St. John Studies

The Bible states, J.I. Packer comments and I have written that God can be both good and severe at the same time.  The previous post “Santa Claus Theology” makes that argument.  It also acknowledges that man prefers “good” God to “bad” God.  My guess is that our desire to see God as good is only natural.  Who wants to have a close relationship with a God who is severe? 

According to Pew Research, Christianity loses more people than it gains from religious conversion. They found that 23% of Americans raised as Christians no longer identified with Christianity, whereas 6% of current Christians were converts. Infant baptism has declined in many nations, with thousands of churches closing or merging due to lack of attendees.*

Maybe a “severe” God would only contribute to our troubles within the church, causing more people to lose their faith, resulting in fewer people going to church and more parents not worrying about trying to raise their kids in a Christian home. 

A friend commented on a recent post dealing with God’s wrath [another tough topic].  I am paraphrasing here but he basically said that “pastors today don’t give people the truth.” They would rather talk about God’s goodness, God’s favor, God’s forgiveness of our sins, God’s grace and a multitude of God’s more positive attributes. 

This is only natural.  Pastors want people to come into a nice church, with happy people, experience a good introduction to a “good” God.  Pastors naturally want people to stay and become members. 

Severe God discussions may equal empty pews.

Yes, maybe severe God discussions may equal more people losing their faith, resulting in fewer people going to church and more parents not worrying about trying to raise their kids in a Christian home [I know I repeated, but I was trying to make a point].

But the truth is, God is good and God is also severe: one coin; two sides.

Packer spends some pages discussing the good side of the coin and I will comment on those ideas in this post [the “severe” stuff will follow in the next post].

Johnson Oatman Jr. wrote a classic Christian song in 1897 entitled “Count Your Blessings.”  In almost childlike lyrics, he wrote  about the good God that we all want to know.

“When upon life’s billows you are tempest-tossed, When you are discouraged, thinking all is lost, Count your many blessings, name them one by one, And it will surprise you what the Lord has done.”**

Good…

A simple word but what does it mean when you apply it to God?  Packer says God’s goodness means “something admirable, attractive and praiseworthy.  When the Biblical writers call God good, they are thinking in general of all those moral qualities which prompt His people to call Him perfect, and in particular of the generosity which moves them to call Him merciful and gracious and to speak of His love” [161].

Let’s paraphrase Exodus 34: 6-7, as the writer describes God as compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love, faithful, loving to thousands, forgiving of wickedness, rebellion and sin.  These qualities point to the moral perfection of God and they make it easy to worship Him.  David writing in Psalm 18 describes God’s way as “perfect, the word of the Lord is flawless.  He is a shield for all who take refuge in Him.”

Packer goes further in his “good God” discussion.  He is particularly impressed with God’s generosity.   “Generosity expresses the simple wish that others should have what they need to make them happy” [162].  This generosity from God is different from generosity from man.  Often man’s generosity has “strings attached.”  God has no mercenary motive in His generosity.  It could be best described as spontaneous, without thought of payback or need for credit.  God does not need to feel good when He is generous.  He is good…always good.

One might ask how is God generous?  Some pastors today love to espouse what is called the prosperity gospel.  They preach that you should not be happy with what you have; you should strive for more, more money, more job responsibility, a larger home, a  bigger car.  Believe God for more!  Maybe that is God being generous.  I will have more money, more things in my life.

Personally, I don’t think that is what the Scripture means.  God controls everything in this world and good abounds all around.  God’s goodness is in the meals we eat, the pleasure we get from playing the piano.  God can give pleasure in the sink we wash our face in, the light switch we flip to turn on the lights and the door that keeps out the cold.  God is good when He allows the sun to shine in the back door of my home in the morning.  He is good in the restful sleep that I get at night.  When I feel good as I walk through my home, I feel His goodness in the ability to walk, especially when the steps are pain free.  Packer states that “everything that sustains and enriches life, is a Divine gift.”

Too often we get caught up in the magnificent goodness of God and we miss the small goodness we can experience throughout the day.  The Bible is full of extraordinary examples of God’s goodness.  Look no further than Psalm 107 when God delivers the helpless Israelites from their enemies, God shields them from the shadow of death when they rebel against Him, God heals them from diseases when they disregard Him and God protects voyagers by stilling a storm when their ship is in danger of sinking. 

Surely God is capable of all types of goodness on a large scale and I can point to times in my life when I know He has done big things for me, but I want to see God’s goodness daily, several times each day.  All I have to do is open my eyes, attend to what I have around me, and marvel in the abilities that He gives me to live my life.  Truly we don’t appreciate what we have and we don’t give God the credit for giving what we have.  The world’s focus is on acquisition and working hard to acquire more.  We want the credit for what we have; we don’t want to give it to God.  Spend some time with a woman who cannot breathe and you will be thankful to God for your breath.  Spend some time with a person who is homeless and you will thank God for your home, your heating system and the furniture you enjoy.  Spend some time with a grieving spouse and be thankful that God has given you a person to share your life with.

I recently had a wise woman tell me that I should take a long legal pad and start listing the gifts that God has given me.  She said the exercise will cause me to hone in on the multitude of things that our good God has allowed us to have, God’s gifts.  She said that the more you do this, the more you begin to realize that a good God is giving us things all day long.  When you hear the beautiful birds, you realize the gift of beautiful sounds.  When you turn on the water, you thank God for clean running water in your home.  When you get a friendly card in the mail, you thank God for friends.  The list goes on and on, page after page of the legal pad gets filled and you begin to see that truly God is a generous, good God to us all the time.

Earlier, I quoted from Exodus 34 and now I must admit that the quote was not complete.  Indeed “God is a compassionate and gracious God” and He loves us all, every day in lot of big ways and small ways.  At the end of Exodus 34 [6-7] the writer includes a phrase that does not support God’s goodness.  It goes like this; “He does not leave the guilty unpunished.”  I left it out because it does not support the goodness of God which this post is discussing; it fits the upcoming post that will deal with God’s severity.

Right now, let’s acknowledge all the goodness that God gives us.   Let’s celebrate it.  It is truly awesome.

“Count your blessings, name them one by one….and it will surprise you what the Lord has done.”  

*2013 Pew Research statistics…

**from “Timeless Truths” free online library [accessed January 17, 2020].

Romans 11:22

“Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God.”

I have just finished discussing two difficult chapters about God’s character; God as judge and God as wrathful.  Without a doubt, the reader of His Word will find multiple examples of God as judge and multiple examples of God’s wrath.  The premise of J.I. Packer’s book Knowing God is that through a careful exploration of God’s Word, one can pinpoint characteristics of God and therefore we can know Him. 

But what are we to do with Romans 11:22?  Can God be good and severe at the same time?

Most of us like consistency.  I have been accused of being confusing by my spouse, inconsistent and at times downright hard to understand, but I am a mere human.  I guess I can claim the right to be mixed up, but can we tolerate this in God?

