Christ Has No Subordinates
A Refutation of Militaristic Piety that Seeks to Destroy God's Family.
Jesus is not interested in subordinates.
He did not come to create an army that falls in line at the command of the general, or a ruled class bowing down before the king in fearful submission.
That was never the point.
Yet, so many people have an existential neurosis about making sure God is eternally distanced from man—ever separated—ever higher—ever unknown, lest we do impious violence to our imaginations of divinity and “make ourselves equals to God,” they reason to themselves.
All of this to God is the incoherent babbling of infants talking to other infants. These children think they are being pious and eloquent by their constant self-loathing, imagining God to be nothing more than an earthly king with an enormously fragile ego; needing constant reassurance that he is indeed an important fellow. I am so tired of this nonsense tradition of turning our understanding of the divine kingship into a relatively less evil version of Nero. For the sake of this tradition, “they make void the law of God.”1
God is not interested in subordinates—only family members.
To the monarchists among us obsessed with power, submission, and authority, pay attention! Listen to the words of this “Heavenly King” saying, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”2 Notice how he does not say, “my sons and daughters”—lest we think he is interested only in subordinates over whom to have authority in the house of God—but “mother,” and “brother,” and “sister”—”father” being absent because we all share one and the same “Father in heaven.” Again he says to his mother according to the flesh concerning John, “behold your son,”3 revealing that John is a member of this same spiritual family, having done “the will of the Father.”
Yet again, what does this Heavenly King say to Peter, who in ignorant delusion thought himself behaving most piously above all Christ’s subordinates, saying, “You will never wash my feet!”—for he imagined so great a distance between himself and the royalty before him. What does Christ say in response? Does he say, “Well done, Peter. You will be rewarded for your piety in bowing so low before me?” Does he say, “It pleases me for you to be so distant from my royal position?” No, rather Christ immediately rebukes his misguided heart to wake him from this childish slumber and realize the spiritual foolishness of choosing what is dirty over what is clean for the sake of piety, saying “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.”4 Peter did not understand that Christ “made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant.”5
Do we not have the scriptures to show us how not to engage in our pious necromancy and reanimate all of Peter’s obvious mistakes?
The Christ that these people talk about is not the Christ who visited me. I have met this Christ personally. I have spoken with him. His disposition and presence is nothing like these worshippers of power and authority say. He does not demand anything, he is patient, loving, and kind. I do not want to call them “liars,” because this suggests malicious intent, and ascribing malice would be inaccurate. They are simply ignorant and illiterate children who speak about someone they never met, but about someone they have imagined themselves to have read in a book. Perhaps had I not met him, I too would be among them. It is for this reason I consider it a duty to speak on such matters to bring clarity and prevent further arrested development.
Christ simply does not care about satisfying the ego. One does not need to meet Christ personally to see this in the Gospels. He does not get angry in the way an impatient father would, he does not care about how many times you bow before him, or whether you are keeping track of how many times you go to church, or how many times you pray, or how much you sin, or how much heresy you believe, and so on. These are all distractions and delusions that get in the way.
He cares only about what benefits you in your spiritual development, about knowing you, about you knowing God, and about raising you up to his status and to sit at his table. This takes time—as is the case for any toddler growing into adulthood. Most are still sleeping children. Toddlers receive a lot of grace from even wicked parents, and thankfully God has more grace than that.
This is theosis: that you would one day choose to grow up, stop being a child, “put away childish things”6 —like selfishness, empty piety, and being always fixated on the flesh and its appearances—and be raised up from pious prostration to being far more useful as his brother, sister, and mother—who are nothing else except coworkers with God and those who are simplistically called “angels.”
This is what it means to be truly subjected to God.
To be coerced into subordination, like the command of an earthly king to his public enemy, only reveals the absence of subordination—the place where the king has been unable to conquer; the dark void in the heart where the light of Christ has not yet made its nativity. What manner of foolishness is it to suggest that Christ is content with coercing the unwilling? No, “every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess”7—willingly. “Or do you despise the riches of his goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?”8
When all things have been subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to the One who [upon incarnating within all things] subjected all things to God, so that God may be all in all.9
Christ has no subordinates; his kingdom has no slaves. “There is neither slave nor free…for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”10
Meditate on these things, and mistake not piety for humility.
Matthew 15:6.
Matthew 12:48-50.
John 19:26.
John 13:6-9.
Philippians 2:7.
1 Corinthians 13:11.
Philippians 2:10–11.
Romans 2:4.
1 Corinthians 15:28.
Galatians 3:28.