What we Need to Be Saved From

[mkgal1]

More from Julian of Norwich (and comments by Rohr):


---->Julian says, “By myself I am nothing at all, but in general, I am in the oneing of love. For it is in this oneing that the life of all people exists.” [3] She continues: “The love of God creates in us such a oneing that when it is truly seen, no person can separate themselves from another person” [4], and “In the sight of God all humans are oned, and one person is all people.” [5]

This is not some 21st century leap forward in theology. This is not pantheism or mere “New Age” optimism. This is the whole point and always has been. It was, indeed, supposed to usher in a new age—and it still can and will. Radical union is the recurring experience of the saints and mystics of all religions. Our job is not to first discover it, but only to retrieve what has been re-discovered—and enjoyed, again and again—by those who desire and seek God and love. When you think you have “discovered” it, you will be just like Jacob “when he awoke from his sleep” and shouted, “You were here all the time, and I never knew it!” (Genesis 28:16).

Gateway to Silence:
We are all one with You.

References:
[1] Julian of Norwich, Showings, Chapter 22 (Short text), trans. Edmund Colledge and James Walsh (Paulist Press: 1978), 164.
[2] Julian of Norwich, Showings, Chapter 53. See The Writings of Julian of Norwich: A Vision Showed to a Devout Woman and A Revelation of Love, eds. Nicholas Watson and Jacqueline Jenkins (Pennsylvania State University Press: 2006), 295. (Sentences presented here are adapted from Julian’s Middle English.)
[3] Showings, Chapter 9. See Watson and Jenkins, 155.
[4] Showings, Chapter 65. Ibid., 329.
[5] Showings, Chapter 51. Ibid., 279.

https://cac.org/julian-norwich-part-2-2017-10-02/

 

[mkgal1]

Yes..... we are being saved from our own PRIDE within...... because G-d will not try to dwell with proud people any more considering how badly things turned out with Covering Cherub Lucifer.

I would just tweak what you're saying a tiny bit....He tries to dwell with ALL of us....but He cannot dwell with the proud (so....instead....His divine love heals the proud....and any pride within us all).

 

[DennisTate]

I would just tweak what you're saying a tiny bit....He tries to dwell with ALL of us....but He cannot dwell with the proud (so....instead....His divine love heals the proud....and any pride within us all).

I agree..... and I am an example of this....... I began to suspect back around 1988 that there must be something terribly wrong with my thinking...... because I had explanations for pretty much all scriptures from Genesis to Revelation............... but I knew I had serious pride issues..... so I prayed and asked for wisdom and correction..... and within months I was shown that my rather dogmatic belief in Soul Sleep was terribly in error...... and then over the next years.... Messiah Yeshua - Jesus showed me error after error after error in my thinking............... it was kind of rough....... but wow..... life is so much better now that I know that have very little knowledge of the true full meaning of scriptures..............

But at least these days I can handle listening to Colton Burpo.... and back in 1988.... I would have a Scribe / Pharisee fit..... if I had read Heaven is For Real back in those days.........


Friends of yours watch Heaven Is For Real and ask you about it?

 

[mkgal1]

life is so much better now that I know that have very little knowledge of the true full meaning of scriptures.

Embracing the mystery...right? I can relate to the freedom in that.

But at least these days I can handle listening to Colton Burpo.... and back in 1988.... I would have a Scribe / Pharisee fit..... if I had read Heaven is For Real back in those days.........

.....yes....we can hear nuggets of wisdom and joy in all sorts of places instead of searching out errors (looking for those splinters with a magnifying glass).

 

[DennisTate]

Embracing the mystery...right? I can relate to the freedom in that.

.....yes....we can hear nuggets of wisdom and joy in all sorts of places instead of searching out errors (looking for those splinters with a magnifying glass).

I really was awful back when I was a teenager and into my twenties........... It sounded like I was winning debates on the state of the dead...... because I had a sola scritura viewpoint..........and years of discussion with the local Jehovah's Witness to get my arguments honed...... because he believed in Soul Sleep too...... .... but wow......I was so far off.........

