Not once did they throw up their hands in horror over people eating shellfish or trimming their beards. They never denounce abortion or homosexuality. (The only time Sodom is mentioned in the OT outside of Genesis, the charge against it is wealth, greed and inhospitality to strangers.) And the only time they mention sacrifices is to say how worthless they are apart from justice.
The importance of the covenant are not the specifics of the code, but the relationship it sets up between the people and God. In Paul's view the purpose of the law was to act as a pedagogue, to lead people into that relationship. That is why Jesus (and Hillel) could summarize the whole law in the sentence "Love God and love your neighbour as yourself."
That's merely a consequence of large groups of humans living together: a form of government and economy are required to maintain stability.
I chose the word "empire" rather than "government" deliberately. Though one could ask if government is indeed necessary to maintain stability. If so, is that not an indication that we do need external constraints and therefore are not the people who have internalized the covenant, as Jeremiah says? If no one needs to be taught the ways of
shalom , why is a government necessary for stability?
"Empire" has further connotations beyond that of government. Empire implies a system by which society is forcibly ordered for the benefit of an elite. The very name implies command backed up by economic and military might and the forcible repression of resistance.
Nevertheless, the covenant laid down is arbitrary in its specifics and arbitrary in its social reform: why deliver a form of society that is indicative of Bronze-age nomads? Why not, say, feudalism? Communism?
Sure it is arbitrary in its social reform. Walter Bruggeman points out that it breaks decisively with the static order of Egyptian imperialism.
The gods of Egypt are the immovable lords of order. They call for, sanction and legitimate a society of order, which is precisely what Egypt had. In Egypt ... there were no revolutions, no breaks for freedom.There were only the necessary political and economic arrangements to provide order, "naturally" the order of Pharoah. Thus the religion of the static gods is not and never could be disinterested, but inevitably served the interests of the people in charge, presiding over the order and benefitting from the order. And the functioning of that society testified to the rightness of the religion because kings did prosper and bricks did get made. from The Prophetic Imagination 2nd ed. p. 7
The covenant with Israel required that it not imitate the order of Egypt. And when the royal/economic/religious authorities did imitate the order of Egypt, the prophets called for a return to the covenant with the God who "led you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage."
Covenant is relationship much more than specific dos and donts. And it is observed in the integrity of human relationships of freedom from bondage. By the same token it is violated in relationships of repression and exploitation.
He can resort to whatever method he wants. That's the point of omnipotence.
And he has. So what is your problem? Is it that you think God lacks the wisdom to choose the best way to use his omnipotence? I am at a total loss trying to understand what you think "snapping his proverbial fingers" means. What is it that you think would happen in such a case? Would it require total memory loss of all wrongs committed by or against us? Or annihilation of any sense of guilt or empathy? Or excision of the ego? I really don't know. And I don't know that any of this would be effective anyway.
All I know is that to get into heaven means first and foremost getting heaven into us. We need to be changed, transformed from within. And I know of no-one who has found this to be an instantaneous process, even within the context of salvation.
The problem with that analogy is that the son is fully aware of what he is doing, and all he has to do is to literally walk through a physical door. This is not the case for the Christian concept of salvation.
And the difficulty with spiritual concepts is that they can only be described analogically. Deal with it.
There's a contradiction in terms if ever I saw one.
Yeah, it's like struggling with thesis and antithesis before one has found the synthesis that resolves them.
But do you agree that I am not saved, and you are?
No, there is no way I could know that. I know you sport a pagan faith icon and have a lot of nasty things to say about God, but for all I know your rebellion is more against bad theology than deity. After all, one of the first steps toward a good relationship with God would be getting rid of false concepts that block that relationship.
And I don't know what God is doing with you right now. I like the saying attributed to Mother Teresa "We do not know how God appears to another human soul." But if whatever beckons you is life-affirming, and strengthens your commitment act kindly, with generosity and love, I would trust that leading.
Even if it is a belief or even a gut feeling, there is still something I must do to 'become' saved, no?
One of the most difficult things about the gospel, is, strangely, the Christian concept that one does not have to do anything to become saved. As Shernren noted in another post, the most common reaction he gets when counselling people is that it can't possibly be so easy. Like Naaman, we expect to be set a hard task in order to be healed, and become insulted when we are denied the opportunity to "prove ourselves".
What did the lost sheep do to be saved by the shepherd, other than get lost in the first place?
When the prodigal did decide to return home, he expected to pay a price for his folly and he was willing to do so. "I will say to my father, 'Let me have the place of a hired servant.'" But he never got the chance to make the offer.
So, is it "doing something" to accept that all that needs to be done has been done for you? In that case, I suppose you have to "do something". It certainly seems to be a very hard thing for most people to do. We act like people who have been told the concert is free, yet insist on buying a ticket. And then we prize our ticket more than the concert. Because, after all, we bought the ticket.
That's a bit circular, isn't it? We're saved from damnation, insofar as damnation is not being saved
.
Or to put it another way, we are saved from damnation when we stop clinging to it.
By some remarkable (and slightly spooky) coincidence, I downloaded a copy of Dante's Divine Comedy yesterday.
Synchronicity! Enjoy. I just finished it a few weeks ago and started right back into it again. Also, for the first time I am reading the Iliad.
Ah, but if that were the case, then all humans would be saved, and Christianity would be redundant.
In one sense, as Christ died for all, all are saved. The question, I suppose, is whether anyone is strong-willed enough to resist salvation for ever. Calvin suggested not. Those whom God saves are saved for his call is irrevocable and his grace irresistible. But then, he (or some of his followers) developed the concept of "double-decree predestination" and "limited atonement" so that hell could still be filled.
Alternately, one has the more Catholic view that some may indeed be so resistant to salvation as to choose not to be saved for eternity. That is the view that Dante works from, and C. S. Lewis seems to subscribe to it as well. And then, of course, there are those who hold out the possibility that God has indeed willed the salvation of all, so all are/will be saved. That's a very minority view among Christians, and some think it heresy.
Suffice it to say that the truth of the matter rests in the sovereign freedom of God to work it out according to his wisdom, justice and mercy.
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