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Why did Jesus have to die? Couldn’t God just forgive us? · Red Couch Theology

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Hello, hello, and welcome to another episode of the Red Couch
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Theology Podcast. Hey, this week we're doing some
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serious theology. We're talking about atonement,
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or maybe put more for some of you out there.
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If you're not sure what atonement is, it's how in the
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world does the cross and resurrection save us?
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Like really, what happens there? How does this event that took
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place thousands of years ago affect us today?
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What took place in the universe when that took place?
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All these kinds of questions. Will we wrestle with those
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questions today? And we hope that we land on
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some, at least some Nuggets and crumbs for you to ponder as you
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wrestle with them yourselves. Let's dive into the deep end
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with atonement. Hello and welcome to the Red
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Couch Theology podcast. Hello and welcome to the Red
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Couch Theology podcast. All right, this week on our
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episode we have blurry video potentially.
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Hey dude, that looks good to me. Is it, is it good?
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Something like that. So this week we are talking
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about atonement. Your favorite subject?
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Atonement Theories. You should sing them your new
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song. No.
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So while I go double check the focus of the camera.
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Uh huh. Would you tell them what in the
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world is atonement? OK, It's a big theological term.
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Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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OK, brilliant. So I have found the most helpful
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definition of atonement to be this at one month.
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So the thing that restores relationship with God, that
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brings us back simpatico to grab a Spanish Spanish expression.
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So whereas in the ancient world atonement was thought about as
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being the function of the thing that happened after sacrifice,
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after those kind of processes, suddenly we move into this era
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where the work of Jesus is the atonement.
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But then the big question is, well, exactly what was the thing
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that was in the way of our relationship with God and how
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did he remove it? What's the big thing that he
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dealt with is maybe what I would say.
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Yeah. Or another way of like thinking
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about it is like what's the mechanics of how the death of a
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Middle Eastern man 2000 years has anything to do?
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Like is there like some sort of leverage thing going on and how
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does it relate? How does it connect all of those
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things and so? Broadly, broadly the, there,
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there's been a few different ways of thinking about that.
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One is the we owed a debt that had to be paid off.
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One has been the a death was required to pay that debt off.
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And so it's a substitution. So the first one, if you want to
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get theological, since you guys are all like while you're
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driving, you should take notes. Sure.
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So the first one is Ransom. Yeah, so, so there's a debt to
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be paid, and Jesus becomes the the one that pays that debt
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through his. Ransom theory, yeah.
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Swaps life for life. Then.
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The other one is the. Penal substitution.
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Penal substitution is is similar but has more sense of of
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swapping right that like 1 instead of another substitute is
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the best word there, so it's like.
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Like our vadnais on Jesus. Yeah, and and he moves into our
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place. So we should have been on the
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cross. He goes on the.
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Cross And the reason it's penal substitution is there's a
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penalty, there's a vadnais that we've done that deserves a
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penalty. And so instead of us taking the
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penalty, by the way, if you were in in in our alpha class, this
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was probably the leading story of the talk that was given in
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the alpha class last night. It they did mention the next
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couple one. And so then then the next one is
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Christus victor. And this is the idea like to
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translate from Latin, Christ is victorious or Christ the victor.
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And so in this one, Jesus has defeated death.
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So he's victorious over the powers of sin and darkness and
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the death that we now were imprisoned by.
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Jesus dies and he destroys for us those things.
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So there's a great picture with Christus Victor that has Jesus
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rising from the tomb, and he has one hand reached down on one
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side, and he holds Adam in that hand.
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And he's got one hand reached down on the other side and he
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holds Eve in that hand. And it's almost like a Superman
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moment where he's coming up from the grave, the great the, the,
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the gates of hell are trampled under his feet.
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And he brings our ancestors as representative representatives
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for a whole species. And death is destroyed because
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Jesus destroyed it with his death.
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And so that's why for that theory, there's a saying that we
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say at Easter, my favorite saying.
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He tramples death by death. Christ is risen from the gave
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grave, trampling over death by death.
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So like this weird idea in some ways that death destroys death
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and when Jesus dies he almost is like a a bug in the system.
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He dies and that thing starts to spread and and wipes it away.
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Now your favorite theory comes next.
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No, it's not my favorite. It is your.
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Favorite. You talk about it all the time,
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OK? Your theory that you like to
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talk about, that you're writing. So by the way, if you were there
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at Alpha class last night, the BOD, the majority of the
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teaching that I did live after the video, the majority of that
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was Christus Victor, where we talked about the Rwanda
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genocide. We talked about the
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principalities and powers, how the evil of humanity almost
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takes on a life of its own and that that those things are at
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play in the world. And then the way that Jesus
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defeats them is by like letting them consume.
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Him. By not wielding a sword, instead
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wielding surrender. All right, so the next one is is
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sort of like a divine example of the theological term is drawing
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a blank. Yeah, drawing a blank on the
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term. Well, that has substitute.
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It's my favorite. Well, right.
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It's it's my favorite theory that I don't remember.
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It's yeah, recapitulation. OK, capitulation.
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Recapitulation. So in recapitulation model,
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which it's not my favorite in, in fact, I, I am really
7:23
compelled by that one and by Christus Victor, partially
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because they're the ones that I've spent the most time in
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recently and I am a huge fan of the things I'm spending my time
7:37
on most recently. How's that for a theological
7:41
framework? Wow, I've heard you laugh that
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hard in a while. Why was that so funny?
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I don't know, it just sounds like a horrible way of choosing
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you doing. Theology.
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You know what I'm reading right now?
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Just whatever I read last, whatever that.
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Feels like a dangerous way to go but I'm sure you have limits on
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it. So.
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Yeah, tell us about recapitulation.
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So recapitulation is basically like this divine example where
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humanity could have, should have, would have gone this way
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and lived this way in order to truly live into what we were
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designed for. But because we failed, he comes
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to show us a new example of what it's like to live.
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And so some of that has like that really taps into the idea
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that Jesus is the new Adam, like this is the first Adam who
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failed. This is the second Adam, you
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know, that that became everything that Adam would have
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been. And he's able to do that because
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of who he is as well. So, so I think all of those
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theories have had different controversies around them,
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different push backs to them, different questions about
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whether they cover everything. And of course, because we're
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Christians, this seems to be one of our inbuilt floors.
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I assume it's a floor. I could be wrong.
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We tend to pick something like this, get so attached to it that
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we can't possibly fathom that anybody else would believe any
9:12
of the other ones. So because, and, and, and I, I
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would suggest we might even talk about this a bit on Sunday, so
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it might be a touch of a spoiler.
