Innocent by Association

I have a relative who spent time in jail because he was with a group of people who robbed a convenience store. It didn’t matter that they testified he had no knowledge of what they were doing. He was with them - guilt by association.

I wasn’t at the trial, but I seriously doubt that any lawyers suggested that the other people be acquitted because there was an innocent person with them - there is no “innocent by association” in our system of justice.

And yet, that is precisely what Abraham asks God for in Genesis 18.

Then the LORD said, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know.”

 The men turned away and went toward Sodom, but Abraham remained standing before the LORD.

Then Abraham approached him and said: “Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing—to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?”

If you’ve read the story you know (and if you haven’t, check out the rest of Genesis 18) that this leads to a really interesting “negotiation.” In truth it isn’t a negotiation, God never counters. Abraham asks God to show mercy and God agrees. Then it just stops at 10.  God never said, “Okay, 10, but that’s my final offer.” Why not keep pressing to 1?

One possible reason is that the numbers aren’t the point. This passage makes us uncomfortable because it seems like Abraham is teaching God about righteousness...so we explain it away. There are plenty of statements made (I’ve made several myself) about how God already knew Abraham would ask these questions. Giving Abraham a chance to stand up for others was God’s plan all along. But there’s 2 problems with that theory.

     1.  It makes God deceptive. He basically lied about his plans to Abraham in order to goad him into standing up for others.
     2.  The text itself never says anything to support this theory. From the perspective of the story, God was fed up and was ready to destroy everyone in the city (if “what he’d heard” was true...which is another interesting tidbit.)

Perhaps the “negotiation” ends abruptly because its really just beginning. The Bible doesn’t seem nearly as uncomfortable as we are about presenting God as one whose decisions can be swayed and mind can be changed by the pleading and reasoning of people. Moses did it a few times (see Exodus 32:9-14; 33:1-17), Abraham does it, the prophets repeatedly tell Israel that God will relent (see Hosea 11:8-9) if they’ll cry out in repentance and learn to seek justice rather than rebellion (see Isaiah 1...and the rest of Isaiah).

But, back to the matter at hand.

What Abraham asks isn’t merely the deliverance of the righteous, but the deliverance (at least for now) of the entire city on account of the righteous. This isn’t the way the legal system works now, and it wasn’t the way it worked then. Guilt seems to have a wider circle of influence than innocence. And yet, one reason that this conversation in Genesis 18 is so important is that it points to a day when that will no longer be the case. In a way, this conversation is foreshadowing.

What did “the visitors” find in Sodom? They found a man who immediately offers them hospitality (in a very similar fashion to the way Abraham had received them outside the city). They also find a violent mob meaning to do them harm. Then this valiant and hospitable host steps out to stop the crowd and offers himself in their place, right? Nope, he offers the crowd his daughters. This is complete speculation, but I wonder if things would have turned out differently if Lot had offered himself as a sacrifice? Perhaps this would have been the righteousness that God was seeking in order to relent. Maybe not.

The speculation doesn’t really matter because Lot doesn’t offer himself, he offers his daughters. The visitors pull him back into the house and tell him to get out of the city.

In Romans 5, Paul picks up on this theme when he says that just as guilt came into the world through one man, now rescue has as well. The innocence of the one has finally spread to cover the guilt of the others. Unlike Lot, Jesus offered himself to the angry mob.

Genesis 19:27-28 is an incredibly depressing statement and yet it seems to be filled with meaning and significance:

Early the next morning Abraham got up and returned to the place where he had stood before the LORD. He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, toward all the land of the plain, and he saw dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace.

Abraham saw no life, no deliverance, just death and destruction. I think its interesting that the story comments that he went and stood in the place where he’d stood with the Lord the previous day. From Abraham’s perspective this must have been devastating - Even after an encouraging conversation, God has not delivered the city. What hope is there?

And yet the next verse is like postscript ending to a movie that lets you know without doubt that a sequel is planned:

So when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Abraham, and he brought Lot out of the catastrophe that overthrew the cities where Lot had lived.

