Your Brother Daniel
At the Core of the Gospel and Salvation: God’s
Love
It is because God so loved the world that He sent His Son
to die for us! If we fail to see this truth at the core of all His Being and
doings, we will miss out!
One young man was
missing out. Terrified at the prospect of going to hell, he took a radical
step. He forfeited everything he had by becoming an Augustinian monk, convinced
that this was the surest way to please God and to merit salvation. However,
even after this radical move, he remained tortured by thoughts of hell, lacking
any assurance of God’s love.
He subjected himself to
the most extreme deprivations along with four hours of daily confessions, but
nothing relieved him. Finally, his vicar advised him:
- Luther, all you need to do is to just love God!
To this, he bellowed
back, “Love Him? I hate Him!” He later wrote that He couldn’t love God, if he
couldn’t be sure that God loved him back and would receive him into heaven.
However, years later, while preparing a lesson on the Epistle to the Romans,
Luther encountered a verse that would change his life: “And the just shall live
by faith” (Rom. 1:17). He suddenly realized that he didn’t have to earn God’s
love. Instead, it was there waiting for him. He just needed to take it in
faith.
Luther later wrote that
it felt as if the gates of heaven had opened for him. He was now enabled to
trust that God loved him. Let me guess what you’re now thinking:
· This assurance of God’s love is miles away from
me. Sometimes I wonder whether this assurance is even possible for someone like
me who doubts and questions.
Certainly, there are
many reasons to doubt and question. While the Bible gives us many assurances
that God is love, there are also a number of verses that make it seem like His
love is conditional and we have to fulfill a set of impossible conditions.
Take, for instance, Hebrews 12:14:
· Make every effort to live in peace with all men
and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.
This verse, among
others, is a doubt-producer. Here are some of the doubts it might produce:
· How holy must I be? It doesn’t seem that any of
my thoughts, motives or deeds are entirely
holy. They are all sin-infested.
· Is there a certain level of holiness that I must
attain before I can be saved? This verse says that holiness is about me and my
performance and not God’s gift to me. That’s why it says “make every effort!”
· Isn’t the Bible therefore a collection of
contradictions?
Can we truly be
confident of the grace of God when these questions remain unanswered? Not entirely!
Consequently, I think that we need to take a deeper look at Scripture.
Jesus’ actions didn’t often look like love. He continually criticized His own disciples. At
times, it seemed that they couldn’t do anything right. He commended faith only
twice in Scripture, and on both occasions it was the faith of Gentiles – the
Canaanite woman (Matthew 15:28) and the Roman Centurion (Matthew 8:10) – never
of His disciples. He never told them anything like this:
· You men are really first class. Choosing you was
the best thing that I had ever done. You’re such quick learners and, oh, so
spiritual!
Jesus never encouraged
them – not exactly the way to win and sustain a following! Rather than building
their confidence in their heavenly destiny, many of Jesus’ teaching served to
undermine their confidence. However, after His final discourse with His
disciples, Jesus prayed to the Father. This prayer illuminates a different
perspective, a heavenly one! And this is as it should be, because Jesus is no
longer addressing His disciples but His Father:
· "I have revealed you to those whom you gave
me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have
obeyed your word. Now they know that everything you have given me comes
from you. For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them.
They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed
that you sent me.” (John 17:6-8)
Perhaps you’ve read
these verses too often to notice their transcendent perspective. These words do
not represent Jesus’ usual words of censure like “get behind me Satan” or
“Could you men not keep watch with me for one hour?" (Matthew 26:40).
Instead, Jesus words are
other-worldly. About His fumbling disciples Jesus prays, “they have obeyed your
word…they accepted [the words You gave me]. They knew with certainty that I
came from you, and they believed that you sent me.”
These words are
astounding and perplexing. From our earthly perspective, they didn’t even
understand His Word, let alone obey His Word! Just to illustrate this point, I
will quote each one of their five preceding statements. All of these words
demonstrate their lack of understanding:
· Thomas said to him, "Lord, we don't know
where you are going, so how can we know the way?" (John 14:5)
· Philip said, "Lord, show us the Father and
that will be enough for us" (John 14:8), unaware that they had already
seen the Father in Jesus.
· Then Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, "But,
Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?"
(John 14:22)
· Some of his disciples said to one another,
"What does he mean by saying, 'In a little while you will see me no more,
and then after a little while you will see me,' and 'Because I am going to the
Father'?" They kept asking, "What does he mean by 'a little while'?
