Not long ago, I read a tweet by Ricky Gervais, asking why God let terrible things happen. It was framed as a multiple choice question, with the answers stacking the deck, naturally: God must not exist, or God is allowing terrible things as punishment, or God doesn’t care, for example.
All of the choices reflected negatively on God. The answers presupposed that “terrible things” were of primal importance, as if the comfort of this very moment were the only thing about which we or God should care.
I don’t mind the sentiment, honestly. In the 1940s, most of my family disappeared in the Holocaust; I can fully sympathize with the anguish associated with terrible things.
Yet… God is responsible, but not to blame for these terrible things. He’s responsible in the sense that in the end He will create a new Heaven and a new Earth, using the construct we have at our feet.. but not to blame, in that we choose.
And blame presumes that the “terrible thing” is evil, when it may or may not be. Perhaps it was caused by evil; maybe it is evil indeed. (Or perhaps it’s a natural event which causes harm, like a tsunami or tornado.)
Regardless, the event is not normally the result of God hitting the “smite” key.
What it comes down to is this: God allows events to happen in accordance with His plan, such that an event chosen by Him will occur in His time and in His way.
That event is His reforging the earth, the “Day of the Lord,” when He returns.
Everything that has happened or will happen on earth is designed to advance His inestimable will. Every event causes a ripple in a sea that flows to His desire.
A terrible event – let’s say a tornado – happens, killing a family of five Christians. Are they being punished for their sin? The Bible says “probably not.” (It’s possible, but not very likely; “natural consequences” are by far more likely to be chosen as “punishment” rather than a tornado. If there’s abuse going on, then the consequence is normally going to be family ruin, not a natural disaster.)
Yet with this “terrible event…” what is God doing?
Honestly, I don’t know, and can’t presume to know. Yet I think God can use that terrible event – not just to usher that family into His arms, but possibly as something that leads others to Him as well. Perhaps the grief of the community leads someone to search for Him, for example.
Of course it’s possible that the event could turn some away. But someone who’s turned away by such things… their faith is in desperate need of shoring up, because they’re seeing God as some kind of magic vending machine, that disposes candy when we dance in a certain way.
God is not a vending machine. God is greater than our ability to describe; expecting Him to dance to our tune, and turning away when He does not, is more of an indictment of us than of Him.
Terrible things, indeed. Perhaps the focus shouldn’t be on the terrible events that catch our eyes, but on the terrible things that those flashes of despair illuminate through our responses.
Yesterday I read a post on CNN, “When Christians become a ‘hated minority’.” In it, CNN attempts to summarize a situation in which Christians are refusing to identify homosexuality as a sin, and as an added bonus (thanks, CNN!) some Christians claim that maybe it’s not so bad.
It’s not a particularly focused article, but it has a lot of useful statements.
I’d rather know I’m wrong than suspect I’m right. I don’t know I’m wrong unless I put some stakes in the ground: I make an assertion, with the full knowledge that someone wiser than I might come along and tell me what a fool I am. I’m okay with that; the delivery isn’t important, but the message is.
So what’s happening here is good, in the long run: it defines a problem (dressed in frilly clothes of “Christians are becoming a hated minority”) and describes a lot of issues in the Christian community concerning a specific issue (namely, homosexuality).
One thing that stood out – and actually inspired me to write about the article, which seemed rather “me-too” at first – was this passage:
What the Bible says
What about the popular evangelical claim, “We don’t hate the sinner, just the sin” – is that seen as intolerance or hate speech when it comes to homosexuality?
There are those who say you can’t hate the sin and love the sinner because being gay or lesbian is defined by one’s sexual behavior; it’s who someone is.
“Most people who identify as gay and lesbian would say that this is not an action I’m choosing to do; this is who I am,” says Timothy Beal, author of “The Rise and Fall of the Bible: The Unexpected History of an Accidental Book.”
Beal, a religion professor at Case Western University in Ohio, says it should be difficult for any Christian to unequivocally declare that the Bible opposes homosexuality because the Bible doesn’t take a single position on the topic. It’s an assertion that many scholars and mainline Protestant pastors would agree with.
Some people cite Old Testament scriptures as condemning homosexuality, such as Leviticus 18:22 – “If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination.” But other Christians counter by saying they are not bound by the Old Testament.
Oh, my. This block of text is horribly written, as a series of assertions.
Let’s be clear: first, we should all reject all sin.
13 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. (Romans 6:13, ESV)
Second, ain’t none of us innocent in and of ourselves:
21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. (Romans 3:21-25, ESV, with verse 23 highlighted)
So let’s look at the crucial part of that: all of us have sinned and fallen short. We are justified by His grace as a gift, the gift of the death and resurrection of Jesus.
