No One Is Good – Except God Alone

I was working on the Revelation 12 blog I was going to post last week and I had it all outlined and some parts were written when the writing groove was interrupted.  I wasn’t sure what was going on, but then I got the clue that I was supposed to be writing about something else for this blog.  I think the Revelation 12 blog is still useful work, and I will post it eventually, but I guess God wanted me to write about something else first.  I’m trying not to be such a spoiled brat and be more obedient, but like I talked about in a previous blog, it’s hard!  We talked about having to be of a mindset to give up our wills to God in the last blog.  This particular post is about another aspect of why it’s hard and how that’s okay.

I look back on my near half century on this planet and think about all the mean and selfish things I’ve done and I know I haven’t been a good person.  There was a lot of selfishness, pride, lust and drunkenness and, though God is working on me, those sins still keep popping up.

I’m a beer drinking divorcee (the pub example I presented in the last blog came from some personal experiences) and I know that I am blessed far beyond what I deserve.  But, I know I’m not the only one struggling with my sin.

Luke 18:19 (NIV) “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good – except God alone.”

So, though I know I am not worthy to present thoughts about God, no one really is, but we have to do what we’re called to do.  This is my particular type of spiritual fruit.  The blessed woman (not blessed because she’s with me) who I share my life and thoughts with serves her community in many ways and goes out and shows love to those she meets.  That is her fruit of the Word.

I state this because I am going to present some thoughts on the parable of The Sower and related items.  This parable doesn’t discuss the variety of fruit that we grow through God, but please understand our fruit is an array of the many aspects of the Word of God.  Plus, I don’t need competition in this blogging format, so grow your own type fruit!  Sorry for that poor attempt at humor.

Anyway, the reason we’re looking at this parable is to find out how fruit grows and why our sins keep popping back up though we’ve turned our lives over to God.  First, we’ll start with the surprisingly controversial nature of soul.

The idea and subsequent dogma of the immortal soul is well engrained into Christian thought.  It is taught in Christian circles that every person is born with an immortal soul that will either be saved by accepting Jesus as savior or be damned to the fires of hell.  So, in this view, everyone has an equal chance at salvation.  Anyone can choose salvation.

It is a great idea, and perhaps it is true, but as many theologians have pointed out, it is not biblical.  It was developed in western thought by Greek philosophers including Plato. (Newport, pg. 274) There are few biblical scholars outside the ultra-fundamentalist community that would deny the influence of Greek philosophy on the early church and by medieval times, the belief in the immortal soul was very strong.  It was declared official dogma by the Roman Catholic Lateran Council of 1512 and the belief was accepted by the Protestant reformers. (Newport, pg. 274)

Personally, I love the idea.  It is well presented and beautifully argued for by Socrates and Plato.  It is great Greek philosophy.  But, this version of soul isn’t in the Bible.

The Old Testament certainly makes no case for the immortal soul.  In Hebrew thought, there would be a resurrection of the dead in the last days.  There is no mention of Adam and Eve being issued individual immortal souls.  In fact, God says that Adam was made from dust and would return to dust.  He did not say that part of Adam would live on.

I think that in the parable of The Sower, Jesus provides us a peep of how God views soul.  In the parable of The Sower, the sower goes out and freely spreads seeds over all types of terrain, not just in good soil.  Some falls on the road and doesn’t grow.  Some seeds fall in rocky soil and sprout and die.  Some seeds grow into plants but are choked out by weeds and do not produce fruit.  Then some seeds grow and produce fruit.

So we see that the seeds of the Word of God do not fall into equally good parts of soil.  The seeds of the Word of God are planted in the soul of humans.  Some soul is good for planting and some is not.

Even if we hold onto the idea of each individual receiving an individual and immortal soul, we can still conclude from this parable that not everyone has the same quality of soul.  In my view, it appears that soul is distributed like the fertile soil on this planet.  It is thick in some people and non-existent in others.  In my simple observation of life, this seems to hold true.  There truly seems to be people who have no soul in this world.  Soul, in my opinion, is not individually issued to each human being.  It appears to be a substance where spiritual ideas, seeds, can be grown.  Just like the material that makes up our body, it will return to where it comes from when our bodies die.