Let’s provide some context for Romans [written by the Apostle Paul].  “Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness.”  He is referring to the Jews of Jesus’ day who for the most part, rejected Him.  God will be severe with those who reject Him. The people who experienced His “goodness” are the pagans, the Gentiles.  However, Paul wants the readers of his words to make sure and see the dual nature of God’s character; He is capable of good, but He is also capable of being severe. 

Packer says it this way: “Both appear alongside each other in the economy of grace.  Both must be acknowledged together if God is to be truly known.”

Most of us like consistency.  We look for patterns in human behavior.  Sometimes when we don’t see them, we create them.  We love to put complex people in boxes and the quicker we can do that, the more we are at ease.  We can come to the conclusion that we “know them”.

But we don’t.

Today Packer asserts that many Christians really don’t know God.  He calls our knowledge of God “modern muddle-headedness.”  People say they believe in God, but they have no idea who it is they believe in or what difference believing in Him may make” [Packer, 159].  We don’t know that God is complex enough to be both good and severe at the same time.

How has this happened?  We can’t grapple with a “good” God and a “severe” God.  We have to make Him one or the other.  Guess which characteristic most Christians prefer today?

The “good” God.

Packer goes so far as to say that contemporary Christians feel like God is a “celestial Santa Claus” and this Santa Claus theology cannot cope with the idea of evil.  “How on earth have people got into such a muddle?  What lies at the root of their confusion?

He has four answers.

First of all, we see Christians who operate on “private religious hunches.”  God’s Word is available but to read it is too difficult or too time-consuming.  Once people have their hunches in place, it is too hard to unlearn them.  Packer also points to the problem some people have with pride.  It is ok to base my knowledge on how I feel.  It is humbling to open God’s Word and find out that one’s ideas are not confirmed.

Secondly, many modern people think all religion is equal, and they draw many of their ideas from “pagan” sources instead of Christian sources.  “We have to try to show people the uniqueness and finality of the Lord Jesus Christ, God’s last word to man” [Packer, 159].  It is so hard to confront people with “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many.  For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few” [Matthew 7].  Most avoid that Scripture because we fear that it may be offensive to nonbelievers, but it really says that Jesus is the way; every faith on the face of the earth in not equal to Christianity.  One who desires to be a Christian should consult God’s Word.

Next is the problem that culture normalizes sinfulness.  Let’s be truthful, as people act out and their behavior becomes more acceptable due to large numbers of copy cats, celebrity actors or some kind or popular trend, people cease to recognize the reality of their own sinfulness.  Some forms of sinfulness become accepted and no one wants to be confronted by the idea that God does not appreciate such behavior.  It is our task as believers to introduce people to the fact that God can be severe in His judgement of sin.  This is not popular and to be honest, Packer is right when he says that it can cause “enmity against God.”

Last is the habit people have of disassociation.  We are back to the idea I expressed above about consistency.  We just don’t like disparate ideas when it comes to humans and we don’t like disparate ideas about God.  He is either one way of the other.  He can’t be both good and severe.   As humans, why do we stereotype?   Before you say, “I don’t,” let’s be honest; everyone does.  It is a short cut to making conclusions about people.  People are complex and we never take the time we need to know someone.  We jump to conclusions based on scant evidence.  It takes less thought and it certainly takes less time. 

God is complex; much more complex than we can ever understand.  Our finite minds can’t comprehend His nature and if we believe in a God who is always “good” and never “severe,” we don’t have to worry about the consequences of sin.  Packer writes “On the basis of Santa Claus theology, sins create no problem, and atonement becomes needless” [160].  It is no different for those who disregard God’s commandments than those who keep them.  “Trembling at His word gets written off as impossibly old fashioned—‘Victorian,’ ‘Puritan’ and ‘sub-Christian’ [160].

“Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God.”

Yes, it is from our Bibles, from Romans 11: 22.

God’s Word…

God’s truth…

God is good…

God is also severe…

Sodom and Gomorroh were notoriously sinful cities that are mentioned in the book of Genesis.  Due to their wickedness, God destroyed them by “sulfur and fire.”  God reveals to Abraham that He is going to destroy the inhabitants of these cities and Abraham “negotiates” with God, saying that he thinks he can find city dwellers who deserve to be saved due to their righteousness.  If he can find enough righteous people, he asks God to spare the cities.  He can only find Lot and his family, not enough people to change God’s mind.

As a child, I had this vivid image of God destroying these cities.  He is in heaven, raining down thunderbolts on the cities with an angry face.  He shows no mercy, destroying every building and everyone in every building.  All is reduced to rubble.

God’s wrath…

I begin with this to illustrate how many Christians may see God.  God can be vengeful, like a magistrate sentencing criminals and executing them.   God is up in heaven throwing down thunderbolts directly at sinners [ahem… you and me].

God is active in exacting His vengeance.

But is that the case?

The answer is no.

As mentioned in my December 28^th post, God does not dole out punishment on sinners unless they deserve it.  They choose to disobey God’s commands.  Jesus says “Come to me….Take my yoke upon you and learn from Me [Matthew, 11: 28-29].  He is inviting people to choose to save themselves.  Deny yourself, pick up your cross, become My disciple and let Me have My way with you.  He invites us to lose our former life so we can find our life with Him.

Recipients of God’s wrath are people who choose to ignore God; they turn away, and they have their own way.  They defy God.  They would rather be by themselves than be in the company of God.  This deliberate choice is what many do not see.

God is merely respecting man’s choice.  J.I. Packer puts it this way:  “What God is hereby doing is no more than to ratify and confirm judgements which those whom He ‘visits’ have already passed on themselves by the course they have chosen to follow [from Knowing God, 153].  This is God’s extremely consistent behavior throughout the whole Bible from His first wrath that we see in Genesis in the Garden of Eden to Revelation.  God is merely respecting human choice; He is not cruel, He is not wanton, He is not irresponsible in His infliction of pain on man.

Before we go further, let’s be clear about God’s “attitude” as revealed in His actions.  Packer says that God is “resolute” in taking action in punishing sin.  If God loves it when we make good choices, He hates it when we make poor ones.  Packer writes about God’s “active manifestation of His hatred of irreligion and moral evil.”  God’s laws are clear; we know what He expects, yet we choose not to obey His laws.  Passages from Ephesians are clear about this; sinners are “fitted for destruction,” “vessels of wrath” [objects of wrath], servants of the world, flesh and the devil.

They call down wrath on themselves.

This raises the question about how we can know we have displeased God.  Without being too “theological,” Packer speaks directly to any reader of his book [believer or unbeliever alike].  God imprints His revelation of His wrath “directly on every person’s conscience….no one is entirely without inklings of judgement to come.”  By inklings, Packer means that if one looks around, the world is full of signs of what he calls “degeneration.”  A sampling of some signs are man’s idolatry, man’s immorality, uninhibited lusts and sinful hearts.  The Apostle Paul describes the process of degeneration as “God giving man over.”  God gave man over to sexual impurity; God gave man over to shameful lust.  Similar to Packer, Paul writes that one need only look around in the world to see what God has “given them over to” [from Romans].