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I would suggest us as reformed people, and I don't mean
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reformed in terms of our theology, but being children of
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the Reformation, this movement that was really concerned around
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theology. We have been more likely to
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judge people's in US that, you know, value as a Christian by
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their theology than by anything else.
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So we've we've had this whole 500 years.
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You can. Be a horrific human as long as
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you believe the right stuff. Absolutely.
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It's become very like, like even good guys with theology that
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shaped how we think today. Like John Calvin hung his nephew
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in a bell tower because he had the wrong theology.
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So that's been some of our story that we're trying to counteract
10:11
by saying actually all of these theories have some merit in
10:13
them, some maybe more than others, but but you can hold any
10:16
one of these theories and still be a follower of Jesus.
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Absolutely. And you know, Alex wasn't in the
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class last night, so I'll, I'll fill him in as well or remind
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those who were in the class or if you're a regular listen and
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you're not in the alpha class. I, I put up a picture of a book
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slash lecture series called the mosaic of the atonement.
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And I I said, if you're a big nerd of theology stuff and you
10:44
want to go really deep, it's not a super large book, but in his
10:48
thesis is similar. He's not the first person to
10:51
make this case and far, far from it, but he does a really, really
10:59
good job making the argument that you in order to have a
11:03
truly full, robust perspective of what God accomplished at the
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cross, you each component is required.
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And he, he goes maybe at one step slightly further than some
11:15
other theologians who say we need them all.
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He actually tries to to sort of intertwine them so that they
11:22
actually build upon each other into a full thing.
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So the the mosaic of the atonement, if you want a nerd
11:29
out about that. And he he kind of makes that
11:33
case. And actually it was his book
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that got me slightly interested in the recapitulation theory.
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And I was like, OK, there's Samaritaire because I thought it
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was the weakest prior. To reading his book.
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And then I started to see some goodness and beauty in it.
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But these these theories are, I'm trying to think if I can
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find this ridiculous opening to a book, I don't think I'm going
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to be able to find another spot. But there's this guy who opens
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his book with this idea he actually knows as an assessment
12:06
of somebody else's atonement theory and.
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This. Theory just begins something
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like this, you know? Rob Bell.
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Maybe it is. Yeah, He talks about like this
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whole, like, stream of ideas about the first Adam and the
12:22
second Adam. And if the second Adam is the
12:24
first Adam and there's also the last Adam.
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And he just goes on and on and on and on and on.
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And this guy who's making this assessment of this book says,
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like, he gives a clear understanding.
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And you're like, this isn't clear at all.
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This is the most confusing thing I've ever heard in my life.
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But it's just an A drone of these different ideas.
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And so it is a thing that I think all of us might feel like
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we can get easily lost in. Yeah, so I want to get semi a
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little bit more practical. Why are there like you might be
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asking yourself, OK, great, you just gave me 4 different
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frameworks and a very, very cursory overview of them.
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Why is this such a debate and all those sorts of things?
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Well, it leads to some of the questions around maybe what I
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already alluded to. Why does the death of Christ
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relate to us today? That's when it starts to become
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like really important. And when you maybe for some of
13:30
us out there who would counter Christianity or who, who've like
13:34
had an experience of the Holy Spirit coming into our lives and
13:39
and embracing faith. You found out that you were, you
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know, you felt, yes, I, I'm not whoever, everything I wanted to
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be. And you found out that Jesus was
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going to solve that. And the Spirit came upon you and
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you became a follower of Jesus and you're like, that was
13:53
sufficient. I mean, maybe later in life
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you're like, wait, like what actually happened?
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There. Like, what was the switch in my
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soul that flipped when I prayed the prayer quote, UN quote or
14:12
asked for forgiveness or accepted Jesus in my heart?
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Like whatever the terminology you wanna use for salvation and
14:20
you started to doubt a little bit.
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Like how in the world does the cross actually save me?
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Yeah. Yeah.
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Yeah. And save me from who or from
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what? And on and on and on.
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So that's why the reason this topic is so important, is it
14:34
like it's your salvation? Yeah, it's a big deal.
14:38
And and then you think how like, and this is where I think people
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get get a little lost, understandably.
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It is. And you touched on this.
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Who was I rescued from or what was I rescued from?
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So like with the ransom theory that we began with, at least in
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some versions of that, there's a debt owed to the devil to
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someone. What's the for some for
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something against this? This comes out in some of them.
15:04
And you see that like in in in things like Narnia, like, you
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know, like who does why does Aslan die?
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Well, because Edmund owes a death or a debt to the White
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Witch who plays this caricature of the devil.
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And so he takes he willingly dies so Edmund can go free.
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So like in some theories, the ransom theory is like it's owed
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to the devil. In some ways it's owed to Garden
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and then the the the penal substitution is very much a, a,
15:36
a God demands justice. And so there's a death that is a
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payment of kinds to God. Payment.
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Yeah. And and so that that theory for
15:51
some people has been very confusing.
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You know, someone once said, like, that theory requires me
15:58
believing that God died to satisfy God.
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Like, like, how does that work? Does that mean that Jesus kind
16:06
of loves me and his father's still kind of mad at me?
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Like, how How does that translate?
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Yeah. Unalame God.
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Super duper angry and Jesus jumps in front of us right in
16:15
the last minute and he got zaps. Well, that very much nudges
16:19
towards like, well, they're very different.
16:21
And so all of these theories and then you get to Christus Victor.
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Well, Christ defeated death. That's kind of like a thing, not
16:30
a person, maybe it's a person, but it, it like for us, it's a
16:34
thing. And so that's like, what was the
16:37
debt to a thing? Like, how did that work?
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Like how, how did you do that? So, so all of it moves us around
16:46
in this spiritual world that we don't fully understand.
16:48
And we're like, wait, am I over here?
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Am I over there? And, and eventually I think
16:51
people get to this point where like, OK, I'm just going, I'm
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not going to worry about it too much.
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I'm just going to let it go. Yeah.
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And so like if you've already sort of embraced faith in Jesus,
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like maybe your mind is sort of settled on a framework sort of
17:03
subconsciously, and you're like, I'm good with that.
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But then I've you, I've encountered myself and I've
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encountered other people in conversation where they're like,
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that's not sufficient anymore. Like I need to at least grapple
17:20
with what's the mechanics of salvation, like what's the
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problem that's being solved? How's it?
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How does a cross solve said? Totally.
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Yeah, Yeah. Yeah.
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And how does it cross? And then there's a time issue.
