
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. – John 3:16
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Sin is cheap. The leviathan of late capitalism is a rotting hulk of cheap lust, sloth, and pettiness. To engage with our world is to be pulled down by it. The oft-repeated maxim of “there is no ethical consumption under capitalism” is nothing but a retread of original sin. To act in this world is to slight God. We hunger for a saviour, as we hunger for all things. The flesh wants what it wants, but even in the depths of our craving the thing we crave above all else is salvation.

We are called to deny the body, to live lives of quiet restraint in service to something higher. But I look up at night and I see only our desperation. Only a thousand broken private promises to do better the next day. The gospels are not strong enough to hold our weight, and we are falling.

We have built a civilization of entrapment. I cannot act without sin. My knowledge of the truth does not lift me from the mire of capitalism. The privilege and indulgence of my simple existence would tower over even that of Caesar. So many camels through so many needles.
Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. – Philippians 3:19
So did one once die for our sins. But what did sin mean two millenia ago? Perhaps there was neutral territory then, an honest space for moral agency. I don’t know that I see it anymore. We have sinned before we awake. We have built morality like a payday loan, and we are drowning in compound debt.
[SURELY WE MUST EXHAUST OUR CAPACITY FOR SIN]
Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. – Philippians 3:19

We must transcend the hunger of the flesh.
[TO SACRIFICE THE FLESH FOR SPIRIT, FOR ALL, IS OF GREAT LOVE

We must transcend the hunger of the flesh.

[WE MUST TRANSCEND THE HUNGER OF THE FLESH]

But he answered, “It is written, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ – Matthew 4:4
[ONLY THE SPIRIT CAN TRANSCEND THE HUNGER OF THE FLESH]

[IN THE SPIRIT WE HOLD DOMINION OVER THE FLESH.]
But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified. – 1 Corinthians 9:27

[BY WHAT MECHANISM CAN THE GLUTTON DEVOUR THEIR OWN SIN]

[EARTHLY THINGS ARE TRIVIAL, WE ARE NOT TO BE CONSTRAINED BY THEM]

[WHAT IS A LAST SUPPER BUT THE FINAL RITE OF CONSUMPTION THE END TO ALL FLESHLY DESIRE THE LAST TRANSUBSTANTIATION WILL BE NOT OF FOOD INTO FLESH BY MIRACLE, BUT OF FLESH INTO MIRACLE BY THE POWER OF FOOD.]

[AND PUT A KNIFE TO YOUR THROAT IF YOU ARE GIVEN TO APPETITE – Proverbs 23:2]
Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty and did an abomination before me. So I removed them, when I saw it. – Ezekiel 16:49-50
IN THE SPIRIT WE HOLD DOMINION OVER THE FLESH.


We know the weight of our sin, we know its consequences. We are moved inexorably to sin, trapped in the stink of it, and yet God readies a great cleansing flood. The water rises with our collective hunger. It is our tragedy, to be trapped so in the wheel of retribution, ground under the millstone of divine wrath.

[THE EARTHLY DELICACIES OF WEALTH ARE DECEPTIVE, WORTHLESS]
We must transcend the hungers of the flesh

CAN WE EXHAUST OUR CAPACITIES

[WE CANNOT SERVE GOD AND THE FLESH. WE MUST EITHER MAKE THE FLESH SERVE GOD, OR ESCAPE THE FLESH]
[THE FLESH IS WEAK]

[SURELY THE TRUE MIRACLE IS TO TRANSMUTE FLESH INTO SPIRIT – TO TURN THAT WHICH IS EARTH INTO THAT WHICH IS HEAVEN]
[BY WHAT ALCHEMY CAN ONE BECOME THE OTHER]
And God said to Noah, “I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them with the earth. – Genesis 6:13
The old Messiah transformed the spirit through a miracle of the flesh – the body took in simple food, and through spirit was it not transformed into the divine? But we have failed the old messiah. The world demands a new saviour, and with it a new transubstantiation. The Lord transformed food into the divine by way of the spirit. The new saviour shall transform the flesh into spirit by way of the divine. He shall transcend all earthly law, for he lives only by One Law, and his flesh is bound only by the laws of The Spirit. God will move through him like 21 000 calories of olive oil, and he shall be unmoved. The angel he wrestles will be 9 million scoville and he shall maintain faith.

[IN THE SPIRIT I AM CAPABLE OF ANYTHING]
[WE MUST NOT BE CONSTRAINED TO SIN BY THE FLESH ALONE]
If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. – Matthew 2:29

For you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? 1 Corinthians 3:3
[THE FLESH]
So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. – Romans 8:12
[IN THE FLESH ALONE WE ARE WEAK]

Transcendence of the flesh, to become spirit by denial of the body, in god all things are possible, to be forged in the fires of sin into something pure, of the spirit, of God. For god so loved the world that he gave his only Son. Eat of this bread for it is my body. The flesh is temporary. Abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.

Behold the Man – The Mute Flesh Transformed – If I consume grace in excess do I not become graceful in excess? Drink of this tabasco for it is my blood – Can I be redeemed through sin – Can I deny hunger through its violent satisfaction, to spite the flesh and transcend it? – Can I push on the boundary between spirit and flesh until the body fails and I am not but the word?

In a world of excess, when the laws of man are of no limit, when the laws of god have left us, how do we then come to know his truth? Who in Sodom will listen to cries for abstention, for grace? None. For they understand only the language of the flesh, the doctrine of excess. How can one who is deaf to the Word be made to hear it, falling so like Babel on his ears stopped with gluttony. Do we abandon the sinner, abandon ourselves, and build our futile howling homes in the outer dark, in the lonely cold away from light? Is giving up on Grace not the same as believing that grace has given up on us? Surely this is impossible, for how can infinite grace find limit? We must not give up, but we are vexed by our sin, which is blind and deaf. Therefore we must come to know salvation through the word of sin. We must know the spirit in the language of the flesh. Only when we see the limitations of the flesh, when we stand at the grim precipice of the world of hunger and know we can go no farther, that we shall never be sated, do we finally turn to the world of the spirit. Who, then, shall act as our guide, to Shepherd us to the very edge of our souls, to push at the boundaries of the flesh, to destroy our bodies in the crucible of sin so that we may finally become better than the limits of our earth allowance?

Ecce Himbo.
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