We don't understand what he is saying." (John 16:17-18)
· Then Jesus' disciples said, "Now you are
speaking clearly and without figures of speech. Now we can see that you know
all things and that you do not even need to have anyone ask you questions. This
makes us believe that you came from God" (John 16:29-30), but they were
just about ready to disown their faith
These ignorant
statements weren’t unusual for the Apostles. They often seemed clueless about
their Master, and Jesus wasn’t hesitant to let them know this. However, when
Jesus talked to His Father, we perceive a different perspective. From these
heights, we are invited to view an entirely different landscape, one through
which we learn that the disciples “have kept Your Word!” This is the gracious
heavenly reality.
You
might think that this distinction between the earthly message and the heavenly
one is just a weird anomaly. However, this same distinction is found throughout
Scripture. Let me just take a few examples.
The prophet-for-hire Balaam had also been
granted a view from this same mountain-top. He had been hired by the King of Moab, Balak, to curse Israel. However,
God had warned Balaam to say only what He would reveal to him. God had opened
his eyes so that he could penetrate the haze and see reality from the
perspective of God. And this is what he saw:
· The oracle of one who hears the words of God,
who sees a vision from the Almighty, who falls prostrate, and whose eyes are
opened: "How beautiful are your tents, O Jacob, your dwelling places, O
Israel!” (Numbers 24:4-5)
· "He has not observed iniquity in Jacob, nor
has He seen wickedness in Israel. The LORD his God is with him, and the shout
of a King is among them.” (Numbers 23:21)
There was probably
little that was “beautiful” about Jacob’s tents, especially after wandering 40
years in the desert. Balaam was beholding a transcendent reality. Clearly,
there was gross “iniquity in Jacob” and no shortage of “wickedness in Israel,”
but this is not what God was seeing! He sees a different reality, a
transcendent one. He sees the end from the beginning. Jesus also saw His
Apostles in their glory, a glory where we are already seated in “the heavenly
realms in Christ Jesus” (Ephes. 2:6).
In the eyes of our Lord,
our status is dramatically transformed when we repent of our sins. When we do
so, we are transported into the kingdom of His beloved Son, where we sit “the
heavenly realms in Christ Jesus.” We become His vessels of glory.
Job had made many rash indictments against God
during his lengthy trial.
However, God brought damning charges against Job’s three friends:
· "I am angry with you and your two friends,
because you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has. So now
take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and sacrifice a burnt
offering for yourselves. My servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept his
prayer and not deal with you according to your folly. You have not spoken of me
what is right, as my servant Job has." (Job 42:7-8)
This is peculiar for
many reasons. For one thing, Job seemed to have talked far worse of God than
had his three friends. Second of all, God, against the evidence to the
contrary, said that Job had spoken correctly
of Him! Clearly, this wasn’t accurate, or was it? From God’s heavenly
perspective, Job had just repented twice of his rash words (Job 42:6; 40:4-5),
and all had been forgiven. Job had also been cleansed of all his
unrighteousness (1 John 1:9), and that made all the difference in the world!
There is the heavenly
perspective that transcends the temporal – all of our this-worldly failures and
sins. God does not see as we do. While He is not blind to the earthly, He sees
a high and eternal reality, one in which everything is wiped clean, where love
and righteousness remove from sight everything that makes us cringe in shame.
Lot lived in Sodom and willingly partook in its
life. When the two angels
showed up to investigate Sodom’s sinfulness, Lot hurriedly rushed them off to
his home, hoping to dispatch them early in the morning, without consequence to
his town.
Every step of his life
had been soiled by compromise. He even got drunk and had sex with his two
daughters. However, this isn’t the final word about Lot. In the New Testament,
we find that, in God’s eyes, Lot was regarded in an entirely different light, as
“a righteous man” (2 Peter 2:7).
The Bible speaks of two
distinct realities. According to the first reality, we have fallen short of
God’s standards (Rom. 3:23) and deserve condemnation (Rom. 6:23). However,
there is another reality that trumps the first one. It is a reality where
“Mercy triumphs over judgment!” according to James 2:13. It is a reality where
we are new creations in Christ – children of the light, where any who call upon
God shall be saved (Rom. 10:13)!
