When you think about who God is, his nature or
essence; where do your thoughts start? Maybe a better way to ask this is; What
do you think is the deepest truth of God’s being? If you were to peel back the
layers of all that he does, what would be the source of his actions; the
reservoir, so to speak, from which his thoughts, feelings, and actions flow?
Believe it or not, I often ask this question at the
beginning of a meeting in which I’ve been invited to speak. (Talk about jumping
into the deep end!) Typically, I’ll start writing the responses on the board.
Different words, usually describing his character, are launched into the
discussion. By the time we’re done, our list looks like a course on the
attributes of God.
But as I would list each character trait on the
board, I would ask, “But is there something that is behind that, that is even
more essential still?” For no matter which attribute you or I would pick it is
nothing more than a description of a person, or to cut to the point, three
persons. So the fundamental, deepest truth of the essence of God’s being is
that he exists as a relationship of three persons in one being. They think,
feel, and act as one. In fact, this Oneness is so much their reality that it is
said that they are in one another.
Without losing or absorbing into each other, they still remain three
distinct persons.
The essence of their relationship is self-giving,
other-centered love. This is the way they are toward each other. They don’t
fake it. They have no other way of being. Their relationship is the essence of
their being. Self-giving, other-centered love is what shapes his character and
what He does. Everything flows from this relationship because everything flows
from God for He is the source, the beginning. And this is who He is; in nature
and essence.
This idea became my crisis point and the point of
this little blog.
For most of my life I was deeply moved and bowed
with wonder and awe that God would love me. (or any of us for that matter) The way
I often spoke about this was: “God loves me in spite of my sin(s)“. I often would say this wagging my
head in disbelief, muttering incoherently. Something about I’m unlovely, not worthy of His love because of what I’ve
done. Point is; I knew my heart. I didn’t need convincing that I was unworthy
of earning God’s love.
Now it’s true that I am a sinner. Through and
through. No question, no doubt. So, clearly my conduct or behavior was not the
reason God would love me. People would encourage me with talk of grace, “It’s
true John, we don’t deserve it. But that’s what so cool about grace! He gives
you his love freely, not based on your performance.” And so, I would exalt in
His grace believing He loved me in spite of…
But one day I was having breakfast with a young man
who I’d been in a Bible study with for about 4 years. And as he was saying
these very things that I had shared with him I asked a question, “Why does that
thought mean so much to you”? And before he could respond an answer entered my
head with the subtlety of a lightning bolt. I think it was an epiphany of
sorts.
Because He shouldn’t love me. God’s love towards me
was so amazing because I believed he shouldn’t love me in the first place.
Not only was there no reason in me to love me, but
there was no reason in God either. Here’s what He should be doing with me… He
should judge me. Not love me. He should punish me. Not love me. He should be
angry with me. Not love me. He should send me to hell. NOT love me!
Abandonment, punishment, torment is what I deserve. Isn’t judgment the morally
right (how I defined holy) thing for God to do against the evildoer? If He is
holy and just, which he is, then this is what His justice demands. Isn’t it?
This created a dilemma… I believed in my heart that
God was doing something (loving me) that his holiness and justice (as I
understood them) dictate he shouldn’t do. This was why the phrase “God loves me
in spite of…” was so baffling to me. He’s doing something he shouldn’t do! It
was like mercy and justice, love and holiness were kinda fighting it out within
the being of God. Well… it seemed God was conflicted, to say the least. All
that aside for a moment, there was something even more troubling that I was
beginning to realize in the midst of my epiphany.
The reason I believed God shouldn’t love me was
because I lived based out of an idea that there was a deeper truth than love in
the being of God. There was something that loved bowed to, even in God.
Something held love hostage. I believed what really is at the center of his
being, the source from which all else flows from God, was his undiluted moral
perfection. The morally right thing for God to do is hate evil. Pour out his
vengeance and wrath against all that is evil. All that is opposed to his moral
perfection. I was told that includes me.
But there is GOOD NEWS!
God is relationship. There is something deeper in
his essence as Father, Son, and Spirit than just doing the morally right thing
all the time. They are completely, head over heels, in love with each other.
And it is out of that relationship, from which everything flows, we find the
reason for his creating of you and me. God loves in freedom because that is the
way he is. There is no other way of being for him.
They loved what they were going to make before they
made it. And though they knew we would fall and were completely aware of how
bad it would be, this did not deter them in their other-centered love…. they
made us anyway. When we fell in Adam, they did not stop loving us. They have
never stopped loving us. To say they could have is to say that something you or
i do can actually change the very essence of God. And this cannot be.
We know this to be true in our hearts. If we are
even just adequate or decent parents, we loved our children before they took a
breath. And when they sin, do we stop loving them? Are we better parents than
our one true Father? We hate the evil that comes between us and our children,
not our children.
Furthermore, what he hates about sin is what it
does to the human race. It is causing ruin and destruction on the very ones He
has set His love on! He does not hate sin because it somehow offends his moral
perfection. He hates sin because it keeps the ones he loves from experiencing
relationship in their circle of life and love!
So God loves us, not in spite of anything. He loves
us because He is love.
Some will protest that this kind of thinking will
lead us to further sin. We may in fact do that, such is the corruptness of our
fall. But if we choose to act this way, God will continue to love us, for he
will continue to be God.
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