It's not Good to be Alone

18 And the Lord God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.” 19 Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him.

21 And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. 22 Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man.

23 And Adam said:

“This is now bone of my bones
And flesh of my flesh;
She shall be called Woman,
Because she was taken out of Man.”

24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

25 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.

In Genesis 2:18, we find the first mention of "not good." Throughout the entirety of Genesis 1, we read about the first day, and God says it is good. The second day, God says it is good. The third day, God says it is good. All the way through to the seventh day, God says, "It is very good." Now we reach the first time that God says, "It is not good..." Isn't it fascinating that the first thing God says is not good is loneliness? 

Notice that God does not say it is sin. It is not sin to be alone, or to feel alone. Loneliness is something that we have all experienced at some time. The Hebrew word is bad (bawd). It has the implication of a branch severed from the tree, a body part disconnected. This is not mere isolation, but a disconnect from the whole. 

God's response to this loneliness is to "make a helper." The Hebrew word is etser, which comes from the root atsar - to surround. Etser means "one who helps," but seems like the implications are companionship and camaraderie, not service or assistance. It is also more than someone to talk to and be around. This suitable helper is supposed to be one that can come alongside and fill out the areas in life that are incomplete. 

We have in verses 19-20 the scene of Adam naming the animals. This has two implications. First, it implies hierarchy. Adam was "over" the animals in that he names them; they don't name themselves. In Daniel 1, Daniel and his three companions are given new names. The king of Babylon does this to show he has ownership over those young men. He named them; he owns them. The second implication is found in what a name represents. The Hebrew word shem (pronounced shame) means character. Adam would have deeply searched the soul of those animals to name them precisely as they are. Their name is the essence of their being. It takes intimacy with that other being in order to name them. You have to know them in their deeps and see what the animal truly is.

We come to verse 21 and God puts Adam in a deep sleep. The Hebrew word is tardemah. It means a trance, or a deep sleep (as if dead). The Greek equivalent is used in Revelation 1 when John sees Jesus and falls down before Him as if dead. Daniel sees a vision in Daniel 10, and falls down on his face into a "deep sleep." This is the same thing. It's the idea of being unconscious or in a coma or something. It makes me think of Paul when he said, "Whether in the body or out of the body, I don't know..." 

This idea of Adam being brought into a deep unconscious slumber, as if dead, is all the more amplified by the verb in the following phrase. Yashen means physical relaxation/being languid, but figuratively implies death. God took a rib out of Adam and from that rib made a woman. She was called such because when Adam awoke, he said, "Woah, man..." (That was a pathetic attempt at a joke). 

In the wording, "bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh," we actually have an idiom. To understand what this means, it is actually a comparison of bone and flesh. Whereas bone is hard, flesh is soft. Where I am weak, she is strong, but where I am strong, she is weak. We complete one another. This is the helper that Adam needed. This is the kind of relationship that was needed in order to not be "alone." In the case of Adam, it was a wife that was necessary. In the case of many people in our world today, it is not necessarily a wife or a husband. The implications of what it means for them to be a wife or husband is found prominently in the next couple verses.

Before we get to that point, lets further investigate this scene. The Hebrew for rib is tselath. It means side, but can be used in anatomy, architecture, or figuratively. Depending on the context, we would call it a beam, side, rib, plank, etc. It comes from the Hebrew tsala, which means "to limp." Tsala is used in Genesis 32:22-32 when Jacob wrestled the angel and walked away limping. For Adam to be put into a deep sleep, as though dead, and then a rib taken from his side, we're looking at a metaphor for resurrection. Just as Jacob transformed from Jacob to Israel, so Adam is transforming from man to humanity. It was male and female - He made them in God's image. There is something about man and woman uniting to bring forth the image of God.

The Hebrew for woman is ishah; the Hebrew for man being ish. The woman has a hey at the end of ishah. The man has a yod in the middle of ish. When you bring together the yod with the hey, you have yah, which is the name of God. To be truly united, we bring Christ in us to one another, the God that He invested inside of you. When I as a male bring the image of God in me to my wife, and she brings the image of God in her to me, we make a complete yah, and therefore have a three chord strand that is not easily broken. 

To build a relationship upon Christ instead of upon "I love her" is completely different. Notice in verse 23 that Adam never named the woman. There isn't a hierarchy. Adam is not over the woman. Paul notes that the woman was created for man, not visa versa. What's going on here? Paul cannot be saying that man is over the woman. Thus, it must mean that woman is to serve God with man, not as a lesser, but not alone either. The reason for this is because of what I've already mentioned the "bone of my bone" idiom stands for. In the ways of God, He has purposed that woman should serve Him alongside of man. We'll dive into this a little more deeply in a minute.

