There
were many things I enjoyed about my visit – a couple of the most striking were
here at the front: the massive sign behind the preacher saying “We preach
Christ crucified”, and the table upon which the communion bread and wine were
laid, which was decked out in a beautiful piece of crimson material that seemed
to be folded quite chaotically on the top of this ‘altar’ but then, as it
flowed over the edge - carefully parted to show the name of a token saint (printed on white) - the chaotic material itself seemed to disappear, revealing a beautiful and orderly vine-like pattern on its surface. Interestingly,
too, there remained, after the wine had been distributed and the tray returned
to the table, a solitary cup of the wine and a solitary cup of water.
For
me, this was an assault of wonderful symbolisms of Christ’s sacrifice on the
cross, and what God achieved through it.
So
I resolved to make sure I preach Christ crucified today, and I pray I do!
Coincidentally,
my mother and I were talking recently and realised that we don’t fully ‘get’
the whole ‘Jesus died for my sins’ bit!
How does that work? How can the
death of An Innocent satisfy God’s need to deal with the evil in me? Have you ever thought about that?
I would like to talk about this today, partly at least as I believe it may help in our daily spiritual battle to hold on to our 'certain hope' of God's goodness to, and love for, us.
I would like to talk about this today, partly at least as I believe it may help in our daily spiritual battle to hold on to our 'certain hope' of God's goodness to, and love for, us.
So, my
thinking goes like this …
I
have evil tendencies: I do self-centred things that trample others down in
order to put myself first; I seek to gratify perceived needs or desires in
myself no matter the cost to anyone else; and this may happen entirely
intentionally, or without really thinking about it (which I think really shows
the depth of evil in me!) - this is the general human condition.
God, on the other hand, is pure goodness … righteousness … love.
It is this pure goodness and love that gave birth to us – the creation:
in order for love to be love - an expanding, growing, building, including, joyful thing - it
needs evermore receivers and enjoyers of
love.
Evil,
on the other hand, is not a thing in
itself but merely an absence of God’s love – rather like ‘dark’ is merely an absence
of ‘light’. So evil results in a self-centred,
self-absorbed, self-absorbing, self-serving hatred of everyone else, insofar as anyone else
gets in the way of my own pleasure.
Clearly,
evil and love cannot co-exist. And so,
clearly, evil is excluded from God, because God is love.
And yet, last
Sunday, Pavlos spoke on the fact of
evil in the world, and I wanted to pick up on a quote of his from Isaiah that I
found fascinating - Isaiah 45:7 says:
"I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I, the Lord, do all these things." (KJV)
The
idea that God - who is called ‘good’ and ‘love’ - would create evil is one that doesn’t feel right, and doesn’t sit well
with:
Psalm
97:10 "Let those who love the LORD hate evil..."
Proverbs
8:13 "To fear the LORD is to hate evil..."
Amos
5:15 "Hate evil, love good..."
Zechariah
8:17 "do not plot evil against your neighbor, and do not love to swear
falsely. I hate all this,” declares the LORD."
John
3:20 "Everyone who does evil hates the light..."
…
and Romans 12:9 "Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is
good."
There
are many passages like these that don’t make sense in the light of 1 John 4:8:
"Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love" … but
a little exploration of the phrase “create evil”, may reveal something more
profound about evil, its supposed
‘creation’, and its alleged Creator.
For this exploration, I turn to Strong’s
Concordance, a comprehensive cross-reference of every single word in the KJV back to the word in the original text, in the original languages of the
Bible. It was compiled by a team of more
than a hundred researchers from Drew Theological Seminary and first published
in 1890.
This
tool shows us that ‘create’ is the Hebrew word ‘bara’ and ‘evil’ is the Hebrew word
‘ra’.
The
first word – ‘bara’ – is also the first verb in the entire Bible: “In the
beginning, God created…” – it is used in a number of places and seems to have a
sense of “clearing a space” – the picture being one of clearing a space in a
wooded area or an overgrown meadow before building a home or a farmhouse or some
abode there.
If
we think on the original creation story a little, it is clear that, if there was
truly nothing apart from God – Father, Son, and Spirit – prior to the creation,
then God would have had to have cleared a space in which his new creation could be
located.
I think the story of
the creation of Adam’s bride-to-be, Eve, is told to let us in on how he created his
creation – the Son of God's bride-to-be.
