The Sanctuary Downtown / Relentless Love Peter Hiett

This week's message was a continuation of last week's message in which we noted that Peter seems to clearly believe that Jesus is an entirely successful Savior who somehow implants his Divine Nature in all the children of Adam and is now bringing all of us together in a communion of free and sacrificial delight — Eternal Life in one Body of Perfect Love: Pretty Good News.

But as I shared last week, when I share this with folks who say that they believe the Gospel, they often ask three questions. The first two we addressed last week: "What about evil?" and "Why be good?" The third question is: "Why preach the Gospel? If everyone gets saved in the end (End), why preach the Gospel?"

I used to hate to share “the Gospel" with people who didn't already say they believed “the Gospel." The "Good News" didn't sound like "Good News." And if they didn't believe, I figured that it was because I had been bad — a bad "evangelist (Good-News-teller)." With my anxiety, fear, and shame, I think I communicated to folks that they needed to believe the gospel in order to save themselves (and me) from God by means of the knowledge of good and evil, which I was now presenting to them — knowledge for which they could no longer claim ignorance but would now, in fact, be held accountable for on the Day of Judgment.

Eskimo: "If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to Hell?"
Priest: "No, not if you didn't know."
Eskimo: "Why did you tell me?"

In 2 Peter 2:1 -- 3:9, Peter anticipates our three questions. We read all of it; it's a lot. We have so often broken the Word of God into pieces, assuming that we know what it/He means. And so, we miss the story that God is telling, for we've already replaced it with the one that we are telling.

Last week we ended with 2:16, The Story of Balaam's Ass who spoke with "the voice of a man," rebuking Balaam and restraining "the prophet's madness." Peter is warning against "false teachers" in the church. In verse 17, he continues with the most condemning accusations and surprising threats, "The last state has become worse than the first." In 3:4, he warns of the “promise of his coming,” reminding them of creation through the waters of chaos, and then writing, “But by the same Word [logos] the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction [apoleia from apollumi] of the ungodly [asebes: “the not worshipping”]. He says something about “days” and “a thousand years” and then writes, “the Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but . . ."

At this point, anyone who hasn't already died of fright would imagine that Peter is about to say, "But he will come and cast his enemies into endless torment and save the chosen few."

This is what he actually writes: "But the Lord is patient toward you (as if we were our own false teachers), wishing that none should perish [literally: "be perished, be destroyed, be lost, "] but that all should reach repentance."

Does God get His wish? (And "wish" should be translated as "will.")
Peter heard Jesus say, "I came to seek and to save the lost [apololos from apollumi]."
Jesus is the Word of God who does not return void but accomplishes that for which He was sent (Isaiah 55:11); He is the Promised Seed. He is the Promise.

You see, Peter is telling a very different story than the one that the institutional church has been telling for the last 1500 years. Peter appears to be writing to the same folks to whom Paul was writing in Galatians and Colossians. They were not simply struggling with the base forms of the lust of the flesh but the most refined forms — the temptations of human religion. They had looked to the tree and seen that the fruit was not only "good for food" but "desired to make one wise." They were taking knowledge and crucifying Wisdom.

Peter quotes Proverbs 26:11, "The dog returns to its own vomit." The vomit is pride. The idol is "the self." It's

In 2 Peter, Peter has informed us that all are forgiven and anyone that lacks righteousness has forgotten that he has been forgiven. We must each lose the lonely tabernacles that we have constructed, but only so that we can be united in the eternal temple that God has constructed. Peter seems to believe that Jesus is an entirely successful Savior.

When I share this truth, I'm often confronted with two questions: "What about evil?" and "Why be good?" People almost seem to panic as they ask that second question.

This week, 2 Peter 1:19-2:3 was our text for the morning. It was Mother's Day. It wasn't a normal Mother's Day text.

Peter writes about the authority of Scripture. Then he writes about false prophets and teachers who "deny the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction." He then gives three terrifying examples:
1. Angels cast into "hell" (Tartarus)
2. The destruction of the pre-flood world and the salvation of Noah
3. The destruction of Sodom and the salvation of "righteous Lot"

He then says, "the Lord knows how to rescue the godly... and keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment." He goes on to describe people like the men of Sodom who blaspheme "the glories," behave like beasts, and "feast with you!"

