Much of the confusion about God, in all His attributes, stems not from any lack of clarity on God's part in His self- revelation of His written Word. Nor do I believe it is because we do not have enough knowledge of God either. I simply think it is a result of ignorance and laziness. I do not say that to belittle anyone nor to be "mean spirited" but to be poignant. Some times the truth hurts no matter how it is put. As the Apostle Paul said to the Galatians "Have I then become your enemy by telling you the truth? (Ga 4:16)."
Let me explain what I mean by ignorance and laziness. There are believers out there that are well informed of the Word of God. They can quote to you passage after passage from memory and even direct you to where certain verses are. But they seem to be ignorant of how all these passages fit together theologically. To put it a different way, many Christians can quote to a person, believer or unbeliever, about the love of God in passages like John 3:16 and Romans 8:35-39 and Psalm 136. At the same time they can be ignorant of (whether deliberately or not I do not know) passages say God does not "hate the sin but love the sinner" but that He in fact hates the soul who does wickedness. The idea that God hates the wicked is not some theologians "fundamentalism" getting carried away. It is God's self-revelation in His written Word "The LORD tests the righteous, but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence "(Ps 11:5). Now why is it that a verse like this is not only not memorized but it seems that numerous Christians are not even aware of it? We'll answer that momentarily. But when such verses are presented to Christians whether from an antagonistic atheist attempting to discredit the love and goodness of God or a liberal professing Christian that rejects much of the Bible, Christians cannot give a Christ glorying answer that doesn't contradict Scripture nor make apologies for God and water down Scriptural truth(s). Many will not even further study or "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth" (2 Ti 2:15). They are quite content to fall back on John 3:16 as if that explains away Ps. 11:5 or trumps it.
Oftentimes when I mention things like this I often get objections like "But that is an isolated example" or "that's an overstatement!" Here's my challenge- ask the average pew sitter who makes people blind, deaf or mute. Many will stumble for an answer similar to something like "God allowed it." But, again, the antagonistic atheist that is familiar with the Bible will (correctly) point out Ex. 4:11 "Then the LORD said to him, “Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the LORD?," and say something to the effect "The Bible, which you believe in, says that your God made them that way and what kind of loving, kind, righteous or just God would do that? That is not a god but a monster!" At this point many a believer will be tripped up and implicitly through their answers make apologies for God and resort to the "allowed" cliche.
So why are such passages like Ps. 11:5 and Ex. 4:11 not memorized but brushed away and avoided? Well, partly because many pastors will not preach on them for fear of offending people and emptying their churches but also because Christians have long let the secular world define for them what good, righteous, justice, love, kindness and grace mean. They have allowed the world to determine what is acceptable about God and what isn't. And those difficult passages do not fit in with what many perceive to be the "goodness," or "love" of God. That coupled with ignorance of many difficult passages of God's revelation about Himself and you have a mass of confusion that hinders that proclamation of God's greatness, along with a lopsided worship of only a distorted view of His love.
Christ does not need our approval of who He is and how He acts in His created world. He demands our worship, praise, adoration, submission and love. If He receives it not then He is angry and will punish His enemies. Without my help see if you can spot both the justice of Christ and His love, mercy and grace in this passage- "Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him" (Ps 2:12)?
Here are some final thoughts from John Wenham in his book The Enigma Of Evil: Can We Believe In The Goodness Of God?:
The intention is to show that, in his attempts to understand the ways of God, the Christian must eschew easy answers- in particular those answers which dismiss the uncomfortable features of the Bible. We must look at reality-look at it hard- till at last we realize that there is no way out; till we realize that we are children, that we are fools, that we are at heart conceited, stiff-necked rebels, who will get everything wrong, unless we are prepared to give up telling God what he should be like and what he should do; till we realize that we can know only what God is pleased to tell us. We must listen and try to understand.
God and his revelation need no defence. Apologetics, in so far as it is valid, consists of two things: clearing away of misunderstandings of the revelation and showing the weaknesses of alternatives to it.
...It becomes clear now that our initial questioning of God's goodness arose from an imperfect idea of goodness. It was altogether too shallow a concept to match up to the terrors and glories and compassion of the God who is. Instead of allowing the Bible to mould our notion of goodness, we let our false standard of goodness become a standard whereby to criticize the Bible. In doing so we lost the purity of our doctrine of God, and blunted the razor-edge of theism. We lost something of that awe and fear of the Lord which is the beginning of true wisdom and worship, and which is the necessary prelude to a realization of the depth's of God's love.*
Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind and said: “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Dress for action like a man; I will question you, and you make it known to me. "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements—surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it (Job 38:1–5)?"
Soli Deo Gloria!
* John W. Wenham, The Enigma Of Evil: Can We Believe In The Goodness of God? (Grand Rapids, MI.; Zondervan, 1985), pp. 10, 180
No comments:
Post a Comment