"Knowing God" [VI]

- Goodness and Severity -

"'Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God,' writes Paul in Romans 11:22. The crucial word here is 'and'... The Christians at Rome are not to dwell on God's goodness alone, nor on His severity alone, but to contemplate both together. Both are attributes of God--aspects, that is, of His revealed character. Both appear alongside each other in the economy of grace. Both must be acknowledged together if God is to be truly known."

"To reject all ideas of divine wrath and judgment, and to assume that God's character, misrepresented (forsooth!) in many parts of the Bible, is really one of indulgent benevolence without any severity, is the rule rather than the exception among ordinary folk today. It is true that some recent theologians, in reaction, have tried to reaffirm the truth of God's holiness, but their efforts have seemed half-hearted and their words have fallen for the most part on deaf ears. Modern Protestants are not going to give up their 'enlightened' adherence to the doctrine of a celestial Santa Claus merely because a Brunner or a Niebuhr suspect this is not the whole story. The certainty that there is no more to be said of God (if God there be) than that He is infinitely forbearing and kind, is as hard to eradicate as bindweed. And when once it has put down roots, Christianity, in the true sense of the word, simply dies off. For the substance of Christianity is faith in the forgiveness of sins through the redeeming work of Christ on the cross. But on the basis of the Santa Claus theology, sins create no problem, and atonement becomes needless; God's active favour extends no less to those who disregard His commands than to those who keep them. The idea that God's attitude to me is affected by whether or not I do what He says has no place in the thought of the man in the street, and any attempt to show the need for fear in God's presence, and trembling at His word, gets written off as impossibly old-fashioned--'Victorian', and 'Puritan', and 'sub-Christian.'"

"It is no accident that when belief in the 'good God' of liberalism became widespread, about the turn of [the 19th century], the so-called 'problem of evil' (which was not regarded as a problem before) suddenly leaped into prominence as the number-one concern of Christian apologetics. This was inevitable, for it is not possible to see the good-will of a heavenly Santa Claus in heartbreaking and destructive things like cruelty, or marital infidelity, or death on the road, or lung cancer. The only way to save the liberal view of God is to dissociate Him from these things, and to deny that He has any direct relation to them or control to them; in other words, to deny His omnipotence and lordship over His world."

On the Goodness of God. "Goodness, as in man, 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.'"

On the Generosity of God. "Generosity means a disposition to give to others in a way which has no mercenary motive and is not limited by what the recipients deserve, but consistently goes beyond it. Generosity expresses the simple wish that others should have what they need to make them happy. Generosity is, so to speak, the focal point of God's moral perfection; it is the quality which determines how all God's other excellences are to be displayed. God is 'abundant in goodness'--ultra bonus, as Latin-speaking theologians used to put it, spontaneously good, overflowing with generosity. Theologians of the Reformed school use the New Testament word 'grace' (free favour) to cover every act of divine generosity, of whatever kind, and hence distinguish between the 'common grace' of 'creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life', and the 'special grace' manifested in the economy of salvation--the point of the contrast between 'common' and 'special' being that all benefit from the former, but not all are touched by the latter. The biblical way of putting this distinction would be to say that God is good to all in some ways and to some in all ways."

On God's Severity. "What, now, of God's severity? The word Paul uses in 11:22 means literally 'cutting off'; it denotes God's decisive withdrawal of His goodness from those who have spurned it... [Behind' every display of divine goodness stands a threat of severity in judgment if that goodness is scorned. If we do not let it draw us to God in gratitude and responsive love, we have only ourselves to blame when God turns against us... Paul tells the Roman Christians that God's goodness is their portion only on a certain condition--'if thou continue in hos goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off' (Romans 11:22)... Those who decline to respond to God's goodness by repentance, and faith, and trust, and submission to His will, cannot wonder or complain if sooner or later the tokens of His goodness are withdrawn, the opportunity of benefiting from them end,s, and retribution supervenes."

