A Parable of Condemnation
Condemnation is easily understood as a road that leads to the destination. It a big, wide, paved highway that gets everyone from point A to point B. Because we’ve all be born into a corrupted and dark world (somewhere on the road between A and B), point A and point B is obscured by a road crew that has blocked the road and set up a detour. We can’t go backwards, we have to go forward. The detour isn’t all that bad: its paved, its wide and it easily marked. Condemnation is the name of this detour route and instead of taking you to point B, its taking you to point D. A destination you wouldn’t want to go to if you knew that’s where you were heading. You want to go to point B, you think you are going to point B, but every now and then you see clues that something is off.
Once you start suspected this detour is heading to the wrong place, you start scanning the landscape and the horizon for any more clues. Some travelers see the problem quickly and blatantly, they turn to go backwards. They may even seem like they make progress in fleeing from Point D but inevitably the throng of travelers pulls them along the detour road. Remember, we cant go backwards. Some travelers keep scanning the landscape for their escape. Some stumble across their escape and others are lassoed to it by an unseen savior. For here, hidden behind the bright orange detour sign that was erected, sits another sign, the road that leads people to Point B. This road is narrow and simple. It twists and turns, it goes over bridges and through dark valleys, its travelers cannot move along it quickly or carelessly, each step requires an attentive mind and body. This road does in fact lead to point B. Few know it so few reach point B.
The travelers still on the detour have ample opportunities to see all the signs for the narrow road that leads to point B. At any point they can see and get off of the wide road. But once you reach your destination and cross the gate into it’s city, there is no going back onto the road. If you arrive at point B you belong to point B. If you arrive at point D you belong to point D. You cannot stay on the road forever either, for the road itself is actually moving you forward in time and space. You will inevitably reach a destination point.
This illustration is a picture of what scripture suggests regarding the path of life.
Point A is Life as it was intended to be in Paradise. Humanity was born on a continual exile from that Garden temple.
The Road A—B leading out from Point A and ending at Point B was intended by God as route travelers could take to end up in Paradise again.
Destination B is Life to the Fullest. Paradise after Redemption. God always had a plan for redeeming humanity out of exile.
The Road Crew are the spiritual forces in the heavenly places and the rebellious divine beings who frustrate Gods plans of redemption. They are responsible for the road blocks and the demolition of the roadways. They are responsible for the detour signs. While they were not given responsibility of the travelers on the road, they deceived the travelers into trusting them for directions and the travelers gave them authority to manage the road to Point B. The road crew deceived them again. Instead of allowing them to reach Point B, they obscured the road laid by God and paved a new wide road to a different destination.
Point D is the rebels destination for the travelers. It’s called Destruction. It’s an anti-destination. It’s a false paradise. A false reality.
The Narrow Road is the secret road that leads to Point B, laid knowingly by the LORD and kept as a mystery only to be revealed at the right time. The narrow road is in fact, Jesus the Christ, redeemer of the lost. It is the Way, the Truth and leads to Life.
The original sign posts for this road are still there, laid by loyal divine beings and holy ones of God, laid out even by creation itself.
The Detour signs are distractions, lies and manipulations of the rebel enemies.
The Detour road they have led travelers down is a highway of condemnation and fear. Fear of God, fear of Death, fear of what Destination B really looks like, fear that punishment, for condemnation they certainly accrued, is coming. Certain that the destination ahead is dangerous.
The travelers are humans. Living people who are headed forward in time, ever closer to their destination. Some are utterly deceived into thinking they are headed to Life Abundantly, when in fact they are headed to destruction. Some are deceived into thinking they are actually condemned by God. Others are on the narrow road and look with confusion on the highway travelers. Others are on the highway road and look with distain on the narrow road travelers. Some are standing by the fork in the road and pulling travelers into the narrow way. Some travel on the highway and long for a way out, while other run toward their destination pushing all others aside. Some stand at the fork and weigh our the cost of abandoning the wide way. Some get off the detour after only a few steps and some escape it at the last moment. Every traveler is given the chance, if not many, to glimpse their deception, condemnation and fear, for what it is. They can fight it and willingly pull the wool back over their eyes, or they can look at the signs in the weeds.
13Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: 14Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. (Matt 7:13-14 KJV)
There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death. (Prov14:12 NIV)
I wrote down this visual parable years ago and want to mull over it again to see if it still holds water. What do you think?