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How does a cross 2000 years ago solve a problem for me today?
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And and then how does the how does the resurrection fit into
17:44
all that? Yeah.
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Is it is it the the cross that shines?
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So, so like one of the most interesting conversations I've
17:50
heard in years was between NT, right?
17:53
You know, legendary evangelical theologian and a a metropolitan
18:01
or metropolitan in the Eastern Orthodox Church and and so NT
18:08
Wright says to him, what does the cross mean to you?
18:12
And this guy with a straight face says to him, the cross
18:16
means nothing. The cross is simply a way to get
18:20
to resurrection. So, so for this whole group of
18:25
the church, again, not necessarily one that we're close
18:30
to in, in in many ways is like resurrection is the thing that
18:33
shines. Could the cross happen just
18:36
simply because that's how the Romans killed people that
18:40
weren't Romans and that could have been any other way to them
18:45
so long as Jesus could rise from the dead.
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But the problem was death and and the answer to death was
18:52
resurrection. And the kind of death is
18:55
immaterial to them. So again, like this isn't like
18:59
us saying like that's right or wrong.
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That's saying that's how a whole group of people in the church
19:04
have shaped their theory of atonement over the years.
19:07
Now we feel that as people that grew up, maybe you grew up in a
19:11
church where every Good Friday, once a year, the pastor would
19:16
get up and in incredible Mel Gibson style detail would go
19:22
through every awful element of the cross in a way the the New
19:27
Testament we would have to say doesn't do interesting.
19:30
Yeah, yeah. Just so we could show how
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central that incredible pain and incredible type of suffering was
19:38
to salvation. And, and a group of the church
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would say, well, no, I mean, it was, it was just simply a, a
19:45
thing that they did that would have been no different.
19:48
To. The, the guillotine of the
19:50
French. Yeah, the guillotine of French,
19:52
of the French Empire. The, the, what is it?
19:58
The the the. Electric chair.
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Yeah, I'm trying to think of this specific term, but it all
20:03
of those different things the same.
20:04
They could easily have been substituted it now that's very
20:08
weird to us as as as reform people that tend to have grown
20:13
up with a lot of penal substitution.
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Yeah, because of the time we were we were born into.
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Yeah. OK, so we've laid out basically
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what what we've done so far on the show is create more problems
20:25
for ourselves that we then kind of need to like, no promises.
20:30
We're not solving this. This is a conversation.
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I think as a follower of Jesus, it's worthwhile to think on the
20:40
mechanisms of the cross and of resurrection ongoingly and have
20:45
a dialogue with your with God about that ongoingly for a
20:50
lifetime. And we're not going to solve it
20:52
today, but I think it would be helpful for us to at least
20:56
grapple with some of the issues we've laid out.
20:58
And then we have a question, A-22 questions from the class
21:02
that I think might help us access that a little bit later
21:06
as well. So let's deal with some of those
21:10
things. How like how do like we've
21:14
already made the case that we kind of need maybe a
21:16
multiplicity of these these models.
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What? What do you think?
21:21
In your best estimation? What's the mechanisms of the
21:24
cross and how does it relate to us today?
21:29
You mean addressing those theories or just?
21:32
Yeah, you can use those theories like what actually took place,
21:36
the cross. Why was the cross necessary?
21:38
What's the problem being solved? Yeah, I just asked you 7
21:42
questions. You did, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
21:44
And I'm trying to think of, of the best way to answer them
21:46
without getting super theological.
21:51
So I, I think there's this, this, this really strong
21:55
evidence running through the Old Testament, particularly that sin
21:58
is a problem, that, that there's a, a piece of sin that can be
22:08
removed or forgiven, but there's an internal peace that never
22:13
quite get gets dealt with, you know, so, so there's the
22:18
individual actions that the sacrifice is for, but then
22:20
there's also this language in different places that says that
22:23
there is no sacrifice for this sin.
22:26
This is beyond any of those things.
22:28
And you know, it's it's a it's a deep internal problem that can't
22:32
ever be just taken away. Now.
22:35
Now one of the things I find really interesting and
22:37
challenging is that Jesus seems to comfortably just forgive sins
22:41
on earth. He doesn't actually seem to
22:44
think, and this is pre cross, you know, he says, son, your
22:50
sins are forgiven. And so there's this element in
22:53
the New Testament that I'm like, OK, I'm not sure what to do with
22:56
that because Jesus is going around forgiving sins quite
22:59
happily. He's talking about
23:00
reconciliation with the father and things like the prodigal
23:03
son, this come home invitation and the cross and resurrection
23:07
haven't happened yet, but but it still seems like there's this
23:11
thread that's run through that that feels like Jesus is here to
23:16
deal with. And so on some level it feels
23:20
like the cross is part of that answer.
23:22
But there's a sin problem that seems like it's dealt with on
23:26
the cross, and there's a death problem that seems like it's
23:30
dealt with in the resurrection. Paul even have some language
23:33
around this, right? He died for a what is it?
23:36
He died for a justification and he rose again for something.
23:44
What's that piece of language I? Don't know how he phrased it.
23:47
Let me look it up because I think it's important.
24:02
OK, we go ahead. Maybe this is it.
24:04
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So so Paul actually just says
24:11
that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures and
24:14
that he was buried and he rose again the third day according to
24:17
the Scriptures. He doesn't there pass it out.
24:19
But but that seems to be this thread that runs all the way
24:23
through that somewhere on the cross.
24:25
The sin issue is the thing that he's dealt with.
24:28
And so the the interesting thing for me is to try and track for
24:32
myself and others how was their relationship changed with sin
24:38
after that experience of Jesus. Whether that's a prayer you
24:41
prayed early on, whether that's a prayer you prayed later,
24:45
whether that's a thing that you never consciously did, but you
24:48
felt like I started following Jesus.
24:50
Maybe you never someone who prayed this prayer that gets
24:52
talked about a lot that isn't found in the New Testament, but
24:56
you you felt this call to follow Jesus and you said I'm going to
25:00
trust in what he did over what I did.
25:02
How did our relationship with sin change?
25:06
I don't know about you, but I felt like I just started to
25:08
become different. Like I just noticed the the the
25:12
way I behaved change, that something had shifted in me.
25:16
The 18 year old that was into all kinds of stuff that I'm not
25:21
into now was very different than the 19 year old that had
25:25
encountered Jesus and, and started the transformation.
25:28
So somewhere it feels like for me, in my personal experience,
25:33
that's how the cross worked. Yeah.
25:36
I went from being a person that was whose whole life was
25:40
centered around sin to one whose whole life was centered around
25:46
how can I live in the way of Jesus.
