If Jesus was a Complementarian, He would have refused to come to earth. He would have insisted that He is the Authority and people are to submit to Him because God said so; He didn’t have to do anything to deserve the people’s respect, service and loyalty. He would have gathered the angelic host around Him, basked in their praises, and commanded them to reconcile humans with God. God the Father would have had to force him to come to earth against His will.
If Jesus was a Complementarian, He would have gone to the temple when He was 12 and wouldn’t have asked the priests anything. Instead, He would have told them He was God, their authority, and that they better do what He says and serve Him. When His parents reprimanded Him, He would have told them to buzz off, that He was their authority and they were to surrender themselves to Him, get a horse for Him to ride home, and that the home they were providing for Him was not good enough. He is God, after all and even a palace leaves much to be desired.
If Jesus was a Complementarian, He would have either refused to turn the water into wine, or He would have bragged about His miracle and used the event to announce that He is God, the Everlasting Authority, and that everyone there was His bride and required by God to subject themselves to him or suffer the consequences.
If Jesus was a Complementarian, He would have scoffed at John the Baptist’s baptism, took over the preaching for the day and demanded that all the hearers bowed before Him because He is the Authority, and God gave Him the role of directing their lives.
If Jesus was a Complementarian, He would have ordered the disciples to follow Him, instead of inviting them. Claiming that any type of service was beneath His dignity, He would have refused to heal the sick, lame, and blind. Instead, He would have ordered the disciples to heal the people and scolded His disciples when they could not, and ranted and raved about what idiots they were.
If Jesus was a Complementarian, instead of inviting people to come to Him for rest, He would have ordered them to come and give Him their hard manual labor. Instead of saying “Ask and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you,” He would have said, “Ask and I’ll yell at you, seek and I’ll spit in your face, knock and I’ll beat you up, for everyone that asks makes Me mad, he that seeks disgusts Me, and he that knocks sends me into an uncontrollable rage because he is trying to usurp My authority. He would have declared that His rage, yelling, spitting,and beating was not sin, that the seeker had brought it on himself.
If Jesus was a Complementarian, He would have refused to lay down His life for us. Instead, He would have demanded the death of every last one of us, insisting that since we are rebellious and unable to serve Him perfectly, we must die for Him.
If Jesus was a Complementarian, He would have neglected to love us and treat us with kindness and mercy. Instead, He would have focused on His authority. There would be no Christmas, no Good Friday, no Easter, no Ascension Day.
If Jesus was a Complementarian, he would deny us salvation, and damn us to Hell.
If Jesus was a Complementarian, we would neither love nor serve Him.
Waneta Dawn is the author of "Behind the Hedge," a novel about a wife who discovers traditional marriage advice doesn't always work. See www.wanetadawn.com
Posts
Doug Wilson Compared to Crime Boss
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I've been listening to the Sons of Patriarchy podcast. It's been pretty
good. But I've heard most of the stories before.
Today's podcast Immersive Commu...
2 days ago
I love you,
ReplyDeletethis is the Best post you have Ever put here, not just for the comps, etc.,
but because for those of us, like me, who have only known abuse [from parents] and who always struggle seeing God exactly like this, seeing Jesus like this, when we/I pray, when we/I sin/fail, when we/I read the Bible [I really struggle when I read the Bible],
I see So much here, that I have seen God like--and reading this, I realize, it wasn't God, it was Satan. This is something I've really been having a terrible time with, the condemnation and guilt and FEAR, knowing I'm not Holy and that God wants Holiness, [and I then see a dark God who will destroy me, and it's impossible to see love--NOT because of Him but because this is So deep in me, so Ingrained in me, and it is a Real War to get OUT of that mind frame which IS evil,
and deep, from within. This post, was God saying to me, all these horrible fears are not Me--
a Confirmation BIG TIME of what He has been telling me now for weeks [me and Him have been working on this warped lens of mine from a warped wounded marred perception-heart].
So, Thank you,
Thank You Jesus, I am copying this post to my blog [with link to you] so I have it--and so I can copy it, and Read it, every day.
Jesus I love you, this really is an Easter resurrection.
Love,
Jane
Jane,
ReplyDeleteI am so glad it hits the spot. When God put the idea in my head and told me to write it (even though I had other pressing things to do, this time He told me to drop the other things and write this.) it was a blessing to me, too.
A note, though. I added a second-to-last line. The thought was in my head when I wrote it, for some reason I didn't get it written down.
I can relate to your difficulty with Bible reading. I have that at times, too. It's when the old condemning interpretation "takes over." While our God of love does carry a big stick, He also welcomes us to come to Him and He will give us rest. Furthermore, the big stick is often a shepherd's crook, with which he pulls us (instead of jerking us) back from danger. Abusive people think and teach that the big stick is for whacking and beating people. Indeed, it may be used that way for the hard-hearted ones. Most of the time it is used to nudge us gently in the right direction.
Something that may help you deal with your past, Jane, is to find a loving family to hang around with. As you see how they treat their children, it will help you see what you missed. Instead of belittling and condemning, they will redirect their children, or lovingly nudge them to think differently. The whole atmosphere will be one of affection and love instead of blame, punishment and neglect.
You will hold what you witness up against what you experienced, see what you should have had, and mourn your loss. Somehow that will help you get a more accurate view of God deep into your tissue and bones.
Only one who has been opressed in the name of religion can appreciate the full value of Jesus as the Great Servant sent by God to redeem the world.
ReplyDeleteNietche once said, "Show me you are redeemed and then I may believe in your Redeemer." This came in a day and age of super religiosity in struggling Germany.
The Germans are so smart they usually are writing on theology some 10 years before we hear about it---however, they are so dumb they could not see their acts of brutality against Jews / Gypsies / homosexuals as the Nazis took over!
Excellent post. Thank you.
ReplyDelete