I’m seeing a lot of Pure Flix movies lately. Mostly because they all seem to be on Netflix
(and therefore free), but also because I’ve enjoyed at least a few of
them. They seem to have a decent budget,
and the writing is not half bad, so I’ve been sticking with them. There are some really bad ones (The Book of Ruth comes to mind), but
also some more solid ones.
“More solid” being a relative term compared to most
Christian movies. They seem to all be at
least problematic theological. At worst,
they succumb to bad TBN theology (Ruth). At best they are just misguided (usually in
eschatology and in Gospel presentation).
Peter, on the other hand, is actually pretty good. Now, as with some of their other films, Jesus
does appear on the screen, which is something that these movies do without even
really considering the properness of it in light of the second commandment. That being said, and this is something I’ve
said before, I’m not going to review that point, because I haven’t studied it
enough to really make a case on whether Jesus should appear in movies yet. I hope to research that a bit more and do a
blanket post that I can reference for any film that portrays the God-man.
The flow of the thing
The whole plot is that Peter is in a Roman prison, awaiting
his execution. One of the guards takes
an interest in him and asks about Jesus and why Peter should want to die for
this man?
Peter tells him about episodes in Jesus’ life, culminating
in the Last Supper, which takes a good part of the film (actually too much of
the film) to tell. At last the point of
it is told – that Jesus is the perfect sacrifice for sins, and that we can be
forgiven by God because of His work on the cross.
The idea is a good one, and it is well done. We are told the story of Christ without the
movie being yet another film version of the story of Christ. We see it from a different angle, and it is
good.
The changing of
things
What I don’t understand is why certain things are
changed. For example, Jesus renames
Simon on their first meeting, and then asks who people say that He is. Wait a minute, because in Scripture, this
happens later, and Jesus says to Simon, “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on
this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail
against it,” because of his confession that Jesus is the Christ, not
before. This is such a strange flip of
the story, and I don’t see the point in it.
They could have easily kept the parts with Jesus exactly the way they
are told in the Bible. Obviously, the
jail scenes will be fiction, but why change what is in Scripture?
Forgiveness
The second major problem, and a very big problem with it, is
the question of who does Jesus forgive?
Peter says that Jesus forgave Judas, but Judas refused the forgiveness. Apparently, that is the reason that Judas is
in Hell, because he refused the forgiveness of Jesus.
Now, I think we need to look at this carefully, because
there is an important point here. I
recently heard someone mocking the doctrine of hell, and he did so by saying
that Christians believe that God is incredibly insecure, and He loves us all,
but if you say “No, thanks,” then He gets mad and throws you into everlasting
torment for daring to refuse His love.
Well, that’s not what Christians actually believe, but it
really seems that way when we are hearing things like this. The theology of this movie is very close to
that strawman – Jesus has forgiven everyone, but you have to accept His
forgiveness, otherwise you go to hell.
Um, what exactly will the person be punished for in hell in that
system? The sin of refusing
forgiveness? And, if I may be cheeky
here, was that sin forgiven too, or is that the only sin that God doesn’t just
sweep under the rug?
Let me be clear – the sacrifice of Christ was enough to
cover the sin of Judas. It was enough
for my sin, and it would have been enough for Judas, Pilot, Herod, and all the
Jews calling for His death too. But that
is not to say that they were forgiven.
We are forgiven when we are brought to repentance and faith by the
Spirit and united to Christ in His death.
We are then adopted as sons and daughters of the Father, cleansed from
our sin and made righteous in Christ.
And it makes it worse when the filmmakers have foreign
theology come out of the mouth of Peter and Jesus. You know, some quack says something goofy in one
of their end times movies, and we just shake our head and think, “Yeah, that
guy doesn’t have his theology together,” but in cases like these, there is a
change in Christian theology, and they put that change into the mouth of an
apostle. That should bother us. I mean, the change here is probably an honest
misunderstanding, so it shouldn’t bother us as much as the movie Noah should, where the change to
Scripture was intentional and wicked, but we should be striving for better.
Does it matter?
I mean, who cares when they are just trying to make a good
movie to spread the Gospel. Well, for
one, that guy I heard strawmanning the doctrine of Hell may really believe that’s
what the doctrine is. Where did he get
that idea? It was from presentations
like this one. Probably not this one, but one much like it.
So many objections to the faith and so many cases of mocking
of the faith are coming out of a misunderstanding of the faith. Good intentioned people who don’t know what
they are talking about try to give answers when they should be saying, “I’m not
sure, but let me find out and get back to you.”
We are so scared of theology because we think that it is either
unimportant or that it just divides people, but it’s quite the opposite. When that guy mocks hell, this movie can give
no answer to him, but I can. Not because
I’m really smart or witty, but because I’ve studied the theology.
Secondly, it portrays our God as incompetent. Jesus in this theology tries to save everyone
and fails most of the time. On the
contrary, Scripture tells us, “And this is the will of him who sent me, that I
should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last
day. For this is the will of my Father,
that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal
life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”
Jesus loses none that He seeks to save. He did not forgive Judas, because it was not
His intention to save Judas. But for
those among His sheep, He does not lose a single one. All will be perfected in Him.
Conclusion