From a human perspective, Abraham had been a
spiritual failure. He continually doubted
God’s promises. Even after Yahweh appeared to him and promised that Sarah would
give birth to the promised son in the following year, Abraham once again wimped
out and passed off his beloved as his sister.
Consequently, the
unknowing king grabbed Sarah for his harem. However, before he could have sex
with her, God struck the entire nation of Gerar down with a disease. He then
appeared to the king in a dream and instructed him to return Sarah to her husband
Abraham.
The shocked king then confronted Abraham about his deception.
Abraham admitted his cowardice:
· "I said to myself, 'There is surely no fear
of God in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife.' …And when God
had me wander from my father's household, I said to her, 'This is how you can
show your love to me: Everywhere we go, say of me, "He is my
brother." ' " (Genesis
20:11-13)
Abraham’s unfaithfulness had a long
history. In spite of this, when God had appeared to the king in his dream, He
uttered some of the most profound words in all Scripture:
· Now return the man's wife, for he is a prophet,
and he will pray for you and you will live. But if you do not return
her, you may be sure that you and all yours will die." (Genesis 20:7)
Even after Abraham had disgraced God so thoroughly, God remained
faithful. Despite his failings, Abraham remained His “prophet!” Besides this,
the cowardly failure Abraham would have to pray for the king!
The king might have thought, “What kind of God is this that
chooses such low-life as prophets!” However, God’s love and protection for his
failing prophet did not falter.
God does not see as we see. He sees us through gracious eyes. We often fear
that we lack enough faith to be saved. However, Hebrews 11 – it’s know as the
“hall of fame of faith” – gives us unbelievable portraits of exemplary faith.
But if we read closely, we will be shocked at what we read.
Hebrews tells us that by
faith “Abraham was enabled to become a father” (Heb. 11:11). However, it didn’t
seem that he had much faith. We are also told that “By faith [Moses] left
Egypt, not fearing the king's anger (Heb. 11:27). However, the original account tells us that Moses did fear!
My favorite example of faith regards the
children of Israel:
· By faith the people passed through the Red Sea
as on dry land; but when the Egyptians tried to do so, they were drowned. (Hebrews 11:29)
This is incredible! Israel was anything
but a model of faith. The original Exodus account tells us that they rebelled against Moses after they heard
the Egyptian chariots approaching!
From an earthly perspective, Israel was a sorry mess, but not from God’s gracious perspective!
Here’s a glimpse into His thinking:
· But God demonstrates his own love for us in
this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been
justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath
through him! For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him
through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we
be saved through his life! (Romans
5:8-10)
God’s logic is both illuminating and persuasive. If He was willing
to pay the supreme price for us, when we were yet sinners – His enemies –
wouldn’t He protect His investment now that we have been made His friends!
Perhaps an analogy might help. If you go to the junk-yard and purchase a
decrepit Model-T Ford for an exorbitant price, and then spend the next several
years restoring it to its original form, would you then discard it? Certainly
not! You would now treasure it and do whatever you could to preserve it!
Our Lord paid the price for all humanity. Consequently, any who
come to Him, He will in no way cast out (John 6:37). He even pursues those who
refuse Him.
He pursued David, His
King. David deserved only the
worst from God. God had given David everything, but this didn’t satisfy David.
He saw a woman he wanted, and he took her, even though she was already married.
If that wasn’t enough, he killed Bathsheba’s husband to cover up his sin.
However, God was not going to be mocked. Sin would require a
price. Despite David’s many prayer God took Bathsheba’s newborn. However, she
conceived again, and David named his child “Solomon,” in Hebrew, “Shlomo,” a
form of “Shalom” meaning peace. It seems that David was hoping that this child
would spell peace between him and God. But how could David expect anything good
from such a sin-stained relationship. However God had another name in mind:
· Then David comforted his wife Bathsheba, and he
went to her and lay with her. She gave birth to a son, and they named him
Solomon. The Lord loved him; and
because the Lord loved him, he
sent word through Nathan the prophet to name him Jedidiah. (2 Samuel 12:24-25)
David hadn’t been hopeful enough. Instead of Solomon being a peace
child, he was “Jedidiah” (“beloved of God”) in God’s eyes. From an earthly
perspective, David and his new wife didn’t deserve anything but punishment from
God. However, He heard David’s prayer, forgave his sin, and cleansed the entire
relationship. On top of this, out of all David’s sons, God chose Solomon to
become the next king of Israel.