"They have followed the way of Balaam... who loved gain from wrongdoing but was rebuked for his own transgression; 'a dumb ass (KJV)' spoke with the voice of a man and restrained the prophet's madness."

It's a rather intense bit of Scripture for Mother's Day.
"Liberalism" will often discount the Word and lead us to debauchery, and despair.
"Conservativism" will often attempt to fulfill the Word and lead us to divination, and arrogance.
The Word of God will cut us and wrestle us but then lead us somewhere else.

There are several strange (holy?) assumptions in 2 Peter 2. For instance:

1. We assume that some are saved, for they do not deny the Lord and have been bought (redeemed) by the Lord. While on the other hand, others have not been bought by the Lord, for they deny the Lord and are destroyed by the Lord. But Peter believes that people destroyed by the Lord deny the Lord and have been bought by the Lord. Didn't Peter deny the Lord and yet was bought by the Lord, and yet still suffer a swift destruction (He lost his psyche and found it)?

2. We assume that some are condemned and some are not condemned. Peter believes that "from long ago," all have been condemned, for none have believed (John 3:18). Adam could not believe that the Word of God is good, for he did not know what, or who, the Good was or is.

3. We assume that people are judged and then punished. Peter believes that people are punished, and then comes "the Judgment." To be more precise, he believes that people are "condemned," then "punished," then comes the "Day of Judgment" which is the "Day of the Lord, Day of God, and Day of Eternity” (2 Peter 3:10,12,18).

4. We assume that sinners are not saints and saints are not sinners. But Peter seems to believe that saints are sinners (just check out Lot and Noah) and that sinners can be saints (just check out what happens to the antediluvians in 1 Peter 3:18, 4:6 and what happens to the people of Sodom in Ezekiel 16:53-63).

5. We assume that destroyed things never come back. Peter believes they do come back…or never actually were.

6. We assume that all punishment is retribution. Peter assumes that all punishment is discipline — the discipline of Love who is "Our Father."

7. We assume that we need to save ourselves from the Judgment of God . . .

The men of Sodom attempted to rape the Judgment of God. Three "Angels" appear to Abraham in Genesis 18 on their way to destroy Sodom in Genesis 19. One of those angels is the Angel of Yahweh, who is Yahweh, the Word of Yahweh, and a Man. I bet the other two angels looked something like him. He is the Judgment of God and the Good that is God in flesh and hanging on a tree in the garden. Actually, the

At youth group in 1978, I saw the end-times movie "A Thief in The Night." Folks got "raptured" with the rest "left behind" to deal with the Antichrist. It definitely made me want to "accept Jesus" (for the 50th time), but it sure didn't help me to like Jesus . . . at all.

When I was a youth pastor and trying to make a point one night at youth group, I introduced a series on the Revelation in the following way: I just made up a bunch of stuff, talked for about 10 minutes or so, and then unveiled the name of the antichrist who would appear on the world scene in 1991 (It was 1991.)

It turned out that the antichrist — according to my "cleverly devised myth" — was our new summer intern sitting in the back of the room. We dragged him to the front of the room, held him down, and checked for the "mark of the beast." With an electric razor, I shaved the thick, curly, black chest hair from the left side of his chest, revealing a big black number six. And then, another number six. And then, a number . . . five. I then apologized to our new youth intern and asked the kids, "Was I off by one, or more than one? How do we know the Truth?"

The ruse worked far better than I imagined; actually, it terrified me. These were smart kids. There were about a hundred in the room. They weren't shy, but up until we started shaving chest hair, they were deathly silent and totally buying everything that I said. So, this is what terrified me: I could've utterly exploited them if I had so desired.

2 Peter 1:12, "I intend to remind you of these (faith, love, manifestations of the divine nature), though you know them and are established in the truth that is present (parousi) to you." Peter uses this same verb to describe the second coming (parousia), first coming, and the presence of the Truth to each one of us right now.

The Truth is hanging on the tree in the middle of the garden. How will you know "the Truth”?
• If you simply take Him as an object to use as you see fit, you crucify "the Life," there is no truth, and everything dies.
• If you surrender to the Truth who is the Life, you know because you are known by the Good —God alone is good — and everything has meaning and everything lives.

The only way to objective truth is subjective encounter with the Truth; that is, being honest.

2 Peter 1:13-14, "I think it right as long as I am in this body (skenoma, tent, tabernacle) to wake you up... I know the putting off of my body (skenoma) will be soon... so that after my departure (exodus), you may recall these things." In three more verses, he'll mention "The Holy Mountain."

