The importance of unity
Njongonkulu Ndungane, Archbishop of Cape Town and Primate of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, has spoken about the ongoing debates in the Anglican Communion and their effects. In particular, he warns that the arguments (too often polarised and vitriolic) are harmful in themselves and do not reflect Christ. He also warns against the push to codify and legislate the Communion, and against the apparent drive to form a Curia for the Anglican Communion, transforming it into a rigid heirarchy.
Whatever the merits of the various positions on human sexuality, my greatest sadness is that we have allowed ourselves, within the Primates’ Meeting in particular, to lose sight of what it means to live in Communion…I fear we are in danger of setting up something akin to the Roman Curia – and I am especially worried that the Primates, gifted and blessed and called as they are in so many ways, are nonetheless so unrepresentative of the totality of the Body of Christ…
When we look back on the history of the Church, it has always been assailed with divisions to be overcome. The unity of Christ’s people is one of the prime targets of the devil…The devil’s purposes are far better served when people look at us and see us fighting and quarrelling, and doing so in ways that fail to reflect the spirit of charity, tolerance and gracious magnanimity that has always characterised the best of Anglicanism…
I suspect that future generations will see this as something of a storm in a teacup, and certainly not as central to the Christian life. For the centre of Christian life is Jesus Christ. As I said at the TEAM conference, God’s eternal Word did not come as a philosophical concept, nor as a political programme. Nor was the Word made text. But the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.
This is a wise and articulate man, and I’d urge anyone interested in this issue to read what he has to say. I hope and pray that the various Anglican churches, and especially their leaders, listen to him. Sadly, it seems as though he is to retire soon. We need voices like this.
pax et bonum
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Gerald Floyd () (URL)
8:44pm on 16 May 2007
I have taken on board the definition of Christianity that you have used, John. For me being a Christian means living, insofar as we possbly can, as Jesus did. And that means challenging the status quo where it leads to hatred and oppression.
I see Christianity at its strongest in William Wilberforce fighting, year in year out for 18 years, against slavery. It is Desmond Tutu struggling throughout much of his lifetime to remove appartheid.
It should be Christians, in unity, around the world speaking up for the poor, the marginalized, the persecuted and the discriminated against.
Sometimes I think that I, and maybe others – I don’t know, concentrate so hard on having a relationship with God that I forget this wider calling.
And, of course, debating issues like homosexuality within the church, takes us away from a calling (surely) to shout out / act against nations that still to this day condemn homosexuals to death.
Ruth ()
09:27am on 20 May 2007
While I am in full support of unity, it seems rather shortsighted to not look into the history of the church and see that division is necessary when heresy springs forth. Heretics deny the faith, not merely feel different about candles on altars. There are many things we can differ on and be united in Christ, yet, Scripturally and historically, heresies and divisions will occur and in fact, must. The true church thrives when the heresies cause division.
I do think the Nigerian primate has been too heavy handed and overstepped his authority. That said, the ECUSA has been downright defiant of the will of the larger communion. I don’t know what the best answer is, but ‘do nothing’ doesn’t seem to be it.
Ruth,
I’ve been reading John for a few years now, and while I shift my opinion of where he stands back and forth over time, I do think that you have not heard him if you think that being a Christian is merely social action, especially political social action. I do hold that that is a required element of being a Christian, but it is the very relationship you seem to minimize that makes the social action occur. The defiant, unrepentant homosexual is just as likely headed for an unpleasant eternal judgment as the man holding a “God hates fags” sign at a rally. Both have missed the call to deny self, take up our cross, and follow Christ.
It’s the “deny self” part we can’t get past.
Hammertime () (URL)
04:24am on 25 May 2007
Hammer, if you really think that I believe that being a Christian is NOTHING MORE than taking social / political action, then I can see quite clearly why you don’t hold with my approach to being a Christian.
You say “the defiant, unrepentant homosexual is just as likely headed for an unpleasant eternal judgment as the man holding a “God hates fags” sign at a rally”. Setting aside everything else I might like to say about this statement because we’ve covered this ground before, I ask you: this vengeful God of yours who punishes for an eternity those He has created in love: how can you worship and praise him? I couldn’t.
Ruth ()
6:06pm on 25 May 2007
I hope by now you know that I tend to interpret what people write as exactly what the words mean. I am always open to correction as to your meaning when I am too obtuse to get it the first time. I assume that “being a Christian means living, insofar as we possbly can, as Jesus did” means what it seems to say, especially when you clarify “that means challenging the status quo where it leads to hatred and oppression.” That sounds like social and political action are the sum of Christianity to me. Furthermore, as I don’t believe you can have a relationship with God without being moved to social and political action, your comment was difficult to take any other way for me. I appreciate any efforts you’d make to help me understand better.
Why do I praise and worship the God of the Bible?
Because He alone is worthy. He is vengeful, not in the way we conceive of some angry, red-faced man who is angry that you cut him off in traffic – but angry like Jesus in the temple, like Jesus at the Pharisees, like Jesus in his woes to sinners. Sin makes Him angry. We choose our sin, our disobedience, and our eternal judgment when we choose to choose to live for ourselves and our desires and values instead of His.
He is the Creator, Redeemer, Judge, Father, King, Life-giver, Law-giver, and Savior. All things are made by and through him, and he sustains all things, yet he emptied himself out and became of no reputation to pay the price for my sin by being crucified on the cross. What love! What love that is beyond anything I could ever do! How can I not worship and praise Him? Everything He is and everything He has done declares his glory and His worthiness for worship.
I literally have no choice but to worship Him – not because I feel forced to, but because I could do no other. If you knew Him, you would do the same.
Hammertime () (URL)
8:27pm on 25 May 2007
You’re being somewhat disingenuous there. “Living as Jesus did” certainly includes challenging the social order, as you and Ruth both said, but it means far more than that – as you said. So, if you’re taking words to mean “exactly what the words mean”, it’s also worth taking the charitable meaning – to assume that someone means less by those words than you would is to do them a disservice. To echo your words, I think Ruth’s been around here long enough for you to know that she means much more than a crude “Social Gospel” when she talks about Christianity.