On the Patience of God. "[God] is not impatient in His severity; just the reverse. He is 'slow to anger' (Nehemiah 9:17; Psalms 103:8, 145:8; Joel 2:13; Jonah 4:2) and 'longsuffering' (Exodus 34:6; Numbers 14:18; Psalm 86:15). The Bible makes much of the patience and forbearance of God in postponing merited judgments in order to extend the day of grace and give more opportunity for repentance... [In] Romans 9:22 Paul tells us that down the course of history God has 'endured with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction'... Peter explains to his first-century readers that the reason why the promised return of Christ to judgment has not happened yet is that God 'is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance' (2 Peter 3:9); and the same explanation presumably applies today. The patience of God in giving 'space to repent' (Revelation 2:4) before judgment finally falls is one of the marvels of the Bible story. It is no wonder that the New Testament stresses that longsuffering is a Christian virtue and duty; it is in truth a part of the image of God (Galatians 5:22; Ephesians 4:2; Colossians 3:12)."

3 Tasks for the Christian. "[First,] appreciate the goodness of God. Count your blessings. Learn not to take natural benefits, endowments, and pleasures for granted; learn to thank God for them all. Do not slight the Bible, or the gospel of Jesus Christ, by an attitude of casualness towards either. The Bible shows you a Saviour who suffered and died in order that we sinners might be reconciled to God; Calvary is the measure of the goodness of God; lay it to heart... [Second,] appreciate the patience of God. Think of how He has borne with you, and still bears with you, when so much in your life is unworthy of Him, and you have so richly deserved His rejection. Learn to marvel at His patience, and seek grace to imitate it in your dealings with other men; and try not to try His patience any more. [Third,] appreciate the discipline of God. He is both your upholder and, in the last analysis, your environment; all things come of Him, and you have tasted His goodness every day of your life... [If] you are a true believer, and [God] puts thorns in your bed, it is only to keep you from falling into the somnolence of complacency, and to ensure that you 'continue in his goodness' by letting your sense of need bring you back constantly in self-abasement and faith to seek His face. This kindly discipline, in which God's severity touches us for a moment in the context of His goodness, is meant to keep us from having to bear the full brunt of that severity apart from that context. It is a discipline of love, and must be received accordingly. [Hebrews 12:5; Psalm 119:71]."

- The Jealous God -

"'The jealous God'--doesn't it sound offensive? For we know jealousy, 'the green-ey'd monster', as a vice, one of the most cancerous and soul-destroying vices there is; whereas God, we are sure, is perfectly good. How, then, could anyone ever imagine that jealousy is found in Him? The first step in answering this question is to make it clear that this is not a case of imagining anything... [There] in the Bible, God's 'public record', as Calvin called it, we find God speaking repeatedly of His jealousy... The sanction of the second commandment, spoken audibly to Moses and 'written with the finger of God' on tables of stone (Exodus 31:18), was this, 'I the LORD thy God am a jealous God' (20:5). A little later, God told Moses, even more strikingly, 'the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God' (34:14)... In fact, the Bible says a good deal about God's jealousy. There are references to it elsewhere in the Pentateuch (Numbers 25:11; Deuteronomy 4:24, 6:15, 29:20, 32:16, 21), in the history books (Joshua 24:19; 1 Kings 14:22), in the prophets (Ezekiel 8:3-5; 16:38, 42, 23:25, 36:5 ff., 38:19, 39:25; Joel 2:18; Nahum 1:2; Zephaniah 1:18, 3:8; Zechariah 1:14, 8:2), and in the Psalms (78:58, 79:5). It is constantly presented as a motive to action, whether in wrath or mercy [Ezekiel 39:25, Zechariah 1:14, Nahum 1:2). In the New Testament, Paul asks the presumptuous Corinthians, 'Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy?' (1 Corinthians 10:22); and RSV is probably right to render the difficult sentence in James 4:5 as 'He yearns jealously (literally "unto jealousy") over the spirit which he has made to dwell in us."