The word for one used in verse 24 is echad. Echad is used many times in the Old Testament to mean one. It does not mean a multiplicity of ones. I've heard the argument that it is like one bundle of sticks compared to one stick. The truth is, echad would be used to describe both the bundle as well as the single stick. But here is what we do know: Adam and Eve would not have ended up somehow mutating together to become one being. They were still two distinct entities: male and female. Never does Adam become one with Eve in the sense of a merging of the flesh to become one person instead of two. So echad, even though it means one, is being used figuratively to make a point.

When we read in the shema, we read that the word echad is used at the end (the Lord your God is one). Jesus prayed in John 17:21 that we would be one as He and the Father are one. In Ephesians 5:31-32, Paul says that this is a mystery that is speaking of Christ and His Church. The very words in Genesis 2:24 are somehow now being related to Christ and His Church. 

I said previously that for Adam, the loneliness was cured by a wife. But for we in the twenty first century, it isn't necessarily marriage that cures loneliness. It comes from two sources, both being related inseparably. We are to be married to Christ, which is to say that we are to be one with Christ. That sounds nice and all, but what does that look like and actually mean? The ironic thing is that this is where the second implication comes in. To be one with Christ is to be one with one another. When we are willing to be intimate with one another, to the degree that you cannot tell where the one begins and the other ends, we are now being united with Christ.

It is beholding in one another's faces that we move from glory to glory (2 Corinthians 3:17-18). We're given a clue in Genesis 2:25 as to what it would mean to be one with one another. They were naked and felt no shame. Nakedness is not simply stripping down. There is a stripping that is not of clothing. There is a nakedness that does not involve nudity. Nakedness is transparency. We read in James 5:16 to confess our faults one to another and to pray for one another. Paul says to carry each other's burdens, for when one part of the Body hurts, the whole Body hurts. That kind of openness of confession to one another, and that kind of love to pray for one another instead of lording over one another is completely other worldly. 

In openness and honesty and nakedness, there was no shame for faults and failures. In all things, man was innocent. Could you imagine what it would be like to be that kind of person to someone else? Are you able to conceive what it would mean to be able to unload your heart to someone, and instead of judging or condemning, they embrace you and say with heartfelt tears, "Me too?" We've all failed in one place, and even if I've never committed adultery, I'm no better than the one who has. I've done things that the adulterer or murderer would never conceive of. The visions in my mind sometimes are so perverted and evil that to confess it would be to expose myself. I'm not a good person.

Yet, it is in the midst of that kind of relationship to one another that we find healing and freedom. We find healing from our sins, and we find innocence because we're not looking to hide or deceive. To be united one to another, so that we are no longer male and female, Jew or Gentile, black or white, slave or free, but are all one in Christ requires that we would be transparent before one another. The cure to loneliness is not to be around other people. The cure to loneliness is confession.

When we're united to a Body of believers that is naked before one another, shame is not felt. Adam and Eve were naked and felt no shame. This kind of innocence has been lost to us, but we can understand it and be a part of it through Christ. Honesty and transparency is being more naked than nudity would require. We don't like the idea of being that open and bare. We like to clothe ourselves and hide behind our fig leaves. It takes the Spirit of Christ itself to even get us to consider opening up and being real. 

The heck of it is that to be united to the Body here and now is actually more than just being united to the Body here and now. There is an unbroken continuum of saints that stretch back to Adam being a son of God, Abel offering a sacrifice that God accepted, Seth's descendants being the first mention of "At that time men began to call upon the name of the Lord", Enoch entering into eternity by faith, and all the other amazing saints that we're in line with throughout all ages. This is called the invisible cloud of witnesses. 

We are interwoven with this invisible cloud. Even when you feel alone, you are not alone. The others that have gone before you are ever and always about you. When we enter into the Body of Christ, we enter an eternal Body that spans from everlasting to everlasting. Before the foundations of the world, Jesus was the eternal Son of God. To enter into His Body is to enter into Him. To enter into Him is to enter into the Triune God. As the Bride of Christ, we are more than human. Divinity and humanity have been married, and in being united one to another, we are actually a fourth aspect of the Godhead. That isn't to say that we are divine as individuals, but to say that the marrying of Israel and the Church, Spirit and flesh, Heaven and Earth, and God and man brings us into an exalted place. We are somehow more than human, and even exalted above the angels, but not on par with Christ.

