Mystery: God’s Transcendence and God’s Friendship

Last year at this time we quoted Gary Henry at WordPoints as part of a longer article. Today we’re back with two recent posts from his site which show two sides of God: That he is wholly other (transcendence) and can also be our friend (immanence).  Click the titles of each to read at source and then take some time to look around the rest of the site.

Awed by God’s Grandeur

“How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven!” (Genesis 28:17).

ON SOME LEVEL, EVERY HUMAN BEING CAN UNDERSTAND THE AMAZEMENT OF JACOB WHEN HE REALIZED WHAT HE WAS SEEING

As he slept that night at Bethel, fleeing from his brother’s wrath and with a stone as his pillow, he dreamed of “a ladder [that] was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it” (Genesis 28:12). Above the ladder was God Himself, who spoke to Jacob words of promise and hope. And having grasped this portion of God’s greatness, Jacob was a man changed for the better.

Like Jacob, we need to contemplate the majesty of God and the marvel of His communication with His creation. Nothing is more healthy for us spiritually than to be struck by the wonderful lightning of God’s grandeur. It is a truly transforming experience.

It was Immanuel Kant who said, “Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing wonder and awe — the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.” The connection between these two sources of wonder is more than coincidental. We can’t give serious consideration to God’s greatness without being appalled by the huge chasm between His perfection and our imperfection. To be awed by God’s grandeur is to be moved to turn away from anything inconsistent with His glory. Thus for fallen creatures like us, there must always be strong elements of humility and repentance in worship. “Repentance is the process by which we see ourselves, day by day, as we really are: sinful, needy, dependent people. It is the process by which we see God as he is: awesome, majestic, and holy” (Charles Colson). For us, godly sorrow should be a quite natural part of our reverence.

God’s grandeur . . . our need . . . unutterable awe. These things are the very heartbeat of religion. If we really live in God, we’ll lose ourselves in wonder before Him.

For worship is a thirsty land crying out for rain,
It is a candle in the act of being kindled,
It is a drop in quest of the ocean, . . .
It is a voice in the night calling for help,
It is a soul standing in awe before the mystery of the universe, . . .
It is time flowing into eternity, . . .
[It is] a man climbing the altar stairs to God.
(Dwight Bradley)

What Good Is God’s Friendship?

“Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ” (Philippians 3:8).

COULD WE POSSIBLY PUT A PRICE TAG ON GOD’S FRIENDSHIP?

Even among all the good things that are available to us, is there anything that a wise person wouldn’t give up in order to have God? The privilege of knowing God through Christ so far surpasses the value of everything else that Paul said he would gladly “count all things loss” in order to have this one thing.

God’s friendship is good not because it “pays” us to be His friend, but simply because of God Himself. Whatever blessings may flow from God (and there are many indeed), these are only secondary benefits or by-products of our friendship with Him. If such things ever take center stage and become our primary motivation, they cease to be good things and become idols. Nothing must be allowed to take the place of God in our hearts, not even God’s own gifts to us. To have God alone is to have wealth untold, and to be without Him is the very definition of poverty.

But although God’s friendship surpasses the worth of anything else in existence, we not only fail to value it as we should, but there are times when we go so far as to trade it away. Faced with a choice between God’s friendship and that of our worldly peers, we often seek the favor of our peers by doing things that greatly damage our relationship with God. Maybe we suppose that we can have it both ways, or maybe we’re just being thoughtless. But in any case, we’re being quite foolish when we try to maintain equal measures of God’s friendship and the friendship of the world. James put it bluntly: “Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God” (James 4:4).

“Thus says the Lord: ‘Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, let not the mighty man glory in his might, nor let the rich man glory in his riches; but let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight,’ says the Lord” (Jeremiah 9:23,24).

“We regard falling from God’s friendship as the only thing dreadful and we consider becoming God’s friend the only thing worthy of honor and desire” (Gregory of Nyssa).

 

 

It’s Not Always Logical

First of all, today’s item was originally titled “It’s Only Logical” and we would appear to have given it the opposite title, but you’ll have to read more to find out why! Second, the writer, Jennifer, refers to a post on the same blog the day before, that is also very recommended. So you might want to read that as well today. The blog is called Get Along with God and the writer of this piece is Jennifer.  Click here to read at source and take some time to look around.

