Triumph Of Jesus (part 6)

Today and today only, he bore the titles ultimately reserved for Caesar.  Along with the crowds, I read the embroidered titles and hailed him as the greatest of all kings and greatest of lords.  When I read them I thought of Caesar, for the triumphator merely bears the title and the power in proxy.  Though he is the greatest of Rome’s generals, and though he has achieved an exalted position, at any moment Caesar could demand him to turn over his army and he would have no choice but to acquiesce.  He will, however, get to keep the crown, the robes, and the baton for the remainder of his life, though I’m sure that if the Caesar asked him to return them for any reason, he would gladly do so. 

He’s a man of humility, and that is part of the reason that he is being so celebrated.  His popular support is so great and his army so loyal that he could have, at any time, easily marched on Rome and overthrown Caesar himself, but he has chosen not to do this.  It probably never even crossed his mind to grasp at Caesar’s throne, which is yet another reason to hail him.  Listen to me going on and on.  It’s almost like I’m worshiping him as if it were he that was the son of god, rather than the Caesar himself.    

As I continued to watch, and as I continued to be enveloped in a sense of amazement at the sight before me, I heard the voice of the heralds.  They were traveling through the crowds reminding all on-lookers that the celebration would not end at the conclusion of the ‘triumph,’ but that the Caesar expected all the citizens of Rome to carry the festivities into the night, doing so with joyous feasting.  The heralds walked the crowds, speaking of the great exploits of the soldiers, of their service to Rome, and of their felicity to that which was symbolized by the eagle emblazoned upon their banners, saying ‘Open your homes to the fighting men of Rome!  Invite them to your banquets!  Let them eat their fill!  In service to Rome, they have taken their lives in their hands to conquer generals and all manner of powerful people!  They faced down charging horses so that all, free men and slaves, might continue to enjoy the benefits of all that Rome has to offer!  You owe them your hospitality and your very lives!  Honor them!’  I certainly hoped that I would have the honor of hosting one of these brave warriors. 

Behind the triumphator and his army came those that he had conquered.  Foolishly, they had attempted to do battle with Rome’s greatest general.  Not unexpectedly, they had failed; and now, they were going to suffer the end of all that attempted to stand against the glorious Roman empire, its Caesar, and its legions.  I saw the king of the conquered peoples.  I saw the greatest of his generals.  Poor fools.  They did not realize the futility in which they were engaged.  They did not realize that their doom had been sealed when Caesar sent out his armies under the command of this particular triumphator.  Examples were going to be made of these men, and that example was going to be published far and wide as a warning against those that might attempt the same.  The king and his generals, so used to riding at the front of their army in all of their regal splendor, had been forced to come last in the procession, stripped of all semblances of power and bearing the scorn and insults of the crowd.  For them, shame was heaped upon shame. 

Suppression Of Truth (part 4)

What is the end of this becoming foolish and its expression of foolish statements?  Paul writes that the ones who did not glorify the Creator God, nor give Him thanks, but became futile in their thoughts with darkened hearts, who claimed to be wise but instead became fools, “exchanged the glory of the immortal God for an image resembling mortal human beings or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles” (Romans 1:23). 

What Adam and Eve accomplished was indeed the beginning of idolatry, and it began with self-worship, along with a complete disregard of their God and a forgetfulness of the Creator.  A forgotten Creator, together with self-worship, can be seen when Eve gives birth to a son and declares herself to have been able to create a man.  With that, man, rather than continuing to comprehend himself as the steward of life, now looked at himself as being able to bring forth life---as god-like. 

There is an implication that once the Creator God is shoved to the side and replaced by another creator, then the fact that there was an act of creation (along with an associated gifting of responsibilities) by that Creator falls quickly from the mind.  Having forgotten their Creator, and no longer bearing in mind that they were part of a good created order, Adam and Eve (and those to whom they gave birth) could look around them, observing the entire order of nature, and surmise that the animals that they saw had brought themselves into existence, that they could also pro-create and generate life, and that they were therefore worthy of worship as well.  So began the interminable fall into the practice of idolatry that has gripped mankind from the very beginning.  The Scriptures seem to insist that it is only the grace of the covenant God of Israel that enables one to break free from the ingrained tendency to idolatry, so as to be able to see the Creator in His glory, and in doing so, seek to honor and give worship to Him.      

   

With mankind having made its nearly irrevocable fall into idolatry, worshiping that which is not the Creator God, and thereby deciding for themselves that there is no god beyond himself and that to which he ascribes divinity, Paul continues his potential reflection on the creation story and insists that “God gave them over in the desires of their hearts to impurity, to dishonor their bodies among themselves” (Romans 1:24). 

The Creator God was to be honored by mankind’s stewardship of His good creation, but man, as can be observed from the fall and all that followed, had and has an altogether different plan.  It becomes patently clear from Genesis that the serpent merely simply seized upon the desire of the human heart to honor only self, and Paul, because of his constant assertion that the God of Israel is ultimately in control of all things, describes this as the Creator God giving humanity over to the desires of the heart. 

With this self-honor, in truth, the opposite transpired.  With this self-honor, impurity imposed itself into the world.  With this self-honor came dishonor.  That dishonor, resulting from the rejection of their God’s plan for them, manifested itself in death.  The blame for this does not lie with the serpent, but with mankind alone, who alone was created as the divine image for the cosmos.  This dishonor came at their own hands, as humanity is said to have engaged in the process of dishonoring their bodies through their own decisions and actions---doing so among themselves.  What had been made in perfection and for life was now subject to the dishonor of death, far removed from the God-glorifying honor of the Creator, which is the purpose for which they had been created.