Just like the Earth, there are better areas to grow plants than others.  In the view from this parable, there are some humans who do not have soul, some very little and some with varying levels of good soul.

Of course, when Jesus explained to his disciples about the weeds, it shows that it is a little more complicated to grow a spiritual plant than a physical one.  The soul can produce more than one kind of plant.  Jesus mentions the weeds of physical human concerns that choke out the spiritual plant.  So, though a seed gets planted, it doesn’t mean that it’s not competing for soul space with other types of plants.

And remember, after all the struggle of growing; only the fruit from the crop is harvested by the sower.  If your spiritual plant does not bear fruit God will not bring you in.  The sower doesn’t take in the plant and all the dirt it’s growing in.  He just takes the fruit.  Jesus made a withering example of this with the fig tree he passed that had no fruit.

Again, in the parable of The Talents, spiritual potential is given to the three servants to tend to.  Two of the servants do well and produce more wealth from the wealth they are given.  The third produces nothing and ends up with nothing.

What we see is that the Word of God combined with soul is spirit potential.  From the Word of God and soul, it is our responsibility to produce more of what has been given to us.  Seeds of Word of God produce fruit of the Word of God.  Word of God invested in others produces more Word of God.

When I talk about the Word of God and the fruits of the Word of God or fruits of the Spirit, I’m not just writing about words on paper or spoken words.  I’m talking about a tangible, living entity and it is seen, as Galatians 5 tells us, in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

We share our fruit with others and take in fruit from others and it all becomes part of Jesus, the Word of God.  It is not the soul or the plant that becomes part of Jesus, the Word of God.  It is not the soul or the plant that become one with the Word of God; it is the fruit.

So, you may ask, if there is not an immortal soul, what then burns in hell as Jesus warned?

Well, soul is a substance in which non-physical potential grows.  Remember the weeds Jesus spoke of?  There are other seeds that can be planted.  Satan wants to eat too.

There are seeds that bear the fruit of lust, greed, jealousy, substance abuse, or anything else you may obsess about, etc.  Humans share these fruits with one another and they are harvested by a sower as well.  He’s just not one who is also known as the Good Shepherd.  The reaper of this fruit may be grim.

But the same concept applies.  Satan as the head of the bad fruit body and those who bear his fruit are taken into him and share his fate.

In everyday life, we see how complicated it is to grow only one plant type in fertile soil.  Even great people struggle.  David and his son Solomon had great depth of soul but struggled with lust.  We see it in our own lives.  We know our spirit is growing but then pride, lust or whatever seems to be growing right alongside it.

But it is better to have this struggle than to have none.  There are those who do not have the potential to grow any fruit.

Why is there the disparity in the amount of soul people have?  I don’t know.  And I don’t know why there are some born on this Earth in severe poverty or sickness and some into the lap of luxury.  I don’t know why some are strong and some are weak and some are smart and some are not.  It appears to be the pattern that God set in motion.  I will continue to ask God.  He is big enough and understanding enough to answer.

I realize that I have stressed the responsibility of the believer for what is grown in his or her soul.  But there is a sower who works in the soul.  He feeds the soul and provides the light so that spiritual plants can grow.  Basically, we just have to focus on letting God do the work by being constantly connected to Him in prayer and deed.  Otherwise, we plant our own weeds and let another sower into our patch of soul.

I know that’s easier said than done, but God understands.  There will be sin in our lives.  “No one is good – except God alone.”  But the miracle is that He can produce a little piece of Himself in us!

We just can’t stop trying.  For me, it became just a little bit easier to deal with my sin once I found an understanding of the processes at work.

I’m not sure why God had me present this before the Revelation 12 study, but I trust Him and I pray that it reaches who it was intended to reach.

God bless you all.

 

Reference – Life’s Ultimate Questions, John P. Newport, Word Press, 1989