God Says NO To Our NO To Reinforce His YES!

I am currently studying a Bachelor of Ministry at Tabor College and this semester has me on a theological journey of discovery about Jesus Christ.  While Jesus is clearly my Saviour, my Lord and my Friend who knows me intimately, this subject has allowed me to get to know Jesus a little more intimately.  And because Jesus tells us that we must know Him to know God, God's eternal plan for humankind through Jesus Christ has become clearer than ever before.

There are two significant theological terms that are prominent in any study of Jesus Christ:

• Incarnation
• Atonement

For some of you these words are very familiar, for others, you may have heard of them but are unsure what they really mean and their may be a few of you who will wonder what language I am speaking.

Simply put...

The INCARNATION is God taking on human flesh to become one of us in the person of Jesus Christ.

The ATONEMENT is God's gracious act to restore the broken relationship with humankind through the person of Jesus Christ.

The incarnation has been traditionally understood to be about who Jesus is, whereas the atonement has been traditionally understood to be about what Jesus did.  However, the two need to be understood together because Jesus person and His actions are inseparable.

While catching up on some lectures last week I was interested in a discussion about the motivation of the atonement.  Why did God do it?  What is the purpose of the atonement?  What problem for humankind did the atonement deal with?

Ever since the Reformation of the Church, the atonement has been spoken of in legal or forensic terms in the Evangelical movement!

Let me illustrate:  The commonly used "4 Spiritual Laws" evangelism tract says...

1. God loves you and offers a wonderful plan for your life.
2. Man is sinful and separated from God.
3. Jesus Christ is God's only provision for man's sin.
4. We must individually receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.

The problem identified by the "4 Spiritual Laws" is...SIN

Therefore the motivation of the atonement is... SIN

Right?  No!!

Is SIN really the primary motivation of God?  Is SIN the main theme of the Bible?

Not according to Jesus!

"For God so loved the world..." (John 3:16)

Nor according to John!

"This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sends his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins." (1 John 4:10)

The atonement certainly does deal with sin...read the book of Romans to see that!  The motivation, however, is not sin, but relationship - God loves us and sin is a barrier to relationship with God, so He deals with sin, not as an ends in itself, but as a means to restore broken relationship.

From the Creation story to the Cross...RELATIONSHIP has been God's only motivation for His interaction with humankind.  No matter what people have done to sever that relationship by saying NO to God, He has relentlessly said NO to our NO, reinforcing His YES for the salvation of all people!

God says NO to our NO to reinforce His YES!

The word "Atonement" broken down means at-one-ment:  that is, to be at one with God.

To be at one means to be in relationship.  God said YES to relationship at the beginning of time and reinforced His YES by sending Jesus (incarnation) to reconcile broken relationship with God (atonement).

God says NO to our NO to reinforce His YES!

No matter how hard you try to say NO to God, you cannot escape God's YES because it is His eternal plan to be in relationship with His creation.  It is the motivation of the atonement for you to be at one with God.

Therefore, the atonement fully satisfied God's love for humankind.

This motivation of the atonement challenges the way the gospel has been traditionally presented through modern evangelism and even sung about in worship.  Take Stuart Townend's song "In Christ Alone" for example, a powerful worship song that I love to sing.  In the second verse it presents the motivation of atonement to appease the wrath of God.  However, based on a relational motivation of the atonement, I think we need to correct the 2nd verse of the song...

In Christ alone! who took on flesh

Fulness of God in helpless babe!

This gift of love and righteousness

Scorned by the ones he came to save:

Till on that cross as Jesus died,

The wrath of God was satisfied -

For every sin on Him was laid;

Here in the death of Christ I live.

This line infers that the motivation of the atonement was sin, but because we have established that the motivation is relationship expressed through God's love, the line would better read...

The love of God was satisfied!

Jesus satisfies God's love for His creation by providing a way for reconciliation between fallen humanity and Creator God.  God refused to accept our rejection of His love, because His YES for relationship was greater than our NO.

God says NO to our NO to reinforce His YES!