The blessing of Genesis 12 which promised that others will be blessed through Abraham is starting to become a reality. The conversation is far from over...it is, in fact, just beginning.

I Need God to See Me

Why the Reformed Overemphasis on Substitutionary Atonement Falls Flat with Me.

To whatever degree my sins have needed to be atoned for, it is only in Christ that such atonement has been made available. I fully believe and affirm this. I’m just not so sure that this is the fullest picture of what has happened (see my previous post on the Wrath of God). My problem with substitutionary atonement is one of degree rather than kind. 

I also struggle with the statement that sin has created a rift that has made it so that God cannot even look on us without a blood offering covering our trespasses (see my previous post Telling Better Stories). 

Recently on his blog, writer extraordinaire Donald Miller talked about the power of stories and how listening to the wrong ones will completely screw you up (you should check his post out...go ahead, I’ll wait). 

I love that he started his telling of the Story by saying, “The Trinity existed forever in a completely loving community.” When I was asked to write a paper on my theological center for ministry it was titled “God, the Community of Love” and began with the words: 

Before the beginning there was Community. God, the Community of Love, which we refer to as the Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit had a perfect relationship of mutual love and respect. This isn’t to say that there were three gods - there is One God and this God is the essence of Love. Love does not exist and is not expressed in isolation, it is expressed in community. This God, this Community of Love was not incomplete, the Trinity was the definition of completion. Community needed nothing, Love lacked nothing. Love was eternally expressed within the Community of the One God in Three Persons.

While the Community of Love was not incomplete, neither is God static. The nature of True Community is expansive. It is dynamic. It is always growing and bringing into itself everything around it. The relationship of the Community, being rooted and established in a deep indescribable love, felt compelled to create. For that is what love is and what love does, it continually creates expansive opportunity for love to be expressed. 

So God, the Community of Love created. God brushed away the darkness, stepped into the midst of chaos and brought forth solid foundations. God molded and formed an unbelievably expansive and expanding universe, and in an inconspicuous section of all that began to paint with beautiful strokes a landscape that was begging to be enjoyed...

Now, at the end of Miller’s blog post you’ll notice a postscript that speaks of white 20-something males whose parents are paying for their education...well, I can’t deny that he’s got me pegged on some of those descriptors (hopefully my monthly student loan payments give me some street cred here...). I don’t want to bash Miller; I’ve been following his tweets about A Million Miles and can’t wait to read it. I hate that I’ll be at SMU while he’s speaking at ACU’s Summit in September. Blue Like Jazz was great and Searching for God Knows What was even better. But he temporarily loses me when his story gets to the reason and function of Christ’s Incarnation.

I’ve always wondered how it is that God could create and declare “good” a universe which is not God (therefore less pure than God, the essence of purity) and be unable to be in the presence of something impure. Of course we immediately point to the Fall destroying creation’s purity. I’m going to leave off the discussion about just how perfect everything was pre-fall - was it realized or potential perfection? The Eastern Church Fathers and Mothers have some interesting thoughts on this subject.

Instead I’d like to point to God’s immediate response to the fall...he walks right up to Adam and Eve and asks what they have done. How is that possible? I thought God couldn’t be in the presence of sin? And from that point forward God continues to come near - long before the institution of the sacrificial system...which the prophets later tell us that God isn’t so interested in anyway. 

Yes, the relationship is dreadfully damaged and the effects of sin are overwhelming. Of this there is little to debate. Humanity seems doomed for total destruction, a path which we remain incredibly gifted at following. But God continues to come into our midst. He sets up his tabernacle among the people and dwells with them. God enters our mess over and again.

Jesus’ incarnation is not the first time God has come near. It is the seminal event in that vein but not the first. And for that matter if Jesus is God and God can’t be around sin then what was Jesus doing here for 30-something years?

My critique here isn’t leveled at Miller, he is simply representing a telling of the story that has been around for a while (though contrary to what we may be told, it has not always been the dominant telling). I get it. This telling of the story has some attractiveness to it - it provides security and a way to explain the pain we see all around us. And it does so because it isn’t entirely untrue. But as the controlling metaphor it continues to fall flat.