Mike’s post yesterday gave me much to chew on, and I started to remember all the ways that the Bible makes my brain hurt. One in particular stood out to me:

So the last will be first, and the first last. For many are called, but few chosen.
Matthew 20:16 NKJV

The verse above is a perfect example of just how NOT human our God truly is, and how maddening His ways are to me when I’m not in the Spirit.

Can you imagine the reaction if we tried to implement that verse into the world? Oh, the fistfights that would break out, the bloody howls of outrage that would echo through the halls of every building that had people queued up for something—utter pandemonium would ensue! That’s to be expected, of course, but I’m not sure that the reaction would be any better if the last were made first in your average church. Think about the parable that this verse caps.

“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. Now when he had agreed with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard.  And he went out about the third hour and saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and whatever is right I will give you.’ So they went.  Again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour, and did likewise” (Mt. 20:1-5).

This goes on until the last group of workers is there only an hour. And then the vineyard owner pays each man exactly the same amount, regardless of the amount of work they’ve done. Needless to say, the first group isn’t very happy. Honestly, I remember reading this parable when I was young and I wasn’t very happy either. I remember thinking, “Well, God, that’s not fair!” And by any definition of the word “fair” (i.e., treating people in a way that does not favor some over others), God is absolutely not.

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord.
“For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways,
And My thoughts than your thoughts.”
Isaiah 55:8-9 NKJV

And how! When Mike likened each surrender (encounter of the Cross) to paying a toll before continuing down the road, what really leaped out at me was how many of those tolls have to do with God’s absolute sovereignty. It ever and always comes back to the fact that I’m not in charge, and the One who is, doesn’t do things the way I think they should be done. Just look at the Almighty burn leveled by the landowner at the end of the parable:

‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what is yours and go your way. I wish to give to this last man the same as to you. Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with my own things? Or is your eye evil because I am good?’

Not so much as a “By your leave, good fellow!” Nope, if there’s one thing that God makes plain through sheer repetition, it’s His inviolate, immovable sovereignty. Paul asked, “Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?” That’s not even nice, let alone fair!

And sometimes I think that that’s the point. My fallen nature, which is always accessible to me, ever flirts with the lie that there are no consequences for disobedience to the Word of God. (“Then the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not surely die’” [Gen. 3:4].) It is the enormous love of God that hammers home, over and over, the indisputable FACT that He rules ALL—and I exist only as He sees fit to let me.

Sandy commented on Mike’s post, “Talking about an exchanged life, it seems one needs an ‘exchanged’ brain first!” I think that’s brilliantly right. The mind of the Spirit is NOTHING like my natural mind. I cannot comprehend the mind of God, let alone His alien ways, without the mind of the Spirit. I cannot walk in His ways, or carry out His will, without the indwelling life of Jesus Christ exchanged for my own. And without the unearned, inexplicable, and life-giving love of God the Father, I wouldn’t even know how much I just don’t know.

Every toll represents the death of my pride, the sacrifice of my rights, the surrender of my thoughts, and the end of my life as I know it. It’s humiliating and painful. And that’s how He set this up. Strangely, the less I try to understand Him, the better I know Him and the more I love Him. God is just…GOD.

Great Are You

I first heard this song at a worship service in the Chicago area a couple of years ago, but didn’t realize until tonight it’s by the band Downhere.  Close your eyes — the video image doesn’t change — and think about the fact that He’s God and we’re not.  Times a billion.

The chorus (especially) is truly a refreshing lyric.

How I love Your works
My God, My King
How I love Your works
My God, My King

Your Name rings on the plains
Like a not so distant train
And Love and history are near
In the flowers that you make
The flowers that you make

Because I’ll never hold the picture of the whole horizon in my view
Because I’ll never rip the night in two
It makes me wonder
Who am I, Who am I, Who am I
And great are you

How I love Your Word
My God, My King
How I love Your Word
My God, My King

Your love cuts through
these pages to my heart
As you grieve our sins,
right from the start
And sacrifice and paradise are in
The plans that you made, The
plans that you made

Because I’ll never hold the picture of the whole horizon in my view
Because I’ll never rip the night in two
It makes me wonder
Who am I, Who am I, Who am I
And great are you