Ain’t none of us better than any other. In the eyes of God, sin is sin is sin is sin; while some sins carry greater consequence from a human perspective (murder’s worse than lying to someone about what you ate for dinner, right?), all sin carries with it the separation from God’s Will.
So: “hate the sin, not the sinner” is alive and well. As Christians, we can’t hate the sinner – that’d call us to hate ourselves as well.
It may be that homosexuals are who they are, that they have no free will in the matter. I don’t know; I’m not homosexual, last I checked. 🙂 But that’s of no account; we’re called to go unto all the world, to witness to everyone who sins. Therefore, they get included in that set; their homosexuality is irrelevant when it comes to “do they need Christ?”
And now we get to the statement that really hit me:
Beal, a religion professor at Case Western University in Ohio, says it should be difficult for any Christian to unequivocally declare that the Bible opposes homosexuality because the Bible doesn’t take a single position on the topic. It’s an assertion that many scholars and mainline Protestant pastors would agree with.
Really?
That’s horrifying. “Many scholars and mainline Protestant pastors” are ignorant of the Bible, then.
Leviticus 18:22 is, indeed, a starting point. And it refers to the sin as an “abomination.” That’s pretty relevant. And Paul, in the NT, makes a lot of reference to homosexuality – not pederasty, even though the Greek in which Paul wrote had both words available.
If Paul had meant pederasty and not homosexuality, he could have said so. He didn’t. Therefore: he meant homosexuality, because that’s what he wrote. It isn’t difficult to figure out.
26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. (Romans 1:26-27, ESV)
Sorry, Mr. Beal. You can claim that Jesus said little about sex; that’s because the Torah said it, and Jesus saw no need to echo everything about the Law, except that He fulfilled it. (See Matthew 5:17 and Romans 3:31.)
Some, of course, choose to rewrite the Bible: they say that Christians are not bound by the Old Testament.
Oh, my. Let’s run back to the Bible, but let’s use the New Testament, since they say the Old is no longer relevant:
31 Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law. (Romans 3:31, ESV)
Wait, that says we uphold the Law. (And yes, this is one of the verses to which I referred a paragraph or two ago.) And if we uphold the Law, that says the Law is the standard by which we’re to consider ourselves moral (gosh, see Romans 2 and 3.) And the Law serves to convict us of our sin, which is why we need Christ in the first place!
Christians who say the law has no importance for us are wrong. Do away with the Law, and you do away with Christ. Do away with Christ, and you do away with the basis for calling yourself a Christian.
And honestly? If you’re going to do away with Christ, do Christians a favor and stop self-identifying as one; when you say you’re a Christian, you make it harder for actual Christians to witness to you properly. We tend to assume you know at least a little about what you’re saying about yourself.
Lastly: I mentioned a while back the use of the word “abomination,” תּוֹעֵבָה. This is a heavy, heavy word.
Sin is bad; it separates us from God.
Abomination is worse. Abomination causes God to push us away from Him. It marks behavior God rejects. It’s not for nothing that Paul goes on and on about certain sins; not only were they pervasive, but they were abominable.
This doesn’t mean the homosexual is a worse sinner than any other person; sin is sin, remember? And we all need Christ. What sin leads us to that condition is irrelevant to the condition itself.
But it does speak to the severity of the sin.
Eating a cheeseburger is wrong (as long as it’s beef and you’re using cheese from cow’s milk: see Exodus 23:19, and the reasons I say “wrong” are too complex for this post – let’s just say that it’s gross to think about in the context of that verse) but it’s not an abomination.
The sin is still sin; we’re freed from the punishment of the Law, but not the consequences of it.
I believe there are actively homosexual Christians, and by that I mean fully saved, covered by grace Christians. I also think that a homosexual act (not being homosexual, but engaging in homosexual acts) is a transgression to which Romans 6:1 applies:
6:1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? (Romans 6:1, ESV)
This past Sunday’s sermon was on 1 Corinthians 6:12-20, which speaks of fleeing sexual immorality.
It starts off by saying “All things are lawful for me,” referring to a philosophical idea that separated the body from the soul. The concept was that the flesh was corrupt (and presumably corrupted the soul as well, I suppose?) and therefore, the soul could be saved but the flesh could not.
The implication here is that the flesh could do what it wanted, as it was destined to be destroyed forever anyway, and the soul was kept inviolate apart.
