Chaplain Mike, the new Internet Monk, has an excellent post on II Corinthians 13:5, in which Paul tells the Corinthians to examine themselves to see if they are in the faith. This verse has been a huge turn-off to me because I’ve thought it meant that I should look at my own life to see if I have spiritual fruit—love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, etc.—in order to determine if I’m a true Christian, one who has a relationship with God in this life and will escape hell and enter the good afterlife after death.
Of course, after self-examination, I always fall short, for I have difficulty loving others. I don’t always have joy and peace. (But I will say this: I have more joy and peace now that I focus on God being a God of love, rather than thinking about such topics as whether or not I am truly saved, my spiritual fruit or lack thereof, or whether or not non-Christians are going to hell.) I lack patience, especially when my Internet connection is acting up. So should I assume that I’m going to hell because of my imperfections?
But Chaplain Mike offers a different interpretation of II Corinthians 13:5. He says that the issue in this verse is not the quality of the Corinthians’ moral or spiritual lives, but rather the competing claims about Jesus that they were hearing. Paul was saying one thing about Jesus, and the super-apostles were saying something else. According to Chaplain Mike, Paul is asking the Corinthians to look at themselves to determine who is right. Whose message produced an effect in their lives? Paul believes that his did, not that of the super-apostles.
Chaplain Mike did not cite Galatians 3:5, but I thought of that passage as I read his post: Paul asks the Galatians if they received the Spirit and experienced God’s miracles through the works of the law or the hearing of faith. Because the Galatians had the Spirit before they started to observe Jewish rituals, Paul concludes that they received the Spirit solely through the hearing of faith. That means that they did not have to observe Jewish rituals to experience God.
But then questions enter my mind. You will notice that Paul appeals to the experience of the Galatians and the Corinthians. Is experience a legitimate criterion of faith? There are homosexuals who testify that they’ve experienced God, without giving up their homosexual lifestyle. I’ve read and heard stories of non-Christian Jews who experience what they consider to be divine providence or answers to prayer. People in recovery communities make similar claims, even those who don’t consider themselves Christians. What do these experiences say about the prerequisites for experiencing God? Does one have to be a conservative evangelical Christian to do so? And, if an evangelical responds that God can be involved in the lives of non-believers, but that God is leading non-believers to faith in Christ, tell me something: why couldn’t the Galatian legalists respond to Paul’s statement in Galatians 3:5 along similar lines—by saying that faith may be the door to experiencing God, but God wants to lead Christians to obey the law?
What if I look at my life and I don’t see any miracles? That’s often been something that I’ve resented, both as an evangelical and also as a non-evangelical: why do so many people experience tangible signs of the divine, and yet I do not? Is God passing me by? I remember Joyce Meyer saying that it takes more faith to believe without tangible experiences of the divine!
Chaplain Mike says that we should look to Jesus and not at ourselves. I hope that this is true, for I despair when I look at myself. But, unfortunately, there are biblical passages that can push Christians towards introspection. I John says repeatedly that we know we’re in the light when we love other Christians. But I have problems liking Christians, let alone loving them! Co-existing with them without rancor is enough of a struggle for me. To demand that I be in a relationship with Christians and actually like them in order to know that I am saved is too hard of a task for me, to tell you the truth. People have said that I need to be assured of God’s love for me before I can love others. Good advice. But that advice is somewhat cancelled out by Christianity’s message that I receive assurance of my salvation by looking at how I am doing spiritually.
I like Chaplain Mike’s interpretation of II Corinthians 3:5, and it’s refreshing to encounter fresh interpretations of Scripture that actually place God in a good light—something that legalistic interpretations that focus on my spiritual performance do not do. I see fresh interpretations of Scripture among certain Christians. That brings to my mind another point, and I hope that I express it clearly, since I’m unsure how to articulate it to myself, let alone others: when I have problems with the Bible, Christians tell me to “just have faith.” They’ll also tell me that I have to accept the Bible as a whole package—both what appeals to me, and also what repulses my moral sensibilities. But what if there are repulsive parts of Scripture that don’t mean what they appear to mean, which can be interpreted in a manner that’s consistent with God’s benevolence? What if I don’t know of such an interpretation? Do I have to accept the apparently repulsive passage as repulsive? Or should I have faith that the passage can be reconciled with God’s benevolence, even if I’m not sure how? And, if I go with the latter approach, aren’t I picking and choosing, in that I’m saying that the Bible agrees with what I already believe, only I’m not sure how it does so?