Oh my gosh, I love this so much. I have found myself praying over the last 10 years or so that “God, you are safe, kind, good,” always leading with safe. Which fits what therapists and social scientists and such say about relationships, that they have to start with safety, that there is no trust if you aren’t safe. But I grew up with the conservative/evangelical world latching onto the “he’s not safe” and making it out that God loves, sure, but he’s also holy and just and has to have his holiness satisfied when we screw up. It’s been a lifetime of experiencing God very differently than what I learned about him when I was younger. This also fits with the 23rd Psalm, in that I never understood how a rod and staff were comforting, until I realized that they were being used to drive away the enemies that would harm me the sheep.
"...God loves, sure, but he’s also holy and just and has to have his holiness satisfied when we screw up."
But that's 100% true. That's a major part of the message of the Bible, from Genesis 3 to Revelation 22.
God is love, God is extremely good and merciful. He's holy and just. He can't let the wicked run free over His own beloved sheep. Our sin itself is our oppressor... our sins keep us locked up. It would be unloving of God to leave us in our sins down here.
Thats why its such Good News that God took away our sins in Jesus on the Cross. He proved it by raising Jesus from the dead.
That's why the fact that Jesus Christ is Risen is the best, most joyous fact in the universe!
Without the reality of wickedness being judged, there's no power in the Cross. But Jesus is our hope, freedom, eternal life. Theres total safety in Christ. Total freedom. Absolute peace and quiet confidence in him.
"The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are safe." Proverbs 17:10
Unfortunately this mindset also supports their harsh, and judgmental approach that has turned off so many, and does the opposite of bringing others to hear the gospel. This has become increasingly harsh and unempathic... encouraging and mirroring the political hatefulness we experience. Jesus was a safe place, the evangelical fundamentalists are not. I too grew up in this and know it well.. and have followed the movement to the right, and to this increase in intolerance, turning into a nationalistic religion. I have never heard people be so negative about the christian church as I have of late... and I attribute much of this to the evangelical movement over the past decades. Safety is the root of love.
God is good; He is also holy. He is merciful, yet He is also just. He is the personification of perfection and truth itself from Whom these things proceed into the world, and yet He is willing to stoop to deal with creatures who are imperfect and by nature belong to the father of lies, not by virtue of any good in us, but simply because He first loved us. Many liberal and progressive professing Christians attempt to draw a line between the God of love and mercy of the New Testament and the God of wrath and judgement of the Old Testament, perhaps saying that He has mellowed out, when in reality, He is the same God and immutable at that. The "wrathful God of the Old Testament" still displayed His matchless longsuffering and love over and over again. He named a man "Methuselah" ("When he dies, judgement shall come") and had him be the longest living person in recorded history at nearly a millennium. He does not let sin go unpunished, but He gives every opportunity for repentance and reconciliation possible before the time of judgement. The "loving God of the New Testament," yes, displayed His love and mercy in the most awesome way at Calvary, but also shows that He is still a just God worthy to deliver divine wrath, as the Father "was pleased to crush Him." It is indeed a mistake to focus ONLY on the "wrathful" aspect of God, but it is equally dangerous to focus ONLY on His love to the point of negating His justice and holiness. Even on His own children He visits a level of hardship, but only to teach them; it is a correcting measure, as one reproves their child, an act that in the moment is pleasant for neither parent nor child, but is inherently loving and good to direct them to a better way of behavior and thinking. The parent who refuses to visit reproof on their child, focusing only on "love" and not "right" is less loving than the parent who reproves their child, as they succeed in raising a degenerate child who never matures. To the Christian, a joint-heir with Christ, the goal is to be more like our Father, and He raises His children to be more like Him through the work of sanctification, and oftentimes, some children need to be "gotten ahold of" for their own benefit, as God will not turn a blind eye to rebellion. "He's not a tame lion" is absolutely right. He is indeed good. He is the most good. But this is also the Almighty Creator and Sustainer Who raises up and topples empires, Who with His word brought all things into being and holds the oceans in the palm of His hand and measures the heavens with His fingers. He was before the world was and will be there unchanged when this old world perishes in heat and a loud noise. This is He Whom we cannot comprehend with finite minds, yet He loves us. He is the bridegroom of the Church and the Supreme Judge of all. Beware when you focus only on His goodness and not on His power which is fierce and terrible and perfectly righteous. We are unrighteous by nature, declared righteous by the blood of the only Begotten of the Father, and will stand before a righteous God. He wields power, even destructive power, beyond that of Satan (which is given to him, yet he does not have the natural authority to wield) and He is perfectly just and righteous in using it. Destructive and raw power is not satanic, He has all authority to bear the sword and Christ is prophesied to one day rule the nations with a rod of iron and will be perfectly justified in doing so. It is His mercy and love and the fact that our debt is paid by Him that He does not visit His wrath upon us, and we have no room to boast, no room to be arrogant and say we are safe because He is inherently good and will never use it. He is not a tame God, but He is good.
