shards_of_beauty's Xanga

If God loves you...

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 22:12:02 GMT

So it’s been a couple weeks since my last post on this – life has been a bit crazy. I talked for two posts about how I don’t find the idea in the Bible that God loves everyone. But at the same time, I am floored by the intensity of the love that He has for those in Christ. If you are in Christ, God loves you because Christ is the Beloved One of God. It is a love that cannot bear to sit on the sidelines – an active love that does something. It is most highly evidenced in Christ’s incarnation and death.

It is a demonstrated love.

“By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” 1 John 4:9-10

“Hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:5-8

It is an effective love.

“But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ.” Ephesians 2:4

It is a love, that once applied to us, promises to bring us all the way home.

“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? Who will bring a charge against God's elect? God is the one who justifies; who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? …But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:31-39

If this is the love of God, it seems like you would have to weaken it to say that He loves everyone. If God loves everyone, then everyone would be saved.

Just as a tying-up-loose-ends thing, several people mentioned Matthew 5:44-45: “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” Note that the text does not say He loves them; it simply describes what theologians call common grace, described in Romans 9: “What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory.” God waits to destroy those He does not love for the sake for the sake of those He does; and in the process He keeps the world going round to eliminate any excuse they may have. Loving our enemies is our extension of the common grace of God. How the character of God is applied in our lives is often slightly different from the actual actions and motivations of God. This is even more evident in the related passage of Romans 12:18-21. (“Vengeance is Mine”.)

This feels like a really abrupt ending to the blog, but I need a nap too much to figure out an eloquent conclusion.

Lord, help

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 06:12:43 GMT

I don't have words... show me Your Word to speak.
I am empty... fill me with your truth in love and gentle mercy.
I am hopeless... teach me to watch and pray in hope.
I am grieving... fill me joy in who You are - without losing compassion.
I can't do this, God... please do it through me.

And this is my life

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 22:09:02 GMT

We take a break from our regular programing to bring you a summary of personal news for the last two weeks.
I decided I need to learn Greek. So I bought a set of flashcards an am borrowing a textbook and learning in my spare time. The words I have memorized:

compared to the words I still have to memorize (for first year Greek):

One guy in my music theory class is struggling, so I offered to help him - it should be quite interesting spending a couple hours a week with this kid. He's fun, but very hard on himself. (In keeping with the helter-skelter manner of this blog, tis very windy outside and I just noticed that the sky has turned white. When did that happen? It was blue the last time I looked!) Yesterday, the guy I help with theory got distracted for a minute and asked "Do you paint?" Because my hands looked like this:

Nope, but my wing did tie-dye Sunday night and we're going to wear the shirts to chapel on Friday. Since my roommate wasn't there, I did one for myself and one for her. Guesses on which is which?

I'd say "you know you're a science major when..." but I'm not, or "you know you're a nerd when..." but I've never matched that category really either, so I'll just say I felt rather odd that the first thing I thought of when I saw the dye that had stained my arm was "DNA"!

Speaking of my roommate, we decided to do her bachelorette party now even though her wedding's not 'til December because the wedding is right after finals week. Part of this included a scavenger hunt at the mall, where the main object was her 6'3", blonde, bearded, normally wearing shorts and T-shirt fiance in disguise. I have to admit even I wasn't 100% sure before she walked up and gave this man a hug:

He said wandering around the mall was quite the interesting study in reactions; a far different response than he normally gets - and since the headphones weren't playing music, he heard every word of the rather nasty comments directed his way.

I got new running shoes Yay! But I never thought I'd be running in PINK. I never wear pink. And now I'm stuck with it on my shoes 'cause that's what asics are doing these days. Yuck. I should have asked for the guy shoes.

And just for fun, this is what it looks like when I run. I love the morning dark.... meh daylight savings is ending this week. Lame.

I'm out of pictures, what else has been going on in my life? Pain levels in my back have been up the past few weeks; each day is an "extra grace" sort of day and I am very thankful for kindness of God in so many other areas, and for the opportunity He's given me to rely on Him and have a continual reminder (in the form of burning pain) of Who is the support of my life. Each breath is a gift, friends. Never forget to thank God for sustaining you, for holding your atoms together and making each molecule of your body move properly as it's supposed to work. He is indeed gracious.