To move on to your description of why to worship God, I think you do yourself a disservice. Indeed, it sounds like you worship God because you’ll be punished if you don’t – the service is offered not from love but from fear. This is the God rightly rejected by many atheists as unworthy of the highest aspirations of humanity, the God who is less than His creations. How can our morality be greater than God’s? How can we be held to a higher standard than God is?
And yet, of course, I know that you don’t believe this. Indeed, you go on to add a gloss that completely contradicts it. But this is what you lead with – that we worship God because he is angry and we want to avoid punishment. To set aside choice, as you do sometimes, is no answer to this criticism. Only the hypercalvinist can escape this option (into much greater problems, as you discuss in your recent post).
I recall something Mother Teresa was reported to have said, and that I quoted at my baptism service: “I wish that I had not heaven to gain nor hell to avoid, that I might love Him for His own sake.“ That is, that even if God was not angry with sin, even if we had no eternal life to look forward to, even if all that awaited us at death (whether we are good or evil) was ending, still God would be worthy of our love and adoration and worship. Emphasising what we have to gain from loving God only cheapens that love.
Finally, your last sentence is presumptuous and I’d ask you to retract it. This is my blog, and I appreciate courtesy among my commenters. You’ve said this sort of thing before and I’ve objected. Even if you were in a position to judge Ruth’s heart, it would be inappropriate.
pax et bonum
[John] () (URL)
9:53pm on 25 May 2007
As to your former comment, the point of Archbishop Ndungane’s comments are not to urge unity at all costs. Quite the reverse, in fact. He is objecting to a certain authoritarian strand in the current Anglican debate, that is trying to change the fellowship of equals into a council of the Primates. The roles and ministry of lay, deacons and priests would be sidelined by this emerging authority. And this is, in fact, the root of much of the rejection by TEC of the proposals being made – TEC is probably the most democratic and lay-oriented of the Anglican churches.
You mention history, and it’s also worth remembering that the Anglican communion has weathered greater theological storms than this – the debate over the position of women was at least as biblically grounded, and yet there was no schism. There have been others, too. And yet only now do we have this urge to schism. There must be something else going on, and this vision of authority and power seems to be at the heart of it – the need of some to impose their wills on all. This is totally against the Anglican spirit, which is founded on compromise and tolerance and patience.
pax et bonum
[John] () (URL)
9:59pm on 25 May 2007
I am surprised. You are typically very astute in deciphering even my most poorly worded comments, but here you dropped the ball. My worship of God has nothing to do with his righteous wrath. I began with that because it was Ruth’s question – how can I worship a God who hates sin, who is the God of the Bible, who is “a vengeful God who punishes for eternity”. Thus, I began my explanation with that thought.
I disagree that I was being disingenuous. I interpreted “living as Jesus did” as “that means challenging the status quo” because that was the qualifier. I am always open to correction, and with our friend Ruth I do not know what she means when she talks about ‘Christianity’, since she refuses the right of the New Testament to define sin, has denied the resurrection, has called various gospel narratives myths, etc. I have great difficulty grasping what she is following, and if one denies what the Bible says about God, than how can they know the God of the Bible?
I understand you object to my questioning a person’s faith. Riddle me this – why can Ruth question mine? Is “how do you worship this God that I cannot” any different than “you do not worship my God?” Particularly when she clearly states that she does not worship a holy God who hates and punishes sin? There is a world of difference between our disagreement on what hell may be and her denial of the very concept. “the vengeful God” she denies says “Vengeance is mine, I will repay.” The God of Isaiah 63 seem to be rather unforgiving of sin, while he yet calls himself “mighty to save.” God indeed will take vengeance, not I.
How can we judge a person’s heart?
“For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” – Jesus of Nazareth, ca. AD 33, as recorded in Matthew 12.
All that said, I have no desire to run Ruth or anyone off by comments that would keep them away. I would stop commenting on your blog before I did that. If you prefer, I can keep my comments directed only toward your posts and comments that ask me to respond. I do desire to be at peace with all as much as it is in my possession, and I understand that sometimes that means shutting up or going away.
As far as the retraction, I can retract it by stating that I am sorry I said it, that shutting down conversation is never my goal and if such words do this, then I am completely at fault. I can promise never to utter them on your blog again. If that is not sufficient, let me know.
Hammertime () (URL)
05:30am on 26 May 2007
Hammertime () (URL)
05:42am on 26 May 2007
Oh dear. I’ve caused a to-do. I’m sorry. I don’t want to cause problems in your discussions, you two. You’ve been debating for a long time and I don’t want you to stop because of my interventions. if anyone is to stop commenting here, it should be me and not Hammer.
You have my permision, both of you, to question and disagree with what I say on this blog. I am not here to win an argument at all (if I wanted to win an argument, I’d choose a different subject for debate and different sparring partners!!!
I am here to get at the truth.
Anyway Hammer, you’ve given me another opportunity to clarify some of what I believe. This comment is going to be awfully long and probably boring, but I feel I have to address the points you’ve made about me, Hammer.
You say:
“...and with our friend Ruth I do not know what she means when she talks about ‘Christianity’, since she refuses the right of the New Testament to define sin, has denied the resurrection, has called various gospel narratives myths, etc. I have great difficulty grasping what she is following, and if one denies what the Bible says about God, than how can they know the God of the Bible?”
OK, let’s start with “she refuses the right of the NT to define sin” – not quite sure what you mean by “refuses the right of the NT to define sin”, but will admit to having had questions about sin. And certainly, as I now reach a definition of ‘sin’, it differs from your definition.
“..has denied the resurrection”. No. I quoted an evaluation of the biblical writings about the resurrection from another blog. I considered that there are grounds for denying the resurrection – and I still consider that there are grounds for denying the resurrection. But I do not deny the resurrection.
“.. has called various gospel narratives myths”. I don’t know whether I used the word ‘myth’ (as that word does seem to suggest that they are of little value), but I don’t beleive that the bible is inerrant. I believe that it was very much penned by human hands, by people who were inspired by God, but not guided by God to provide absolute, God-breath, literal truth. But that doesn’t mean that I have any less regard for the bible than you do.
And finally “I have great difficulty grasping what she is following,”. Fair point. My beliefs are not concrete. I am on a quest to discover the nature of God and how we should respond to Him. I am on a quest to understand the life of Jesus and what we learn from his life and death. You and John are far more advanced on your journey than I am.