This sounds so dire, many readers may have already given up on reading this post, but let’s talk about a positive, like how can we be delivered from God’s wrath?

I sin. We all sin.  “No one is righteous, not even one.”

We know God’s law cannot save us; it can only stimulate sin as we choose to rebel or it can show us how far we fall from righteous living.  The outward manifestation of “religion” cannot save us; we might look good in the eyes of man, but God knows our heart. 

Our delivery is due to the blood of Jesus.  Our delivery is due to the faith we have in trusting the person and work of Jesus Christ.  Jesus came to earth to save man from God’s wrath.  He sacrificed Himself for us.  Packer refers to this act as “propitiation,” a sacrifice that “averts wrath through expiating sin and canceling guilt.”  This is the heart of the Gospel; that Jesus is our substitute on the cross.  He is our “sinbearer.”  What stands between us and the thunderbolts of a wrathful God?

The cross of Jesus Christ.

First Thessalonians 1:10 says it so well: “If we are Christ’s through faith, then we are justified through His cross, and the wrath will never touch us, neither here or hereafter.”

As we return to how we began this post, we do have to admit that God is a wrathful God.  It would do us all good to respect Him, to “fear” Him, but let’s not focus on His wrath so much that we forget to acknowledge the Gospel of salvation, the propitiation of the cross and the wonder of God’s love for all of us.  Godly wrath is real and our fear of His righteous anger is justified. 

Is it fashionable to preach God’s wrath from the pulpit?

Judging from contemporary pastors who just can’t bring themselves to deliver a “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God*” sermon, I would say it is not.  But to ignore God’s wrath totally is to avoid the truth of the Bible. 

Maybe we should take Packer’s approach to this topic, expressed at the end of his chapter on “The Wrath of God:”  “If we would truly know God, and be known by Him, we should ask Him to teach us here and now to reckon with the solemn reality of His wrath.”

Where can we find this teaching?

You know where.

Between the covers of your Bible.

*a famous sermon on God’s wrath delivered by Jonathan Edwards in Northampton, Massachusetts on July 8, 1741

I was at a family gathering recently and I told a tale of my youth.  It may sound appalling by today’s standards but it was true.  As a rambunctious boy, I committed a grievous error by damaging one of my brothers [on purpose], and I had to be corrected.  I remember feeling such trepidation as I anticipated what my Dad was going to do to punish me.   I will never forget his request.  He said to go get a switch [a small limb from a tree] so he could administer my punishment.  I guess I was not thinking straight because I brought him a little sprig.  When he saw what I got, he was not amused; in fact, I think it angered him more.  He got a more appropriate size switch and I surely felt the pain of my error.  Before thinking ill of my Dad, you must know that I truly deserved the punishment and I have never regretted getting it.  Of course, today corporal punishment is frowned upon, but in my youth, it was used and it worked in some situations.  It made a serious impression on me; I never repeated my “grievous error” again.

I use this story to introduce a difficult subject to write about one of the most difficult I have had to write about in our effort to know God.   In previous posts I struggled to discuss the topic of God as Judge [not a popular concept].  Now I must discuss “The Wrath of God.”  It has been so much easier writing about God’s unchanging nature, His majesty, His wisdom, His Word as truth, His Love and His grace.  Those were all positive attributes of God that J.I. Packer discusses in his book Knowing God.   Just like I shied away from Dad’s switch, no one seems to want to deal with the fact that God is wrathful. 

The Bible certainly makes the case that God is wrathful.  Packer comments that Biblical writers talk of God’s wrath repeatedly: “One of the most striking things about the Bible is the vigor with which both Testaments emphasize the reality and terror of God’s wrath.”  Packer cites A.W. Pink: “A study of the concordance will show that there are more references in Scripture to the anger, fury and wrath of God, than there are to His love and tenderness” [From The Attributes of God, 75].  God indeed does not fear using His “deep, intense anger and indignation” [148].

Ok, one of the attributes of God is His wrath.  What is the problem?   God’s wrath makes many Christians uncomfortable.  The modern way of thinking about God’s wrath is to play it down, even to the point that many believers do not even want to think that God feels it for man.  I do not recall any pastor in my lifetime preaching a sermon on God’s wrath.  I certainly have never heard a pastor on television or the radio preach a sermon on wrath.  I don’t recall reading a written exposition on the topic of God’s wrath. 

Packer calls this a “taboo topic.”  “Christians by and large have accepted the taboo and conditioned themselves never to raise the matter” [149].

Read the words from Nahum 1: 2-8: “The Lord is a jealous God and avengeth; the Lord avengeth and is full of wrath; the Lord taketh vengeance on His adversaries, and He reserves wrath for his enemies.  The Lord is slow to anger, and great in power, and will by no means clear the guilty….Who can stand before His indignation?  and who can abide the fierceness of His anger?  His fury is poured out like fire, and the rocks are broken asunder by Him.  The Lord is good, a strong hold in the day of trouble; and He knoweth them that put their trust in Him.  But He …will pursue His enemies into darkness.”

Many may think that Nahum is a little known Old Testament book; “wrath is not that common in my New Testament Bible”.  The Apostle Paul writes the Lord Jesus will one day appear “in blazing fire” and “will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the Gospel of our Lord Jesus.”  Packer writes “throughout the New Testament the wrath of God is…against those who have defied Him.”  He cites Scripture in Romans, Thessalonians, Revelation, Luke “and so on”.

This raises the question, if Bible writers do not have a problem expressing the reality of God’s wrath, why do we have such a problem with it?

Packer says the root cause is our idea that wrath is somehow an unworthy attribute of God.

Too often, man takes human characteristics and applies them to God and this may just be the case with wrath.  If a human being is feeling wrath, this suggests someone who is out of control, irrational, full of wounded pride or just horrible temper.  Packer writes that there is no “anthropomorphic language of Scripture” to suggest that God has any of these traits.  People twist the idea that God made us in His image to the idea that God shares the same characteristics of us sinful creatures.  God must have the same corresponding qualities we have.

God does not have to have our qualities.

“God’s wrath in the Bible is never the capricious, self-indulgent, irritable, morally ignoble thing that human anger so often is.  It is, instead, a right and necessary reaction to objective moral evil” [Packer, 151].  In other words, God is angry when it is called for.  I have always heard the expression righteous indignation.  God’s anger is always righteous. 

To others, God’s wrath brings forth images of cruelty.   God’s quick and decisive responses to evil abound in the Bible from the cursing and banishment of Adam and Eve in Genesis to the great assizes of Revelation [the last general judgement of this world].   Is God a cruel God as He administers His punishment for human evil?  Will sinners in this world today be faced with a cruel God as the balance of their life is judged and they are dangled over the pit of hell, which consists of fire and brimstone?  Are people correct in feeling that God can be described as a fierce and cruel monster when His wrath is unleashed?

No God is not too cruel.  His wrath is judicial and His wrath is merited.

