What the Hebrew writer said (5)
I don’t know if Friedrich Nietzsche was an atheist or not. He certainly reads like one but careful scholars have recently suggested that N was more a Joban figure than an atheist. The God he raged against and said was dead, it’s been suggested, was the God that spineless Christians invented; the one that loved weakness and grovelling. That God was dead and deserved to be. Be that as it may, N looked at the Christianity around him and raged against its impotence and ranted against its shrewd way of making weakness a virtue and strength a vice. When people piously bleated about Jesus or God as “saviour” he would snarl that first they needed to show that they’d been saved and then there could be talk about their “saviour”. He had a point! “Christians,” he insisted, covered the failure of Christianity to make a real difference in the world—covered it by bleating on about submission rather than ambition, obedience and weakness really being strength and leadership. The hierarchy kept the sheep in line with this drivel and the flock were more than willing to go along with it. The entire “Christian” enterprise reeked of impotence and as a substitute for real humans it produced snivelling, gutless wimps and it did it by getting them to worship a God that was impotent, growing old and decomposing.
The Hebrew writer and N would have had heated discussions had they met but N wouldn’t haven’t confused the Hebrew writer for a body of a different sort. The Hebrew writer spoke of impotence and weakness but it had to do with ancient sacrifices and priestly systems and people that didn’t have it in them to finish the race set before them. When he spoke of God and Jesus Christ his only Son he repeatedly says, “He is able!”
He is able to give help to the tempted (2:18)
He is able to save out of death (5:17, 11:19)
He is able to save utterly and entirely (7:25)
©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.
Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, the abiding word.com.
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