I will never reach my destination in this life. What I believe that we are dealing with here is a concept so great that when we study it closely,we lose the whole, and when we ‘stand back’ to look at the whole we can’t see the whole because it’s too large for the human eye to behold.
Ruth ()
07:38am on 26 May 2007
This topic deserves a book, not a comment!
Of course you can go to the OT and find dozens of passages to support the view that God is vengeful.
But consider this:
Luke 23, v 34: “Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”
Had these people turned to Christ? No – they were killing Him. Were they repentant? No – they were about to “part his raiment and cast lots”
And
Luke 23, vv42-43: “And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, Verily, I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in Paradise”
And to THAT I’d add your beautifully written paragraph: What love! What love that is beyond anything I could ever do! How can I not worship and praise Him? Everything He is and everything He has done declares his glory and His worthiness for worship.
Ruth ()
07:53am on 26 May 2007
Ruth ()
07:56am on 26 May 2007
I want you to know that I really do enjoy talking with you – you are never boring! As someone whose theology is not well-developed, you provide me with many challenges because I have to be clear, concise and not make assumptions that I often do with, say, John. I’m often not successful, but I am tailor-made for challenges, and I am better for discussing these kinds of things with you. Thank you for allowing me to!
Sin and the New Testament. You define sin as, as best as I can recall and formulate, ‘something that hurts other people’. The Bible defines sin as ‘something which is against God’s laws’. Jesus called lust for a woman who is not your wife a sin – but your definition does not. If your current definition is well off from this, let me know.
Denying the resurrection. I tried to be specific with my words. I spoke in the present tense about your definition of sin, but in the past tense regarding the resurrection because I knew you had changed what you were saying about it. What I was unable to decipher is why you changed it. The denial was based upon skeptics’ claims about the veracity of the NT, but your embrace was seemingly because you read the NT descriptions. I never really figured you out there.
Denying the birth narratives. Without the time to dig around on this blog and others, I can’t quote you, but I distinctly remember that you did not believe the birth narratives for various reasons. I wasn’t sure if this had changed, too, so I put this in the past tense. From what you say, it can also be present tense.
God of wrath. We both agree that the OT contains many references to God’s wrath. Before I mention some NT examples, can you tell me why we just dismiss this as a facet of God’s character?
NT examples – I’ll limit it to the gospels, because you seem to believe that they are somehow more authoritative. I believe no such thing, but it makes sense to work where it will be most effective.
John the Baptist – “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath!”
Jesus – “Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, and let those who are inside the city depart, and let not those who are out in the country enter it, or these are days of vengeance, to fulfill all that is written. Alas for women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days! For there will be great distress upon the earth and wrath against this people.”
Jesus – “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.”
Jesus – “I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him!”
Jesus – “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. But it will be more bearable in the judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You shall be brought down to Hades.”
With this demonstrated, why do you believe we can cast this aspect of God’s nature aside?
I do not, and have not, claimed to know a God who is primarily vengeful. I know a God who is primarily holy, and is also spirit, light, love, righteous, merciful, graceful, and mighty, to name a few. If I know a God for whom wrath is a part of His character, and you know no such God, can we claim to worship the same God? I know John says yes, which is why I am flummoxed at his recent rebuke of me.
Hammertime () (URL)
9:15pm on 27 May 2007
Thanks for your kind words, and for your comment.
Your comment is very thought-provoking and I will be back with my thoughts. But my son has caught chicken pox and isn’t very well. I just need to tend to him – he’s especially run down with it in the evenings (when I like to do my blogging)!
Your comment deserves my full attention, and at the moment I’m a bit distracted.
I’ll be back.
Thanks again.
Ruth ()
9:28pm on 28 May 2007
‘My worship of God has nothing to do with his righteous wrath. I began with that because it was Ruth’s question – how can I worship a God who hates sin, who is the God of the Bible, who is “a vengeful God who punishes for eternity”. Thus, I began my explanation with that thought.‘
Fair enough. As I said, I know that you don’t start from a position of “God is wrath”. It was just that it sounded like that was what you were attempting to justify – by starting there, you seemed to be misrepresenting yourself. Partly, it’s because you are (I suspect) translating Ruth’s question into your terms and losing part of the meaning in the process.
That is, Ruth asked, “this vengeful God of yours who punishes for an eternity those He has created in love: how can you worship and praise him?“ This isn’t identical to, “Why do I praise and worship the God of the Bible?“. At least, it’s not a trivial equivalence. Ruth’s question (it seems to me) focuses on the clash between love and eternal punishment. Your answer doesn’t address the point of how these two things can be reconciled (and, indeed, whether they need to be) and instead looks at why sin is a problem. This is a related issue, but it’s not the same.
Not least, your interpolation of “God of the Bible” is precisely the point Ruth was asking about. When some people read the Bible, they are left with the impression that the God it describes is wrathful and acts out of that wrath. Others, reading the same Bible and in the same Spirit, are left with the impression that the God it describes is loving and acts out of that love. Of course, these two are not mutually exclusive ideas. However, when these two different views are taken as starting points, they can seem rather at odds.
Indeed, you know that you cannot “prove” that God is wrathful simply by quoting the OT. For I could prove in the same way that God is neither omniscient nor constant – there are plenty of passages in the OT that talk of God changing His mind as new information becomes available. Of course, you and I have a theology that accommodates that language within a framework of divine omniscience and constancy. Just so, many Christians have a theology that accommodates the OT language of divine wrath within a framework of divine love. It’s not that we dismiss it or “explain it away”. It’s more that we are forced by our understanding of God to realise that the biblical language sometimes speaks more of the limitations of the human author than of the divine truth. (And I know that this may sound like heresy to you – but remember that you do precisely the same thing when it comes to those passages that talk about God changing His mind.)
So, when someone asks how you can worship a God who creates human beings for love comes to punish them without limit and without end, it is unlikely to be helpful to lead with that wrath. What is needed is to try and communicate how the wrath is compatible with the love – for love is a higher and more complete description of who and what God is. At least, in the eye of the questioner, and of a respectable proportion of Christians through the ages, that is true.