I think one of the aspects that really keeps this view point muddled for me is the statement (again, this isn’t unique to Miller) that when God looks at us he sees Jesus. 

I’m sorry but if that is true it is a devastating blow. 

You see there are lots of people who look at me without seeing me. There are plenty of people who like or dislike me because when they look at me they see someone (or something) other than who (or what) I actually am. I don’t need a god who does the same thing. If my creator can't even look at me then what hope do I have? And if I find out that he's only pretending to love me and instead is able to fool me by pretending that I'm someone he DOES love... 

Maybe everyone else is okay with it, but I need to know that God sees me for who I truly am and loves me anyway. I do not need to hear that until my transformation is complete this God is going to pretend I’m his Favorite Son so that he can stomach the sight of me. 

And for the record, I believe that God is in the process of healing me of the sin and brokenness that I exhibit and even before this transformation is complete God loves THAT me. I believe that while everyone else sees me in bits and pieces, some bits accurate and some clouded by their own baggage or mine, God sees straight through to the core, the essence which he created. And I believe that this God, my Father, loves me more than I can possibly understand...already. I believe and pray that this transformation is into the image and likeness of the Favorite Son. But I don’t get lost in translation, I get healed, restored and remade. God doesn’t see Jesus, God sees me and we all rejoice as the family resemblance increases.

I don't think that the marriage and reunion with God will happen in some disembodied heaven in some distant future. I think that the reclaiming and remaking of creation (including myself) is already in process  and I have, in a very real way, already received new life and reconciliation with God. I agree with Miller that things are not yet as they should be and it is because of Jesus that we have hope. But we aren't just sitting around waiting either. The Kingdom of God is at hand! This is the very gospel proclaimed by Jesus. We can begin to participate in this community and come alongside of God in God's ministry of reclaiming all things. It is about the future and it is also about the present.

Telling Better Stories

Some of those who have responded to my previous post on the wrath of God (primarily in person or by phone) seem to have understood me to say that God is not concerned with sin or that there is no response of wrath.

I understand how they could come to that since my first post on this subject was intended primarily to pull our focus away from the satisfaction of God's wrath as the primary purpose of the cross. I made a case against this perspective not because I don’t believe it has a part in this story, but because for so many of us it has been the ONLY part of the story that seemed to matter.

I do believe that sin and injustice matter to God. I believe that violence and oppression certainly bring about the wrath of God; my friend Luke pointed out the story of Sodom and Gomorra...another good example would be the plagues on Egypt. I have said before, and still believe, that mercy taken to an extreme is injustice to those offended.

I believe that our obstinate desire to continue in sin when faced with the Truth of God, is something which does bring guilt and potentially wrath.

I’d like to talk more about what that means. When we read about the wrath of God being poured out or threatened to be poured out there are two basic categories: 1) evil and violent cultures/people groups and 2) God’s chosen people who continue generation after generation to refuse to worship God alone; who fail to be the people they’re called to be.

Notice that if the evil communities - such as Sodom and Gomora or Egypt - would have repented, then God would have withheld his wrath. Look at Ninevah - Jonah preaches the worst sermon in history and boom, the whole city repents and then, double boom God relents. No sacrifice needed to appease his wrath other than the sacrifice of a broken and contrite heart.

Regarding the wrath poured out on God’s people - a story which is repeated throughout Israel’s history - let’s not forget how often they were given the chance to repent and turn back to God. The message of Jeremiah was that God’s wrath would come in the form of exile and control by a foreign power unless the people turned back to God. God’s wrath was NOT inescapable, it only came about after repeated refusals by His people to listen.

I’m not arguing that Jesus’ crucifixion didn’t serve as the final sacrifice for sin - I think that is absolutely part of what happened. However, I believe that it is false to assert that God is bound by his justice to require a sacrifice and therefore that must have been the primary reason for the cross. If God is bound to satisfy justice, then God is subservient to justice...we should worship justice because it is more powerful than God. But God is love. Love certainly involves seeking justice for others, but love also forgives offenses against itself.