Hmmm... I think my life updates blog is going to have to become two, because I don't want to bury one of the coolest things at the bottom of a long post... What's been going on in your life?

Does God Love Everyone?

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 12:55:00 GMT

Some of where I’m coming from for this post is here. If you commented on that post, I tagged you. If you’d prefer not to be tagged in future on this topic, please say so.

There are only four out of over fifty verses on the love of God that could challenge this view. But I think they can all be dealt with.

In order of difficulty, easiest first: “But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us…” (Titus 3:4-5a) So I thought this verse presented possible difficulty because of the love “for mankind” part, only to find that pretty much only the NASB even sticks the words “for mankind” in there, because actually “love for mankind” is one Greek word for which other translations just say love. For good reason – the actually word is philanthropia, it only occurs twice in the New Testament, never in the Septuagint, and it is the weakest of the words for love possible – just a general, affable benevolence. In other words, this verse doesn’t really have much to do with what the Bible as a whole says about the love of God.

1 John 4:8b – “God is love.” Just because the essence of love is contained in the character of God does not mean that His love applies to every individual. After all, Hebrews 12:29 says that “our God is a consuming fire,” but He does not apply His wrath to those who are saved; otherwise, we would all be going to hell whether we believe in Jesus Christ or not. And John’s immediate application of the fact that God is love is not to love everyone, but to love other believers, a point about which he is very strong. So this verse doesn’t prove anything.

John 3:16 – “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” Now what I’m about to say is not semantical gymnastics intended to get out of the implications of “world”, but rather a framework to which my eyes were opened in my Ephesians class which I’m applying to this verse because it makes more sense of it in the context. History is about God making Jesus Christ the hero. The Fall of man created a problem – the curse indicates that it is a worldwide problem. Because of their dominion over the earth, it’s a human problem that needs a human solution. To get a human/man (in Hebrew, Adam), God focused on a nation: Israel, which was given promises of a perfect and redeemed world. But the one problem is that if Messiah/Adam belongs to Israel, the solution to the Fall only redeems the one nation from its effects. God brings in the multiracial church because you need a human-wide solution to the problem. This human-wide solution, by nature of man’s dominion, becomes a world-wide solution (Romans 8). The church is the beginning of God’s new creation: a human-wide solution that, when they come to glory, redeems the world. And because all of this comes about by, through, and in Christ, God does it all to make Jesus Christ glorious. From that framework, “world” (in Greek, kosmos: order, world, universe, adorning) does not mean every individual in the world; rather, it is creation/new creation language dealing with the plan of God. This idea is confirmed by the next verses, which say that the Son was not sent to condemn the world but to save the world, though said Son says Himself that “he who does not believe is condemned already.” So He’s condemning individuals while saving the world? Unless you have some really interesting word gymnastics to do, it doesn’t make sense for “world” two verses earlier to mean every individual in the world.

This next verse is the one that almost convinced me my last post was wrong, and it’s probably one you’ve never heard of: Deuteronomy 10:18: “He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing.” Here’s a class of people who God loves that is not Israel or people in Christ. But it’s still that same active love that does something on behalf of the one loved, not a gooey feeling. So I had to ask, “who are sojourners?” A simple word search shows that when God is talking to Israel, as He is in Deuteronomy, sojourners are almost always foreigners who have joined themselves to Israel – they reside in Israel because they worship the true God and participate as far as a non-Jew is able in the life of the nation. So basically, this is an extension of God’s love for Israel, because these sojourners are as incorporated into Israel as they can get. It doesn’t prove that God loves everybody.

Can you provide any Biblical evidence that God loves every person?

Desktop

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 00:48:55 GMT

A very rare for me jump on the bandwagon because I happen to like the picture I have as my desktop.

My brothers were doing crazy stunts on a boy scout campout, and this one was caught red-handed.

What's your desktop background?