 

[he-man]

Like me? Is that an accusation? Just b/c I may have a different understanding than you doesn't mean I don't understand Scriptural meaning. That's quite an arrogant comment. First....look at the first passage quoted (I admit I may need to do some reading and contemplating--it's been a while and I don't recall the context).....but just from reading it right now, who is doing the blinding and who is doing the healing? Is it the same spirit (Spirit)....or different? The Matthew quote is different. Speaking in parables during a time of extreme persecution isn't "blinding their eyes". Their eyes and hearts were blinded already.
This may be a whole other topic (and off topic here).

that by the God of this world the Supreme being is meant, who in his judgement gave over the minds of the unbelieving to spiritual darkness. God himself, is called τω Βασιλει των αιωνων, the King of the WORLD, what we call King eternal, but here it evidently means Him who governs both worlds, and rules in time and in eternity. Some, and particularly the Ancient fathers, have connected and have read the verse "But God hath blinded the minds of the unbelievers of this world". Theophylact, and Augustine, all plead for the above meaning; and St. Augustine says that it was the opinion of almost all the ancients. [The Adam CLARK Commentary]
So, why don't you believe God is capable of blinding people? What about Paul? What about the pharoh that God hardened his heart? Exodus 9:35; How about Daniel 5:20; 1 Samuel 6:6;
Here is the 2 Co 4:4 scripture: Εω οις ο θς του αιωνος του του ετυφλωσεν τα νοηματα των απισστω εις το υη αυγασαι του φωτισμον του ευγγλιου της δοξης του Χυ ος εστι εικων του θυ
Here it is with the Nomina Sacra:

 

[FireDragon76]

Can you show me what you've read related to her view of atonement? Because I've read this (and it seems to coincide with Rohr's theology):

------>Her ideas about sin are, how shall we say it, unconventional, and especially so in comparison to Medieval Christianity. Where the church taught that Man was naughty and God was angry,

I think that whole attitude trivializes the medieval attitude towards sin and God. For a premodern person living in the late medieval period, sin was tied in with suffering and misery in the world. A world that was often harsh and brutal by modern standards. It was not purely forensic, but the forensic aspects were the predominant way it was understood.

Julian said that God was not and never had been angry and that sin was not “a deed,” that is, something that humans do,

Of course not, because the Augustinian view of sin, implicit in Julian's work, was more than a violation of a law, more than a wrong deed. It was deeply metaphysical in tone and had the sense subjectively of a profound existential threat or dis-ease. And it permeated all aspects of human life.

Classical theism actually denies that God "gets angry". That is not what God's wrath represents, it's not a cosmic temper tantrum. It represents his unwavering disposition against sin, not necessarily his hostility towards sinners.

but that it was basically Man’s unawareness of God’s love and nearness.

That's one effect of Adam's sin, which is spiritual darkness.

In a [hazel] nutshell, God didn’t blame Man. She knew she wasn’t in line with the church (ah yes, the Inquisition) and so she wrote in Chapter 50:

Actually, Julian's writings were suppressed more by Protestants than by Catholics. Catholics actually preserved her writings, whereas Protestants burned them and considered her a witch. They had little use for women as theologians, especially in her native England.

It's difficult to fully articulate how I came to appreciate the satisfactionary view in words, since it was some time ago and it was more of a sudden realization or insight of a profound identification with that worldview. I used to be Eastern Orthodox and was taught that substitutionary atonement was a strange western idea, so I struggled with this theme at first.

I came to understand that Calvin's legal view of penal substitution, and Luther's satisfactionary view, are really an outgrowth of the bridal mysticism of the middle ages and the early Church. It is not, strictly speaking, based on "facts" about God's attitude towards us, but the doctrines grew out of a mystical piety of the early Church focused on Bridegroom mysticism, and underneath it all is a theme of identification and union with Christ. It represents the sort of perspective we might have if we saw sin in the light of how they understood it at the time, and the role that the Incarnation and mysticism played in their spirituality.

The satisfactionary view of atonement is still important in Lutheranism and it would be unacceptable to merely dismiss it as the relic of a premodern age, even if now we understand there are other important themes that are happening in the Cross.

