Before we even get into this, I want to say one thing: this movie is terrible. Dragonball is a cult-status manga (Japanese comic) about a hero, Goku, and his quest to collect the seven dragonballs to prevent Piccolo (an evil God) from acquiring them and having the ability to raise Ozaru (an eviler God or an evil assistant God) from the dead to destroy the world. Complicated? Yes. And the movie doesn’t help you figure it out because it provides no information whatsoever. Why are there dragonballs? Why does possessing them give the possessor powers? Who lost them? How did that happen? Why does Piccolo have a green head? Why is an evil God named Piccolo anyway?
Goku’s grandfather has told him all his life that he needs to be “one with himself.” Of course, this does little to make up for the fact that, like all high-school heros, Goku is woefully unpopular, despite his good-looks, quick wit, and expertise at supernatural martial arts. When Goku’s grandfather is killed, Goku is charged with collecting the dragonballs and saving the world from Piccolo.
Goku eventually gets the dragonballs stolen from him, and they fall into Piccolo’s hands. Goku comes face to face with Piccolo for the the final showdown, declaring that he is “here to defeat Ozaru.” Piccolo, with a chuckle, says, “Defeat Ozaru? You will become Ozaru.”
In the midst of this incredibly flawed film is a wonderful insight into the meaning of life. Apparently, you don’t have to ask a yogi, sitting on a mountain top…you just have to sit through 85 minutes of Justin Chatwin’s and Emmy Rossum’s terrible acting.
The point, theologically speaking, is that Goku has to come to grips with the Ozaru side of himself in order to have the power to defeat Piccolo. This is old-school, philosophically speaking. Jung called it the “shadow self,” Freud called it “the id,” and Walt Kelly might have put it best: “We have met the enemy and the enemy is us.” For the theologically-inclined, Luther posited that humans are simul justus et peccator: simultaneously justified and sinner.
Goku (justified/righteous) must become “one with himself” (the sinner, Ozaru) in order to defeat Piccolo.
The FINAL WORD: The more a person is aware of and honest about their sinful selves, the more they will rely on the saving grace of Jesus Christ. The one who is forgiven much loves much (Luke 7:41-43). Far from a process of “becoming more like Christ,” this spiritual formation is a continual discovery of how much we need Him. This is true sanctification.
Great movie no one has ever seen: American Splendor, 2003 (Shari Springer Bergman and Robert Pulcini)
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9 responses to “Mockingbird at the Movies: Dragonball Evolution”
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"The more a person is aware of and honest about their sinful selves, the more they will rely on the saving grace of Jesus Christ. The one who is forgiven much loves much (Luke 7:41-43). Far from a process of "becoming more like Christ," this spiritual formation is a continual discovery of how much we need Him. This is true sanctification."
Awesome, Nick.
Thanks Nick.
This movie was playing on my plane ride home from Berlin. I went to sleep instead. Thanks Nick for filling us all in.
Ha! I saw it on a plane, too. Sometimes my Benedictine-style rule of life, Watch Any Movie Once, really comes back to bite me!
Umm… I normally love the posts on here, and enjoyed this one as well, but here you are paraphrasing an actual New Testament description of sanctification, and saying that's not sanctification. Not a great idea I would think. Of course, you could say that when the NT uses the word sanctification it means something entirely different than when it's describing the transformation of the Christian into the image of Christ, but that's splitting semantic hairs
Hey Scott,
"Becoming more like Christ" is definitely one of the descriptions of sanctification in the Bible, and I don't think that Nick is denying that at all. I do think what he is emphasizing here is how that Christ-likeness occurs. He seems to be attacking the idea of sanctification being a process of actually getting better and weeding out sin in our lives. When this is the emphasis we humans cannot resist but turn sanctification into a work that is our responsibility. It props up the sinner inside us that wants independence.
Instead, Nick is proposing that sanctification is the continual realization of the completed work of justification by Christ in our lives. It is Christ's work, and it is done. He uses the events of our lives to pull the veil back from over our eyes to see how we are already justified and already sanctified. That's why St. Paul is able to open up his first letter to the Corinthians saying, "To the church of God that is in Corinth to those sanctified in Christ Jesus".
So, sanctification is actually the revelation (by the power of the Holy Spirit) of complete dependence on the completed work of Christ as opposed to the process of becoming better and as a result more independent of our need for Christ.
Does that make sense at all?
It makes perfect sense, I just don't entirely agree with it. It seems the Scripture pretty clearly points to an active aspect of sanctification. It is possible that this active aspect is just as much monergistic is origin as our justification, it is still active, not passive (as justification is). While as a former Lutheran, and confessional Lutheran at that, I can't help but read Scriptures in the context of the law/gospel dichotomy, at the same time it fails as an absolute framework for understanding every passage dealing with "works" in the Bible and does potential damage to interpreting the text.
Scott: I really appreciate your thoughts, and I wrestle with some of these issues (having been a former believer that I work out my sanctification).
I looked into Sean's 1 cor. ref (1:2) and checked the Greek. The greek word being translated as "sanctified" is the perfect passive participle and is translated epexegetically (Thisleton 76). The main point of bringing up the greek is the focus on the perfect passive; this is the interesting part. The perfect is that which is an event that occurred in the past and has effects in the present. Passive signifies the action has happening to you rather than you doing the action. So…sanctification is as Sean (and even Nick) described it: looking back at the cross, growing into a deeper and deeper realization that you need Christ and the Cross (the past event).
BUT, as you rightly point out…works are involved. However, they aren't an "active" works, as "I'm working out my sanctification", but–and we'll take the lead from Paul who designates where sanctification occurs: in Christ–are the manifest works of the location of our roots: Christ (A good tree bears good fruit; Matt. 7, 12; Mark 4; Lk. 3, 6). As James says, Faith without works is dead; so one could say sanctification without works is dead (though I prefer not to stress these thoughts when dealing with other people because it can lead to judgment on their life/walk with Christ, and I'm not the judge of that). Faith and "being sanctified" will result in "works" as fruit of the spirit (passive)because of "being in Christ"; not as something I do to train my self or cause myself to become sanctified (active).
I am working this out while trying to feed my kids, so I apologize if this sounds disconnected. I will close with these thoughts: I believe that sanctification is an historical event that has it's effects now (good works) and that it's locality is in the Cross, in Christ (not in me). I also believe that as every day goes by, for me, I realize my inability to do anything; and, that as time will continue to go on, I'll realize this more, thus, as nick wrote, "the more [i] will rely on the saving grace of Jesus Christ" and, as a result, those roots of mine, grounded in Christ now, will be more grounded.
Dragonboll : Evolution is nice movie.
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