‘I interpreted “living as Jesus did” as “that means challenging the status quo” because that was the qualifier.‘
But Ruth didn’t say “only”. That was your insertion. Ruth (and many Christians throughout the ages) feel that a driving force of her faith is social action. This is not a bad or a wrong thing. For others, the driving force of their faith is individual contemplation, or serving the Church, or many other things. Of this diversity is the Church made. Each of us expresses different facets of the whole to different extents and this is good. We should all express all facets to some extent, which is where it sometimes gets difficult.
‘I understand you object to my questioning a person’s faith. Riddle me this – why can Ruth question mine? Is “how do you worship this God that I cannot” any different than “you do not worship my God?”‘
Yes, because the first is a question and the second an accusation. The first allows the answer, “I don’t, because we have not understood one another,” but the second allows no answer at all. There is all the difference in the world. They may express the same position, but the way that they do so is crucial. It’s the shift from the first to the second that I find hard to deal with. We can question one another about why we understand God the way we do, even disagree vociferously, as long as we remain open to one another. Once we declare that we worship different gods, we have moved from struggling together to understand the Creator and Redeemer of the world, to struggling against one another.
If Ruth isn’t clear about what she believes, she has been quite clear about why not – she is on a journey towards understanding (as are we all). Asking for certainty when the heart holds mostly questions rather than answers is unlikely to succeed. And, after all, our salvation does not rest on our having those answers but on the God who came and lived among us, and who broke the power of death and sin.
pax et bonum
[John] () (URL)
3:58pm on 29 May 2007
To touch on one thing in your reply to Ruth above:
“The Bible defines sin as ‘something which is against God’s laws’.“
Actually, I think you’d be hard pressed to prove that. Certainly, that’s one definition, but Jesus is rather clear that a great many things are sinful that are not forbidden by the Law. Indeed, Jesus goes to great lengths to show that Law is not enough for righteousness. Paul goes even further, saying that the Law is death and that we are no longer in bondage to it.
That is, Law and Sin have a complex relationship for Christians, and we cannot say that sin is simply “what breaks God’s Law”. That answer sufficed for the Jews, but Jesus brought a greater and more complicated answer. And yet it was at the same time simpler and more basic. We may break the Law and yet be saved (Jesus justified his disciples breaking the Law by picking and eating grain on the Sabbath, and Himself frequently provoked the authorities by healing on the Sabbath). And we may keep the Law and yet miss the point (as with the rich young man, who was told to sell all he had and follow Jesus).
pax et bonum
[John] () (URL)
4:02pm on 29 May 2007
But still, here goes.
If you believe that the bible is the inerrant word of God and that it is breathed by Him, then I am not going to set out to persuade you otherwise, nor would I (of all people) ever succeed in persuading you otherwise.
But I do not believe that the bible is the inerrant word of God – breathed by Him, and this presents me with challenges. One of my challenges is to make sure that I do not choose the ‘word of Ruth’ over the word of God. I have no desire to pick and choose the bits of the bible I like and decide that those are the true bits – and to discard the bits that I don’t like as ‘untrue’. So I can’t look at the passages you’ve quoted form the NT, Hammer, and disregard them because I don’t like them. It has to be recognised that once someone like me comes to understand that A PART of the bible is not actually literally true and/or is not the God-breathed word, there becomes a quest to re-examine the whole book to establish the nature of the truth that it contains. And this has to be done with rigour and intellect if faith is to be founded on rock and not on sand. In my attempt to understand the bible, I am criticaly evauating how others interpret it and taking a special interest in those who wrote it and the times in which they lived. In order to understand the nature of God, I rely upon what Jesus teaches us about Him. I also rely upon what those chosen / called by God have to say about Him and finally upon my own personal experience of God.
Before I turn, specifically, to the NT passages Hammer has cited to support the argument that God is, in part, a God of wrath and vengence, I’d like to outline why I do not think that God is a God of wrath and vengence. (I accept that I might be wrong in my view that he is entirely a God of love, and I’ll address that at the end of my comment). But here’s why I take the view that God is a God of love (sorry – I’m starting to confuse myself here, never mind anyone else. Right, get on with it). Actually, I’ll just post the comment so far, in case I accidentally press the wrong button and delete it or something, and then I’ll continue with a fresh comment.
Ruth ()
8:04pm on 29 May 2007
1) and in no particular order: Great thinkers hold Him to be a God of Love. Charles Wesley said God is “Great Universal Love” – and to my mind that leaves no room for wrath. St Julian of Norwich, who spent a lifetime of prayer and devotion to Him after receiving divine visions, describes how we are enfolded in His love.
2) I’ve not been the most devout or informed Christians, but I’ve been hanging on in there for a lifetime and my relationship with God thus far has revealed nothing but love, marred by two circumstances of my own making. Firstly, when I turn away from God and won’t accept His love, and secondly when I lost to sin. Under neither of these circumstances does God turn from being loving to vengeful; He just can not exhibit His love when someone will not allow Him to do so. I do not consider misfortune or suffering to be a sign of God’s wrath, by the way.
3) Because despite the passages Hammer has cited above I still believe that Jesus taught us that He is a God of love.
And here’s where I turn to those passages cited above. It is not that Jesus doesn’t exhibit anger – he loathes hypocrisy and false piety and he is greatly concerned with the harmful effect that wealth and violence can have on morality. But what He advocates is forgiveness, reconciliation and the love of neighbour.
Do I struggle with the passages you’ve cited, Hammer? Yes I do. Let’s take one of them at random just to remind ourselves of their nature and tone:
Jesus – “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.”
This seems to me to totally go against Jesus’ teachings of reconciliation and forgiveness. How can He teach the value of reconciliation and forgiveness and then make statements like that? How do you reconcile one with the other? If you take all that is written as inerrant, how do you reconcile one with the other? At least, with my view that the bible is not inerrant or God-breathed, I have the freedom to explore whether some of the writings are ‘of their time’ and coloured by the nature and objectives of the writers.
To be honest, there’s more besides what you’ve quoted above, Hammer, that troubles me about Jesus as portrayed in the NT gospels. To cut to the quick, if some of it were literally true, I am presented with a God I can not adore or worship. So my choice is either to walk away or to delve deeper into the minds of the writers of the Gospels and explore why they presented their writings as they did. And that is what I have chosen to do.
Finally, if I am wrong and God is, to some extent, a God of wrath, I say let HIM get on with it. It’s when those amongst us feel entitled or called to help Him on His way and assist with the judging that trouble starts (and I am not accusing you of doing that, Hammer). None of us can cast the first stone, not one of us.