 

[FireDragon76]

I don't think I'm familiar with him....but will check out his writing.

ETA: I just looked him up. His books are on my wish list....especially The Ragamuffin Gospel. His bio says he's a "former Franciscan"...but I don't think his beliefs are too far off from Richard Rohr's (it may just be a difference of language...I don't know).

He was more evangelical in tone, and had a similar emphasis to that kind of religion (I mean like Lutheranism, in emphasizing grace, not what "evangelicalism" means now days necessarily), but he also brought Catholic mysticism into the picture. Manning preached mostly to evangelical audiences. He's one of the favorite authors of my pastor.

 

[amariselle]

.....but are we "saved from sin" when we (and others) are displaying sinful behavior?

I'm not sure what you mean by "displaying sinful behaviour"...

And by "sinful"...I mean what the author described. The author didn't say we needed to be saved from negativity.

This is what the author wrote (the part I was responding to):

I am afraid there are bitter and blaming people everywhere, both inside and outside of the church. As they go through life, the hurts, disappointments, betrayals, abandonments, and the burden of their own sinfulness and brokenness all pile up, and they do not know how to deal with all this negativity. This is what we need to be “saved” from.

I interpret him to be saying we need to be saved from the inability to know how to deal with hurt, betrayal, disappointments, abandonments, and the burden of our own sinfulness and brokenness.

"Saved" in what way?

What happens when we don't know how to deal with those things? We sin. We transmit our own pain.

Indeed, in the "flesh" we do all sin. We make mistakes, we fall short. As Paul wrote, "in my flesh dwells no good thing."

And the truth is, we can and do grow in spiritual maturity and in God's grace as we go through life as saved, born again believers, but pain and suffering do not go away in this life for the believer. In fact, Jesus tells us plainly in Scripture that in this world we will have many trials and tribulations. And Jesus also promised to give us peace not like that the world gives. His peace is the peace that passes all understanding.

 

[amariselle]

Ephesians 1:21-22

Yes.....? I'm sorry, I don't understand what you were trying to say by sharing those verses.

 

[Halbhh]

I thought this was an interesting take on what it is we need saving from:

----->When religion cannot find a meaning for human suffering, human beings far too often become cynical, bitter, negative, and blaming. Healthy religion, almost without realizing it, shows us what to do with our pain, with the absurd, the tragic, the nonsensical, the unjust. If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it. If we cannot find a way to make our wounds into sacred wounds, we invariably give up on life and humanity. I am afraid there are bitter and blaming people everywhere, both inside and outside of the church. As they go through life, the hurts, disappointments, betrayals, abandonments, and the burden of their own sinfulness and brokenness all pile up, and they do not know how to deal with all this negativity. This is what we need to be “saved” from.

If there isn’t some way to find some deeper meaning to our suffering, to find that God is somehow in it, and can even use it for good, we will normally close up and close down. The natural movement of the small self or ego is to protect itself so as not to be hurt again. As I shared last week, neuroscience now shows us that we attach to negativity “like Velcro” unless we intentionally develop another neural path like forgiveness or letting go.

Mature religion is about transforming history and individuals so that we don’t keep handing the pain on to the next generation. For Christians, we learn to identify our own wounds with the wounding of Jesus and the sufferings of the universal Body of Christ (see Philippians 3:10-11), which is Deep Meaning that always feeds the soul. We can then see our own suffering as a voluntary participation in the one Great Sadness of God (Colossians 1:24). Within this meaningful worldview, we can build something new, good, and forever original, while neither playing the victim nor making victims of others. We can be free conduits of grace into the world.~https://cac.org/transforming-our-pain-2016-02-26/

Your thoughts? Arguments?

I think this is a very good stepping stone viewpoint to offer to some determined agnostics (some of them of course right in the next pew there nearby) that want 'faith' to be about this kind of immediate beneficial effect of good ideas, and since indeed Christ's instructions are very good ideas to live by to make life sweeter in the heart, the most important way, over time, it fits that way. I have someone in mind to offer it to if the moment arises, in fact, and will bookmark it. Thanks!

