Quote:
Originally Posted by awareness
It's not mentioned anywhere in the Bible but, I think we can have a Christ-eye. That is, we can see Christ everywhere we look.
And I think our bro aron has a Christ eye.
And that's pretty kool ... even if it's contrived sometimes ... no harm, no foul.
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Caveat: WL seemed to have a Christ eye. I remember him saying, "Christ, Christ, Christ"... Christ was the boards of the ark: acacia wood overlaid with gold. Christ was the badger skin, Christ the silver sockets. Etc.
All of it a ruse, a fig leaf to cover a fallen man, a seller of cheap men's suits and tennis rackets and motor homes. And like Lee, I also am a sinner. Redeemed, reborn, and getting reconfigured, yes. But still a fallen soul at work. So I keep that in mind, and do appreciate
OBW coming along and pouring cold water on my sand castles.
And hopefully we can avoid the trap WL fell into by doing the smack-down on someone else to elevate their own output. Disrespect to any human, alive or dead, is not the path of life. But my ideas did somewhat emerge from, and contrast to those of Lee and the LSM, and I wanted to keep that up front, hopefully respectfully. We do have a history. Our ideas and responses don't emerge in a vacuum.
And we are somewhat reasonable animals, no? For example, Jesus spoke a parable about the persistent widow and the unrighteous judge (Luke 18), and we the readers never thought that it shows God as being an unrighteous judge. Why? Because we know better. And when Jesus quoted, "I said, You are gods", we never accused Jesus (or the writer of Psalm 40) of promoting polytheism, because we are reasonable people and we know better. We understand, and we know that God expects us to understand.
Lee held up Psalm 1, and said, effectively, that this word was merely that of fallen humanity, because its declarations of piously avoiding the ways of sinners were humanly impossible. He pointed out, "All men have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." Right? Well, I saw Peter's speech in Acts 2, using Psalm 16 as a way to point to the coming victory of Christ over death. So I did the same in Psalm 1. I deliberately set up Peter's "reasoning" as a counterpart to that used by Lee. I mentioned that there was one human who actually did not go in the ways of the sinner, and thus might be seen in Psalm 1. Jesus the Nazarene.
And so forth. Lee had pretty much panned everything in Psalms that he wasn't forced to by NT usage. So I came along, going, "Christ, Christ, Christ." Did I go overboard? Possibly. I was reading my own meaning, or "vision" into fairly obscure musically-associated texts. That is somewhat like looking at one of those Rorschach ink blots and saying, "I see a tree. No wait, an eagle." Therefore I try not to be too rough on Lee's textual readings, other than to say I see different things, and I refuse to follow Lee here. Which is a partly emotional response, I know. I will hereby retreat to (an approximation of) reason:
1. WL, not without some merit, pointed out that the psalmists' repeated declarations of obedience to God could not be kept by fallen human beings.
2. I came along and said, "Look at Acts 2. Peter didn't stop there, but used that to point to David's seed, the coming Messiah, who fulfilled the psalmist's declaration."
3. Jesus mentioned that David was in spirit, writing of the Christ who was to come. (Luke 22:34)
4. Jesus also said that everything must be fulfilled that was written about Him in the Prophets, the Law, and the Psalms. OBW says, "Don't go beyond what has been written"; I see it as an invitation to explore.
5. Paul equated the Psalms to "the word of Christ", in Colossians 3:16.
6. And lastly, the author of Hebrews said "we see Jesus... in the days of His flesh... made a little lower than the angels..." the author was not an eyewitness, but had heard of Christ from others.(2:1,3) So in the suffering, persecuted, hopeful protagonist in the Psalms the author of Hebrews looks back and says "we see" ... one "who shared in their humanity" (2:14, NIV) and thereby saved the lost human race.
I am trying to connect the dots here. But in my presenting my case I became emotionally invested in my argument and went overboard. "To miss this is to miss the way out of the fall", etc.... probably going overboard. So I tried to insert the little disclaimer. "Hey folks, don't take Aaron too seriously. Especially when he begins to take himself too seriously."
Anyway, to go back to Psalm 23. It is not entirely without reason to suggest the possibility that "the one who shared their humanity" is seen,
in His humanity, in that text. But it is merely a proposition, merely part of a discussion. Paul had written, "let each one be convinced in his own mind." That goes to observing days of the week, holidays, certain foods, wearing skinny neckties and blue socks, and probably "seeing Jesus" in the obscure poetry of the OT.
Other than that, though, thank you
awareness for your kind words of support. Hopefully it's been half as fun to read these ideas as it was to work them up and type them. Peace.