What is Peter picturing? I think Peter is picturing the eighth day of the Feast of skenopogia, in Greek, "Tabernacles."

Israel was commanded to celebrate three great pilgrim festivals.

The first of these was Passover, commemorating the night the angel of death passed over homes with the blood of the lamb brushed on the doorpost. In this way, the Israelites began their journey to the Promised Land. Passover was also a commemoration of the firstfruits of the barley harvest.

The second of these was Pentecost, commemorating the giving of the law on the 50th day (one week of weeks) after the Passover sacrifice. Pentecost was also a commemoration of the firstfruits of the wheat harvest.

The third of these pilgrim festivals, and last of seven annual feasts, was the Feast of Tabernacles (skene, skenoma, skenopagia). It commemorated camping in tents (tabernacles and booths) on the Israelite's journey, the exodus, and then crossing over into the Promised Land where the Israelites were instructed to assemble on the "Holy Mountain" — the Holy Mountain where Jerusalem was built, destroyed, and comes down new from heaven; the mountain where Adam was made and remade at a tree in the middle of a garden; the mountain where we will all be transfigured and party without end (Isaiah 25:6-9).

The Feast of Tabernacles is also called the Feast of Ingathering, for it commemor

If at a party, someone approached you and said, "Tell me about yourself," what would you tell them? At our service this week, I asked folks to quickly write that down: their successes on one side of a piece of paper and then what they wouldn't want to share, their failures, on the other side. This piece of paper, this record, we made our offering this week in our worship service. It turns out that we are the offering, the sacrifice, that our Lord desires.

Then we began preaching through 2 Peter. Some have argued that 2 Peter isn't written by the same person that wrote 1 Peter. They say this for a variety of reasons, one of them being that 2 Peter is scary. I think that both letters were written by Peter, and the reason folks struggle with 2 Peter is that they don't believe that paradigm shift that we found in 1 Peter. There are many ways to say it: You are not the Creator but the created; you are not salvation but saved; reality is not what you know but Who it Is that knows you.

2 Peter 1:1-3, "Simeon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ... May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. His divine power has granted to us all things... in the knowledge of him...."

I hope you can see that Peter thinks that this "knowledge" is important.
But whose knowledge is Peter talking about? And is knowledge good or evil?

In the verses above, the preposition "of" doesn't appear in the text, but the translator has rightfully inserted it in order to represent the fact that the words, "God," "Jesus," and "him" are all in the genitive case in the original Greek. That "genitive" can be what's called an "objective genitive," which would mean that the knowledge is our knowledge "of" God as an object or a "subjective genitive," meaning that God is the subject that does the knowing. So, Peter could be talking about knowing or being known or both.

That may seem like an unimportant distinction until you realize that it could be the distinction between "hell" and heaven, for in the middle of the garden was "the Tree of Life," and in the middle of the garden was the "the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil." "The day you eat of it, dying you will die," said God.

"God alone is good," said Jesus. So if God, "The Good," was incarnate and hanging on a tree in a garden like fruit, wouldn't it look like Christ crucified and hanging on the cross in the garden of Calvary?

"I am the Life," said Jesus. So, if Jesus, "The Life," was incarnate and hanging on a tree in a garden like fruit, wouldn't it look like Christ crucified and hanging on the cross... or perhaps His body broken and blood shed, given to you the night before — fore-given to you before you even had a chance to take it?

In Scripture, there are two ways of knowing:
1. You can take knowledge, like fruit from a tree. It's great for knowing objects that you can analyze and then use in service of yourself. Some people think that this is the only kind of knowledge that there is. And so for these people, everything they know is dead by definition. And they are utterly alone; they are alone — a lone subject in a universe of nothing but objects. Which to me, sounds like hell. Or...
2. You can know because you are known by a subject, that is, a person. This is the only way that little children can know anything; they must trust another person who may then teach them about themselves and all things. Jesus said that we must become like little children to enter. There are some who in many ways always remain children. We call them disabled." Maybe they are, and maybe they are not.

1. There is one way of knowing that leads to death.
2. There is another way of knowing (to know because you are known) that leads to life . . . and even babies.

If we took the Life from the tree, everything would die, and we would have gained objective knowledge of the crucified Christ, knowledge of evil. But if He rose from the dead, and we surrendered to Him as t