"[Biblical] statements about God's jealousy are anthropomorphisms--that is, descriptions of God in language drawn from the life of man... When faced with God's anthropomorphisms, however, it is easy to get hold of the wrong end of the stick. We have to remember that man is not the measure of his Maker, and that when the language of human personal life is used of God none of the limitations of human creaturehood are thereby being implied--limited knowledge, or power, or foresight, or strength, or consistency, or anything of that kind. And we must remember that those elements in human qualities which show the corrupting effect of sin have no counterpart in God. Thus, for instance, His wrath is not the ignoble outburst that human anger so often is, a sign of pride and weakness, but it is holiness reacting to evil in a way that is morally right and glorious. 'The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God' (James 1:20)--but the wrath of God is precisely His righteousness in judicial action. And in the same way, God's jealousy is not a compound of frustration, envy, and spite, as human jealousy so often is, but appears instead as a (literally) praiseworthy zeal to preserve something supremely precious."

Jealousy: Virtue or Vice? "[There] are two sorts of jealousy among men, and only one of them is a vice. Vicious jealousy is an expression of the attitude, 'I want what you've got, and I hate you because I haven't got it.' It is an infantile resentment springing from unmortified covetousness, which expresses itself in envy, malice, and meanness of action. It is terribly potent, for it feeds and is fed by pride, the taproot of our fallen nature. There is a mad obsessiveness about jealousy which, if indulged, can tear an otherwise firm character to shreds. 'Wrath is cruel, anger is overwhelming; but who can stand before jealousy?' asks the wise man (Proverbs 27:4). What is often called sexual jealousy, the lunatic fury of a rejected or supplanted suitor, is of this kind. But there is another sort of jealousy--zeal to protect a love-relationship, or to avenge it when broken. This jealousy also operates in the sphere of sex; there is, however, it appears, not the blind reaction of wounded pride, but as the fruit of marital affection. As Professor Tasker has written, married persons 'who felt no jealousy at the intrusion of a lover or an adulterer into their home would surely be lacking in moral perception; for the exclusiveness of marriage is the essence of marriage'... This sort of jealousy is a positive virtue, for it shows a grasp of the true meaning of the husband-wife relationship, together with a proper zeal to keep it intact."

The Nature of God's Jealousy. "Scripture consistently views God's jealousy as being [a virtue]: that is, as an aspect of His covenant love for His own people. The Old Testament regards God's covenant as His marriage with Israel, carrying with it a demand for unqualified love and loyalty. The worship of idols, and compromising relationships with non-Israelite idolators, constituted disobedience and unfaithfulness, which God saw as spiritual adultery, provoking Him to jealousy and vengeance... [Thus we] see plainly what God meant by telling Moses that His name was 'Jealous'. He meant that He demands from those whom He has loved and redeemed utter and absolute loyalty, and will vindicate His claim by stern action against them if they betray His love by unfaithfulness."

"God's jealousy over His people, as we have seen, presupposes His covenant love; and this love is no transitory affection, accidental and aimless, but is the expression of a sovereign purpose. The goal of the covenant love of God is that He should have a people on earth as long as history lasts, and after that should have all His faithful ones of every age with Him in glory. Covenant love is the heart of God's plan for His world. And it is in the light of God's overall plan for His world that His jealousy must, in the last analysis, be understood. For God's ultimate objective, as the Bible declares, is threefold: to vindicate His rule and righteousness by showing His sovereignty in judgment upon sin; to ransom and redeem His chosen people; and to be loved and praised by them for His glorious acts of love and self-vindication."

"As our right response to God's love for us is love for Him, so our right response to His jealousy over us is zeal for Him. His concern for us is great; ours for Him must be great too. What the prohibition of idolatry in the second commandment implies is that god's people should be positively and passionately devoted to His person, His cause, and His honour. The Bible word for such devotion is zeal, sometimes actually called jealousy for God. God Himself, as we saw, manifests this zeal, and the godly must manifest it too. The classic description of zeal for God was given by Bishop J.C. Ryle: "Zeal in religion is a burning desire to please God, to do His will, and to advance His glory in the world in every possible way. It is a desire which no man feels by nature--which the Spirit puts in the heart of every believer when he is converted--but which some believers feel so much more strongly than others that they alone deserve to be called 'zealous' men... A zealous man in religion is pre-eminently a man of one thing. It is not enough to say that he is earnest, hearty, uncompromising, thorough-going, whole-hearted, fervent in spirit. He only sees one thing, he cares for one thing, he lives for one thing, he is swallowed up in one thing; and that one thing is to please God... and to advance God's glory."