Therefore, the flesh could indulge in all kinds of acts without affecting the relationship of believer with God.
This is in relation to food; the Faithlife Study Bible’s comment on 1Cor 6:13 says that the Corinthians
“reasoned that since the body could digest food apart from any moral instruction, it could also engage in sexual activity apart from moral instruction.”
Part of me marvels at the intuitive leap here, and I also am a little stunned that this is where this reasoning led them.
Paul writes that the purpose of the body is what defines what is right, by saying:
13… The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. 14 And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by His power. 15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? (1Cor 6:13-15, ESV)
The rest of chapter 6 addresses the unity of the body and soul, and also says to flee immorality – that we cannot fight it ourselves, but should run from it rather than engage it.
And at last we segue into something God laid on my heart with this message.
I wrote a post in December 2011 called “Where should we be willing to go?,” inspired (or incited) by some people who were busily and happily judging people who were willing to associate with sinners.
The most important paragraph in that post (to me) is this one:
So should I avoid people or situations because I think that the people there aren’t always edifying Christ? No. I should not. I should examine the circumstances and try to act in such a way that those who do not know Christ can see His effect on me, and maybe God through that can call them to Himself.
The core statement was that we should be willing to go anywhere to which we are called to go, regardless of where that would be; I used a strip club as an example. I wouldn’t be able to go to such places myself in such a way that people saw Christ in me, I don’t think, but I can conceive that perhaps (somehow, someway, with God’s merciful and powerful help) someone could.
I’m not suggesting that it’s likely, nor am I suggesting that one should try just to see if God will act (“You shall not tempt the Lord your God,” from Deuteronomy 6:16, ESV, and quoted by Jesus when He was tested by Satan.) But I can conceive that it’s possible.
Oddly enough, I even used 1 Corinthians 8 to bolster my thought line. It also suggests that I avoid things that I could do that would potentially discourage a fellow believer, but in a way that backs up the original assertion, in that:
I should avoid things that might be permissible for me, when those things might harm anothers’ faith. (Summary mine, of course.)
But is this correct? I was referring to where we should be willing to be present more than what we should allow ourselves to do, but the analogy holds across both concepts.
Doesn’t the injunction against immorality (sexual immorality, specifically) in 1Cor 6 also speak to the impulse that says that I can go anywhere in the Will of God?
Perhaps not. But my feeling is that God wouldn’t will that I go somewhere such that sexual immorality (or any other kind of immorality) was my lot, and if it’s something discouraging to another believer, then perhaps I need to make sure I’m framing it properly (if it is, indeed, within the Will of God) or that I need to, like, stop doing it (because it’s likely that I’m telling myself it’s in the Will of God and I’m lying to myself.)
This weekend, our Sunday school class was going through Luke 3:1-21, which addresses the ministry of John the Baptist, or John the Immerser, who preached a ministry of repentance and action.
A question came up about why John, specifically. Why did the Messiah need an Elijah? Was it just to fulfill prophecy that there would be a precursor for the King?
Well, I don’t know if there’s an absolute answer, but I can certainly see analogs.
Messengers are used by God to reflect His glory in a way that we can understand and tolerate.
God is beyond us. (His ways are not our ways, Isaiah 55:8) If He were to show us Himself, we would not survive; see Exodus 33 for a simplistic example of this.
So God uses analogs, stories, parables, giving us examples that we can understand that reflect aspects of His Will for us. We understand the story of Jonah; we also understand the fall of Nineveh. These are analogs for Christ’s death for us, and the mercy of God upon sinners, and the punishment of continued sin.
The messengers prepare the way, and prepare our hearts for what is to come. “Be ready,” they say.
Further, they’re used as actors in God’s Will.
When you look at Samuel, you see God’s prophet – used to anoint two kings of Israel, Saul and David.
Nathan was used to tell David of his sin.
Elijah was used to proclaim Ahab’s return and his doom.
Jonah was used to rescue Nineveh from the precipice into which the city eventually leaped.
A king cannot anoint himself; he is a warlord in that case. A prophet is used to say “God has given us this man as our proper and blessed king.” Without that anointing by a true man of God, this king is a king in name only.
So why was John important to the life and ministry of Jesus?
He was the one who cried to make hearts ready for the coming of the King.
He was the one who proclaimed Jesus as Messiah.
His was the position of Elijah: going before the King, proclaiming and blessing Him.
John was a witness, one who testifies for Christ.
So are we to be: we are to proclaim the King, making hearts ready for Him. We cannot do the work the King does; we do not rule. Yet we, too, are called to be heralds, those who proclaim the coming of Christ.