If all the evangelicals you have met think that God is somehow bad as well as good that is sad. I think what CS Lewis is trying to say is that God is not our pet that we can tell God what to do.
I have recently been reading the gospel of Luke where Jesus teaches that being good enough is not being good like He is. It is only when we depend totally on God's forgiveness on the cross and the Holy Spirit's power that we can do any good at all.
The important point is that God's holiness is not incompatble with God's love.
Forgive me, but this feels like an "undistributed" argument. You mention that conservatives and evangelicals cite scripture concerning God's judgment and wrath - which I assume you would agree is right to do, since all Scripture is God-breathed. So I guess I'm not connecting the dots to how mentioning wrath and judgment is the same as describing God as satan.
Yeah... I agree. Its not exactly a "straw man" argument, because there are definitely people like this. I think its just painting with too big a brush. just my 2c.
Oh my gosh, I love this so much. I have found myself praying over the last 10 years or so that “God, you are safe, kind, good,” always leading with safe. Which fits what therapists and social scientists and such say about relationships, that they have to start with safety, that there is no trust if you aren’t safe. But I grew up with the conservative/evangelical world latching onto the “he’s not safe” and making it out that God loves, sure, but he’s also holy and just and has to have his holiness satisfied when we screw up. It’s been a lifetime of experiencing God very differently than what I learned about him when I was younger. This also fits with the 23rd Psalm, in that I never understood how a rod and staff were comforting, until I realized that they were being used to drive away the enemies that would harm me the sheep.
"...God loves, sure, but he’s also holy and just and has to have his holiness satisfied when we screw up."
But that's 100% true. That's a major part of the message of the Bible, from Genesis 3 to Revelation 22.
God is love, God is extremely good and merciful. He's holy and just. He can't let the wicked run free over His own beloved sheep. Our sin itself is our oppressor... our sins keep us locked up. It would be unloving of God to leave us in our sins down here.
Thats why its such Good News that God took away our sins in Jesus on the Cross. He proved it by raising Jesus from the dead.
That's why the fact that Jesus Christ is Risen is the best, most joyous fact in the universe!
Without the reality of wickedness being judged, there's no power in the Cross. But Jesus is our hope, freedom, eternal life. Theres total safety in Christ. Total freedom. Absolute peace and quiet confidence in him.
"The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are safe." Proverbs 17:10
Unfortunately this mindset also supports their harsh, and judgmental approach that has turned off so many, and does the opposite of bringing others to hear the gospel. This has become increasingly harsh and unempathic... encouraging and mirroring the political hatefulness we experience. Jesus was a safe place, the evangelical fundamentalists are not. I too grew up in this and know it well.. and have followed the movement to the right, and to this increase in intolerance, turning into a nationalistic religion. I have never heard people be so negative about the christian church as I have of late... and I attribute much of this to the evangelical movement over the past decades. Safety is the root of love.