25:48
I wasn't always very good at it at times.
25:51
Yeah, interestingly, like I think a transformation was the
25:58
result for me in a lot of ways too.
26:01
Now my awareness of the of more subtle sins increased.
26:05
So I still feel like a horrific Sinner today.
26:10
But if I'm honest, if like if you were to look back at like my
26:15
actual life, some of the things that I don't deal with anymore
26:21
are without even thinking about it now I'm paying attention to
26:26
more nuanced issues. So like I'm on a journey of
26:30
growing a little bit more into the way of Jesus, hopefully, and
26:36
I'm paying attention to more subtle, subtle sins in my soul.
26:43
So yeah, I would tend to agree. That's like, and we talked about
26:47
this last night in in alpha class, I told the story of
26:51
Rwanda and how there's 200 years of this cycle of sin that
26:57
culminates in the Rwanda genocide and how something's got
27:02
to be done about this problem, right.
27:05
And so the cross and, and the arrival of Jesus is entering
27:09
into human history, dealing with these kinds of things.
27:14
And I think he deals with them in a multiplicity of ways.
27:18
He sets us a better example. He defeats the he defeats by
27:25
demonstration, the principalities and powers.
27:29
And that's, that's for me, a really important component of
27:32
atonement because as I look at human history, I see things like
27:38
the Holocaust, things like the Rwanda genocide, where human
27:42
evil almost rises above and becomes a third party.
27:50
Think about governments or corporations.
27:53
Government power and corporate power where the system, the
27:59
entity itself, what Like imagine a super powerful corporation
28:04
with exceeding amounts of money causes the leadership of that
28:10
organization to sometimes do things that if they didn't have
28:14
access to this corporate power, they wouldn't be able to do.
28:17
So it almost takes on a life of its own where the the
28:22
corporation is almost sentient. I think when the scriptures talk
28:29
about the principalities and powers, it's not just talking
28:32
about spiritual beings like demons and and Satan.
28:36
It's also incorporating these powerful structures that humans
28:41
create to suppress other human beings.
28:45
And so, so the problem of sin is that it gets so big, it almost
28:51
extends beyond individuals into corporate systems and
28:55
structures. And so there's two main
29:00
corporate systems and structures that Jesus is grappling with
29:03
when he's walking the earth, the Roman Empire and the religious,
29:10
interestingly, the religious systems of the Jewish
29:14
leadership. And the way he defeats them is
29:17
to get he lets himself be consumed.
29:20
By them. To show us that you don't have
29:25
to be corporate power and greed and energy by becoming bigger
29:31
and badder and scarier. Instead, surrender to God is a
29:37
is a maximum weapon. Yeah, yeah.
29:40
So one of the, one of the the. That's, by the way, that's more
29:42
of a Christus Fisher model. Yeah.
29:45
So one of the films that does a really interesting job in
29:48
showing this in real terms is The Matrix.
29:53
So now, now you get past the first Matrix and the story
29:56
continues when in a way that doesn't always, like, translate.
29:59
But for some reason, in this first film, it was like
30:02
somewhere the people that wrote it had the Wachowski brothers
30:09
had taken on this atonement idea without realizing it.
30:15
Yeah. So in the system, there is the
30:20
machine, you know, the thing that operates everything.
30:25
And then the personification of that is this Agent Smith who can
30:29
take over anything, who works through every system.
30:33
He just touches something and it gets infected with him and
30:37
becomes part of this larger Organism that goes anywhere it
30:40
wants, that operates across everything that it wants to
30:43
operate with. And this thing kind of is the
30:49
thing that is operating this matrix that works as like a
30:53
simulation. So all of this like is this,
30:55
this this powerful structure that you're describing that that
30:59
infects everything. So it imagine a thing that
31:02
starts as a root and spreads and every time it kind of splits or
31:08
forks, another strand takes off. And it only takes in this world,
31:12
one person who's got this infection to, to come into a
31:18
company or come into an organization.
31:21
Suddenly that organization. But this is how powerful it is.
31:23
Suddenly that thing becomes infected with it and it's spread
31:26
grows and grows and grows till it becomes roots beyond roots,
31:30
beyond roots, beyond roots beyond roots.
31:33
And for some reason they created this image.
31:35
Not talking about theology, but it works perfectly as how you
31:40
know and how this thing has been described. 1 action starts a
31:43
chain reaction builds and builds and builds and builds and builds
31:47
and and Neo is this chosen one that that in the end defeats the
31:55
system by getting inside of the system and exploding it from the
32:00
inside. So he actually allows himself to
32:03
be consumed by it. He, you know, in his very visual
32:07
moment, jumps into the person that represents it and suddenly
32:11
there's this explosion that destroys everything from, you
32:14
know, the everything powers down in this moment, the thing
32:17
ruptures and, and that, and that seems to be what this theory is
32:23
saying, that there's a whole structure that actually gets
32:28
destroyed and, and, and we're free.
32:31
Yeah, and and and so interestingly like parts of the
32:36
Bible that don't get read quite as often, like the Book of
32:39
Revelation or some of the prophetic books use language
32:44
that sounds really wacky to us. But if you are thinking of it
32:48
like a powerful narrative like the Matrix, it would track fine.
32:53
Like the language of Dragons and like how how this Christ like
32:58
figure in the book of Revelations gets like sort of
33:01
consumed by the dragon and defeats the dragon in so doing.
33:05
And this is the kind of language Scripture often times uses to
33:10
describe what Christ accomplishes at the cross is he
33:15
says I will take upon myself. It's almost like NT Wright like
33:21
describes it as almost like Jesus becomes this magnetic
33:26
figure that sort of draws all of the wickedness and evil like a
33:33
cloud that descends upon him at the cross and then try to crush
33:39
him and do and then the third day later he's like Psych I The
33:48
greatest enemy in the in the Christus Victor model is the
33:55
fear of death. Not just death, but the fear of
33:58
death because it's the thing that causes humans to do the
34:03
most evil. Sure, like we think it's money
34:06
and power, but actually if you boil it all the way down, all
34:09
the way down, all the way down, all the way down, humans just
34:12
want, I want me and mine to be safe.
34:17
And if mine betray me, I I'll reject them.
34:20
I want me to be safe. And the the biggest, baddest,
34:23
scariest thing that cause us to do insidious things to each
34:27
other is the fear of death and if there's a promise of
34:31
resurrection. Doesn't matter, you strip.
34:34
Death of its power and you can start doing stuff like being
34:39
kind at the risk of your own life.