The Apostle Paul writes in Romans “The day of God’s wrath is when His righteous judgement will be revealed, when God will give each person according to what he has done [from Romans 2].  The believer knows what God requires and knows what is worthy of punishment [recall my switching?].  Luke 12 states “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.”  Any believer who has felt the conviction of sin knows that the disobedience of God deserves great and grievous punishment.  God weighs the disobedience and administers the appropriate response.

Secondly, God does not force us to disobey.  That is our choice.  Jesus has come into the world to lead us to a life of light.  If we don’t choose to follow His guidance, who do we have to blame?    Jesus says in Matthew, “Come to Me….take my yoke upon you and learn from Me.”  If we resist this command and decide to live our lives by our own rules, we have no one to blame but ourselves.  “The unbeliever has preferred to be by himself, without God, defying God, having God against him; he shall have his preference.  Nobody stands under the wrath of God except those who have chosen to do so” [Packer, 153].

God gives man what he deserves, nothing more; nothing less.  God’s wrath is “poles apart from the wanton and irresponsible inflicting of pain which is what we mean by [human] cruelty” [Packer, 153].

Today we can act like God is not a wrathful God, denying one of the most obvious attributes that we see in His Word, but that is not very realistic.  God will act to punish evil.  He will do so in a righteous way, administering His will in a judicious manner.   Just because we lose control as we express our anger does not mean that He will.  He does not; he gives us what we deserve, nothing more; nothing less.

It is hard to admit.  We don’t want it.  We know it will hurt.  We can’t imagine our friendly Father punishing us. 

But that is what He has to do.

Yes…

Sometimes we truly deserve “the switch.”

I have had the pleasure of reading the Bible through a few times, but as you know, it is a complex book.  The Word of God provided a challenge to me [as I am sure, to you].  Some parts remain deeply ingrained in memory while other parts do not.  No one can expect to remember it all [or for that matter, understand it all].  Recently I was asked to read Scripture for my church on the third Sunday of Advent. I was asked to read Mary’s response to Elizabeth’s blessing in Luke 1: 46-56.  I decided to really do some serious study prior to my reading, so I could understand the magnitude of the Scripture and the context of Mary’s response. 

I found that I did not recall the context at all.  I did not recall that Elizabeth [the wife of Zechriah] was pregnant with her baby [John the Baptist] when she blessed Mary.  I did not know that when Mary encountered Elizabeth, Elizabeth’s baby was filled with the Holy Spirit and leaped for joy in her womb.  I did not recall that Elizabeth was far beyond child-bearing years and Zechariah had received an Angelic visit with the announcement that his wife was to have a son.

When I taught Sunday school the morning of my reading, I taught on the “Secret of the Christian Life.”  That secret is the secret of joy.  This was on the third Sunday in Advent, the Sunday when the Advent candle is pink, the liturgical color for joy.  I opened my class with “Fa La La La La” and I kept repeating that happy Welsh refrain from Deck the Halls.  I kept repeating it until several class members joined in [forced joyfulness?].

I asked tough questions like “What about your life right now is stealing your joy?”  I asked “Why should a Christian be joyful?”  Squirmy questions.  I often ask indirect questions, questions that can prompt a comfortable response that does not reveal things personal things.  I have even used rhetorical questions which are statements that are posed in the form of questions: no reply necessary.  On this Sunday I let the squirmy questions come out.

Why do we not approach the Christmas season with joy?  Some would say that it is a cultural problem.  We are influenced too much by “the world” which expects a big, glossy, loud and fast Christmas.  Turn on the television and you see it on the commercials and in many Christmas shows and movies.  We have to be ultimately happy and of course, the more presents we get under the tree, the happier we will be.  Christmas is a mad dash to purchase gifts, the more dear a person is in your life, the more difficult it is to buy them the “perfect” gift.  We wind up spending way too much money, wasting way too much time and for what? 

I truly do not know.

Ann Voskamp** says that at Christmas, we spend too much time at the foot of the Christmas tree.  We think we can understand the story of Christmas there.  Instead she thinks we should try to spend time at the Jesse Tree.  At that tree we will find hope; we will find true joy.

Isaiah 1 recounts the story of the tree [which really represents the family tree of Jesus]: “Out of the stump of David’s family will grow a shoot—yes a Branch bearing fruit from the old root….In that day the heir to David’s throne will be a banner of civilization to all the world.  The nations will rally to Him, and the land where He lives will be a glorious place.”

Imagine our obsession with that big real or fake evergreen.  Replace that with a stump.

What a contrast.

Imagine our obsession with what the world tells us to do during Christmas:  go for the big, glossy, loud and fast.  Instead focus on the miracles that are within each of us, focus on making time and space for Christ in the Christmas season, focus on being defiant in the face of a world that seems insane and too stressed.  Wait for the coming Christ.  Wait……..

What a contrast.

From out of that stump grows a sprig, a hopeful spring, a sign that hope still exists, is alive and well in this world.

The gift that really matters is coming; the gift of Jesus Christ.   On Christmas day we celebrate the greatest gift.  On Christmas day the Light comes into the world,  the Light that shines in all the dark places of this world, all the dark places in our hearts. 

When Christmas comes, the Jesus candle burns brightest, burns hot, gives its light to the world.  The greatest gift comes into the world for you and for me.  Christ came into the world for all of us; we come into the world for Him.

Like the shepherds at the manger, when we consider what we have been given, we want to spread the word to the world.  “When you’re a manger tramp who came with nothing but your ragged heart and leaned in close over that crèche, when you’ve beheld His glory, the white heat of a Love like this; who doesn’t tramp out of the manger and into the world with a glowing heart like hot embers in your chest?  A heart like this could catch the world on fire” [Voskamp, 258].  

“For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given” [Isaiah 9: 6].

When Christmas comes, we get our greatest gift….

God is with us…

“Christ, the always Gift for all our days.”***

When Christmas comes, we understand Christian joy.

Christ the Christian’s secret…Christ, the source of our joy…

*Commenting on J.I. Packer’s book Knowing God has been challenging.  Since beginning this blog on December 30, 2014 with Kyle Idleman’s AHA!, I realize how far it has come.  Idleman’s thoughts are exemplary, full of well-intended discussion of the “aha” moments we can find in our spiritual lives but Packer’s work is much more dense, more thorough and more complex.  I began in 2014 by posting almost every day.  Recently I have been posting on a weekly basis and that is ok, because Knowing God is so difficult.  Recently I have been commenting on chapters that are the hardest to comment on; “God the Judge” is not full of “happy” news as we have had to confront the fact that Jesus Christ will decide if our body of earthly work is good enough for salvation or condemnation. At this Christmas season, I have decided to suspend our discussion for one post because the next chapter is “The Wrath of God.”  I would like to be uplifting in my thoughts five days before the birth of Jesus.  Hopefully the discussion in today’s post will be acceptable for all who follow this blog and to anyone who visits…

**author of The Greatest Gift

***Voskamp, The Greatest Gift, 259.

“[He]…will sit on His throne in heavenly glory.  All the nations [everybody] will be gathered before Him, and He will separate the people one from another….Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance….’ Then He will say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire.’”   Matthew 25: 31-34, 41.