Reality of Messiah v's Religious Pride

"They were ready for a Messiah, in the abstract, but not for such a Messiah as Jesus was in reality.  The great stumbling block to them was Christ's threat as Messiah to interpenetrate their very existence in such a way as to cut across their cherished ideas and desires and ambitions.  They wanted Christ to subserve the notion of their own religiousness and were furious when he touched them at the point of their religious pride, and so by the pressure of his very presence as the incarnate truth he evoked from them the full movement of sin in undisguised contradiction."  (Thomas F. Torrance)

Torrance unveils a Messianic struggle that I believe continues to cripple the Church and corrupt the hearts of believers today.  Our theology embraces the idea of Messiah (the abstract) but our ecclesiology seems to be in constant conflict with the reality of Messiah.  In other words, the reality of who Jesus is is in conflict with whom the Church has made Him.  I am of course making a generalisation to highlight a continual conflict that exists between religious tradtion and Messianic truth today.

Some time ago I preached a sermon series entitled "Signs, Symbols and Sacred Songs" that evoked a strong reaction when I suggested that our religious symbols and rituals become a form of idolatry when they become more important than whom or what they represent.  I saw the manifestation of our church wanting "Christ to subserve the notion of their own religiousness and were furious when he touched them at the point of their religious pride."  While religion can be a great vehicle through which to express our understanding and experience of God, it can be a great stumbling block when it is threatened by the reality and truth of Jesus Christ!

It is only when we submit ourselves to the reality of Messiah and allow Christ "to interpenetrate [our] very existence in such a way as to cut across [our] cherished ideas and desires and ambitions" and strip away our "religious pride" that we can be truly ready to fully embrace the incarnate truth of Jesus. 

By Grace Alone

I am currently studying the subject "Jesus the Christ" at Tabor College as a part of my degree this semester.  The primary texts for this subject are by theologian Thomas Torrance, who has written a comprehensive work on the Incarnation, a key doctrine of the Christian faith about God taking on flesh and entering into our existence in the person of Jesus.  Torrance delves deep into this doctrine presenting "a full account of the meaning and significance of the life and person of Jesus Christ, arguing that his work of revelation and reconciliation can only be understood in the light of who he is (real God and real man united in one person)."

One of the biblical motifs used to describe Jesus is Him being referred to as the second Adam.  In 1 Corinthians 15:45, we read, "So it is written: 'The first man Adam became a living being', the last Adam [Jesus], a life giving spirit."  In explaining this motif, Torrance makes a very interesting parallel between the disobedience of the first Adam and the continued disobedience of humankind, despite God's reconciling act of grace through the second Adam, Jesus.

"Adam refused to preserve the order of paradise, refused to keep within the limits of creatureliness imposed upon him by the creator, refused to contain himself within the bounds of God's will, and now man, as Adam's child, refuses to fit into the order of restoration; mankind will not admit that they are flesh standing under judgement and can live only by grace.  They will not admit that God is right in his verdict on them, and thus cling only to God's mercy manifest in his very judgement, cling only to God's forgiveness which carries in its heart the judgement of the sin of the forgiven.  Humanity resents utter reliance on God; men and women want at least to cooperate with God in saving their lives - but that is the very way to lose their lives for by the very process sin is not really acknowledged, and its judgement and condemnation in the flesh are not really accepted."  (Torrance, p. 72)

In the context of the continuing struggle with sin for many Christians (Romans 7), I had an "aha" moment while reading this statement by Torrance.  Our acceptance of God's mercy and forgiveness contrasted with our unwillingness to fully embrace God's grace due to our self-reliance was particularly challenging for me.  I have long held to Augustine's understanding of operative and cooperative grace - operative grace referring to what God has commenced in us through His saving action and cooperative grace referring to what God completes in us through our cooperation with His saving action.  However, the idea of cooperative grace too easily plays into a form of works righteousness that is partially dependent upon what we do.  Paul addresses this issue in Romans 7 where he highlights our inability to deal with sin through observance of the law (cooperative grace):  "For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out" (Rom 7:18).  It seems the harder I try to cooperate with God's grace I am actually nullifying His grace by relying on myself to do what God has already done!

Romans 8, however, demonstrates the weakness of self-reliant grace and the fullness and power of Spirit-driven grace:  "For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering.  And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit" (Rom 8:3-4).  God's salvation does not require my cooperation but my submission.  Grace that is dependent upon my cooperation is incomplete and denies the power of sin, but full submission to the operative grace of Jesus Christ is complete, totally destroying the power of sin "because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death" (Rom 8:2).