34:42
And that's why that's why things like, oh, death, where is your
34:47
sting brave, where is your victories are things that we
34:52
read within the New Testament. Now to give you another visual
34:55
of this, because I think the visuals within like stories that
34:57
we know help us here, that that problem you're talking about is
35:04
really visible in the the story Harry Potter.
35:08
Yeah. So without any spoilers,
35:11
because, you know, it was written in 2007, so, you know,
35:15
you've only had nearly 1020 years to to read it.
35:20
There's this moment at the end where Voldemort, this
35:23
personification of evil, kills his his most faithful servant
35:28
from his perspective. And and he does it because he
35:32
believes it's the only way that he can can live forever.
35:36
And so he actually uses this line where he says, you know,
35:38
you've been a good servant, Severus, but only I can live
35:41
forever. Everyone else can be sacrificed
35:44
so long as I get what I want. That that's the humanity at its
35:48
worst image. That's what we become like
35:51
anyone else except us. So long as I can continue,
35:56
that's just fine. And then of course, Harry is the
36:01
the antithesis of that because he has a resurrection stone and
36:05
he's like, I can give my life because I know that there is the
36:08
promise of something else. So like it's, it's, it's JK
36:12
Rowling really cleverly and intentionally from her
36:15
perspective, like she always said, if you're a Christian, the
36:18
story will not surprise you because she weaves these themes
36:22
through it. Yeah, which, OK, Zooming out of
36:27
theology from a a sociological perspective, a psychological
36:33
perspective, and A and a Yeah. One of the reasons why
36:40
Christianity compels me is the fact that the best stories, the
36:48
best narratives that quicken our hearts in human history find
36:55
grounding and evidence in the story of the Old Testament, the
37:00
New Testament and the cross and the resurrection.
37:03
We, it's almost like God hardwired our brains and our
37:09
psychologies in such a way to when we see a story like the
37:13
Matrix or like Harry Potter or something, or we, we see
37:20
superhero stories or whatever it may be, something in our souls
37:24
like Quicken. And it's like our, our
37:28
subconscious self is saying, yes, yes, yes, yes.
37:31
This isn't just a story on a movie screen.
37:36
This is a story that actually happened.
37:39
And so part of the reason why the cross is so compelling to
37:42
me, beyond all the theology, is the narrative itself, I think,
37:47
speaks to humanity at such a fundamental level that we can't
37:51
even quantify it. That's the idea of memetic
37:58
stories, the term meme, you know, like memes you see on
38:03
Twitter or on Facebook or whatever, on Instagram, these
38:06
memes that sort of like, sweep through culture, that like,
38:09
affect culture. Well, an actual meme
38:13
historically is an image that changes the direction of human
38:19
history. The ultimate meme is the cross
38:21
and the resurrection and the resurrection.
38:24
So all right, a couple more questions to to drill into this.
38:29
And I know, gosh, there's volumes and volumes of
38:36
theological books that Plumb the depths of this topic that we
38:40
just can't even begin to scratch the surface of.
38:44
So there, this feels kind of like a lost cause to even talk
38:47
about it too much because you're just like, I feel like we're
38:49
leaving out so much. But here's here's a question.
38:53
Why does following Jesus actually require surrendering
38:56
anything? Isn't intellectual ascent
39:00
enough? So, so I, I think this this one
39:09
is so, so intellectual ascent is an interesting question, like
39:15
Internet intellectual ascent to what to guess I can So if you
39:19
mean just intellectual ascent to the fact that Jesus was a real
39:26
person who died and maybe rose again, like, well, well, that
39:32
doesn't necessarily mean a belief that he did anything for
39:36
anything. So, so somewhere the belief
39:41
part, like, like we tend to think of again, this is, this is
39:44
our culture belief as like intellectually I can get on
39:48
board with that idea. And that's not what the New
39:52
Testament writers mean by belief.
39:55
Like. And and actually, without
39:56
spoiling it this week, we're actually going to spend a lot of
39:59
time on this question because we've now navigated all the way
40:01
through John, this book on Sunday mornings and all the way
40:04
through John's take away every week is just like.
40:07
Believe believe, believe, believe, believe.
40:10
You read 2 chapters of Matthew and he's had like 35 takeaways
40:14
and John's just got one for 21 chapters.
40:18
Like it's just. It's become a joke around the
40:20
office. We're like, hey, what are you
40:21
preaching on, Alex? Oh, is it about?
40:22
Believing. And we're like, Yep, Yep, Yep.
40:25
So, so we got to this final week where this is where it really
40:27
talks about it in a in a strange way that I'm like, I'm just
40:31
going to actually spend some time talking about what they
40:34
mean by believe. Because early on, you might say,
40:37
when Jesus calls his disciples and says believe in me, he
40:40
actually means something like follow me, live like me, get
40:44
involved in what I'm doing. And then there's this movement
40:48
later where it clearly becomes believe that I died and rose
40:53
again. But but throughout the New
40:58
Testament and early church history, it becomes really clear
41:03
that what believe means for us is a trust.
41:07
So like actually I think when people struggle with believe,
41:09
one of my encouragements to them is just go through every
41:12
scripture you're reading and change the word believe to trust
41:16
because it is this action where you are handing over your life
41:21
and your future to the one who died and rose again.
41:28
Yeah. So, so some really great
41:30
language around that is often this language of when you talk
41:35
about what you think happens after death and where your life
41:40
is going, you've changed from a first person language to a third
41:45
person language. Yeah.
41:47
Yeah. So, So regularly, if you pose
41:50
the question like, well, if you were to tell God why you should
41:55
go to heaven if you died or some question that sounds almost like
41:58
a little oversimplified, but let's pick that one because it's
42:01
easy. Then we're tempted to say things
42:03
like, well, because I because I prayed a prayer, because I tried
42:10
to live the life of Jesus, because I mentally believed the
42:13
worst, like theologically assented to death and
42:17
resurrection. But but really the trust process
42:21
is actually saying because Jesus, yeah, it's actually
42:26
starting there because Jesus did this for me.
42:30
You become not that that the the subject of the sentence, but you
42:34
become an object further down the equation.
42:37
And so mental assent never gets you there.
42:39
Mental assent stays with me. It's like because I because I
42:43
believe this because I did this, where whereas the thing that
42:50
we're talking about belief is, is turning over a life to Jesus
42:55
in a way that says, OK, Jesus, you're taking care of that part.
42:59
My part in the equation is to to follow you, to get on board with
43:03
you to live as you call me to live.
