From a POINTS TO PONDER item by Chuck in our local Church Newsletter —
We just celebrated Easter. For “believers” that is a glorious thing. However, what things haunt the thoughts of those struggling “to believe”? Do we help or unintentionally hinder the “want-to-be believer” with our words and actions?
Ponder an unbelievers viewpoint: Does someone really want to trust a God whose followers teach that God’s only Son had to be murdered on a cross to satisfy God’s Judgment? Especially if the unbeliever is one of the many for whom the concept of a loving father is a totally foreign concept. Now toss in the stories they hear from the anti-Christian camp, which teach that scriptures, like Exodus 21:22-25 (in part “… take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot …”), show that our God is cruel. Ponder that: Is that the Abba, the Father, the Daddy you want to “adopt” you … one in whom you place your trust for eternity?
How do we answer those with such questions? Let us explore God’s nature and see if He is cruel, judgmental, and unloving, OR is God simply perceived to have those attributes because of the way WE (believers) behave and characterize HIM: There is a child’s song “Oh, be careful”: One version has a verse “O be careful little mouth what you say”, which is good advice for us all. Yes, God is righteous and holy, and His judgment was certainly involved in Jesus going to the cross. Do we, as believers characterize that as the act of a harsh and demanding God, or as an act of a God that “ … so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.”???? (John 3:16 WEB)
Let us explore “how” … How this God of ours meets his people with love in the middle of all the mess they create … a God who’s spirit is grieved greatly by our misdeeds, but whose Love never falters or fails … a God that values Mercy over Justice: Think about that, the last thing we really want from God is justice for our behavior – while there may be unavoidable consequences, trust me – we seek God’s Mercy not Justice. Consequences are much different than justice: Just think about the words, if our actions had no consequences they would all be WHAT? Well, “inconsequential”, that is the word … do we really want an inconsequential existence? I think not, I have never heard anyone opine the need or desire to live an inconsequential existence. Consequences are not judgment, nor justice, a non-Christian term karma is more appropriate. I digress, so back on topic —
Deuteronomy 7:9 (NIV) Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments.
AND
1 John 4:8 (WEB) He who doesn’t love doesn’t know God, for God is love. (Note: The world for love here is agapé, or an “other” focused, self-giving, unconditional love that transcends and persists regardless of circumstance.)
God is all loving, knowing, powerful, and present. God exists outside of time (a created thing). Genesis tells us we are created in God’s image. God, viewing our world from outside of time, knows exactly how we are made, and how sin corrupts those things within us that reflect Him; like His sense of justice. Consider that Exodus story (above): Men are fighting and inadvertently injure a pregnant woman – the child is injured or killed. God knows the human father’s sense of justice is warped: If the father is powerful enough, upon the son losing an eye, the father might just kill the offender’s entire family, or maybe kill all males in the offender’s village and sell the women & children into slavery. It is helpful to our unbelieving friend if we understand that God’s instructions about “eye for eye”, etc., imposes laws to curb humankind’s warped sense of justice: God puts limitations on our desire for retribution disguised as justice (an act of love by God): If left to us, “righting” every wrong could be a Hatfield and McCoy scenario for generations.
Ponder this “believer”: Our God meets US where WE are, with Love, not with what HE needs – Meeting us with a LOVE that includes sweating blood in Gethsemane by the man Jesus at the thought of willingly going to a death on a cross … an event by which God the Son permanently defeats death, hell and the grave to rise in victory … a Victory for US that includes the resolution of OUR – (God breathed, but corrupted by sin) – NEED for Justice.
NOT
A GOD that demanded such a horrible death for His Son, but rather a God who loved us so much that HE would allow such a horrible fate for his Only Son, because HE knows US so well … so well, that this is what it took to convince US that God’s righteous justice was met.
So, celebrate the Resurrection, and help our unbelieving friends understand the profound, loving, solution provided by God: A solution from before the foundation of the world. There has never been a “plan B”: Jesus perfectly executed the one and only plan the Father, Son and Spirit had all along, before this world was spoken into being: Elohim (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) loves each of us (that means YOU) so much that He spun this world into existence with total foreknowledge of the cost. (Note: in the Hebrew book of Genesis, the plural “Elohim” is the creator, and the action verbs used are singular – Our first peek at the trinity is in Genesis 1:1, when “they”, in unison of activity, create the world.)
From our Eastern Orthodox brethren, a summary thought —
“The wages of sin is death” is therefore an ontological reality (a reality of being) and not an externally imposed penalty. Christ died for us not because God had to kill us, but because sin’s natural end is corruption and death. Jesus absorbed all the affects of sin and death, including its psychological calamity of feeling God-forsaken.
Chuck note: the “feeling God-forsaken” reference is to Christ’s Cry of “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me” foretold in Psalm 22 – This, itself is a thing to ponder: Jesus, being fully man, not only suffered physical pain on the cross, but the psychological torment of God’s turning away from OUR sin.
Chuck