Just as the woman was created to serve God alongside of man, the Bride of Christ is to rule and reign alongside of Christ. The woman is not less than man, nor is she under man. She is not to be "ruled over", nor is she to be the head of the house. There is no "head" but Christ. When man and woman have been made equal and serve God together - one alongside of the other - we are displaying a mystery of how God has made the Bride to rule and reign with Christ in equality to Christ, and not in subjectivity or "underneath" Christ. 

Oh the depths and riches of our God! The tender mercies that would make man a little lower than the angels, but to be raised up unto Him as Sons and Daughters - co-heirs with Christ. Who is like the Lord? And who has been His counselor? To Him be glory in the Bride, forever and ever, amen.

Why I Have Left "Church"

Dear "Church,"

With all of the recent articles and blog posts describing why "youth" are leaving the church, I thought it necessary for me to put down my own ideas. To be entirely honest, it was my wife who wanted to write out why it is that we have decided to leave "church" and never go back. After reading many of these related articles, she has decided that she doesn't want to write & address this 'nonsense' (in her own words), and so I'm taking the task.

In all honesty, I want to give reason to why I have left without giving any kind of hook or rude/offensive statement about church. There is absolutely nothing in me that desires to be mean or vicious, even though there have been many vicious articles written about me - since I am one of those "youth" that has left. This journey started a long time ago. I went to church, and I got burned. I think that this is true for many people that leave. Unlike many, however, I didn't leave because I got burned. I left because I realized that the system will only use and abuse, and will never allow someone like me to flourish.

How about I start with some basic thoughts? 

For someone that grows up in youth group, they are taught the same truth that they learned in the nursery. By the age of 13, they have exhausted the faith. By 16, they can lead Bible studies. By the time they are 20, they are probably youth leaders. Is this all that Christianity has to offer? When you have figured everything out, you go to seminary to learn original languages, what others have written, and maybe relearn everything that you already know? Is Christian life about relearning over and over again because humanity is too stupid to learn the first time?

But the truth is that this isn't even necessarily the reason that we are leaving. The whole thing is cheap, and it seems like what others are offering is so much more authentic... That isn’t to say that we need something more intellectually stimulating. The show must go on, but we aren't here for a show. We came to your "church" to hear reality. We came to hear the words of God. We came to hear what it is that God might be saying to this generation, but all that seems to protrude from the pulpits are "we can worship our way into heaven." Other times, we only hear a pre-packaged message. I have yet to be to one church that gives reality instead of falsity. By reality I mean a reiteration of the resurrection life. Falsity, therefore, is a life lived out of our own ability.

Generally, the objections that are being raised in these articles are fallacious. “Kids are just liberal. We didn't really let them "go to church." All they got were nursery and youth group hours. They think we're hypocritical, judgmental, and insincere. They think we're shallow. We're antagonistic to science.” The list goes on of things that really are surface issues.

These issues that people are writing only go to show the true problem. The real problem is that the articles describing how they out there who are leaving just don’t understand us who are here. It is completely the attitude. It is as though there is no problem with church as we know it, and the entire problem and blame lies on they youth. They are perverts and desire materialism and carnal pleasures. They want their gay friends to come and feel comfortable. They want to live like hellions and still have heaven. They want, they want, they want.

The real issue is the very core of what we call church. The system itself does not allow for truth. There is a remnant Church that has ever and always been present, but the vast majority of Christian "fellowship" is really only there as religious exercise. We don't need "hipper" worship, or more powerful sermons, or to be able to answer difficult questions. We need reality. We lack honesty and truth. The Church at the beginning met daily, going from house to house breaking bread. They lived according to their convictions. By and large, we "put faith" in our convictions, but we do not live from them.

You didn't need to tell the people in the first century to sell their possessions; they did that naturally. You didn't need to tell the people in the first century to meet daily; they did that naturally. You didn't need to tell the people in the first century to lay down their lives for their brethren; they did that naturally. The law of love that was shed abroad in their hearts caused for them to live and move and have their being in a very unique manner. Their lives were transparent before one another. Truth reigned supreme. And they engaged the culture by the reality of their lives. 

Why are the "millennials" leaving? It can only be because the "church" is seeing them go, and telling them, "Don't let the door hit you on the way out." I cannot tell you how many people I have spoken with where they start by saying, "I would love to believe, but..." Too many of these articles only seem to talk about how great we are, and how those rotten kids don't understand. They call it a "lost" generation, and they really believe it. There is no point in trying to save them, they're a lost cause. The problem is not that we need to be more relevant. We need to be more authentic.