43:06
And all of that is become possible because of what you did
43:10
anyway. I was no way equipped to do
43:12
that, but you and this thing that I'm trusting you for have
43:15
begin to work a different kind of code in me.
43:18
That's unlike the code that we talked about that spreads
43:22
throughout the earth and causes damage and harm.
43:26
That's why Christians find themselves doing surprising
43:29
things, which is the like I that way.
43:31
How did I do that? That's not me.
43:34
You know, Malcolm Gladwell, the the great like historian,
43:38
writer, macro thesis guy said he was first pulled back to
43:42
Christianity, Christianity because he watched a couple
43:45
whose daughter had just been killed.
43:47
Forgive the couple, the kid, forgive the person that did it.
43:51
He's like, where did that come from?
43:54
That's not the systems process. The systems process stands in
43:59
front of them at the court case and says you've got hell waiting
44:01
for you and I'm going to enjoy every moment.
44:04
Yeah, this this came up in in last night's thing at Alpha
44:08
where where he shared the story of Corey Tim Boom, forgiving her
44:13
perpetrator. And she says I couldn't forgive
44:15
him. I all I had was coldness in me
44:19
and yet he could in me forgive him.
44:23
And so like she let that haunting thing where we listen
44:26
to the recording of her speaking these words.
44:29
That's exactly what Alex is talking about.
44:31
It's it's that Christ does it in US.
44:35
So mental ascent doesn't work because it's still a first
44:37
person action. Well, and and also to get an,
44:43
you know, far be it for us to be evil even able to do what I'm
44:46
suggesting. If try to imagine for a moment
44:49
God's agenda with humanity and then think about the mental
44:54
ascent question. All right, so the question
44:56
again, just by way of reminder, is why do we have to surrender
45:01
anything? Isn't mental ascent sufficient?
45:04
Well, Alex said, well, no, it's not sufficient for one reason,
45:09
because mental ascent doesn't get us to that, to that place
45:16
where we're trusting in his work on our behalf.
45:21
Another way of getting at the same question is think about
45:26
God's agenda for humanity. He wants his creation to
45:30
function with goodness and beauty and delight for his
45:35
creatures both, for all of his cosmos, for the for the earth,
45:40
for the creatures on the earth, and for human humanity.
45:43
He this is what he wants. He designed us to to be this
45:47
beautiful expression of his goodness and beauty.
45:50
We Jack it up horrifically, fill in all the examples we've
45:55
already talked about Holocaust, abuse, destruction, pain, evil.
46:01
And so if mental ascent was sufficient, where we just say
46:06
like I believe a set of propositional statements about
46:12
theology, does that transform his creation into this beautiful
46:18
system and structure? No.
46:20
No, it's just a bunch of mental stuff that says I I make an
46:25
intellectual idea about some theological propositions.
46:31
God has no interest in that. What he wants is for us to say,
46:36
you know what, the way that humans do things is not good and
46:41
bad for both us and for the cosmos.
46:45
What you say is a better way of doing things.
46:49
I will therefore surrender my ideas of how to behave and
46:53
surrender to yours, and then that has the potential to
46:57
transform all of the cosmos back towards where he has, which
47:03
leads to a question that came up at my home.
47:05
Well, I just, I would just finish with this idea that
47:07
scriptural idea around this is, is, is James who says like, you
47:12
know, something like this, I'm going to paraphrase, paraphrase.
47:15
You say you believe in God, you do well, so do the demons and
47:20
even tremble at his name. Like so so like the the darkness
47:24
thing you're talking about the, the, the system that's opposed
47:28
to God, the the the things behind that know that Jesus rose
47:34
from the dead. They can mentally ascend to all
47:37
of those things, but but and and even tremble at the idea the
47:41
name of God. But, but they're far from.
47:46
Surrendering. The Christian story that they're
47:48
far from surrender, they are the perpetuators of that system.
47:52
And so it's just another example of why that there's more than
47:55
mental ascent. Yeah.
47:58
So a question came up at my table then.
48:01
OK, if the cross accomplished all this and set a new potential
48:05
trajectory for humanity, why does it seem like the world's
48:08
almost worse now than it was prior to the cross?
48:11
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
48:13
And and and I think you could take that a number of
48:20
directions. Yep.
48:22
I think you could take it to the failure of Christians to live
48:27
out the way of Jesus in the world that we are the plan and
48:31
we have not often done that well.
48:34
You could also take it down the direction of you were also
48:40
really good at overlooking huge periods of history that were
48:45
pretty horrific and that actually there's lots of ways
48:48
where the world has got a lot better.
48:51
And usually the heartbeat of that has been Christianity.
48:55
Like if you take away things that Christianity was the
48:58
impetus from, you probably have no schools, no hospitals, no
49:03
music, no like, or at least no music as we know it today like
49:07
that. That's been the impetus of a
49:08
whole bunch of stuff. So we're we're surprisingly
49:11
unaware of just what Christianity has given the
49:13
world. And and then on the other hand,
49:21
this piece that, yeah, the system continues to fight back,
49:25
the thing that we've been talking about continues to grow
49:28
and spread in a way that that is, is incalculable as well.
49:33
So I think that that all like comes into play.
49:36
Yeah, absolutely. So you have interestingly enough
49:42
and and we're going to actually talk about this in Alpha.
49:44
I think the last week we'll spend our entire time talking
49:48
about the church and some of the struggles of what is the church?
49:53
What should the church be? But to get at this question, why
49:57
in the world do does it sometimes feel like things are
50:01
just as bad or sometimes even worse than prior to the cross?
50:05
If the cross was this iconic moment, don't you expect to see
50:09
some shifts? So Alex gave us some answers to
50:13
that. But interesting, some of the bad
50:16
things in human history post the cross were done by the church.
50:22
So, interestingly, Christians, or people who claim to be
50:27
Christians, are not immune to the systems and structures of
50:30
the world. Absolutely no.
50:31
And so things like the Crusades and things like the abuse of
50:40
power in in by religious leaders, things like all of
50:46
these sorts of things are examples of when someone who
50:50
claims the name of Jesus behaves exactly like the systems and
50:56
principalities and powers that Christianity and Jesus was
51:00
against. And that to me is the biggest,
51:06
scariest rebuttal to Christianity that there is.
51:10
It's not, I mean, that's probably the biggest struggle I
51:14
have personally with Christianity.
