I wanted to share with all of you a rendering of what God may be up to in terms of what His Good News is. In sharing this, I don't intend for this to supplant anyone's personal understanding of the Gospel, but to give cause to reflect upon and, perhaps, supplement that present understanding. I am anxious to gain access to your thoughts on the subject
Quoted from Richard Vincent's book Hide and Seek:
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth in order to provide an environment where we might dwell in His divine Presence. Tragically, humankind has turned from God's will through sin and hides in the shadows. Instead of abandoning humanity to their sin, God's Presence has uniquely entered into the world in the Person of Jesus Christ. Unlike Adam, Jesus fully lived in the Presence of God. He did more than lift His finger (symbolizing humanity's initial lack of desire to respond to God properly), He gave His life! By doing so Jesus has borne the curse of sin and reversed its brutal and dehumanizing consequences. He has pulled humankind from its vain attempts to hide from God in the shadow of sin and shame. Jesus has made it possible for God's story to end with the complete renewal of all things, a renewal that culminates with all people living together in love before Him.
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7 comments:
This seems like a pretty good take on the atonement to me. I like the imagery that he uses about the shadows and the light and I also like the fact that he frames salvation against shame rather than treating it as some sort of prize that is attained for jumping through the right hoops. One problem I have with the quote is that it uses the incarnation as evidence against God's abandonment of humanity when that happened at least 5000 years after the "fall," and that's a very conservative estimate. So... my thing is, what about all of those people that came between the "fall" and God's incarnation of Jesus in the world? To me, this sounds like the case could be made that God did abandon humanity for those years and then reclaimed us through Christ. That kind of understanding doesn't really resonate with my idea of God. This is really hard for me to discuss this way, but I hope it makes sense.
I don't think that the author of the quote meant to insinuate anything about those being prior to Jesus' incarnation and their not being provided for in terms of their fallenness. Even though the quote is universal in nature and can quite easily be read as possibly passing over those prior to the incarnation, I think that his focus was primarily for a contemporary audience and their own understanding of how they are directly affected by the life and work of Jesus. Being somewhat familiar with the author's work, I am sure that he didn't mean that God made provision for those after the incarnation and then passed over those prior to it. If so, I am right with you; This certainly wouldn't fit well with my idea of God either.
I think it is just the way it is worded. It's probably out of context and I am making some assumptions here. I am just sensitive to things like this because people always want to skip right to Jesus and skip over a lot of the Hebrew Bible. I think the story is important and God didn't give up even before Jesus. I think God tried many different things many different times and all of that culminated in the incarnation. That is just my view and I can see very easily how the author could agree with this as well. That part just stuck out to be because of my sensitivity to the rest of the story. Great quote, very thought provoking!!! Thanks bro!
I appreciate your sensitivity to this sujbect, as there can be negative consequences when one holds to a view that suggests that God didn't really care for ALL people in all times. I like what you said about God trying many things at many times and it culminating in the incarnation. That seems to suggest that God was earnestly striving with man in his plight so as to indicate that God respects His gift of dignity to each human which affords humanity the ability to make meaningful and responsible choices before God. Even in the aftermath of the physical incarnation of Jesus and its continuance through the Holy Spirit today I believe God continues to strive with each and every one of us so as to honor the image of Himself which He endowed each and every human being with. Certainly God wouln't consider a single human being without significant regard at least because of this, and I believe that if we really took this to heart, perhaps many more of us today would end up becoming more compassionate towards others no matter the difference from one individual to the next. According to the Bible, God didn't even pick "His own favorites" in terms of whom He was going to love, so why should we? I believe He chose the nation Israel as His instrument for the purpose of revealing His glory to all the nations by demonstrating to them His compassion towards them, which ultimatley would be the greatest manifestation of His glory for all to see and become participants in.
well said brother!
I agree with you, Todd. I've had the same question that I still don't feel has been satisfactorily answered by anyone in authority (or even addressed for that matter -- at least from what I've actually paid attention to). All the talk about sins being forgiven at (and by) the cross leads to my question about all those people all those thousands of years prior weren't forgiven? What's THAT all about?
It's one of those things that doesn't make sense to me, but here's a little insight on Troy: I really don't care. I don't think it's essential in any way for me to understand and "get" the atonement in any specific way. I rarely think about it, to be completely honest with you. I think it's a crime and a shame that people will fight with each other and condemn each other over disagreements on this issue -- which seems to be a huge distraction from actually living with God, in His love, and experiencing at least a MINIMAL sense of confidence that you are loved and forgiven by Him.
Ultimately, I think that the real point to the atonement is that God desires not only to forgive but that we might experience His forgiveness and his desire for us to participate in being reconciled back into the kind of relationship He desired to have with us in the beginning. I think to focus on one aspect (or theory) of God's desire to forgive and restore proves detrimental because He seems to be focused on our participation in the fullness of what it means to be in a vital closeness to Him and His purposes for all of His creation. Even though I have been blessed personally through the cognitive appropriation of specific understandings of what atonement (is or may be) about, I would not want that to be the end of things. Atonement, as Jesus lives it before us in the New Testament, reveals that it cannot be properly understood apart from experiencing it and sharing it with others in lived-out experience. Atonement is a life lived to its fullest toward the glory of God, which includes the good of others being sought out and accomplished, not something just believed or theorized about intellectually. I think of Sam's passion to serve others tangibly when I say this.
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