I purposefully began this quotation of Scripture with [He].  How many assume that “He” refers to God?  How many realize that “He” is not God; He refers to Jesus Christ.

For many Christians, the primary focus is on Scripture like John 3: 17:  “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.”  Of course we all agree that Jesus is our Savior, but Jesus as Judge?  For many, that is just not the way we think of Jesus Christ.

We think of Jesus’ first coming.

We tend to ignore Jesus’ second coming. 

Pastor David Jeremiah sheds light on the reality of Jesus’ second coming:  “It is the Second Coming that gets the most ink in the Bible. [But] references to the Second Coming outnumber references to the first by a ratio of eight to one. Scholars count 1,845 biblical references to the Second Coming, including 318 in the New Testament. Christ’s return is emphasized in no less than seventeen Old Testament books and seven out of every ten chapters in the New Testament. The Lord Himself refers to His return twenty-one times. The Second Coming is second only to faith as the most dominant subject in the New Testament.”*

What is the significance of the Second Coming?  Matthew 25 tells us that Jesus is the Judge presiding over the judgement of nations. The judgment will cover all unbelievers on the earth (Revelation 19:15, 20, 21). At this time, Christ will return to earth with His raptured saints to judge the unsaved and reign over the earth.  

With this focus on “unbelievers,” do believers have any reason for concern?  Paul says in 2^nd Corinithians 5:10 “ We must all appear before the judgement seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.”

But what about justification?  Believers declare they have given their lives to Christ and He has made me right by wiping away all our sins.  J.I. Packer** writes “the gift of justification certainly shields believers from being condemned and banished from God’s presence as sinners.”  In Revelation when the “Book of Life” is opened, the believer’s name will be written; and they are not thrown into the lake of fire as the rest are. However, the gift of justification does not shield the believer from final assessment.  Packer comments that some believers are “slack,” “mischievous” and “destructive”.  Paul warns about lifestyle in 1st Corinthians: “If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light.  It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man’s work.  If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward.  If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames” [3: 12-15].

In short, the believer who has a strong relationship with God will be rewarded and the believer who has a weak relationship with God will suffer loss.

Further information from Scripture sheds light on the role of Jesus in this process.  Dan 7:13-14 relates “A time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear His voice and come out—those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned.”  Jesus stands at the end of life’s road.  In the Old Testament,  prepare to meet your God was the message that Amos delivered to Israel.  The New Testament message is recorded in Acts 17:31 “prepare to meet the risen Christ.”

At the time of final judgement, what actually will be judged?  One thing will be words.  Why words?  They are a central focus on because words show what is on the inside of man.  In Matthew 12, “A tree is recognized by its fruit….How can you who are evil say anything good?  For out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.”  The second thing is actions.  Again, let’s turn to fruit.  If we hear the word of God, we want to act on it.  It is just that simple.  We know what to do.  The Holy Spirit communicates that to us. Scripture communicates that to us.  In our hearts we know to act like we believe God and Jesus Christ.  He calls us to do that.  By our actions we show the love we have for Christ, the love that springs from our faith, the love that has taken over our hearts. 

But what about people who have limited knowledge of what it takes to be a believer?  Packer says “all people know something of God’s will through general revelation, even if they have not been instructed in the law or the Gospel, and all are guilty before God for falling short of the best they knew” [146].

Ok, does this judgement mean that there is slim chance for any of us on our judgment day?  Let’s try to end this chapter “God the Judge” on a slightly brighter note.  We know that there is not much hope that what we are doing with our lives is going to be enough to get us an easy pass into God’s presence.  Dare we say that we all fall too far short of perfection? Packer gives us hope in his word about the “heart index.”  “The relevance of our doings is not that they ever merit a award from the court—they fall too far short of perfection to do that—but they provide an index of what is in the heart” [145].   “This heart index is the real nature of the Christian.   Willfully committing the same sin over and over again and never feeling remorse is not a sign of the Christian.  Attempting to change [even though you may fail] is a sincere piece of evidence that your heart is right with God .  Whereas an unbeliever may not feel any qualms about sinning, the Christian does and even though they may ‘sin and fall short of the glory of God,’ they are attempting to work in a positive direction.   They have doubts and fears about their standing with God and even though their guilt about their sin is a very real thing, they are not guilty of rejecting Jesus Christ.”***

Finally, the fact that we are to face Christ’s judgment should not cause us to react in terror.  Packer states “Jesus the Lord like His Father, is holy and pure and [of course] we are neither.  We live under His eye, He knows our secrets, and on judgement day the whole of our past life will be played back, as it were, before Him, and brought under review.”  My oh my, what are we to do?  Here is the simple piece of advice that Packer gives us.

“Call on the coming Judge to be your present Savior.”

Don’t run from an omniscient God, an omnipresent God, an all-powerful God.  That is so insane.  You can’t do it.  There is no place to run.  Seek Him now; when you will meet Him as Judge, you will look forward to that meeting.  Run from Him now, and you will face that meeting without hope.

Remember, Romans 8: 1 “There is not condemnation for those who are in Jesus Christ.”

Remember:

“Whilst I draw this fleeting breath;

When my eyelids close in death;

When I soar through tracts unknown,

See Thee on Thy judgement-throne;

Rock of Ages, cleft for me,

Let me hide myself in Thee.”****

*from His blog “Faithgateway”

**from Knowing God

***from “Send In The Judges” St. John Studies, November 28, 2019

****From the hymn “Rock of Ages”

If we are trying to “know God” as J.I. Packer’s book implies [after all, the title is Knowing God] it would be most appropriate to know as many aspects of God as we can.  John Ortberg wrote a book a few years ago that had a snappy title: “Everybody’s Normal Till You Get to Know Them”.   There is a nugget of truth in this title, and I think it may apply to knowing God.   To make it apply, we need to adapt it and come up with a J.I. Packer version: “Everybody’s Happy Till You Come to Realize that God is Your Judge”. 

To know God is to know that He is going to judge our humanly behavior.  That is serious because all of us fail to behave in a “righteous” manner all the time.  We all sin [we all have that burden left over from The Garden].

So here we are.  To know God is to accept the fact that He is our Judge.  Packer pulls no punches:  he writes “God has resolved to be everyone’s Judge, rewarding every person according to his works.  Retribution is the inescapable moral law of creation; God will see that each person sooner or later receives what he deserves—if not here, then hereafter” [143]. 

Let’s “drill down” with more Packer on God as Judge:  “the doctrine of divine judgement, and particularly of the final judgement, is not to be thought of primarily as a bogey with which to frighten men into an outward form of conventional ‘righteousness.’ It has its frightening implications for godless men, it is true; but its main thrust is as a revelation of the moral character of God and an imparting of moral significance to human life” [143-44].

