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March
Tensions in Scripture
Dear Friends,
There are great tensions in Scripture. For example, there are such teachings as divine sovereignty and human responsibility, as well as the clear teaching on the necessity of faith and good works being joined together in the believer’s life. The supreme tension is found in the person and work of Jesus, who was and now is and shall forever be fully God and truly man, and whose work was one of His holy heavenly Father putting to death His only begotten Son for the sake of vile sinners. These things and others like them are regarded by unbelievers as absurd contradictions in the Bible. Even some believers endeavor to resolve the apparent contradictions by their opting to believe one doctrine, such as human responsibility, while denying or at least ignoring the companion doctrine of divine sovereignty. Such endeavors issue from men’s reliance on their own powers of logic instead of their trusting in the Lord to reconcile such apparent contradictions. Precisely speaking, these sorts of challenging doctrines are not contradictions, but rather vital companions. How they go together may be mysterious to us, but their incomprehensibility does not make them untrue. In fact, the intellectual and emotional tension that results when we assert the compatibility of such seemingly inconsistent doctrines provides the energy that drives us on prayerfully to explore the depths of the Word. We do this not in a quest to discover a unifying principle so much as to embrace the person of God, who alone understands every jot of His Word and how all aspects of it cohere perfectly.
I write these thoughts as an introduction to a brief consideration of two aspects in the biblical revelation that we are to work out in our lives that seem, at least at times, to be contradictory. These two aspects are righteousness and love. The Bible clearly teaches us that we are required to do right according to God’s moral standard and to His satisfaction. Although every soul who has ever lived on earth (or ever will live) is a sinner (except Jesus), every soul knows right from wrong and knows that God requires man to do right.
Love is harder to define than is the doing of right. Too often love is thought of as a mere feeling. Even when we understand that love prompts the one loving sincerely to desire and diligently to serve for the highest good of the one beloved, it remains very difficult for us to determine what precisely is the highest good for a given person at a given time. This can be so because at times the dictates of love can seem contradictory to the dictates of righteousness.
We can best come to the heart of this apparent contradiction when we consider that the Bible tells us that God is just and the justifier of sinners. That God is just means that He ever, only, and always does right. Yet, God is also the justifier of sinners, meaning that the holy God of righteousness freely forgives every sinner who asks for it. Does that seem right? Certainly the Pharisees answered the question with a resounding denial.
The problem is this: what in the world, or more precisely, what in the realm of righteousness would compel God to justify unjust sinners? The answer is: nothing. Hence, if no righteous imperative demands God to justify sinners, it appears that God has done so for no right reason and therefore the God of righteousness has done wrong.
The problem with such reasoning is that it begins at the wrong starting point. In the realm of mere justice or moral right, there is clearly no imperative for God to justify sinners. However, God is not only the God of right but He is also the God of love. It is in love that God determined to justify sinners—even before one of them existed (Eph. 1:4-6). In love God gave His Son as the Savior of sinners (Jn. 3:16) and did so in order that the just requirement of His own holy nature and Law would be satisfied (Rom. 8:3,4). In love Jesus gave Himself for us (Gal. 2:20) so that we might be delivered, not only out of our sins, but also and especially into the love that obtains between the three persons of the holy Trinity (Jn. 17:23-26).
In God and according to His Word, love and righteousness are inseparable companions. Love without righteousness is mere sentiment; while righteousness without love means condemnation for sinners. But righteousness and love go together in an order where love leads the way. Thus, Jesus sums up the Moral Law not by His saying that we are to obey moral statutes, but by His saying that we are to love God and man. Too often, we reverse the order, with the result that we focus only on whether we do right or wrong. Such perverted order blocks the flourishing of precious, costly, and powerful loving that fulfills all righteousness (Jas. 2:8). So, the question we should first ask ourselves in all situations and in all relationships is not: What is right? But: What is loving? Then we shall love and do so rightly by the grace and to the glory of our God.
Yours in God’s love,
William Harrell
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Morning Worship 10:30 AM
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6:30 PM
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Christian Education
7:00 PM
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Congregational Prayer Meeting
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