response to “toleration?”

…response from my dear friend on my former post. I love discussion, and thoughts so thank you my dear friend…

hi. I’m not sure this post says what you or the author really intended. As I read this, I realize that the author, we’ll call him Jim for simplicity, is attempting to clarify a point that he contradicts and cancels with his arguments.
Jim wants a counter argument to the Christian corner that keeps bringing up the old, “You think Christ was tolerant?! Ha! My Christ was so pissed and intolerant that he raged and threw the money-changers, sinners, homosexuals, thieves, liars, and bigots out of the temple.” I exaggerate a bit but that’s what Jim is fighting against.
Jim wants a Jesus of Justice, the “J-O-J”, a Jesus that cannot be not tolerant (using Jim’s double negs.) But he cannot be tolerant either, yeah. Confused yet? Jesus is the JOJ, he’s justice personified. Dangerous words wield. Christian theology has danced around the “j-word” for years. The Bible is pretty clear about Justice. In fact, it simply states, “The wages of sin is death.” Now in the original Greek this means “the wages of sin is death.” Applying this to Jim’s ideology and the JOJ now Jesus slaughters the money-changers in the temple, and his disciples and anyone else within smiting distance. Not pretty is it.
A Jesus of Justice is the one thing that everyone on this earth or wearing the seal of Christian should be afraid of. Justice in its very nature is blind. Our court systems are founded on that basic principle, you do the crime, you do the time. Justice. In fact God’s Justice is far blinder than human justice. Human justice has grey areas, compromises, loopholes. We love loopholes, ways we can get out. Godly Justice, true Justice has no loopholes. There’s no plea of self-defense, there’s no different degrees of murder or crime, there’s no “fifth” to plead or insanity. There is only guilty or not guilty and the punishment is always death. Godly Justice. Balance.
Jesus isn’t the JOJ or at least not Jim’s version of the JOJ. For those of you following that would be the JJOJ. Rather Jesus is the embodiment of the fulfillment of Justice. We’ll come back to this.
Jim also is promoting Jesus not only with Justice party but with the LUV party. I say LUV cuz that’s what we want from Christ, that’s what he preached, right? That’s what he was, right? That’s what everyone agrees on, right? Jim plays his trump, Agape. People like to throw down Agape, Eros, and Philos to try justify and support their claims and don’t realize they are handling something too hot to hold.
Jim I’m really not upset with you, I’m upset with the whole LUV card that some teachers, preachers, profs and shallow water Christians like to wield, guilt and persuade others with. “Jesus luuuuved everybody, and told us to luuuuve everybody too. That means we can’t get upset about people and their sin, or call them out on it cause Jesus wants us to luuuuuve em, he is without sin cast the first stone, right?” WRONG!! (Not to the biblical quote) but to the whole misguided twisting of the figure who was, and is, and shall forever be Jesus. So many people try fitting Jesus into a box, their box. They want Jesus to be like them, who they want him to be. For Heaven’s sake, let Christ be Christ for once! To quote my friend Frank, “Christ is Christ whether we believe it or not, whether we want it or not, whether we like it or not.” Which means he doesn’t change his opinion and who he is just because it’s inconvenient for us. Jesus loved everyone BUT (and here’s the biggest but that everyone who plays the LUV card forgets) Christ demanded, get that, demanded a Change. Come everybody we all wanted to change we’ve all heard the buzz-word in campaign slogans and rallying cries for years but when it comes into my comfort-zone, my lifestyle, my backyard NOOO WAY! When I was talking about change I was talking about you not me, I was talking about them, not us. Change refers to everyone except me. Sorry, it doesn’t work that way.
Christ demanded that we change. Christ came to us, loved us, healed us, dwelt with us, came into us but it doesn’t stop there. When Christ is a part of us, there is a change if we let it. We don’t stay the same. Shallow-water Christians want to say sin isn’t sin, sin isn’t bad, we all sin. We should accept it and accept people who choose to openly live in sin daily and we shouldn’t feel remorse, guilt or sorrow for sin cause Jesus luvs us and that makes it all okay. Have you ever seen real Christians? Christ overflows from every pore. His word, his praises, his amazingness, his truth is always on their lips, in their hearts and in their actions. When they fall into sin they weep and swim deeply in remorse because the love that they feel from Christ overwhelms them and the comprehension that he still loves them even though they faltered, his love for them endures. When someone who walks with Christ sins, they desire all the more to sin less because of the love the God continues show. Understand? Christ love changes us, leads us away from sin. Christ love doesn’t make sin less bad. It doesn’t work that way.
When Jesus is the embodiment of fulfillment of Justice it means that he sat in the Courtroom at our trial, where we have been found guilty of sin and the punishment of that sin and the Justice God demands is death, Jesus steps forward and says, “I’ve paid it, my blood has p the cost.” That’s the difference. The JOJ or the JJOJ makes sin less bad because the JOL waters it down and makes it okay but when Christ, the embodiment of the fulfillment of Justice steps forward with Love and says “I’ll pay it, I’ve pad it, go and sin no more,” we then have the choice. Do we argue and say our sin was less bad, it really wasn’t even a sin more like an oops or yeah, it was genetic, biological, I couldn’t help it OR do we accept that we sinned, accept that we were wrong and let his sacrifice, his willingness, his love change us? Your choice, your change. But you can’t have one without the other, you can’t have Christ without a change in you, you can’t stay the same. That’s what I hear when I read Jim’s note. I hear someone trying to convince me and himself that Jesus doesn’t want a change (at least not where I think I’m right), trying to tie Jesus’ hands and say “Now be nice.” Jesus was throwing moneychangers out of the temple because of Justice which is like getting a spanking because of love? It doesn’t work. Jesus threw out the money-changers because he was pissed, he was intolerant with these men defiling His house, His home while he was standing there. It doesn’t sound nice but its true, Jesus didn’t tolerate sin, he doesn’t sigh and say “It’s okay.” He climbs on that cross and dies with your sin because of his INTOLERANCE of sin. He dies, he takes it, he delivers it to HELL, right into the devil’s hands and say’s, “No more! It’s paid. Justice served.” And he comes back to us and says over and over again, “Go, and sin no more.” He doesn’t say “sin is okay,” he doesn’t say “be tolerant,” he doesn’t say, “Luv everybody,” he says, “Go, and sin NO more!” Don’t be tolerant of your sin, get rid of it.