Oh my; I guess what I do in this life matters…to God, my Judge.

For people who like to enjoy all aspects of life, this is not good news.  What Packer is saying is that some stuff that we do is not good for us [especially as regards our afterlife].

Everybody’s Happy Till You Come to Realize that God is Your Judge.

He is, but what is involved in God being our Judge?

First of all, an earthy judge is a person who has authority.  In Bible times, the king had supreme ruling authority, including the authority to judge subjects.  For that matter, God is the Creator of the world and if He owns it, He has the supreme authority to do with it what He wants.  He certainly has made laws for us and if you believe in them, you want to keep them [after all, aren’t they for our own good?].  If one takes the Bible world as the context to determine what a judge was (in the Bible world), a judge gives laws and judges how man obeys said laws. 

Secondly, a judge is a person who is identified with what is good and right.  The modern idea of a judge is that the judge dispenses justice according to a complex set of laws and interpretations of those laws.  The modern judge is supposed to be “dispassionate” in the dispensing of justice.  The Biblical judge is more involved.  God hates people who hurt others.  God loves justice and fair play [note the word “loves”].  “God loves righteousness and hates iniquity” [Packer, 141].  God is not dispassionate; He wants good and right to win out every time, no matter what.

Thirdly, God as judge personifies wisdom and truth.  God does not have to do the things that an earthly judge does; listening to questions, listening to cross examination, trying to determine if lying has occurred and making an effort to establish how “matters really stand.”  God does not have to do this; He is omniscient.  Our Father knows the heart of man; He does not have to search out facts.  He has all the facts.  When we sin, God knows.  We think we can hide our behaviors but that is absurd.  We think our outward behaviors mask the true intentions of the heart, but that is equally absurd.  God knows all; God judges the secrets of men, not just their public veneer.

Lastly, the judge has the power to execute the sentence on the one judged.  With God, the Judge executes the sentence.  A modern judge may declare the sentence but another department of the justice system carries out the sentence.  In Bible times, the king (acting as judge) declared the sentence and someone else carried it out.  God is His own executioner.  He sentences and He punishes.

There is a bothersome underlying idea in all this “God as Judge discussion”.

Here it is: retribution.

None of us want to think of a God passing final judgement on us, especially if God is going to dole out retribution.  Leviticus 24: 17-22 is pretty clear:  “Whoever takes a human life shall surely be put to death.  Whoever takes an animal’s life shall make it good, life for life.  If anyone injures his neighbor, as he has done it shall be done to him, fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; whatever injury he has given a person shall be given to him.  Whoever kills an animal shall make it good, and whoever kills a person shall be put to death. You shall have the same rule for the sojourner and for the native, for I am the Lord your God.” 

Is God going to give people what they deserve?  If they are good, they will be rewarded with good.  If they are evil, they will be rewarded with evil.

Is this popular?

No…

We all want a break…don’t we?  Please God “cut us some slack”.

I am afraid we all worry about the negative nature of retribution and we worry so much that we don’t even want to face the fact that God may dole out eternal consequences for the life we are living here on earth. 

Much easier to ignore God as Judge. 

Everybody’s Happy Till You Come to Realize that God is Your Judge.

Maybe we need to close with another version of this opening adaptation, the “eternal” version:  “Everybody’s Eternally Unhappy if You Don’t Realize that God is Your Judge.”

There it is: the “bogey with which to frighten men.”

The perfect way to end the “Post That No One Will Want to Read.”

Some Christians do not relish the idea that God is our Divine Judge.

J.I. Packer says that “many, it seems, do not.  Speak to them as God as a Father, a friend, a helper, one who loves us despite all our weakness and folly and sin, and their faces light up; you are on their wavelength at once.  But speak to them as God as Judge and they frown and shake their heads.  Their minds recoil from such an idea.  They find it repellent and unworthy” [Knowing God, 138].

Maybe we have oversold the idea that God is our benevolent Father and Jesus is our loving friend.  It is a wonderful selling point for the unbeliever.  It makes the unbeliever feel so good about committing their life to Christ.  God the Father is not going to think harshly about what you do; He knows of our sins but He will forgive and forget [that’s the way grace works].  We think of Jesus as the one who came to earth and assumed the role of man, exhibiting love for all mankind.  It is very popular to think of Jesus as our friend.  That is actually the way He is portrayed by some Christians.  We all know that a true friend is loyal and faithful, watches out for you, confides in you, shares his life with you and gives things up for you.  Jesus does this and much more.  He is truly our friend.

Yet we should deal with reality and the reality of the Bible is that it is full of instances of God judging man.

From the beginning in the Garden of Eden, God judged Adam and Eve, expelling them from the garden and pronouncing curses on their lives.   Of course God judged the world in Noah’s day, flooding it and destroying almost all of mankind.  God judged those who worshipped the golden calf and had the Levites destroy those sacrilegious Israelites.  Let’s not forget the sinful city of Sodom and Gomorrah; He decided to engulf the sinners in that city with a volcanic catastrophe.  Repeatedly in the Old Testament, God judged Israel for unfaithfulness.  They would make amends and have an easier life only to experience judgement again after additional lapses in faith [i.e. chasing after idols]. 

Ok, that is the Old Testament. That judgement stuff surely does not apply to the New Testament.  Things are changed due to the life and death of Jesus aren’t they?   I am afraid that Divine judgement continues.  Judgement fell on the Jews for not believing Christ in Matthew 21 and Thessalonians 2.  Ananias and Sapphira lied to God and were immediately judged and struck down.  Christians at Corinth suffered illness due to their irreverence for the Lord’s Supper.  We could continue on but Packer rightly states “The entire New Testament is overshadowed by the certainty of a coming day of universal judgement, and by the problem thence arising:  How may we sinners get right with God while there is yet time?” [140].

We may not want to see God and His Son Jesus as judges but they are.  Jesus is referred to as the Judge who stands before the door in James 5:9.  He is the “righteous Judge” who will give Paul his crown in Second Timothy.  “He is the One who has been designated by God as Judge of the living and dead” in Acts 10: 42.  Paul writes to the Romans “God will judge men’s secrets through Jesus Christ, as my Gospel declares” [Romans 2:16].

Recently my retired elementary teacher spouse and I have had discussions of childhood discipline in the church.  The idea she expressed is that parents don’t take kindly to hearing their children judged for poor behavior in a church setting.  In fact, for some parents it may seem that church is a “free zone.”  Kids can do what they want with absolutely no direction.

Let’s direct this discipline discussion heavenward.  What type of God would we have if He did not care about right and wrong?  What if He just allowed any kind of behavior, never drawing a boundary for man and woman to follow?  Just as children need boundaries for their behavior, adults need them too.  Packer raises a wonderful point about God [because his whole book is about us Knowing God]. “Would a God who did not care about the difference between right and wrong be a good and admirable Being?” [143].

You know the answer. God would not be admirable.

Would He be more popular? You bet He would.