Paul, having hardened his heart, was
even His persecutor. Not only did he kill Christians, but He also forced
them to blaspheme Jesus. I cannot think of anything worse. However, Paul
explained:
· Christ Jesus came into the world to save
sinners--of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy so
that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited
patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal
life. (1 Tim. 1:15-16)
Paul served as an
example of God’s readiness to extend His forgiveness to anyone – to the worst
of sinners. If God was willing to forgive Paul, He was willing to forgive anyone who would come to Him!
King Manasseh was a prime example of God’s
mercy. He was the worst of the
worst. He reigned for 55 years in Jerusalem and bathed the city with the blood
of the righteous. Scripture informs us that he was worse than the Canaanites.
However, even Manasseh found the mercy of God, when he repented of his sins (2
Chron. 33:10-13).
The meaning is clear. If
God forgave and restored Manasseh, the worst of the worst, He would certainly
respond favorably to any who would
call upon His name!
Let me again guess what
you are thinking:
· Well, you make salvation seem as if it’s
available to anyone who confesses their sins. But how about that verse you
cited before which says “pursue holiness without which shall no one see God?”
Well, the Book of
Hebrews illustrates what it means to pursue holiness through the example of
Esau:
· [See to it] lest there be any fornicator or profane
person like Esau, who for one morsel of food sold his birthright. For you know
that afterward, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he
found no place for repentance, though he sought it [the blessing] diligently
with tears. (Hebrews 12:16-17; NKJV)
Esau wasn’t rejected
because of his sins – we are all sinners. He was rejected because he was unwilling to repent that he had sold his
birthright for a bowl of soup, demonstrating that he did not esteem the things
of God. Although he wept over loosing his father’s blessing, the things of God
were mere foolishness to him.
How does God regard us?
We lack the superlatives to answer this question. Paul wrote of the love of God
this way:
· I pray that you, being rooted and established in
love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long
and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses
knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
(Ephes. 3:17-19)
God’s love for us is a
love that “surpasses knowledge.” Why then can’t we see this? Why does our God
obscure this glorious reality, causing us to walk in uncertainty? Perhaps we
are not ready for the light. As Jesus told His disciples, there were certain
truths that would not yet be good for them to see:
· "I have much more to say to you, more than
you can now bear.” (John 16:12)
We too cannot bear to
behold the beauty of the tents of Israel and certainly not our own glory. I
think that it was C.S. Lewis who said that if we could see our glory, we’d
worship each other.
However, sometimes He
does open our eyes to glimpse this transcendent reality. For example, Paul
claims that for those who are being saved, “we are…the [sweet] aroma of Christ”
(2 Cor. 2:15). This is amazing to us! How can we, with all of our spiritual
warts, manifest as the aroma of Christ!
However, we can’t handle
this light in sustained doses. We lack the mental maturity to assimilate this
light in a profitable way. In the midst of a life-threatening and bloody chain
saw injury, I was lying in a pool of blood, thinking that this breath would be
my last. Suddenly, I realized that I wasn’t alone. I was so overcome by the
presence of God that I was in ecstasy. I knew that even if I died, God would be
there with me, and that I was totally safe and loved by Him.
I was miraculously
rescued and spent the next four days recuperating in the hospital. On the
second day, my surgeon warned that I would have to exercise my half-cut-off
wrist or lose its functionality. However, after my divine encounter, I was convinced that the God who had saved me
was great enough to restore my hand without any exercises. Well, I didn’t
exercise it, and it wasn’t restored as it might have been.
My theology – my
understanding - did not measure up to what God had revealed to me. I had
wrongly thought that since God is omnipotent, I didn’t have to do
anything. Now I understand that,
although God is all-powerful, this doesn’t relieve me of my earthly
responsibilities.
Perhaps even after
imbibing all of these verses, you are still left with uncertainly about God’s
love and your salvation. That’s certainly not unusual. Sometimes, even the
knowledge of the Word will not take us everywhere we what to go, nor should it.
God has not constructed our lives so that we would make ourselves
self-sufficient though wisdom. Instead, we are always to depend upon lowly
humble prayer – an acknowledgement that we and our wisdom are not enough. We
need His intervention.
And He will intervene!
When we ask our Lord for assurance about His love and our salvation, we ask
according to His will and, therefore, can be confident that He will
answer.