Ruth ()
8:58pm on 29 May 2007
For John, only three. Ruth’s question (it seems to me) focuses on the clash between love and eternal punishment. Your answer doesn’t address the point of how these two things can be reconciled (and, indeed, whether they need to be) and instead looks at why sin is a problem. Yet, I disagree. The clash between love and eternal punishment exists precisely because sin is the problem. No sin, no need for eternal punishment. Yet the fundamental difference between Ruth’s image of God and mine is that to her, sin isn’t a big deal. She recognizes that some things are bad, but in the end God forgives everyone because He is compassionate. Well, except maybe really bad people, but how are we defining who is really bad? How do we justify drawing that line? And isn’t it interesting that those who hold such a position never consider themselves the really bad people?
Yes, because the first is a question and the second an accusation. I don’t see it. Ruth knows that I worship a God that has traits she does not embrace. She knows that our image of God is fundamentally different. She also knows my belief in the inerrancy of scripture, and if she read my series on that, knows what that means (and yes, it includes that the writers tended to anthropomorphize God – historical, hardly heresy). Thus, she knows that I believe in a God who has fundamentally different traits than hers – my God is a God of wrath and love, hers love only. My God’s most fundamental characteristic is holiness – she believes in a Marcus Borg God whose central trait is compassion.
You created the false dilemma between a God of wrath and a God of love, John – not me. They are nowhere close to mutually exclusive – they exist in the same being, the same way you can love your child and be angry with her when she is defiant. God is not single –faceted, and I never represented him as such.
God’s law. I didn’t capitalize it purposely. I have never held to sin defined by the Law of the Jews. Jesus is God, remember? When he says lusting after a woman in your heart is sin, he is stating a law of God. You can call it precepts, or rules, or commands, or directives. Furthermore you fundamentally misunderstand Paul if you think that our release from the bondage of sin means that sin is no longer sin. Coveting is a sin, no matter if one is Jew or Gentile, Christian or non-Christian. The bondage we are released from is trying to justify ourselves by our works by obeying the law. The Law is death – to all who have attempted to live by the law. It is more than just that, it is our schoolmaster, which shows us how sinful we are. When we dismiss the Scripture’s right to define sin, we remove our receptiveness to the one who shows us how far we have fallen. If we aren’t dead in our sin, bound to sin, and blinded by our sin, then we don’t need to be made alive, freed, or given sight.
Ruth,
I have no desire to pick and choose the bits of the bible I like and decide that those are the true bits – and to discard the bits that I don’t like as ‘untrue’. I’m sorry, but that’s all you are left with. I’m saying you are trying to deceive me, but you are deceiving yourself. Since you have chosen to give God some traits in the Bible and not others, you will be drawn to those “chosen/called by God” that reinforce that concept. You’ll agree with NT Wright on eschatology, but not homosexuality. You’ll agree with Borg’s God and not Packer’s. You’ll look at the apparent conflict between wrath and love and conclude that wrath cannot be. You’ll approve of St. Francis’ words on poverty, but not his words on judgment. In the end, after years of “searching”, you’ll find that the God you follow looks pretty much the same as where you started.
There are those who are searching – but I don’t think you are among them. I think you have chosen already, and you are searching for support for your theory. And you’ll find it!
I, too, have chosen, or been chosen, really. As such, you are right that I will not be convinced that the traits given to God in the Bible are not there, or are somehow wrong. I will strive to make it make sense. Yet, if you seek to make it all make sense, let me point out why your three legs don’t hold up:
1) Great thinkers hold Him to be a God of Love. Any position can be supported this way. Great thinkers also have concluded he does not exist. Great thinkers have concluded that he exists and is capricious. Great thinkers have concluded that he is a God of wrath and of love. Your choice to only accept a God of love exclusively will lead you to those “great thinkers.” By the way, Charles Wesley also wrote of God’s wrath as a real trait of his. I am not impressed by Julian of Norwich. Mohamed also claim to receive visions and make stuff up. I do not wish to smear her character, but simply point out that a claim of visions doesn’t quite crack the “authority” shell for me, especially when her declarations contradict Scripture directly.
2) my relationship with God thus far has revealed nothing but love. Again, an individual’s experience can be used to justify any concept of God. Indeed, it does every day, whether they are atheists, liberals, orthodox or legalists. He just can not exhibit His love when someone will not allow Him to do so. Really? How so? Where do you get this idea? Please address this.
I agree on suffering, especially since those who attempt to live a life of godliness are promised persecution!
3) Because despite the passages Hammer has cited above I still believe that Jesus taught us that He is a God of love. First, you support your belief by stating another belief. Second, you fundamentally misunderstand me if you think I say anything else. I say much more – that Jesus taught us that God is love, that he doesn’t want the empty ritual, that we are sinners, deserving of eternal punishment, that we need His grace, and that we cannot attain to it on our own. You see, to me, the love of God is defined by the giving of His son. Romans 5:8 tells us that God demonstrated His love for us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. If sin doesn’t yield God’s wrath, why did Christ have to die? How was letting his Son be tortured and murdered love? Aren’t there better, less gory ways of doing this? And if so, doesn’t that make God seem pretty unwise?
So my choice is either to walk away or to delve deeper into the minds of the writers of the Gospels and explore why they presented their writings as they did. Really? How do you do this? They have been gone for 2000 years, with only the Bible to speak for them. We can’t imagine what they were thinking – we just have to believe that they knew what they were doing, that they meant what they said. Think of Paul’s letters. When you write a letter, do you out all kinds of tricky things in it that the reader won’t be able to figure out? Especially when you have important stuff to tell them? If you mean look into the culture to better understand things like what it means to have a booth in a vineyard (Isaiah 1), then you are on track. But if you mean that when Luke recounts the sudden deaths of Ananias and Sapphira because they lied to God and men, he is really making up a story to make a point in the middle of what is possibly the most historically accurate document of antiquity we have – well, you’re only looking for support for your theory – and again, you’ll find it.
How can He teach the value of reconciliation and forgiveness and then make statements like that? How do you reconcile one with the other? If you take all that is written as inerrant, how do you reconcile one with the other? I’m glad you asked! After all, it some seem to be, if not the main issue, a serious one for our discussion.