At times, it's going to be more the right thing than my old short standby phrase, that our Redeemer has come to "save us from ourselves".

How wonderful for us though that not only do we make life sweeter in our hearts now, but this temporary life, with it's joys and sorrows and love and losses....is only a stepping stone itself. Hallelujah!

 

[Deadworm]

The question "What are we saved from?" can be answered in different ways from different perspectives. The most helpful and interesting perspective is invited by a rewording of the question to read "What are we saved from and for?" Few Christians have faced the question of the purpose of salvation, which leads to the question of the purpose of Heaven. If we just focus on "from" and prefer to say we are saved from sin or Hell, then God would seem a sadist to many who has placed all souls in jeopardy just for the purpose of rescuing them from perils for which He Himself is ultimately responsible: e. g. "It is God who has imprisoned us all in disobedience, so that He can have mercy on all (Romans 11:32)." If we say that in our life's career we are saved from sin and Hell, then being saved for Heaven generally makes Heaven a glorified and static nursing home or an etheric Disney World for us to eternally enjoy--a vision which, to be honest, sounds lethally boring. But if instead we say that in the school of life we are saved for our future career in Heaven. then what we are saved from is best construed as the barriers to our maximizing our potential for the best and most fulfilling postmortem career journey possible. On this model, we would focus on the implied various levels of Heaven. For example, Paul's location of Paradise (Heaven's preferred grand central station for new arrivals [so Luke 23:42-43]) in the 3rd Heaven (so 2 Corinthians 12:2-4) implies a multiplicity of Heavens and thus something like Origen's view of a postmortem spiritual journey through them. Such a vision would force our gaze beyond a vision of Heaven as a realm of static eternal bliss and worship to Heaven's challenges as our future eternal career. On this model we would need to study the promise of our future jurisdiction over the cosmos and angels (1 Corinthians 6:2-3) and the varied levels of jurisdiction of heavenly cities or communities implied in Luke (Luke 19;16-29).

 

[Monna]

Well.....God IS being used [so to speak] to reach that goal (it's love that transforms us---and all love flows from God).

I doubt very much that "God is being used." God is the initiator of all good. God is nobody's pawn, to be used for any purpose.

Romans 1:21ff For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him. Instead, their thoughts turned to worthless things, and their senseless hearts were darkened. Though claiming to be wise, they became fools...(28) Furthermore, because they did not think it worthwhile to keep knowing God fully, God delivered them to degraded minds to perform acts that should not be done...

I think that when we begin to lose perspective of Who God really IS, (glorify and give thanks to him) we begin to get a lot of things out of whack. Our minds and reasoning become "degraded." To the extent that we think we can use God for our purposes, among other things.

 

[Monna]

When religion cannot find a meaning for human suffering, human beings far too often become cynical, bitter, negative, and blaming.

If there isn’t some way to find some deeper meaning to our suffering,

The old "problem of pain."

I have never understood the "problem of pain." I see no problem. Pain is a gift nobody wants. It only becomes a problem when we don't see it's value. Read Brand and Yancy (1988) Pain, the gift nobody wants.

Pain is a faculty God gave us to let us know something is wrong. And to nudge us to do something about it. If we refuse to do something about the cause, the pain will continue, and probably get worse. This applies at the individual, the family, the societal, and global levels. What many of us don't realise (including me to a significant degree), is that we (individually) have a role to play in responding to societal and global signs of "pain."

At my own personal level those verses in Romans 1 have made me realise that to respond effectively I must start with restoring within myself the right and full recognition of who God is. REALLY. And to start glorifying him (Zillions of active ways) and giving him thanks (even for pain).

 

[he-man]

Yes.....? I'm sorry, I don't understand what you were trying to say by sharing those verses.