Paul said that he was crucified with Christ - it is no longer he that lives, but Christ that lives in him. The extent that we say that this is only rhetoric and playful word games is the extent that we have forfeited the faith. We have an entire Christianity that is based off of applauding Paul for his faith, but then rejecting that anyone today can possibly achieve such a state in God today. Perhaps there are simply too few who have witnessed or seen the reality of the crucified life. 

The whole of the Christian life is to be lived out of the life of God. We do not perform out of our own ability, but instead lean not on our own understanding. The beauty of Christianity is that when we lose self (Luke 17:33), we actually obtain it. The paradox is that when we forfeit self, we find self. True humanity is the marriage of spirit and flesh, male and female, Jew and Gentile, black and white, slave and free - that they be one as God is one. 

Christianity has nothing to do with "doing," and everything to do with "being." Ultimately, the reason that I have left "church" is because there is the lack of "being." All of the things that are applauded and accepted as truth are typically displayed as symbols, metaphor, and sometimes sentiment. Sometimes you can find a "church" that tries to put these things into practice, but even in these circumstances they fall short for reasons that I'll address later. 

The majority of church-ianity has only allowed and applauded far too often the religion performed out of our own ability. We have not truly died, and therefore we have not been brought to a place of resurrection. To defer to myself instead of trusting in God - in any moment - is to fall short of the glory of God. The glory of God is eminently and always a resurrection phenomenon. 

Speaking for myself, it is the lack of that glory that has caused me to leave. When we are starving for truth, and all that is given are cheap cliches and forgeries of truth, it is time to leave. 

In conclusion, I want to say that I have not left God. I have left "church" to find God. I have left "church" to find The Church. What is desired is reality. Our lack of reality and conviction in what we say we believe is true has driven the youth away. They see through our false identity. They watch as we say that we believe the Bible, but then live lives completely contrary to that Bible. It doesn't have to be something abominable. When we set up church services so that we can be done in time to go home and watch sports, we have lied to God.

God desires that we be progressing toward an ultimate end. There is a time that He desires to call upon us, as His Church, for ultimate purposes. We cannot fulfill those ultimate purposes if we are busy playing games and singing songs. If our Christianity is known by our Sunday services, then we have become apostate. But there is a reality that the youth are searching for, and I don’t believe that the fat woman has started singing yet.

In love, wishing you grace and peace,

Tommy Comer

The Book of Romans pt 13

It is at this point that Paul starts to expound true and false religion. From chapters 4-8, Paul seems to only have one thing in mind: separate the precious from the vile. We've looked upon how all are under sin, whether Jew or otherwise, and thus all are in need of salvation. Toward the end of Romans 3, Paul has stated the mechanism by which salvation is obtained - namely, the blood of Jesus Christ. Through faith in Him, we have received our eternal reward.

If salvation is obtained by faith, then what does faith look like? And so we pick up in Romans 4 as Paul starts to expound the great man of faith: Abraham.

What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh, discovered in this matter? 2 If, in fact, Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about—but not before God. 3 What does Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”

4 Now to the one who works, wages are not credited as a gift but as an obligation. 5 However, to the one who does not work but trusts God who justifies the ungodly, their faith is credited as righteousness. 6 David says the same thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the one to whom God credits righteousness apart from works:

7 “Blessed are those
    whose transgressions are forgiven,
    whose sins are covered.
8 Blessed is the one
    whose sin the Lord will never count against them.”

Note that the main point that Paul presses right from the get-go is that righteousness and faith are intertwined. Why is this so?

Lets first consider our faith in God. Then we'll move to God's righteousness. Then we'll talk about the consequence this has for community.

Our righteousness is not constituted by our deeds. It is solely constituted upon one thing: our faith in Christ. We'll discuss what this faith looks like as we continue through Romans 4 and 5. At this moment, we'll focus upon why our righteousness is only constituted upon faith in Christ.

To put faith in something is not to simply trust it. I can trust that the chair I am sitting in has enough strength to hold me up. But that doesn't necessarily mean I have faith in the chair. Faith constitutes a change in the individual. The person moves from unrighteous to righteous, and thus faith cannot be mere trust. I can trust that God will provide, but that does not mean that I have faith. I can know the principles and subscribe the to truth that God provides without ever coming to full acceptance and being changed by the belief that God provides.