Jesus never says God forgives everyone. He only ever says that God forgives those who believe on the Son. Thus, the statements are not inherently contradictory, because the statements about God do not conflict.
Yet, they may seem to be implicitly contradictory. How can God tell me to forgive when He does not in some cases? He is holy, Ruth. I am not. I sin. God never has. When I sin against God and man, I do something to Him he has never and will never do to anyone else. Yet my sin that is also against a brother is against another sinner. We don’t throw stones, indeed. I forgive a man for his sin against me because I am acutely aware of my own sinfulness, that I am no better than Him, and he is no less deserving of forgiveness than I would be.
Yet with God it is not so. He does not sin. He is better than me. I am not the eternal judge of my fellow man, but God is the eternal judge of me. There is nothing in God’s character that demands he forgive my rebellion of sin. Instead, his character demand that sin be punished. He said it would be so from the beginning, and he is always true to his word. Always. I began preaching a series in Isaiah tonight, with the first installment being 1:1-1:15. God hates sin. He hates our hypocrisy. He doesn’t hear the prayers of the disobedient. Through Christ we are all given the opportunity to be His children, yet we rebel: “even the ox and the donkey know their masters, but Israel does not know me or understand.” Can you not read this section, or the entirety of the Bible, and not come to the conclusion that sin is the problem? What do you think the gospel is?
He is a God of love – and wrath, and mercy, and judgment. He gives and takes away life, he makes well-being and calamity, he makes light and creates darkness. He is God. He is not us.
Wow, that’s enough. I need to go to bed!
Hammertime () (URL)
05:37am on 31 May 2007
That is a very good response. I agree with you in relation to the problems that I face in my approach to the bible. I am in danger of taking on board the bits I agree with and continuing to grapple with the bits I don’t like until I find an intellectual argument that allows me to disregard those bits. There is that danger. It is something I work to avoid. You are right when you say I’ll agree with NT Wright on eschatology but not on homosexuality. I was getting on very well with NT Wright until I read what he had to say on homosexuality, and then I had to put the book down.
I was very relieved when I finished reading a book about ‘the bible as a historical document’ by a well-educated Ancient Historian who was an atheist, that I still believed in God.
Except for this: it is not merely the bits I don’t like that cause me to question. Really it’s not. Let’s take the creation – I would LOVE for the world to have been created in 6 days in the way described in Genesis. I know that the scriptures don’t say that it happened 6,000 years ago but sums have been done to calculate that biblical inerrancy means it would have been – that would be great. I would feel all the more significant as the speck of dust that I am in this universe if I as part of a short creation, rather than one that’s billions of years old.
And then this. And this brings me right to the heart of my very original problem with this whole thing – the thing that kicked me off thinking about it all in the first place. You say:
“As such, you are right that I will not be convinced that the traits given to God in the Bible are not there, or are somehow wrong. I will strive to make it make sense.”
“I will strive to make it make sense”.
Setting aside the fact that I might struggle to do that (and I’ve not listed all of my ‘issues in the bible that don’t quite make sense’ (for want of a better phrase) here). I’m afraid to say that I don’t feel motivated to strive to make it all make sense. And I don’t feel motivated to strive to make it all make sense because of what I see in the bahaviours of those who do (and not you, Hammer. This is NOT a personal attack against you). Please bear with me – and please know that I am not aiming this at you. But what I see (so this is my perception) in the behaviours of many (but not all) biblical literalists is this:
1) condemnation of and discrimination against their fellow human beings who are homosexual (despite Jesus’ clear teaching on moral sin being ‘let he who is without sin cast the first stone’)
2) preaching of an ‘end of the world is nigh’ message to the poverty stricken in parts of Africa, encouraging people to focus solely on the bible and not to protect themselves against aids or build hospitals or schools because the world is about to end anyway
3) lack of environmental concern for the same reason given in (2) above
4) a firm belief in the fact that theirs is the only way to God
5) a lot of talk of Hell, Fire and Damnation and a great deal of angry faces amongst those who preach
I am not attracted to joining in.
Ruth ()
11:50am on 31 May 2007
That was very succinct and helped me understand even more. I have to ask – did you read my series on inerrancy? Because statements like “sums have been done to calculate that biblical inerrancy means [the earth] would have been [6,000 years old]” demonstrate a confusion between inerrancy and literalism. I believe that one can be an “old earth” inerrantist or a “young earth” inerrantist. I’ll do a post soon on why.
As far as “it is not merely the bits I don’t like that cause me to question. Really it’s not” goes, perhaps “like” was a poor word choice. What I meant was that you would discount whatever doesn’t fit into your current worldview. This example would reinforce that, because your worldview does not include a God who has transmitted specific things about himself and preserved them for us, while also holding current scientific theories to be highly trustworthy authorities. Thus, when the majority of the scientific community says the earth is 4.6 billion years old (which it may be), and someone tells you the Bible says otherwise, your worldview leads you to embrace the scientific answer and label the Bible as errant. Personally, I think the age of the earth of little consequence to my value or lack thereof in the eyes of God – because the God of the Bible knows me intimately…and you.
By quickly looking at your five points, I hope to ease some of your concerns about inerrancy as a doctrine and what it means.
1) I’m not sure what you mean by “condemnation and discrimination”. I won’t let a homosexual man spend time alone with my male child, just as I would not let a heterosexual man spend time alone with my female child. I call homosexuality sin – I also call lying and lust sin. I’m not sure if those qualify for condemnation and discrimination.
2) Who is doing this? No one I know of. My church is a conservative evangelical one, and we do missions to East Africa that do both. I have never heard of anyone who does what you say.
3) Who is doing this, either? No one I read or listen to. There are varying ideas on how to care for our environment, the largest gulf being government-mandated versus economically driven. However, I have never heard anyone stating what you feel inerrantists say and believe.
4) Again, the term here varies the answer. Jesus Christ is the only way to God. Being an English speaking Southern Baptist is not, nor is being a Calvinist, creationist, or many other things. However, that does mean a few things propositionally, and a few things non-propositionally. It is exclusive in those few things, but is also inclusive in all else.