If
this is true, then the entire fabric of the cosmos came out of the side of the bridegroom-to-be, the Son of God: The Spirit, filling the Son of God, withdrew from this
‘rib’ of Jesus, rendering it dark, chaotic, and void. He - The Spirit of Light and Life - then re-entered
this darkness as God set about his work of creating and life-giving. This creation was to be reunited
with the Son of God like Eve was reunited with Adam: in marriage and sexual union ... or what marriage and sexual union
symbolise in ‘The Big Picture of God’s story of everything' - that is, in truly … knowing God.
One
of the more literal translations out there seems to lend some support to this, rendering Isaiah 45:7:
“I am Jehovah, and there is none else, forming light, and preparing darkness, making
peace, and preparing evil, I am
Jehovah, doing all these things” (YLT).
So let’s
look at that second word: ‘ra’.
‘Ra’,
according to Strong’s Concordance, comes from a primitive root-word meaning ‘spoil’. What was there, in the beginning, that could be spoiled? Only God’s initially “very good” creation.
That
begs the question: why would God prepare a very good creation ... to be spoiled?
To answer this, we need to remember 1 John 4:8 again: "... God is love".
To answer this, we need to remember 1 John 4:8 again: "... God is love".
It
strikes me that, in order for there to be true
love between two people (rather than just one party being robotically programmed to ‘love’
the other), there needs to be a genuine choice to
love. In order for there to be a genuine
choice, there needs to be both freedom to choose and a selection of at least
two options.
So,
in his grace and his desire for a genuinely loving relationship with us, perhaps God allowed for something to
spoil his ‘very good’ creation so that we could
have a genuine choice: to be in a loving relationship with him, or a non-relationship with Not-Him ... a.k.a. ‘evil’.
The
sad and all-too-familiar next bit of the story is that we chose evil.
The choice facing Adam and Eve in Eden was not really a choice to know good and evil, because they already knew good. Because they already knew good, they were really choosing to know evil – and that is the choice we all took, in Adam.
The choice facing Adam and Eve in Eden was not really a choice to know good and evil, because they already knew good. Because they already knew good, they were really choosing to know evil – and that is the choice we all took, in Adam.
But that
sounds really weird, doesn’t it? The idea that we - you and I - made a choice to turn from God in
order to know evil ... in Adam! But I think that understanding this will really help us
to understand why the death of An Innocent deals with the evil in me, so I’m
going to try to unpack it a little bit.
Genesis
2:3 says, of the seventh day: "God rested from all his work that he had
done in creation".
So, once he created Adam and Eve, he did not go on to then create Cain, Abel, Seth, and all the others – they simply proceeded from Adam and Eve. They – and we – were created in, and came out from, Adam and Eve.
So, once he created Adam and Eve, he did not go on to then create Cain, Abel, Seth, and all the others – they simply proceeded from Adam and Eve. They – and we – were created in, and came out from, Adam and Eve.
Hebrews
7:9-10 alludes to this, too, when it says that: "one might even say that
Levi himself (who receives tithes) paid tithes through Abraham, for he was still in the loins of his ancestor, when
Melchizedek met him."
So
it would seem that each and every one of us has an unbroken, literal link –
through our flesh - all the way back to Adam: we, all, were in Adam when God created him (… us!)
So,
again, it was in Adam, that we all –
too – chose to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which brought death in to spoil creation.
This is why God is entirely just in seeing that the death that came through that choice is still meted out on us today.
This is why God is entirely just in seeing that the death that came through that choice is still meted out on us today.
Just ... but not happy!
2 Peter 3:9 describes God as: "not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance" ... Acts 17:26-27 says: "he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us."
God takes no pleasure from the nonetheless just situation that all of us should be eternally separated from him, through death, because of our choice to know self-centred, self-absorbed, self-absorbing, self-serving evil.
2 Peter 3:9 describes God as: "not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance" ... Acts 17:26-27 says: "he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us."
God takes no pleasure from the nonetheless just situation that all of us should be eternally separated from him, through death, because of our choice to know self-centred, self-absorbed, self-absorbing, self-serving evil.
We
knew good … but then, even as we knew
good, we chose to know evil. It was the great adultery: married and united to
God, we then chose to also marry and be united with Not-God. God and Not-God will not live alongside one another, so we effectively chose the ultimate divorce - complete separation from God forevermore.
Thankfully,
our hatred of him ... did not stop him loving us!
But what was he to do?
There was only one thing for it: the Bridegroom would have to go to that place of ultimate divorce and show his bride his love for her. If she then chose to receive that love (and so 'die' to her 'marriage' to Not-God) and trust him to carry her back home to be with him forevermore... he would, then, carry her home - protected - to his Father's house.