I believe that there are some serious holes in the position that God is bound by his justice and so the pouring out of his wrath on someone (be it on us or Jesus) is central to his nature. While God is certainly just, God is not subject to anything - if so then, again, we should worship that. It is not okay to say that God IS justice and thus he is bound by himself. First of all, while Scripture says that God is just (an adjective) it does not say that God IS Justice (noun) - we’re told that God is Love...not Justice.

One response I’ve heard to this is that love must be just. Love certainly contains a component of justice yet it is also filled with mercy, long-suffering, forgiveness and grace.

Substitutionary atonement fails to acknowledge God’s longstanding history of offering forgiveness to those who have offended him without requiring the taking of life. Hosea 6 reminds us that God “desires mercy, not sacrifice.” In that passage God, through through the prophet, is urging his people to turn back and acknowledge him - they had ALREADY broken their covenant with God and thus justice demanded that they be put out. The entire point of Hosea’s life and ministry was that God is not bound by this expectation of justice. God is willing to set all that aside if his people will remember and return.

Isn’t that precisely what we are called to as well? Paul confronts the church in Corinth for their insistence on getting justice when they’ve been wronged: “The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you have been completely defeated already. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated? (1 Corinthians 6:7)”

Demanding justice for yourself does not seem to carry the same weight as demanding justice for the weak and the oppressed (assuming you aren’t the weak and oppressed). God is the One who speaks up for justice on behalf of those who cannot speak for themselves and yet where God is concerned he extends mercy and forgiveness.

When God is finally forced to pour out his wrath, he tells the people he will not remain angry forever - God’s wrath is redemptive rather than merely retributive (thanks Nate); God’s wrath is a means rather than an end.

How does Jesus describe God in relation to our “lostness”? Well, most of us are familiar with the three parables of lost things. The lost coin, lost sheep and prodigal son are important parables where Jesus stresses heavily the nature of God - hence three similar stories in quick succession. In these stories we find not a vengeful God of righteous wrath, but a compassionate caretaker, shepherd and father. The shepherd does not require the sheep to be sacrificed and the father does not require the son to become a slave - apparently being lost was punishment enough.

HOWEVER (Galatians 6:7) "Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.” God does take sin very seriously because sin is a component of the larger brokenness that plagues all of creation - a creation that is beloved by God and which God is even now working to restore and heal. Sin, brokenness and evil are true enemies of life, if that is what we sow then that is what we will reap.

What if that is what the wrath of God really is? Eventually God allows us to remain in the lostness we brought on ourselves. It isn’t that God brings about some vicious torture because his sense of honor has been accosted. He invites us to return but if we continue to refuse; if we continue to willingly sow evil, then how can we not reap destruction?

This shift in understanding does is not devalue the damage of sin or the need for a Savior. However, it does demand that we recognize how we’ve made sin the point for too long. Sin is only the point if our genesis (beginning) was in Genesis 3. But the fall of humanity is not the foundation of this story, the point is the power of a good creator God speaking all things into existence and being very pleased with his good creation (Genesis 1). The point is that this God desires to be in close communion with that which he has made and he will cross any chasm to rescue us from death.

Sin is a character in this story, but it is not the main character. The wrath of God is a potential subplot, but not the climax or the resolution. The wrath of God is no more central to this story than not failing a class is the central reason to study in school or gaining nutrients for physical survival is the primary reason to share a meal with friends.

God is a just God; he demands justice for those who are oppressed and he will not allow those who continue to defy him to remain unpunished. But God IS love. God is the One who is at work in healing broken lives and restoring damaged relationships. This is the central message of the cross - a new power and a new kingdom are available. No longer will the oppressive regimes of this world define power. The Kingdom of God is at hand, it is for everyone and it has a whole new definition of life.

The barriers have been torn down; the enemy has been vanquished and the invitation to enter into life has been given. This is not primarily about a loan shark collecting a debt, this is about a father running to meet his child on the road. Falling on his knees, kissing and embracing his beloved, putting rings on fingers and coats on shoulders and throwing a feast to celebrate the restoration of the father’s broken heart.

That is a much better story.