You quoted Romans 8:38 I was showing that they are much more than what you quoted. Ephesians 1:21-22

 

[fhansen]

I thought this was an interesting take on what it is we need saving from:

----->When religion cannot find a meaning for human suffering, human beings far too often become cynical, bitter, negative, and blaming. Healthy religion, almost without realizing it, shows us what to do with our pain, with the absurd, the tragic, the nonsensical, the unjust. If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it. If we cannot find a way to make our wounds into sacred wounds, we invariably give up on life and humanity. I am afraid there are bitter and blaming people everywhere, both inside and outside of the church. As they go through life, the hurts, disappointments, betrayals, abandonments, and the burden of their own sinfulness and brokenness all pile up, and they do not know how to deal with all this negativity. This is what we need to be “saved” from.

If there isn’t some way to find some deeper meaning to our suffering, to find that God is somehow in it, and can even use it for good, we will normally close up and close down. The natural movement of the small self or ego is to protect itself so as not to be hurt again. As I shared last week, neuroscience now shows us that we attach to negativity “like Velcro” unless we intentionally develop another neural path like forgiveness or letting go.

Mature religion is about transforming history and individuals so that we don’t keep handing the pain on to the next generation. For Christians, we learn to identify our own wounds with the wounding of Jesus and the sufferings of the universal Body of Christ (see Philippians 3:10-11), which is Deep Meaning that always feeds the soul. We can then see our own suffering as a voluntary participation in the one Great Sadness of God (Colossians 1:24). Within this meaningful worldview, we can build something new, good, and forever original, while neither playing the victim nor making victims of others. We can be free conduits of grace into the world.~https://cac.org/transforming-our-pain-2016-02-26/

Your thoughts? Arguments?

Yes. It also seems that it's easy to see the cup as half empty, even when it's not; we're drawn to see ourselves as victims, as deprived. And we take ourselves and our sorry lots so seriously!

But we want too much; we feel pain, we feel like losers, unless we get whatever little paltry item, presenting itself to our eyes at the time, happens to look prettiest. These attractions generally involve wealth, possessions, pleasure, power/glory.

Pride lurks behind it all, motivating our desires, but never satisfied-or never satisfied for long. We don't love, when we lust. We fail to love to the extent that we're caught up in needing to satisfy the desires of the flesh. And this corresponds with a failure to be happy. When we're our own "gods", pride reigns within, and dissatisfaction is ultimately guaranteed. Trying to be more than who we are, we fall, and become less. Jesus is the answer when we're finally jaded with our own attempts at playing God because He reveals and reconciles us with the true God, and restores Him to His rightful place as God.

Man isn't so much bad, as he is lost, foolish, not even wanting to be found until he discovers the depravity of his lot. Man was made for communion with God, and his soul is restless until it rests in Him.

 

[mkgal1]

God is nobody's pawn, to be used for any purpose.

Our minds and reasoning become "degraded." To the extent that we think we can use God for our purposes, among other things.

That is not what I meant--that's why I wrote "so-to-speak" and clarified that it's God's love that transforms.

 

[nonaeroterraqueous]

This is what we need to be “saved” from.

That's not even close. It would be a shame to have an unbeliever come on this site and read that nonsense and go away thinking that Christ died on a cross as a foolish demonstration of how to handle pain. Here, let me whack my thumb really hard with a hammer so you can see how I react. What a dumb god that would be.

 

[mkgal1]

and go away thinking that Christ died on a cross as a foolish demonstration of how to handle pain.

I think you misread the quote.

 

[fhansen]

I think the bottom line is that the evil we experience in this world- the evil that we literally know as a consequence of the Fall-with all the pain and suffering that results in this world, has the one potential benefit of driving us towards the good, alone, with the help of revelation and grace, the Ultimate Good being God. Adam thought otherwise, that he could find greener pastures on his own-and he placed humankind on a detour out of Eden, out of relationship with God and with our sights set on lesser, created things. We're here to learn the foolishness of Adam's choice, to gain the wisdom to reverse it within ourselves, so to speak.

When the time was ripe Jesus came to reveal the true nature of God, more definitively and fully than ever before. God is infinitely trustworthy, good, and true, forgiving, merciful, and kind; God is humble, even, amazingly, even though He could squash us like a bug. God loves man lavishly in spite of our sin, in spite of our aversion to and even hatred of Him. Man needs a change of heart; enmity comes from us, not Him-and He helps us even there. But we can continue in the darkness if we so desire.