51:17
It's it's how easy it is for the the quote UN quote church to get
51:23
swept up and just to behave exactly like and then and
51:27
leverage a salvation as a weapon of war rather than as a weapon
51:34
of mercy and grace. This is this is like so so I I
51:38
would share that it's it's super hard to watch and and and a
51:43
thing that we're as South as a little part of the Kingdom are
51:47
trying to to work against. But like these are Jesus words
51:52
when someone asked him, will those who are saved be few in
51:57
Luke 13 and Jesus says strive to enter through the narrow door
52:01
because I tell you many I tell you will seek it and will not be
52:06
able and by able, he doesn't mean like it's not open to them,
52:09
but will not go through the narrow door that he's talking
52:12
about like so. So he has no problem with the
52:16
fact that it's really easy to to say Lord, Lord and to become
52:23
someone who uses great Christian language to even like.
52:29
And Paul like talks about this as well.
52:32
He says, you know, lest I having preached to others, you know,
52:37
for short, like there's a real awareness that there'll be
52:42
people that will say I'm a Christian and not live like it
52:45
at all. Yeah, just.
52:46
Because you can make a theological statement of faith.
52:50
Call yourself a Christian. If the way of Jesus isn't
52:57
gradually and continually growing in your life, there is
53:03
not a lot of evidence that you're actually inside the way
53:05
of Jesus. And that's terrifying.
53:11
It is not. Now at the same time, like I, I
53:14
don't want to say that just because you are like, like
53:19
there's reasons that people don't grow.
53:21
Yeah, but but I think like you can take things like the
53:27
Crusades and look at a whole whole story of Christianity that
53:33
was driven by something other than the message of Jesus, yet
53:37
they marched with this golden cross of Christ in front of
53:40
them. And so I think I'm not saying
53:46
that we're talking about apples and apples, but that is Jesus
53:51
story. And our job is to continue to
53:56
move our life from first person to third person, to say that
54:01
everything about me centered around what Jesus has done and
54:04
the life that I now live. That's Paul's language.
54:07
Like, you know, I've been crucified with Christ.
54:09
It's no longer I that live, but Christ lives in me and the life
54:13
I live. I live by faith in the Son of
54:16
God who loved me and gave himself for me.
54:18
That's his definition of what being a Christian looks like,
54:22
yeah. And then Alex also alluded to
54:25
this, but there's some historians who've done some
54:30
really good work. If you want to look at the work
54:32
of Tom Holland is 1. It's kind of a contemporary
54:39
example. He sort of blipped on the radar
54:41
in the last five or so years with some of his books.
54:45
His book is what Dominion that was called.
54:48
Who makes a case that prior to the cross, most ancient
54:56
civilizations actually glorified violence and power and abuse?
55:03
So if you wanted to to say I'm awesome, you tell everyone how
55:10
many people you've raped and how many people you've killed and
55:14
everyone's like if you had more than the next guy that you are
55:19
the hero of. The story.
55:22
And he some of his work is when, because he's an expert on the
55:26
Roman civilization. And his work says something took
55:32
place with the Judeo-christian movement of the early church,
55:37
where now all of us think that an abusive, powerful personality
55:45
is a bad thing. Yeah, he says if you think abuse
55:48
of power is bad, you are thinking like a Christian.
55:51
Yeah, all of Western civilization has shifted its
55:56
value structures based upon Judeo-christian.
55:59
And that and that doesn't mean systems, people that call
56:01
themselves Christians don't do those things.
56:04
Yeah. You listen to almost anyone that
56:06
does that. They'll try and color in like,
56:09
why it's OK in this case. Yeah.
56:11
Like why this thing of violence did this?
56:14
Like it was like it was means to an end that that that even the
56:19
people that we look at and say, man, what is going on with this
56:22
person? They're like, oh, oh, there was
56:24
a reason for it. Like, yeah, This is why it's
56:26
excusable for me or in this circumstance, you know, so So
56:30
what? We're deeply aware that once we
56:35
get to this point of saying, yeah, violence for its own sake,
56:39
people look at us like, wait, what's wrong with you?
56:42
That's that's messed up. No world leader gets to where
56:47
they are by saying, yeah, I just love violence.
56:50
I just love like this do what you want world where like
56:54
survival of the finished, right. It doesn't happen.
56:57
Like even you go back to like our example always of the worst
57:00
of the worst Adolf Hitler. Like, how does he caricature
57:04
what he's doing? Oh, we're just creating more
57:06
space to make sure people have enough room to live.
57:09
Those people will be moved somewhere else.
57:11
They're like, they're going to be taken care of.
57:12
Everything's going to be fine for them.
57:14
Probably going to be better off. Like you know, but but you know,
57:17
this is just important for us to all continue to live happily
57:22
ever. After Yeah, his vision was to
57:25
try and create utopia. Yeah, and, and, and, and
57:27
actually there's all these Germans that when they find out
57:31
what's happened, they're like, wait, what?
57:34
Like we had no idea. Like Hitler's still sending
57:39
families on cruises in the Mediterranean in 1944, like,
57:45
right. And they're like, wow, this guy
57:47
has solved it. So, so even the worst of the
57:49
worst caricature themselves is like, no, I'm, I'm, I'm trying
57:53
to, I'm trying to help improve everyone's quality.
57:56
And he believed it. To a degree, yes.
57:59
Yeah. Yeah.
57:59
So it's like it's not just that. Yeah, we could ramble on and on
58:05
and on, but the, the, the point of all of this is there is a
58:12
shift if you study history where Judeo-christian values have
58:18
shifted civilization, and yet they're still crazy examples of
58:24
human brokenness, like the Holocaust, like the Rwanda
58:27
genocide, where it's like, oh, humanity, have we?
58:33
We're so still so, so, so broken.
58:37
There's been more deaths because of war in the last, you know,
58:44
several decades than there ever has been before.
58:48
And so it's hard to quantify. But that's not actually foreign
58:52
to the story of God. And it's his relationship with
58:55
humans all throughout the Old Testament.
58:58
God's work took place amongst what he called a remnant in
59:06
every season throughout the entire Old Testament.
59:09
Even the people that he selected, the Jewish people,
59:13
they did horrific things and he preserved A remnant, the seed
59:18
that's deposited in inside of time that will continually try
59:24
and pursue his way rather than the way of the.
59:26
World and so you look at that through history, where does it
59:28
survive in different places, like through the Middle Ages or
59:31
the dark ages, like the Remnant survives in monasteries, like he
59:37
gets passed down by this group of people that go into these
59:40
enclaves and they, they, you know, they hold on to this thing
59:44
that stays fairly consistent and pure.
59:48
It's for those reasons for people like that that we have
59:51
manuscripts dating back to like whole manuscripts of the New
59:54
Testament dating back to the three hundreds.