Faith takes more than belief. It takes more than trust. It is only faith when the inner most fabric of our being fully subscribes to it. To have faith in Christ is to have complete and utter surrender to the character of God. It is more than trusting God that you will make it to heaven. You have complete trust that every experience that comes is from the hand of God. He is sovereign, even through the free-will of men. Nothing comes apart from God. This statement is made by Paul, who suffered lashes at the hands of the Jews 5 times, 3 times he was beaten with rods, once pelted with stones, shipwrecked 3 times, spent a day and a night in the open sea, had been constantly on the move, had been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from his fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles, in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea, in danger from false believers, had gone without sleep, had known hunger and thirst - often going without food, and has been cold and naked.

This man who has suffered more than anyone else that I know - save Christ - was able to then stand on Mars Hill and tell them about the "God who gives all things."

Does your faith look like that? Do you have that kind of faith in God that you can bear such a suffering and still not attack the character of God?

Righteousness is indeed constituted upon faith. We forfeit our glory for the glory of another. We lay down our lives for the life of another. Our comfort and convenience doesn't matter. What matters is the glory of God forever. Anything that we say, do, think, or teach that is separate from the glory of God is brought under question and immediately repented of. We all have blind spots and we have all temptation. It is how ruthless we are to be converted to the image of God and how desperate we are to display the glory of God that speaks louder than our failures.

In this sense, I can understand why it would be that righteousness and faith are intertwined. But how is God righteous? Does God have faith in Himself?

Don't forget that God is 3 persons.

Jesus was always about glorifying the Father and proclaimed that His words were Spirit. He never did anything that He hadn't seen His Father do, and never spoke anything that the Spirit didn't first give utterance. In this way, He laid aside His own glory for the glory of the other two persons in the Godhead. He cast Himself aside for the sake of His Father and the Holy Spirit.

God the Father was about glorifying the Son. The way that He spoke to Jesus and the way He speaks to us is through the Holy Spirit. He does nothing of His own, but continues to display Himself through His Son and through the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit does not speak anything to us that has not been spoken by the Father. The Holy Spirit doesn't have its own words, but is only the messenger from the Father to us. In this way, the Spirit has denied herself (the Hebrew word ruach is feminine) in order to promote the Father. But the Spirit also has the passion to glorify the Son. She speaks concerning Him and leads us into all truth.

Thus because God defers to the other two parts of the Godhead, He both places faith in the other two by giving them all glory and honor and is credited as righteous for it. One of the most challenging aspects to understand is that in deferring glory to the Son and the Holy Spirit, the Father gains a greater glory. So it is with the Son and the Holy Spirit as well. In forfeiting our glory to glorify God, we find that we are all the more glorious.

Don't think that I am speaking of humanity as being gods. Any glory that we receive can only be a reflection of God's glory; for apart from God there is no glory. Apart from God there is no righteousness. We can only truly understand righteousness in the context of God's righteousness.

And how does this pertain to community?

When we are willing to give up our names and reputations for the sake of promoting our brothers and sisters, then we have obtained to righteousness beyond the conventional dimensions. It is amazing to me how unwilling many are to give up their own names and honor. They have worked so hard for so long, why would they allow all their toil to be in vain?

It is such a worldly way of perceiving. The heavenly perception reasons that in honestly giving up our names and reputations for the sake of others - and not in hope of regaining that reputation and honor - that we find deeper manifestations of honor and glory. If there is any other reason for our humility than to honor and promote and respect those brothers and sisters around - out of our love for them - then we are the greatest deceivers. It is manipulation and deception - which are both of the devil - to try and use people so that we might gain honor and respect.

God knows our secret hearts. I haven't yet obtained to this calling. It is something altogether more pure than I have become. By God's grace, I pray that I might be able to match this one day - maybe even today - but for now I continue to fall short.

I think we ought to all be humiliated and cut to the quick whenever we read the book of Acts. Our Christianity is utterly anemic and does not even bear comparison. These men - fishermen and louts - turned the world upside down. Our Christianity doesn't come close. And I think it all comes down to this one point that Paul is making: our faith is not a faith unto righteousness.

We might be able to put faith in God, but to put faith in another believer that we only see once a week is absurd. We have not been made on as He is one, and the result is that we officially have been made into a Christian culture instead of a Church. We have a Sunday Club. Some places around the world there are people that are required to meet more than Sunday and a midweek Bible Study. In those communities, God has wrought a likeness that our Western Culture cannot comprehend.

What is it that would cause such men - as unlearned as they were - to be so equipped by God to even debate against the most pristine that religion has to offer? The Holy Spirit had its own logic and law. The law of Grace compelled them to love one another. That love was not cheap. It cost everything. It cost honor and reputation for the sake of a higher one's honor and reputation; namely, the honor and reputation of God, but secondly the honor and reputation of those believers that you are with daily.

This is what we're called to.

Do you have faith for that?