5) Can you name some conservative evangelical inerrantists who do this? If you considered two years of my blog, my most recent hell series was the first time I ever devoted even a post to it (though the Mrs. Included it in several posts). Yet, neither she nor I, as we can tell, are “angry” or have “red faces” – nor can we think of a serious evangelical leader we could characterize this way. Mind you, we aren’t saying they don’t get angry – but so do universalists. That seems to be a human trait.
Perhaps the single question that might narrow the rest would be – where do you get these ideas about inerrantists? Because, I wouldn’t be interested in joining these people either! Have you spent time in their churches? Ate dinner in their homes? If we can both agree that I am an inerrantist (and not a literalist) and you know us reasonably well from our blog, and say we aren’t what you are describing, who is? Perhaps if I knew your data set I could explain it. What I worry is that your primary source of info is a combination of wackos on the internet or the street and a media and national church that is hostile to the gospel, and seeks to characterize us this way. That’s why I tried to direct you to Packer – he doesn’t fit any of those descriptors. However, I don’t know how he is characterized in the UK.
Keep seeking,
Hammertime () (URL)
05:01am on 01 June 2007
I have appreciated this discussion. It has been very thought-provoking. One of the things that it has made me realise is that it’s not someone’s take on the bible that bothers me in the slightest. It is how people manifest their take on the bible: how they behave in accordance with their beliefs. And here, as it turns out, and this is a cause of great happiness to me, you and I are, at least in part, in unity. In addressing my 5 points above you have made me see that. I am so happy to read you say: “where do you get these ideas about inerrantists? Because, I wouldn’t be interested in joining these people either”.
I would take issue with you on point (1) – where you state homosexuality is a sin. And, sadly, that’s the point that seems to cause disunity in the church. (I’m not talking about fathers not allowing their sons to be alone with any man, I’m talking everything from presecution & physical violence to workplace discrimination and stiffling of vocation – all of which is fuelled by those who preach that homosexuality is a sin, whether or not they overtly advocate these behaviours).
And I would strongly urge you to read about the work of some End-Timers in Uganda, and elsewhere in Africa. I could quote some of what I’ve read here, but I’m not sure of copywrite rules…?
Ruth ()
07:16am on 01 June 2007
Hammer, are you suggesting that Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection were a reaction to sin (i.e. that sin somehow motivated God to do other than He planned to do before sin existed)?
I would take issue with you on point (1) – where you state homosexuality is a sin. And, sadly, that’s the point that seems to cause disunity in the church. (I’m not talking about fathers not allowing their sons to be alone with any man, I’m talking everything from presecution & physical violence to workplace discrimination and stiffling of vocation – all of which is fuelled by those who preach that homosexuality is a sin, whether or not they overtly advocate these behaviours).
Ruth, I’ve read this discussion with much interest; and though I don’t share your view of the Bible, per se, I think that you’ve touched upon an example of hypocrisy, with respect to a vocal majority of self-described Evangelicals (I wouldn’t place Hammer in this category, despite the fact that I’m slightly more liberal on this issue that he is): that homosexuality is somehow a greater sin than, say, infidelity, which is basically lying.
I’ve thought about it (and struggled with it, as Romans 1:27 is rather unambiguous) at some length; and my preliminary conclusion is that—as heterosexuals—‘we’ tend to separate sin into two categories: the ones that are likely to befall ‘us’ versus those that beset ‘them’. Nevertheless, I believe that if God calls a certain behavior sin, then I can hardly argue with Him. That said, however, we certainly cannot forget to remove the mote from our own eye, before we’re concerned with our neighbor’s speck.
[Robert Bell] () (URL)
01:13am on 03 June 2007
As an infralapsarian, I believe that God purposed before the foundation of the world in this order:
Creation
Allow sin to occur
Elect some
Purpose the Atonement as the method of salvation
I assume you are a supralapsarian, assuming that God purposed before the foundation of the world in this order:
Elect some
Purpose the Atonement for the method of salvation
Allow the fall (you might eliminate the word “allow”)
I would hold that our (assumed) difference here is more a function of our other positions than the reverse.
Ruth,
I don’t deny that some wackos do what you say in Africa. What I deny is that they even remotely represent the majority of conservative evangelicals. That you think they do makes me suspect a self-fulfilling prophecy: if conservative evangelicals are really heartless wackos, aren’t our arguments pretty easy to blow off?
John,
You have said before, as close to quoting as I can, that “we can follow Christ without knowing Him”. If this is true, why can I not say that you do not know God? You would hold that we can both be followers and one of us completely wrong about key attributes of Him. I’m not asking you to retread that line of reasoning, I just want to know why we can’t question each other’s knowledge any more.
Hammertime () (URL)
04:04am on 10 June 2007
Questioning is fine. Accusation isn’t.
The difference is between “How can you…?” and “You are a…”.
I was also interested in your “order of events” lists. I am much closer to your first list, although I think my list would be closer to:
Create the world
Allow sin to occur
Choose the Son’s Incarnation, death and resurrection as the method of salvation
Redeem Creation
pax et bonum
[John] () (URL)
09:09am on 10 June 2007
I finally get it. It required an attack upon my motives by someone I did not expect to make me realize it. Perhaps because I am and expect to be accused of various untrue things by liberals I am immune to attack from that quarter. But, when a person I consider an ally accused me of ignoring “what the Bible says” in favor of some other preference – with no evidence, mind you – then I saw that accusations, at least from those whose opinion you consider worthwhile, are detrimental to discourse.
I’ll be more careful in the future. I apologize for previous sins in this area.
Also, I’m curious about your word selection above. I would agree that creation has been reconciled, or made peace with. Yet I would disagree that creation has been redeemed. What is your basis for such an apparent universal redemption?
Hammertime () (URL)
04:40am on 11 June 2007
It looks as though you both agree that Christ’s effectual, salvific work on the cross was indeed a reaction to the fall, as opposed to having been pre-ordained by God, and in accordance with His plan.
I’ll grant that, chronologically, your lists make sense; but, theologically, they seem rather naďve.
Can either of you justify your positions?
(That is, not even with a slew of Bible passages, necessarily. Just succinctly make the case logically, with Scripture in mind…without contradicting what God’s Word has already said.)