“Moral indifference would be an imperfection in God, not a perfection” [143].

I have had many discussions with unbelievers and the “judgement thing” is a major sticking point for them committing their lives to Christ.  They fear judgement and would rather live a life without God than deal with the need to change old sinful habits.   This attitude begs the question about Christians in church. “If I am a merciless sinner outside of church and I am not a believer; are the people who are believers in church perfect?  Many I have talked to act like they are; they are better than me and I know I would not fit in with them” [a common theme].

Christians in church sin…

God knows that and God judges them just like He judges an unbeliever.  “Well then, why go to all the effort to declare Christ as my Savior?  Why should I struggle with my behaviors?   Some of my bad habits are well-established and I will have a hard time eradicating them.”

Why commit?

Because God knows the Christian’s heart.  Packer admits that all will be judged by God in the end.  That is our belief, but God knows what resides in a person’s heart.  Packer calls it the “heart index.”  “The relevance of our doings is not that they ever merit an award from the court—they fall too far short of perfection to do that—but they provide an index of what is in the heart” [145].   This heart index is the real nature of the Christian.   Willfully committing the same sin over and over again and never feeling remorse is not a sign of the Christian.  Attempting to change [even though you may fail] is a sincere piece of evidence that your heart is right with God .  Whereas an unbeliever may not feel any qualms about sinning, the Christian does and even though they may “sin and fall short of the glory of God,” they are attempting to work in a positive direction.   They have doubts and fears about their standing with God and even though their guilt about their sin is a very real thing, they are not guilty of rejecting Jesus Christ.

Granted, being judged is not a pleasant thing, but it is a fact.  We live in a world that encourages moral laxity and we fall to those temptations from time to time.  Maybe it would be easier not to worry about God looking over our shoulder, keeping His record of our sins.  We could carry on life as we please.  I am reminded of a piece of Scripture from Judges…Judges 21: 25:  “In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit.” 

The context for this book is that Israel had lost its desire to be ruled by kings.  They asked God to be freed from the idea of a powerful God-appointed monarch.  They did as they saw fit, turning to idols, committing rape, murder, mass kidnappings and genocide.  Eventually they were conquered by oppressors and they grew to realize how much they really needed God.  They were ready to turn from their idols and they questioned the idea that everyone should do what they “saw fit.”

God was ready to help.  He always is when man has a contrite heart. 

What does He do?

He sends forth warriors and champions to save Israel. 

They tried to do the work of God and Christ on earth.

They are referred to in the Bible as, [you guessed it]

Judges…

“The grace of God is love freely shown toward guilty sinners, contrary to their merit and indeed in defiance of their demerit.  It is God showing goodness to persons who deserve only severity and had no reason to expect anything but severity” [Packer*, 132].

Packer’s statement about grace sounds pretty worrisome doesn’t it?

Why is it worrisome?  I am one of those persons who deserve severity and guess what, I don’t want it; who would? 

But I deserve severity…

I sin.

And I know that I don’t deserve God’s forgiving grace.

In the previous post [“If We Don’t Understand Grace…”] I comment on Packer’s notion that not all church people share the same beliefs about God and man’s relationship. With this “lack of sharing” as a basis, the doctrine of grace does not mean as much to the church-goer as it should.  Packer presents four very good reasons for his conclusion. We are very distracted by the lure of material wealth, the ease of minimizing wrongdoing, the temptation of trying to work our way into God’s favor and the idea that grace is no big deal [extending grace is merely God doing His work]. If we accept his ideas that we fall short in accepting the idea of grace in our spiritual lives, are there reasons why we should change and try to make the acceptance of grace much more important?

We should reject those four reasons for misunderstanding the relationship between God and man because they are just not as significant as the reasons we should try to understand grace and after we achieve some level of understanding, we should then try to accept grace.

Let’s start with the most obvious need for grace.  I have already referred to it above. 

Sin.

Packer is dramatic in his description of our lowly state.  We need to be “brought right” with God and we can’t be brought right by our own power.  Our sinning gets in the way.  We need to be justified.

Packer describes sinful man as having the status of a “condemned criminal awaiting a terrible sentence” [133].  We need to have a remission of our sins and the acceptance of our true nature in the sight of God.  To get that, all we have to do is put our trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior. 

It is free. 

It only takes a deep, honest expression of faith.

It was not free for God because His only Son had to die for us, for our sins.  Packer cites Romans 8: 32: “Why was it that God ‘did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all? ‘ ” 

He did it because of His grace.  God did not have to do this but He wanted to, to save you and me….merciless sinners.  The death on the cross redeemed us.  Jesus paid all and mankind benefitted.

I know as a long-time church-goer, that the words in the previous part of this post sound like the “ole-time” evangelist, driving home his reasons to come up during the “alter call.”

But let’s stop a moment and think about what it all means.  Whatever cliché you choose to use to describe accepting Jesus as your Savior, your decision signals a turning point in your life.  Whether you “let Jesus into your heart”, “decide to make Him your Lord and Savior” or you “confess your sins at the altar and accept His grace” you will never be the same after you make a sincere faith declaration.

You will never be the same because you have been “brought right” with God; you have been justified.

Don’t you need to be pardoned for your sins?

I do.

Secondly, grace is God’s motive in our plan of salvation. Getting pardoned is a necessity but it is not the only purpose for God’s extension of grace.  Packer relies heavily on the Apostle Paul’s thoughts expressed in Romans, Thessalonians and Ephesians.  With grace, God acts on a plan that has been in place for us for our lives.  “So we believers may rejoice to know that our conversion was no accident, but an act of God which had its place in the eternal plan to bless us with the free gift of salvation from sin” 135.  God promises to carry out His plan for us to completion.  Part of that plan is for us to live a life whereby we experience the riches of God’s grace here on earth and after our time is up on the earth, we will experience glorification in Christ after our time on this earth is over.  We are elected by God and predestined to be His children.  All our sins are redeemed as God claims us as His possession forever. 

This is what God has promised us if we will accept His grace.  “The stars, indeed, may fall, but God’s promises will stand and be fulfilled.  The plan of salvation will be brought to a triumphant completion; thus grace will be shown to be sovereign” [136].

But it all starts with our profession of faith and God’s extension of grace.

If God’s plan for our salvation is certain, then our future is assured.  First Peter 1: 5 says I am “kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.”  Some may think that sinners come before God and confess their sins and then fall back into sin.  We all do, but God has that “covered”; the idea is that grace is extended to us to the end of our days.  As our faith grows, grace continues and grace will keep us believing in God until the end. 

Some misunderstand grace as an encouragement of moral laxity.   This is the idea that God’s grace is going to save me anyway so why am I worried about future sin.  My conduct does not matter.  Packer disagrees: “For love awakens love in return and love, once awakened, desires to give pleasure” [137].  When one receives grace, it is natural to give oneself to good works instead of falling back into horribly sinful habits.  Do we sin past justification?  Of course we do, but the sanctifying process of growing in our faith leads us to less struggle with our sin instead of more struggle.