This is an enormous paradigm shift for me which totally changes the way I read another key passage in Romans that I previously understood in terms of operative and cooperative grace.  Romans 12:1-2 says, "Therefore...in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God - this is your spiritual act of worship.  Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind."  God's mercy is all about His grace, whereas, offering myself as a living sacrifice is all about my submission, not cooperation.  My transformation is complete not by what I do in response to what God has done, but by fully submitting myself to what Christ has done and allowing His Spirit to complete His work in me.

Is it any wonder that we continue to struggle with sin when "humanity resents utter reliance on God" (Torrance)?!

God On The Inside

“God is watching us.  God is watching us.  God is watching us from a distance.” 
Bette Midler

The words of songwriter, Bette Midler, reflect the perception of a generation of people who view God as a distant, disconnected being who is out of touch with His creation.  Yet the searching words of Joan Osborne express dissatisfaction with such a perception and the inner longing for a more personal and relational experience of God:

“If God had a name, what would it be
And would you call it to his face
If you were faced with him in all his glory
What would you ask if you had just one question”

“What if God was one of us
Just a slob like one of us
Just a stranger on the bus
Trying to make his way home”

Our understanding or perception of God is distorted by an incomplete image of His character that emphasises only one aspect of His nature at the expense of the others. Such an incomplete image can only be remedied by reshaping our thinking about God through a complete revelation, which can be found in the person of Jesus Christ. Evidence of this is revealed in Colossians 2:9 where Paul declares that “in Christ all the fullness of the Deity [God] lives in bodily form”.  Therefore, in Jesus, God is fully revealed.

Charles Sherlock, in his chapter “God on the Inside,” provides us with a detailed description of how Jesus can provide a complete image of God and why this is important in shaping our thinking about who God is:

  

1.    Jesus reveals God as the Lord of Life

       “Christ like spirituality entails an integrated life.”

       Through Jesus we encounter the harmony of God’s ‘grace & truth’, ‘justice & 

       mercy’, ‘holiness & love’.

2.    Jesus reveals God as the Lord of Time

       “It is thus Jesus who makes the difference between our knowing about God’s 

       eternity and our coming to share in God’s eternity.”

       Through Jesus God has entered into our existence and provides us with hope for 

       today and the future.

3.    Jesus reveals God as the Lord of Matter

       “From the womb, through human life, work and relationships, even to death itself, 

        God is intimately involved in all human living, through Jesus.”

       Through Jesus God shares in the limitations of our humanity.

4.    Jesus reveals God as the Lord of Love

       “Jesus has made it possible for us to pray to God as to a loving father who cares 

        for us.”

       Through Jesus God reveals the depth of His love for humankind.

5.    Jesus reveals God as the Lord of All

       “Jesus has done all that is needed for us to know the limitless love and life of 

        God.”

       Through Jesus God has overcome the limitations of humanity, so we may experience 

       His divinity.

6.    Jesus reveals God as the Lord of Space

       “God is God of everywhere, not despite, but precisely because God was 

        somewhere.”

       Through Jesus God “makes room for us” allowing us experience His presence.

7.    Jesus reveals God as the Lord of Wisdom

       “Jesus shows us the wonder of God’s wisdom in his teaching, and in his deep 

        knowledge of God.  Such knowledge nevertheless had its limits.  These limits 

        reflect once more the genuine entering into our world made by God in Christ.”

        Through Jesus God has an intimate knowledge of us that allows us to know God 

        personally.

8.    Jesus reveals God as the Lord of Power

       “The mighty power of God is seen precisely in the just, loving life and death of 

        Jesus.”

        Through Jesus God exercises his “delicate power” that both corrects and heals.

Through Jesus our understanding of God is completed through the revelation of His divine and human natures, embodying the mystery and transcendence of God in human form, thus enabling us to move beyond a mere knowledge of God into an intimate relationship with God.  To quote Sherlock, “God’s goodness is not abstract.  It reflects the inner being of a God who acts – to create, to protect, to rescue.  Jesus himself testifies to the goodness of God.”

In response to Joan Osborne’s searching lyrics, God did indeed become one of us so that we may know Him fully and fulfil the purpose for which we were created, that is, to live in relationship with our Creator.