But what was he to do?
There was only one thing for it: the Bridegroom would have to go to that place of ultimate divorce and show his bride his love for her. If she then chose to receive that love (and so 'die' to her 'marriage' to Not-God) and trust him to carry her back home to be with him forevermore... he would, then, carry her home - protected - to his Father's house.
This 'place of ultimate divorce' is in the spiritually dead flesh we took on from Adam as we were born out
of him ... or our nearest relative above us in his line!
So Jesus, too, had to first be born into Adam's flesh*, ... then inhabit that flesh without succumbing to its self-centred, self-absorbed, self-absorbing, self-serving, evil desires and temptations, ... and then allow this flesh of his to be beaten, broken, and sent to the grave, ... before finally returning from the grave with a body that would never again be anything but filled with the Spirit of God … never again to be separated from God … never again to be dead.
So Jesus, too, had to first be born into Adam's flesh*, ... then inhabit that flesh without succumbing to its self-centred, self-absorbed, self-absorbing, self-serving, evil desires and temptations, ... and then allow this flesh of his to be beaten, broken, and sent to the grave, ... before finally returning from the grave with a body that would never again be anything but filled with the Spirit of God … never again to be separated from God … never again to be dead.
So
this is why Jesus’ death can atone for my sin.
It is not so much that there is a contract against which I created a debt that Jesus paid from his riches. It is, rather, that, by carrying his portion of Adam's flesh to death, he reached me in my portion of that dead flesh*. Then he gained my trust, showing me his love for me - a love that sustained him through the utter brutality by which his flesh was put to death. And then he guaranteed to carry me out of my dead flesh, by sealing me with the Spirit that will fill my ‘resurrection body’-to-come forevermore.
It is not so much that there is a contract against which I created a debt that Jesus paid from his riches. It is, rather, that, by carrying his portion of Adam's flesh to death, he reached me in my portion of that dead flesh*. Then he gained my trust, showing me his love for me - a love that sustained him through the utter brutality by which his flesh was put to death. And then he guaranteed to carry me out of my dead flesh, by sealing me with the Spirit that will fill my ‘resurrection body’-to-come forevermore.
And
so he can do for everyone born into Adam’s flesh.
If you have not died and been raised with him through your trusting in his love for you (as shown through everything he has ever done for you, climaxing at the cross), then you are still dead and divorced from God forever.
But what he has done for you still stands – and while you are still in this flesh**, you still have the opportunity to accept what he has done for you and to trust him to carry you – his beloved – back home.
I leave you with two passages, linked by a common thread. Perhaps the first is for those who still steadfastly refuse the advances of love from the Bridegroom, the Son of God, Jesus Christ; the second for those who have been rescued, and are now just waiting for Jesus to return, to take them home:
The first was written by James: "You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely?"
The second was written by John: "Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever."
May I end with a prayer?
Father, open our eyes and hearts to know your love, and the love of your Son and Spirit. Help us to know how to surrender our resistance to your loving approaches and enjoy being carried by you in your eternal embrace. Help us, in our unbelief, to trust and hope only in you. And may your love and goodness flow through us to our family and friends and neighbours and colleagues, to the glory of your name ... amen.
Footnotes:
* Hebrews 2:14 "Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil"
** 2 Corinthians 5:10, which says that: "we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil."
If you have not died and been raised with him through your trusting in his love for you (as shown through everything he has ever done for you, climaxing at the cross), then you are still dead and divorced from God forever.
But what he has done for you still stands – and while you are still in this flesh**, you still have the opportunity to accept what he has done for you and to trust him to carry you – his beloved – back home.
I leave you with two passages, linked by a common thread. Perhaps the first is for those who still steadfastly refuse the advances of love from the Bridegroom, the Son of God, Jesus Christ; the second for those who have been rescued, and are now just waiting for Jesus to return, to take them home:
The first was written by James: "You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely?"
The second was written by John: "Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever."
May I end with a prayer?
Father, open our eyes and hearts to know your love, and the love of your Son and Spirit. Help us to know how to surrender our resistance to your loving approaches and enjoy being carried by you in your eternal embrace. Help us, in our unbelief, to trust and hope only in you. And may your love and goodness flow through us to our family and friends and neighbours and colleagues, to the glory of your name ... amen.
Footnotes:
* Hebrews 2:14 "Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil"
** 2 Corinthians 5:10, which says that: "we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil."