As we began to consider the doctrine of grace, it seemed that the concern was that today we don’t seem to understand it, we don’t value it, we don’t appreciate its relevance for life today, but after looking at it, it is easy to see that it is a cornerstone of the Christian faith.  We need it in order to live a life in Christ.  We can’t be the people of God without it.  Without it, God is our Judge; with it, God becomes our Savior. 

Packer says that a clear understanding of grace “sweep[s] him [the Christian] off his feet with wonder and joy.  We have a chance to go from “a condemned criminal awaiting a terrible sentence to that of an heir awaiting a fabulous inheritance” [132-33].

The person who claims to be a Christian lives a life that is themed by grace, grace received and grace extended. Rather than being confused by the doctrine of grace, misunderstanding it and placing it on the lowest level of our priorities, professing our faith and accepting grace should be a foremost life event.  This event should be evident to anyone who is observing the grace-filled Christian. Grace is playing out in their life right before your eyes.  Packer closes the chapter on grace with the words, “Do you claim to know the love and grace of God in your own life? Prove your claim, then, by going and praying likewise.”

I would add, prove your claim, then, by living a life of grace.

*J.I. Packer Knowing God

In the process of trying to know God, we have looked at His unchanging nature, His majesty, His wisdom, His Word as truth and in the previous post we have finished looking at His love for us, some would say His heart.

Now it is time to look at His grace.

Packer feels God’s grace is a commonplace word, tossed around a lot in the Christian church but maybe “grace” does not mean very much to some people.  We use “grace” in the name of our churches; it is staple diet in our Sunday school classes and preachers love to preach about it, but despite all this frequent use, Packer says this: “there do not seem to be many in our churches who actually believe in grace.”

I have been in settings [e.g. religious retreats] where I felt I had a firm understanding of grace and as I tried to comprehend the nature of “God’s riches at Christ’s, expense.” I found myself dumbfounded.  The whole idea of grace is overwhelming when you consider it.  I have seen grown men cry when they realize their sins are washed away because God truly loves them that much.

But a retreat is not “normal, everyday life.”  Packer is very negative as he states his feelings about grace in the church today.  “Many church people….their conception of grace is not so much debased as nonexistent.  The thought means nothing to them….speak to them about the realities to which the word grace points, and their attitude is one of deferential blankness…whatever you are talking about, it is beyond them, and the longer they have lived without it the surer they are that they are at their stage of life and they do not really need it” [Knowing God, 129].

How could this be?  How could we take this seminal idea for granted in the Church today? 

Packer writes that the root cause is a misbelief about the relationship between people and God.  It is a “heart thing” for humans.  We are distracted by everyday life and we have strong feelings about the world; we very easily take God’s gifts for granted.  We know in our minds that we should not be this way but we fall prey to our weak wills and our worldly ways.

First of all, modern men and women think highly of themselves.  Material wealth is the God we worship, rather than the true God.   Having lots of things and lots of money to buy things is much more important than a moral character.  Packer feels that today we very easily excuse ourselves for “drinking, gambling, reckless driving, sexual laxity, black and white lies, sharp practice in trading, dirty reading etc.”   If one indulges and has a bad conscience that is an aberration, a sign of “an unhealthy psychological freak” instead of a normal person.  Instead of thinking that we should make some effort to elevate behavior, too many people assume God is just like us.  He is pretty complacent about the ordinary sins we commit.  This effort to project ourselves onto God is foolish.  Maybe we think we are good folks at heart and that is good enough.  God sees it that way also.

I am not sure about that…

Secondly, today’s man and woman don’t worry much about God’s retribution.  Packer goes so far as to say that they “turn a blind eye to all wrongdoing as long as they safely can.”  Toleration of bad behavior is the norm.  Parents sometimes don’t bother to correct their children.  Teachers sometimes don’t worry about discipline in the classroom.  The general public puts up with vandalism and antisocial behavior, the idea being if we can ignore it, that is the best policy.  I am not sure the Bible reflects this attitude.  When I read it, it seems to point out that God’s retribution is a reality.  When we do bad things, we can expect to be punished.  God judges us and His verdict is real.  Packer says “God is not true to himself unless He punishes sin.  Grace is also real but it is only extended to those who repent with a contrite heart.  It is not automatic.  Habitual wrongdoers don’t deserve anything but retribution until they are ready to turn from their evil ways and lead a better life.  One can never experience grace if doing evil with impunity is the theme of their life.

Next is the idea of works.  There are many in the world today who approach God as they approach their earthly employers.  They work so hard to win the favor of the Lord, piling saintly activity on top of saintly activity until God has to throw up His hands and say “truly you are deserving of My grace.”  Packer has a way of describing this type of person as someone who works so hard at providing evidence of good works, putting God in a position where He cannot say no.  He calls this churchmanship.  Also he uses the term morality.  These words denote the individual who works tirelessly in the church running from job to job, committee to committee and doing everything except maybe pastoring.  Surely God takes note of the hard work, the gifts that are given, the spirit of the worker.  Morality is on public display as the “moral” person is quick to declare the “right way of life” in public places and they work hard to display the “right” behavior in as many places that they can.  Romans 3:20 states “No one will be declared righteous in His sight by observing the law.”  Workaholic behavior is no guarantee that anyone will receive grace. 

The problem: God sees into the heart of the workaholic and like the Pharisees of Jesus’ day, “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean [Matthew 23: 27].

Lastly, Packer explores the idea that strikes at the heart of grace, God’s gift to us.  Many feel that God is obligated to extend grace to us.  It is His job.  Packer quotes a Frenchman whose last words are “God will forgive—that’s His job” [131].  Stop for a moment and consider this attitude.  It is based on the idea that God needs us; we don’t need Him.  It clearly says in Acts 17: 25,  “And He is not served by human hands, as if He needed anything. Rather, He himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.”  We cannot claim grace from God.  It truly is a free gift.  What can we expect?  If our behavior is sinful, we can expect justice.  Packer writes “God does not owe it to anyone to stop justice from taking its course.”  Grace does not depend of man’s will or man’s effort; it comes from God’s mercy. 

This is the hardest thing to understand about grace.  It is free.  God does not have to give it to man.  He has total freedom not to extend it.  He gives it because He comprehends the human dilemma.  We are not perfect people and we cannot be.   We can do works to make the world a better place but we can’t do enough work to gain His grace. 

We sin.   Every day, all day long… We sin.

If God gives His grace to us, He does not do it out of obligation; He does it out of mercy. 

I need His mercy, don’t you?  If Packer is right and today’s church is full of people who have “no grasp of grace” we need to change that.  This concept is the defining idea of how God relates to man, how we can approach our Lord and Savior in our weakened human condition and truly ask Him for forgiveness.  If we don’t get grace, we don’t have a chance for salvation.  We don’t have a relationship with our unchanging, majestic, wise, truthful, loving God.

If we don’t understand grace, we don’t understand who we are and more importantly,

We don’t even understand God…