[Robert Bell] () (URL)
1:13pm on 11 June 2007
I don’t mean that every part of Creation will necessarily be redeemed. Rather, I mean that Creation itself will be rescued from the effects of sin and made anew – a perfectly Scriptural view. The difference is more one of emphasis. Your list focuses on the individual human being. I believe that this is not what the Bible presupposes or teaches. God is concerned with and rescues individuals, yes – but God also deals with nations and peoples and even the whole world. That larger picture is required to make sense of much of the Bible, and much of the Christian faith.
Robert,
Yes, I believe that the Atonement is a reaction by God to the Fall. Indeed, I fail to see how it can be anything else – not chronologically (I’m not suggesting that God changed His plans after humanity sinned) but logically. That is, how can the Atonement make sense without sin already being? In other words, God became Incarnate because God knew that the Fall would happen, because God decided to Create in such a way that it would happen. The Incarnation is a response by God to sin – not a reaction after the fact but a response to what God knew would happen, which He planned before the world was made and without which Creation itself makes no sense.
God could choose some human beings for eternal life and others for damnation without sin being necessary (I don’t believe that this is where God started, but it’s possible). But how can God then choose the Atonement as the means of salvation without first allowing the possibility of sin? Without sin, there can be no forgiveness, no redemption, no atonement. (Don’t get me wrong – sinlessness would be far better than redemption. But redemption requires sin, else there would be nothing to redeem.)
To try and clariify – my list (and, I’m sure, Hammer’s) are not chronological accounts of “things that happened”. Rather, they’re attempts to reconstruct God’s thought processes, to work out which things were God’s prime intentions and which were results of those.
So, I do not believe (and I do not believe that the Bible teaches) that God’s first intention was to choose a few humans and to damn the rest, then that God thought that sacrificing Himself would be a good way to bring that about, and therefore decided to allow sin in order for Him to have something to sacrifice Himself for, and that God then decided to create the world so as to bring that about.
It seems to me that the Biblical picture is far more along these lines. God is, and God is Love. Therefore, God decides to Create, and specifically to create a world with the possibility of both love and sin. For that possibility to be genuine, there must necessarily be sin. God does not want any to perish, and therefore God decided that the centre and focus of Creation would be His own Incarnation, and that this Act would bring about redemption. And all of this is before the world was made.
So, we have, logically, a structure in which God decided to Create, and therefore decided to allow sin, and therefore to be Incarnate and in this way to save us. It seems to me that this is entirely logical and Scriptural. It is not clear to me that beginning with arbitrary election and finishing with sin has either quality.
Hope that makes it a bit clearer!
pax et bonum
[John] () (URL)
4:33pm on 11 June 2007
Your view is logically consistent, but its premise is flawed: ”God does not want any to perish, and therefore God decided…”
We’ve argued about the meaning of 2 Peter 3:9 before, so I suppose we’re left to agree to disagree on that one. However, I wonder how you reconcile your view with Romans 9:22, which indicates that God is quite willing to have some perish.
[Robert Bell] () (URL)
01:22am on 12 June 2007
I don’t think that we can read Romans 9:22 in isolation from Romans 2:4 – that God’s forebearance with sinners is intended to lead them to repentance (2Pet3:9 says the same). God is willing to allow some to perish, but desires all to be saved. If God condemned the sinner as soon as they sinned, we would all be destroyed long ago.
Given, then, that you concede my position is logical, could you explain my question of logic – how can atonement precede sin? How can it be anything but a reaction to sin?
pax et bonum
[John] () (URL)
08:31am on 12 June 2007
You’re correct in saying that specific verses ought not to be read in isolation; this also holds for Romans 2:4. That said, however, the entirety of the Roman epistle (which is a synopsis of the whole Bible, really) can be, and often is, misunderstood when the 9th chapter is glossed over, or even ignored altogether. If you study that text—and indeed many others that Paul alludes to therein—you’ll see that the sinner is not condemned, in the final analysis, for sinful acts; rather, the sinner remains a sinner (I’m speaking now of those who ultimately will continue in an unregenerate state, i.e. the non-elect) because of God’s preordained plan, which was first revealed in His promise to Abraham (Romans 9:8).
Now, your question of logic merits its own book, but I’ll try to answer it as briefly as I can:
The atonement precedes sin insofar as God, who is Love, compassionate, and long-suffering, knew in His infinite wisdom that his elect would benefit from an experience that the angels never got: the gift of faith, the trying of which produces patience; the eternal humility of knowing that we once were blind, but now have sight; the first-hand realization that we owe our lives to Him, rather than to anything within ourselves; and not least, that Christ our Lord, having endured the cross and risen from the dead, received a glorified body not unlike the one we will inherit. The latter is noteworthy for two reasons in particular: Jesus decided to eternally condescend to His flock by becoming “like” us, as we certainly could not become “like” Him; and secondly, this was made possible (so to speak) by the occasion of sin, which is the “reason” He took on flesh.
God could simply have skipped what we know as human history by only creating His elect in Heaven. Obviously, He went another way. Jesus hinted at His plan in the parable of the wheat and the tares (Matt. 13:24-30). Jesus said “Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, ‘First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn’”. Notice how Romans 9:22 echoes this very same truth!
Similarly, when Jesus was praying, (John 17) He made a point to distinguish between “the world” (for whom He did not pray) and those whom “You have given Me out of the world”. Then, Jesus prays for “those who will believe in Me”. Finally, Jesus states: ”I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them”. Again, He’s not speaking about “the world”, but rather those that God has given Him. Juxtapose this with Ephesians 1:11.
To sum up, God knew that the wheat would ultimately benefit from the sin nature, in addition to the various interwoven relationships with the tares (temptations, trials, etc.), by which Redemption, through Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection, would be necessitated. Therefore, it follows logically (and Scripturally) that sin is merely a means to God’s end: Salvation via Christ’s cross.
Incidentally, I’ll mention God’s compassion, in that, while he could have overtly rejected “the world” (e.g., Ishmael, Esau, et. al.) by publicly humiliating them as, say, leapers (metaphorically speaking), He caused even His elect to be born with a shameful sin nature. We all begin life “dirty”, but God, who said ”I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion” (Exodus 33:19), washes His elect—each one individually—in the blood of the Lamb, while leaving the goats unclean from sin and ultimately ignorant of God’s grace.
[Robert Bell] () (URL)
5:56pm on 12 June 2007