How Can a Man Atone for the Sins of the World Through His Own Sacrifice? Only One Way. Part 4. The Man.
Now, according to the Bible, some are spiritual and those carnal. Those righteous and unrighteous. God hearers, and God resisters. The Man is one of these, perhaps the righteous, perhaps a deceiver. For him to deliver a revelation for all, it is in the sense of being offered to all but not accepted by all. But to be unrighteously accepted or denied, it will have to be one that is as accessible as it is obscure to all, depending upon the kind of person who is in view. The Man on the Cross is a carnal resister to some and a canal encourager to others. One revelation is for the righteous, and one hidden for the unrighteous.
If he is a sacrifice for the sin of the world in the sense of its possible cure, it is evident that the agent of this task can’t be unrighteous carnal and sinful. He has to be righteous in a way that is not human but possible for humans, long before you consider whether such a sacrifice is possible. But what do these concepts mean?
Well, there is an ultimate sense of these ideas and a common one, just as there is an open and easily appropriated signification to this sacrifice and a closed but accessible one.
The common-sense version is that righteousness is doing things according to a moral code. Unrighteous is doing otherwise. Carnality is acting and thinking in accord with the world and its devices and rewards, and spirituality is doing things in agreement with God’s world.
If this is so, the moral code is according to that of this other world. Not in law or obedience touted as given from another world, or a code which itself does not have such a transcendent mark. This Man’s moral code, which should be ours, is one impossible for us to obey because the standard is too high for us, or else we could do it ourselves. But this can’t be primarily physical obedience because that is not an obedience of a certain reflection of the spiritual body in itself, not necessarily carried out by the moral spirit itself, but can just as well thought by anti-spiritual motives. The moral code and its obedience have to be of exclusive alien origin and motivation, or else it can’t stand as a witness to a genuinely spiritual state. This origin is not a matter only of faith and personal will. The origin displays openly or will not be an available universal choice, but only for those that are looking for righteousness as a personal attribute of spiritual superiority and functioning selfishly as Hell insurance. A transcendent “righteousness” for the Man on the Cross is not ultimately obeying then a “moral code,” implying any kind, possibly within our common understanding and ability. It implies a specific spiritual, moral code that speaks to the morally intended spirit God’s nature and existence, so the receiver of this Man’s morality obeys it in its right place and way. Not a literal obedience, as in the Man’s sacrifice, but from the standpoint of a witness to it, and a returned faith in its truth.
Some of these ideas are easy. Righteousness means being spiritual, and that means following the moral code laid down by the God of the Spirit, of that other dimension above the temporal. But it’s only easy if they are referring to a conceptual object of the other world, and we have far from finished defining these keywords up to a particular species of transcendence.
Words Mean Things
Lets just back up and think about the difference between mere ideas and predicates as applied to the sinful way that we use spiritual language in a carnal fashion.
I am saying that any working idea of “righteousness” and “sin,” for example, is not represented by a concept which points to predicating knowledge, which is so open that it allows another symbol for it, which is opaque by definition. Both the concept and the predicate must be transcendent, with the concept having the ability to only refer to the divine knowledge, for which it cannot point higher.
A conceptual object means “idea.” An idea is a symbol for a range and quality of knowledge, data, information which necessitates representation and mediation to and between its giver and its receiver. Since this is about God’s ultimate ideas, then it’s between God’s mind and ours. There is something that these words mean that originates in God’s mind and will. Saying that, for example, “righteousness” will predicate and signify by knowledge, by information, by truth defined as “obedience to God,” can’t be the end of this signification search back to that ultimate, it’s just a nudge in that general direction. This means that that the definition is still carnal, still in the world, still lacking connection to God. If we are talking about discreet categories of knowledge, then the meaning of our words that refer to something other than our natural, carnal sense of “knowledge” has to be discreet, or else you are taking ideas which lead only toward and not into it. If so, it must be an example of a world completely outside of mind, the emotions, and the systems which this world invents and uses.
Let me give you an example. You are an auto-mechanic and trained as such, but you want to become a neural surgeon because you’re good with your hands, and you want more money. You can’t become one just because you want it. Let’s say that Joe wants a Doctorate in neural medicine. Still, he figures that the best way of doing this is to read a medical textbook and memorize all the surgical vocabulary and their definitions. Although he is unaware of how to use any of these words in a general conversation on the chemistry, surgical techniques, and biology of the profession, he goes to the medical college and starts composing random sentences and conversing with the professors using all this terminology anyway, expecting that they will accept him as a surgeon and grant him a degree.
If he thinks this possible, he would be quite disrespectful of both the faculty, the profession, knowledge, and generally of reality itself. His aim is more money. He has in real interest in the business, or else he would commit himself to learn it properly and thoroughly. Does he deserve a doctorate in neural medicine based upon his handling of its sacred ideas?
If the attitude and the actions of the mechanic are an indication of his willful and selfish use of higher things in an attempt only to take them for himself, this is unrighteousness. Righteousness shows by pursuing and having higher things. Any talk or actions you engage in with those higher things, as irrational as it is, is but an attempt to steal them for yourself by your superficial attachments.
You might say that this is an incompetent and absurd analogy. First, the idea that you have to know all the technical jargon of theology to go to heaven? And how can I use such an insane and clueless person like this, whom you would never find in the real world? But that’s why I used it because the insanity in how we use transcendent keywords is even more insane and irrational than this auto-mechanic.
No, of course, you don’t have to know all the jargon. But I’m not talking about “biblical pericope” and “hypostatic union.” I’m talking about “righteousness,” “spirit,” and “sin,” fundamental things even a child could handle. The auto-mechanic is not really using medical terms to use in his fake-out that you would likely only get from a medical textbook. He actually thinks that if `he uses “body” and “blood” and “vein,” this is enough to qualify for a surgeon. If not a surgeon, but a theologian, this level of depth is also enough, with the open and unqualified use of such as “faith,” “sin” and “righteousness. So my example is really, really crazy and unlikely except within the spatio-temporal world that uses transcendent things only to pretend its pursuit, love, and learning. Our world of spiritual hypocrisy.
No, if you’re going to use a word, no matter how basic, that refers to the other world, you have to use still another word, or reformat that idea so that it includes and is qualified by something specific that could have only come from that world and is proof of it. You can’t use “duodenal mucosal resurfacing” in a sentence, or use “righteousness” in a sentence, and be said to understand this stuff. You need a medical or theological qualifier, or you need to keep talking.
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