God doesn't love you

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 20:15:47 GMT

In Sunday School, we’re taught that “God loves everybody”, and bumper stickers persistently proclaim “Smile! Jesus loves you!” But a few hours spent studying the love of God makes me question that concept. In fact, it makes the bumper stickers seem somewhat bland, like they’re saying “Hi! You should feel warm and fuzzy because God feels warm and fuzzy about you. Not that He’s going to do anything about it.”

Here’s the problem: the love of God always has results. It’s not a feeling as much as an action. “It is because the Lord set His love on you… that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you.” (Dt 7:8) “I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.” (Jer 31:3) “Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you, I give men in return for you, peoples in exchanged for your life.” (Is 43:4) There are many more examples: Where God loves, He redeems, lifts up, and honors.

There are specific instances where God declares that He doesn’t love someone. Usually these are descendents of Abraham, such as Esau, those who would be included in the promises to him, who are eliminated from the covenant of blessing. When they are reverted to the status of the rest of the nations, God makes clear that He doesn’t love them anymore; the default status of humans is to not be loved by God. “Because of the wickedness of [northern Israel’s] deeds I will drive them out of my house. I will love them no more; all their princes are rebels.” (Hosea 9:15)

God’s love and wrath are mutually exclusive; they cannot be bestowed on the same people at the same time. For example, His anger has to be removed before He can express His love even for Israel: “I will heal their apostasy; I will love them freely, for my anger has turned from them.” (Hosea 14:4) Now Ephesians 2:3 tells us that we were “by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind,” and that it was only when God raised us up with Christ that we were released from His wrath. If the general state of mankind is to be under wrath, then the general state of man is to be unloved by God.

And the one that inspired me to study this whole topic: “…to the praise of the glory of His grace, with which He has blessed us in the Beloved.” (Ephesians 1:5) Apparently, in Greek, no article is necessary before nouns. So if “the” is there in the Greek, it’s pretty definitive and means “the”. Not “a” or “one of many” or “I think the ‘the’ sounds better, how about you?” It’s “the”. (This has been conveyed to me from multiple sources but I don’t know Greek so if it’s wrong, please enlighten me.) This verse indicates that there is only one Beloved of God – and that is Jesus Christ. Now this is no problem for all the verses that say “God loved us” because all believers are in Christ. As I wrote about before, if you’re in Christ, everything He gets, you get. So if God loves Christ, He loves all those who are in Him. And He loves them exactly the same way that He loves Jesus Christ – with all the intensity, immensity, and infinity of the eternal, unlimited Godhead.

To me, this is far more amazing than the pansy idea “God likes you.” It’s an active love. A love that always has redemptive results. A love that counteracts God’s wrath. God doesn’t love you. He loves Jesus Christ. And if you are in Christ, you reap all the benefits of the intense and glorious love of God.

There are four verses (out of over 50 that talk about the love of God) that I see needing to be resolved in this viewpoint. I will deal with them in another blog but this one was already a bit long. If you are curious, they are 1 John 4:8, Dt 10:18, John 3:16, and Titus 3:4. To study this, I used NASB cross-referenced with ESV and did make use of Strong’s Lexicon and Hebrew and Greek dictionaries throughout my study. But if you know the original languages and I’m wrong, let me know. If you want to see the verses and notes that brought me to these conclusions, I would be happy to provide them.

Rain

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 23:21:08 GMT

It's raining!
I am wet.
Therefore, I am happy.
Hopefully my brain will have adjusted to higher level of pain meds by tomorrow so I can write a decent blog. :)

All I wanted

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 22:37:35 GMT

was to go to the bank. It’s only about two miles away. A bit too far for a nice walk, but easy on a bike. (I don’t have a car here at college.) But as I pumped up the tires just to make sure, this happened:

I was prepared to have to patch an inner tube, but to have it completely rip apart? I’m really glad my dad insisted on making sure I had a spare available. Problem: my wrench is four inches long, and the nuts had been tightened down by my dad with an eight-inch wrench. And all the guys I know here were gone for the weekend. It took longer to get the wheel off than to change the inner tube! It was quite fun getting all greasy… spending an hour longer than I anticipated, and using up my spare inner tube just a few weeks into school.

