The dangers of spiritual inflation

There’s more than economics to inflation.

Peter inflated to preside over Jesus, responding to His passion predictions, saying, “God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to you” (Mt 16:22). It was a gesture, however well-intentioned, akin to the inflation of Lucifer who presumed himself equal to God: “I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will be like the Most High!” (Is 14:14). Jesus said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me” (Mt 16:23).

Such inflation characterizes the present culture of trolls and Twitter (now X). Nations the world over inflate to preside over God’s truth and design for goods like marriage. The renovations are called the “new normal” but there’s nothing “new” or “normal” about an inflation opposing God’s design and purpose for creation. Such inflation is ancient and primordial.

What accounts for the proliferation of these inflations so in evidence in our day? The answers vary, but there’s one that stands out among the rest in an age where atheism has become fashionable, namely, a crisis of faith. This is one of the more serious causes for today’s wide variety of inflations over Christ and His teachings, both in and outside of the Church.

John the Baptist pointed out Christ to his disciples, saying, “Behold, the Lamb of God” (Jn 1:29) and Jesus instructed His disciples, saying, “Behold, I am sending you like sheep in the midst of wolves” (Mt 10:16). In “the hour,” the Father permitted the wolves to catch up to Jesus and they slaughtered Him on Calvary according to a mindset revealed centuries earlier in the Book of Wisdom (2:12, 17-18):

Let us beset the just one, because he is obnoxious to us;
he sets himself against our doings…
Let us see whether his words be true;
let us find out what will happen to him.
For if the just one be the son of God, God will defend him
and deliver him from the hand of his foes.

Did God “defend” Jesus and “deliver him from the hand of his foes”? The answer depends on whether a person has faith.

Without faith, it is readily observable that there is only one world, namely, the visible one in which we are now living. But if this is the only world and there is no other, then it appears that God failed to defend and deliver His Son, Jesus, on Calvary. The enemies of Christ had their way with Him and He went to the grave.

If this is the only world, therefore, God failed to defend and deliver His Son, and the conclusion follows, namely, we must look out for ourselves. God failed to protect His only Son and He will also fail to protect us. We must, therefore, inflate, take care of number one, and defend ourselves against our neighbor. Jesus may still be admired within this worldview and even accounted by the more elite among us as a great moral figure for not caving into the violence that surrounded Him. But His way is not realistic. Jesus is not one to follow when there’s a career to launch, money to be made, or honor to be defended. We must inflate, take matters into our own hands, and do it to them before they do it to us.

But faith understands Calvary differently. Faith arrives at the defeat of death in this world and resurrection to a realm unseen by material eyes. The Father raised Jesus from the dead and raised Him to a degree of life having no trace of death whatsoever. “Christ dies no more; death no longer has power over him” (Rom 6:9). He can never be put on trial, found wanting, and crucified again, but this is given only through faith.

In fact, through faith in the resurrection we believe this entire world in which we now live to be completely subject to Christ. The Father has placed “all things under His feet” (Eph 1:22) such that now our faith in Christ “conquers the world” (1 Jn 5:4). Because of our faith we believe there’s nothing that could ever befall us that hasn’t either been sent or permitted by Christ, a truth to which all the martyrs testify like St. Polycarp who said plainly in his Letter to the Phillipians: “To Him all things in heaven and on earth are subject.”

“Creation was made subject to futility, not of its own accord but because of the one who subjected it, in hope,” not despair, and with purpose, not randomly or in chaos (Rom 8:20). We can willfully return to the primal chaos through sin to be sure, but that’s our doing, and not Christ’s. That’s creation without Logos, which is the chaos of lawlessness. The cross is different due to the Logos, who is upon it at the beginning of re-creation just as He was “in the beginning” of the whole of creation.

The cross challenges those who encounter it to believe it is endowed short term with purpose and long term with glory. The futility of inflating and going another way, conducting ourselves “as enemies of the cross of Christ” (Phil 3:18) led Paul to declare, “If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are the most pitiable people of all” (1 Cor 15:19).

Faith instructs us that this world will end: “we await new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells” (2 Pet 3:13). We live in a world where righteousness or right relationship with God does not prevail and so we lose our way. Yet Jesus, the “righteous one,” forged a new path on Calvary. He was “holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners” (Heb 7:26) and yet suffered punishment usually reserved for those judged guilty, defiled, and serious sinners, all the while persevering in love of God as His Father and His enemy as neighbor.

There was no inflation in Christ on Calvary, only obedience: “Thy will be done.” He warned His disciples against becoming inflated when He exhorted them: “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me” (Mt 16:24). He would later make the point even clearer with the question, “What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world” and lose their life in the process (Mt 16:26)?

Is it worth all that? It depends on one’s faith and practice.

Faith recognizes that the Father raised Jesus Christ from the dead and in the resurrection placed “all things under his feet” (Eph 1:22). Along with Christ, we too have passed over from this world to the Father through Baptism (Jn 16:28) and so through faith believe the Father has our backs because there’s no snatching out of His hands (Jn 10:29). Jesus solemnly declared, “I will not leave you orphans” without a Father and Mother in this world. Satan is an orphan-maker tempting us to follow him, “the ruler of the power of the air” (Eph 2:2), and become inflated. Christ knows how to bring His beloved to glory and rescue all who believe “from the snare of the fowler who seeks to destroy you” (Psa 91:3).

Jesus said, “I am the way” (Jn 14:6), but there are many today who stand up to Christ and place Him on trial, find Him wanting, and dismiss Him as irrelevant. They seek to go by another way than Christ since “the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Cor. 1:18), a power that conquers the world, but which is available only through faith.