God is good; He is also holy. He is merciful, yet He is also just. He is the personification of perfection and truth itself from Whom these things proceed into the world, and yet He is willing to stoop to deal with creatures who are imperfect and by nature belong to the father of lies, not by virtue of any good in us, but simply because He first loved us. Many liberal and progressive professing Christians attempt to draw a line between the God of love and mercy of the New Testament and the God of wrath and judgement of the Old Testament, perhaps saying that He has mellowed out, when in reality, He is the same God and immutable at that. The "wrathful God of the Old Testament" still displayed His matchless longsuffering and love over and over again. He named a man "Methuselah" ("When he dies, judgement shall come") and had him be the longest living person in recorded history at nearly a millennium. He does not let sin go unpunished, but He gives every opportunity for repentance and reconciliation possible before the time of judgement. The "loving God of the New Testament," yes, displayed His love and mercy in the most awesome way at Calvary, but also shows that He is still a just God worthy to deliver divine wrath, as the Father "was pleased to crush Him." It is indeed a mistake to focus ONLY on the "wrathful" aspect of God, but it is equally dangerous to focus ONLY on His love to the point of negating His justice and holiness. Even on His own children He visits a level of hardship, but only to teach them; it is a correcting measure, as one reproves their child, an act that in the moment is pleasant for neither parent nor child, but is inherently loving and good to direct them to a better way of behavior and thinking. The parent who refuses to visit reproof on their child, focusing only on "love" and not "right" is less loving than the parent who reproves their child, as they succeed in raising a degenerate child who never matures. To the Christian, a joint-heir with Christ, the goal is to be more like our Father, and He raises His children to be more like Him through the work of sanctification, and oftentimes, some children need to be "gotten ahold of" for their own benefit, as God will not turn a blind eye to rebellion. "He's not a tame lion" is absolutely right. He is indeed good. He is the most good. But this is also the Almighty Creator and Sustainer Who raises up and topples empires, Who with His word brought all things into being and holds the oceans in the palm of His hand and measures the heavens with His fingers. He was before the world was and will be there unchanged when this old world perishes in heat and a loud noise. This is He Whom we cannot comprehend with finite minds, yet He loves us. He is the bridegroom of the Church and the Supreme Judge of all. Beware when you focus only on His goodness and not on His power which is fierce and terrible and perfectly righteous. We are unrighteous by nature, declared righteous by the blood of the only Begotten of the Father, and will stand before a righteous God. He wields power, even destructive power, beyond that of Satan (which is given to him, yet he does not have the natural authority to wield) and He is perfectly just and righteous in using it. Destructive and raw power is not satanic, He has all authority to bear the sword and Christ is prophesied to one day rule the nations with a rod of iron and will be perfectly justified in doing so. It is His mercy and love and the fact that our debt is paid by Him that He does not visit His wrath upon us, and we have no room to boast, no room to be arrogant and say we are safe because He is inherently good and will never use it. He is not a tame God, but He is good.
If all the evangelicals you have met think that God is somehow bad as well as good that is sad. I think what CS Lewis is trying to say is that God is not our pet that we can tell God what to do.
I have recently been reading the gospel of Luke where Jesus teaches that being good enough is not being good like He is. It is only when we depend totally on God's forgiveness on the cross and the Holy Spirit's power that we can do any good at all.
The important point is that God's holiness is not incompatble with God's love.
Fascinating line of thought -- thank you for pointing it out so plainly!
Forgive me, but this feels like an "undistributed" argument. You mention that conservatives and evangelicals cite scripture concerning God's judgment and wrath - which I assume you would agree is right to do, since all Scripture is God-breathed. So I guess I'm not connecting the dots to how mentioning wrath and judgment is the same as describing God as satan.
Yeah... I agree. Its not exactly a "straw man" argument, because there are definitely people like this. I think its just painting with too big a brush. just my 2c.