59:57
We have snippets dating back from the, you know, the, the the
1:00:01
turn of that century, like all of this consistent historical
1:00:06
story, like the reason we can stand here today and say, Oh, we
1:00:10
have a fairly good idea what the first Christians believed is
1:00:14
because of a remnant like that. Even when you watch the rest of
1:00:18
the world and, and you're like, what are you guys doing?
1:00:21
Like this looks nothing like the thing we were given.
1:00:25
There's a group of people that hold faithful to it.
1:00:28
And then at the right time, the doors open and suddenly the
1:00:32
thing takes off and just catches fire again.
1:00:36
Like God preserves it. And, and he, he, he seems to do
1:00:40
that consistently. Yeah.
1:00:44
Gosh, I feel like there's 35 more questions that we just.
1:00:48
We may have actually just created more questions than we
1:00:52
answered, but this is the nature of this topic.
1:00:54
Salvation is a huge thing. It's of such critical importance
1:01:00
and it's complicated. So yeah.
1:01:02
We didn't even get to like, Paul's idea of justification.
1:01:06
Righteousness. Yeah, Which, you know, is
1:01:09
another whole thing. Like, what does he mean by
1:01:11
righteousness? Does he mean that God has made
1:01:13
us righteous? Do we have the righteousness
1:01:16
that God himself has, Like all of those different things.
1:01:20
And so a really helpful thing, I think, is to remember is this
1:01:24
regularly when these New Testament writers talk about
1:01:30
what's happened, who God is, we assume that they have the
1:01:36
ability to give us the whole picture.
1:01:39
Yeah. And that's just not what they
1:01:41
think they're doing. That's not an, an actually fact.
1:01:45
It's it's more than not what they think they're doing.
1:01:48
It's actually what they're saying they can't do.
1:01:52
So when Paul says things like we see through a glass darkly, one
1:01:56
day we'll see face to face, he's like, we're trying to describe
1:02:00
the mysteries of God. And, and, and there's a limit on
1:02:04
that, even when it's a spirit given thing, you can't on paper
1:02:10
describe the living God who made everything and everyone who owns
1:02:16
everything and is the source behind everything we see.
1:02:22
So they say things like God is like a father.
1:02:27
They don't mean that's everything that God is.
1:02:30
They just mean that describes some of the things that the the
1:02:34
qualities of God that are passed on to us when we're at our best.
1:02:40
He says that God is like a mother hen that gathers his
1:02:43
children to wear chicks. He's not saying that God is
1:02:45
that. He's saying that no, that's how
1:02:47
God works. He says God is a judge.
1:02:50
It's like, but that's like him taking a human image and saying
1:02:53
this is kind of a thing that you see going on here, but he's not
1:02:56
saying he is that. And so like we assume when we
1:03:00
read those words that it's an exact definition or description,
1:03:06
it's like, no, no, no, I'm trying to give you a facet.
1:03:08
I'm trying to help you see multiple little snippets of this
1:03:11
thing. When they describe the story of
1:03:13
what Jesus has done, they're like, Jesus fixed something, his
1:03:18
work, his death and resurrection did something in the universe.
1:03:22
It's kind of like this. It's kind of like that.
1:03:25
It's kind of like, but they can never get the whole thing.
1:03:27
This is a story that will the will reverberate throughout the
1:03:31
universe for all of time and beyond time.
1:03:36
And so if it's this as small as we can write down on paper in a
1:03:41
language that has a fraction of the the the words that we have
1:03:45
today, yeah, it's not a big enough story.
1:03:48
Yeah. And I think the interesting
1:03:52
thing about the gospel, the word gospel just means good news, is
1:03:56
that it's as vast as we're talking about.
1:03:59
And yet, at the same times, it's simple enough that a little
1:04:04
child can understand that God loves you, and that he loves you
1:04:12
so much that he couldn't possibly stand letting you
1:04:19
languish inside of the broken systems and structures of this
1:04:23
world. And so he came to die to create
1:04:29
the potential for new systems and new structures, which is
1:04:33
what scriptures call his Kingdom for you.
1:04:38
And if if his death, Romans tells us that he demonstrated
1:04:43
his love for us in that while we were still sinners, not even
1:04:46
while we'd made any mental sense, while we're running as
1:04:49
fast as we could the opposite direction, while we were still
1:04:53
sinners, Christ died for you. That's the the message.
1:04:59
That's simple enough for a child to understand, and then the
1:05:02
mechanisms of that is complicated enough to confound
1:05:06
your mind for a lifetime. And so, so one of the things I
1:05:09
think is really helpful as maybe a final, final thought is that
1:05:13
sometimes when we get lost in all of these different things,
1:05:15
it's really easy to, to, to, to get a little stuck.
1:05:20
One of the things I think is really helpful is to take a
1:05:22
simple story like maybe like the prodigal son story.
1:05:25
I have Rembrandt's painting on my wall where this prodigal son
1:05:31
is welcomed home by his father and and I think the image is
1:05:35
this one of invite. But it turns out it's really
1:05:39
easy to either stay in the far country trying to survive, eke
1:05:44
out a living. It's really easy to stay on the
1:05:48
outside of town trying to come up with all sorts of excuses as
1:05:51
to why the father should let you back in.
1:05:54
It's really easy to be the oldest son, like standing on the
1:05:57
outside of the circle, outside of relationship, bitter because
1:06:00
of all the other people that feel like, you know, they got in
1:06:02
too easily. So living the third person
1:06:06
requires walking home and coming to the conclusion that the only
1:06:11
reason you're there is because your father is awfully good and
1:06:14
kind and that he's taking care of it.
1:06:19
And so somewhere like that's the narrative that allows us to, to,
1:06:23
to let go of some of these things that we have to figure
1:06:25
out why, why is he so kind to us?
1:06:27
What's his agenda? Like?
1:06:29
What's he, why has he let us in? And, and, and actually, there is
1:06:32
no answer to that. What did it cost him?
1:06:34
We don't know. Like, you know, but, but, but to
1:06:37
say simply, he invited us home. And I'm going to accept that
1:06:42
invitation with all of my heart. And, and, and that that that's
1:06:46
the goodness of the story. All right.
1:06:49
Well, on that note, please do send us additional questions.
1:06:54
It would really help this podcast, if you like, subscribe
1:06:58
on YouTube, give us some feedback, you know, rate the
1:07:02
podcast and whatever your podcast service is.
1:07:06
It's been a long time since I've asked for those things.
1:07:09
Look at me being a podcaster. Wow, goodbye.