This post is a response to a comment on my previous post, "The problem with Liberal Theology". John raises some perfectly reasonable challenges. I'm not going to respond to all of them - just one.
John said: "you neglect that principally God loves the most rotten scoundrel and is Himself love."
What is love, John? A powerful act that reaches out to identify, judge, and destroy, that which is truly, objectively, morally wrong – wrong because it insults the good character of the creator God, to whom we are all accountable? Or a polite permission that avoids any moral assessment, that is fundamentally powerless to discern good from evil?
God’s love is revealed on the cross of Christ. No, more – God’s love is enacted upon the cross; it is established in the cross of Christ. And the Biblical testimony to that act is that is an act of judgment. The cross is the triune God taking into his triune self the consequences of our rebellion against him.
My experience of that love makes me speak the way I do. I have been brought to the foot of that cross, shown the error of my ways, and had no choice but to confess that I am wrong, he is right. The blog that you respond to is simply my continued confession.
It’d be much easier for me to be a univeralist. Or an agnostic. Or a Buddhist. Or whatever. It’s hard to be an Evangelical. It's so unpopular, sounds so closed-minded. But if what Christ achieved on the cross is real – if it the enactment, the establishment of God’s love towards sinners – then I have no choice. I must testify to that reality. It’d be unloving for me not to.
John said: "you neglect that principally God loves the most rotten scoundrel and is Himself love."
What is love, John? A powerful act that reaches out to identify, judge, and destroy, that which is truly, objectively, morally wrong – wrong because it insults the good character of the creator God, to whom we are all accountable? Or a polite permission that avoids any moral assessment, that is fundamentally powerless to discern good from evil?
God’s love is revealed on the cross of Christ. No, more – God’s love is enacted upon the cross; it is established in the cross of Christ. And the Biblical testimony to that act is that is an act of judgment. The cross is the triune God taking into his triune self the consequences of our rebellion against him.My experience of that love makes me speak the way I do. I have been brought to the foot of that cross, shown the error of my ways, and had no choice but to confess that I am wrong, he is right. The blog that you respond to is simply my continued confession.
It’d be much easier for me to be a univeralist. Or an agnostic. Or a Buddhist. Or whatever. It’s hard to be an Evangelical. It's so unpopular, sounds so closed-minded. But if what Christ achieved on the cross is real – if it the enactment, the establishment of God’s love towards sinners – then I have no choice. I must testify to that reality. It’d be unloving for me not to.
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