But I did manage to make it to the bank, so it’s all good.

Implications

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 11:36:00 GMT

In the midst of this semester’s class on Ephesians, the idea I am having the most trouble wrapping my mind around is “in Christ.” I’d never really paid attention to it before, but it’s all over the New Testament, and in Ephesians, “in Christ” “in Him” or in the Beloved” appears 13 times in the English (I believe there’s a couple additional “in whom”s in the Greek. I wouldn’t know, though. I need to learn Greek. After I get a handle on Arabic. And become more facile in my use of Spanish. Too many languages!) For some reason, we English-speakers tend to be very casual about our use of prepositions, and we tend to not pay all that much attention to them in the Bible. But I’m learning that each preposition is very deliberate, and I haven’t paid nearly enough attention to it before.

In: it isn’t just a matter of “oh I need a preposition here.” In means in – completely and entirely within. If you have one foot out the door, you’re not truly in a room. You’re not in a swimming pool, in the Greek sense of the word, unless you are entirely underwater, soaked, saturated, and entirely surrounded by the water.

My prof’s favorite diagram for this class is simple:

Now there are several implications to this. First off, it is exclusive. If you are in Christ, you can’t keep one foot in the world, pursuing your sin. You can’t be both in Christ and in yourself or in Satan or in the flesh or in the world or in Adam. If you’re in Christ, He is it. You have no other loyalty, no other connection, no other goal, no other passion, no other purpose. Everything is Christ. If you’re in Christ, you view everything through Christ, which turns His passions into your passions; what He wants, you want. The way He sees people as lost and in need of a Savior is the way you see them. You can’t “turn it off” and stop thinking about things Christ’s way just to avoid offending people. You can as soon pretend the room you’re sitting in doesn’t have walls that block you from being in the living room. (If you’re in your living room, sorry, bad illustration, pick a different room. One with walls that separate you. Yeah, moving on…)

Second, you lose your identity. If you are in Christ, when people look at you, what they see is Christ Himself, not you – you’re inside, remember? When people hear you, what they hear is Christ speaking. Suddenly, how you live becomes vitally important, because it is how you represent Christ. Anything you thought was your right to have, watch, say, do, think – that’s gone. Because if you’re truly in, soaked, saturated, and entirely surrounded by Christ, what you want has just evaporated. “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.” (Galatians 2:20) When God demands everything of you, things you never thought you could give up, you have no choice to obey, because you are in Christ – it’s already all consumed in Him anyway. The sin you thought you could cherish – “I’ll hang on to just this one; it won’t harm anybody” – becomes repulsive, because you’re not just indulging in it yourself, you’re uniting it with the holy and righteous Son of God, which is appalling.

Third, everything Christ gets you get. This is the exciting one. Think about it – if you’re in Christ, then when God gives Christ something, He’s also giving it to you, because you’re incorporated into the deal. So when Christ is raised from the dead, you are two. When Christ is seated to above all power and authority, we reign with Him. When He is spoken of as the Beloved, that love is spoken to us as well. Christ’s righteousness becomes our righteousness before God. When Christ is acknowledged as the Son, we are given sonship, a place as the children of God, because as being in the Son, we get His identity. Everything Christ is and does and has before God and receives from God, we share in, because we are inextricably connected with Him.

“In Christ” is the key to our salvation, and it has implications far beyond the casual way we often treat prepositions. It is the motivation and the enabling to reject our sin, and it is the source of the joy and unity and fellowship we have with God and other believers.

Never underestimate the beauty of a preposition, especially when it’s one of the two words, “in Christ.”

So this morning

Sat, 03 Oct 2009 14:05:57 GMT

I was still half-asleep, not hearing my roommate too clearly. "Shards... bathroom... sinks... trash bags... fish" were what I caught.
"Am I dreaming?"
"No."
"If there's fish it's a prank." And I sagaciously went back to sleep. Now that I think about it, I'm sure she knew that. I still don't know what she was trying to communicate to me, though.