Because
of the nature of my job in Outflow, I've seen and heard some pretty
awful stuff over the years. Witnessing some of these evils and
injustices has caused me to ask a particular question about my faith:
"Would God be good or loving if he was merely disappointed or
hurt by evil and sin?" Gary Haugen, the former director of the
United Nations genocide investigation in Rwanda, said this:
"Standing
with my boots deep in the reeking muck of a Rwandan mass grave where
thousands of innocent people have been horribly slaughtered, I have
no words, no meaning, no life, no hope—if there is not a God of
history and time who is absolutely furious, absolutely burning with
anger towards those who took it in their own hands to commit such
acts."
If
God is not filled with anger toward human sin, how can he also be
good, loving, and just? How could he be Holy?
You see, the main description of God throughout the bible is that he
is holy. So much so that on a couple of occasions angels with veiled
faces in the stunning presence of the Lord proclaim, "Holy,
Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts (the Lord God Almighty)..."
(Isaiah 6:3 & Revelation 4:8). In the bible, when things are
repeated, it means, "Pay attention. This is it!" Holy is
used because it sums up everything about God. Language reaches its
limit and the preeminent word available to describe God is Holy.
Holy
means unique and set apart. Sometimes it's used in the bible to
describe angels, people, God's word, etc. But when God is called
holy, it's different. He is unique in that he is the source of all
goodness and life; he is the transcendent creator of all things.
Holiness sums up God's love, mercy, grace, justice and many other
attributes. It speaks of his moral purity and perfection. When God is
called holy, it means that he is not like us; he is "other".
He is Trinity. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Three persons in one
God.
Because
God is Holy, he must and will stay true to his character...which
presents a problem for God and us. Exodus 34:6&7 says, "The
LORD passed before him (Moses) and proclaimed, "The LORD, the
LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in
steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for
thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will
by no means clear the guilty..." God forgives sin and
yet "will by no means clear the guilty." How is this
possible? Especially when the bible makes clear that all humanity is
guilty of sin.
Jesus
says that the first and greatest commandment is to love God with your
whole being and the second is to love your neighbor as yourself (Mark
12:30). This is the target of life and anything less than this is
missing that target (the definition of sin) and the source of all
evil. Clearly humanity doesn't do this and that's the reason the
bible can say that "all have sinned and fallen short of God's
glory" (Romans 3:23). So you see, evil is not just a problem
around us, but within us as well (Mark 7:21-23).
So
how does God stay true to his character? How can he be forgiving and
just at the same time? What hope do we have if we are all guilty?
The
Christian answer is and always has been the cross and the empty tomb,
Christ's death and resurrection. On the cross, Jesus triumphed over
the powers of evil and death and rose from the dead victoriously
(Colossians 2:13-15). Smart people call this Christian teaching
'Christus Victor'. But why the cross and how did Jesus triumph by
dying on it? Volumes of books have been written about this, but
simply put: Jesus the Christ substituted himself for us. The Holy
Triune God had a rescue mission and it involved the loving Father
sending the loving Son full of the loving Holy Spirit to take on
himself the divine judgment due for humanity because of sin and evil
(Isaiah 53, Romans 5&6, 2 Corinthians 5:21, 1 Peter 2:24, 1 John
4:7-14). This was something only God could accomplish and it
mysteriously and miraculously involved him becoming human and
sacrificially dying in the place of sinners. The fancy name for this
teaching is 'Substitutionary Atonement'.
I
realize that through the years this teaching has at times been taught
horribly causing modern trendy theologians to deny it and teach an
equally horrible and cartoony view of the Trinity by calling it
'divine child abuse'. But in the words of the theologian J.I. Packer:
"Since
all this (God's rescue mission) was planned by the holy Three in
their eternal solidarity of mutual love, and since the Father’s
central purpose in it all was and is to glorify and exalt the Son as
Saviour and Head of a new humanity, smartypants notions like “divine
child abuse”, as a comment
on the cross, are supremely silly, and as irrelevant and wrong as
they could possibly be."
The
cross has been the answer to God's problem and ours from the pages of
the bible to the early church fathers to now. There is forgiveness
and restoration for those who put their trust in Jesus because loving
justice has been done.
A
police officer once told me that in our legal system, justice is
almost never done. Not so with God. He will also judge the world in
righteousness (justice) and put everything right. In a screwed up
world like ours, this is good news. Thank God that he is Holy and
doesn't simply turn a blind eye to the evils and injustices of the
world. Thank God that he offers forgiveness because of Christ's death,
and purity and innocence because of his resurrection.
Philip
