Attributes
How ‘The Shack’ Mocks God’s Holiness
Yes.
I’m picking on my favorite rogue Christian and his wild speculations about God again.
Is it because I’m nothing more than a sadistic blogger?
Curmudgeon? Bored?
Or is it because the love affair with The Shack is a good commentary on our contemporary evangelical environment?
Yes to all the above. [Except the bored part.]
See, The Shack still holds clout with the spiritually curious.
Still creeps up in conversations.
And most of the copies I see of The Shack owned by Christians show considerable more wear than their Bibles.
That’s troubling…
Because The Shack presents a flawed portrait of God–what Albert Mohler calls diluted heresy. Let me who you what I mean.
Write Fiction? You Must Follow These Rules
Believe it or not, when you write fiction, you follow certain rules. Rules that guide the plot, setting and characterization.
Young nails it on plot and setting. It’s that last one–characterization–that he misses, a point Trevin Wax made back in September…
I want to expand on that point. Here’s how it works.
If you’re going to write a novel about 18th century Russian peasants…you better get the characterization of those peasants right.
Nineteenth century mathematicians from Brooklyn? Get them right.
Twentieth century bicyclists training in northern California? Get them right.
The God of the Christian Bible? Get him right.
Get your characterizations wrong and you look like a silly know-nothing. And sadly, that’s exactly what Young did–he got the characterization of God wrong.
Let’s compare Mack’s controversial confrontation with God versus some of the Bible examples of confrontations with God to show you what I mean. I’ll start with the Bible.
Biblical Responses to the Holiness of God
When Adam sinned in the garden, Adam hid from God…
When a sixteen year-old king named Josiah read the long-forgotten law of God, he tore his clothes in grief…
When Job antagonized God about his plight, God rose up and riddled off a litany of questions…questions Job could not answer…
When Isaiah bent before the alter of God he screamed “Woe is me for I am ruined”…
When Peter saw Jesus conquer the storm he was terrified and said, “Who is this that the wind and the sea obey him?”
And when John encountered Jesus in a vision he fell at his feet as though dead.
As you can see, the Bible provides an abundant amount of examples that suggest encountering God is NOT a light affair…
And we haven’t even dealt with the hard texts of the Bible. Let’s do that now.
Compare These Tough Texts to…
In Leviticus 10 Aaron’s priestly sons–Nadab and Abihu–offer the wrong type of sacrifice on the altar…
In 2 Samuel Uzzah and his cohorts carry the ark of God on a cart [against God's prohibition to do such a thing] and when the ark threatens to crash into the mud, Uzzah sticks his hand out to catch it…
In Acts 5 Ananias and Sappira hid away some money they promised to share with the community of Christian believers.
What do all of these encounters share in common? Swift execution for what Jonathan Edwards called the “sins of arrogance.”
Mack’s Encounter with God
When Young’s protagonist Mack encounters God, what does he do? Let’s him have it. Throwing in a few choice words to boot.
Nothing out of the ordinary there. In fact, smells like a sin of arrogance. But it’s what God does in response that makes your jaw drop.
He merely shrugs.
My question to you is this: Why should Mack’s encounter with God be any different? I have a thought.
What’s obvious is that Mack is not in the presence of a being who is far superior to him.
We have no sense of awe for Papa. We don’t revere him.
In fact, the God of Young’s book accommodates us. Makes us feel comfortable –not convicted. He appeals to our native narcissism…
A narcissism our secular AND sacred culture nurtures to no end.
As I said in the Craptastic Book That Won’t Go Away post:
We want God on our terms. We want God to accommodate us. To make us feel welcome. We want him to present himself in a way that we can stomach. To justify our emotions like anger, bitterness and resentment.
But Here’s the Problem
In the end, my beef is not with The Shack. It’s with this: Our human tendency to fashion God into our own image, which is tantamount to tampering with the way God portrays himself…
A God who declares he is ferociously jealous for his name.
So what could Young have done to make me happy [not that he's obligated to make me happy]? Killed Mack on the spot after his fit of foul language.
As I demonstrated above, this would not have been the least bit out of character for God.
Understand: Defamation of God’s character carries strict consequences. A character that is illustrated in a demand for perfect obedience to the law of God.
A demand that you and I cannot satisfy. Only Christ.
And only when we see this full, out-stretched picture of redemption do we realize the depth of our dependence upon Christ and sob in relief at his mercy and then bend over backwards in our proclamation to the lost that it is, in fact, possible to have peace with a holy and just God.
Christmas is looming. Do you have an appropriate concept of God?
Comfortable or Convicted? Your Response to God’s Holiness
Long, long ago a well-educated historian and politically-connected religious counselor climbed the steps of the Jerusalem temple.
Once he reached the porch, he plodded into the temple, wrapped his tunic around his legs and fell to his knees to pray.
During that time of prayer, God visited him in a vision.
In that vision he saw God’s holiness and instantly felt the crushing weight of his sinfulness and a grim sense of guilt and hopelessness.
Scrambling away from the altar, he screamed “Woe is me! For I am ruined!”
But God assured him that his sins were forgiven.
And this man responded by accepting God’s call to preach the message of judgment and hope to the stubborn nation of Israel.
This man is Isaiah. And his story is found in Isaiah 6.
Isaiah’s Vision v. Contemporary Portraits of God
What we don’t get from this story is a sense that God is casual. Chummy. Cuddly…
Some kind of co-pilot who nods in approval and dishes out good advice. The eternal Uncle who makes the best hot cider and tells the funniest jokes.
No. He’s not trivial. Superficial. Shallow. Syrupy. Quite unlike the contemporary portrait of God we see in the marketplace…
A portrait that nurtures irreverence, irrelevance and even carnality.
What’s at Stake?
Our worship of God will only be as high and long and deep and great as our thoughts of God’s holiness.
Listen. There is a place for a warm, loving approach to God. David epitomized that approach.
But not without first embedding it in an incorrigible sense of God’s eternality, transcendence and wholly separate grandeur and moral purity that is divine holiness.
This the NT equivalent:
Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Philippians 2:12-13
God’s holiness. Our sinfulness. His grace. Our adoration. His mercy. Our work. That’s the cycle we should repeat daily to enrich our worship of God.
Here’s My Point
Are you comfortable or convicted by God’s holiness?
Do you want to see what Isaiah saw? Do you want to hear what Isaiah heard? Do you want to feel what Isaiah felt?
More importantly, do you want to respond as Isaiah did–gripped afresh by the holiness of God?
Do you even care? I look forward to your thoughts. Brutal and all.
God’s Transcendence: Why You Should Care
**Part of The Nature of God series.**
Let me ask you a question: How do you explain America’s spectacular moral slide?
I mean, we’re just over 200 years old and it seems like the boat capsized.
Is there anything else like it in history? Possibly.
But in such a short time? And how do we explain this dramatic dive into immorality?
I think I might have the answer. Let me explain.
Astounding Reactions
When men encounter God, the result is always the same: an abrupt and acute kowtow. There is no second guessing:
Isaiah dreaded the confrontation with God: “Woe is me, for I am ruined!”
Saul, struck blind, begged: “Who are you, Lord?”
Daniel slumped: “Therefore I was left alone, and saw this great vision, and there remained no strength in me: for my comeliness was turned in me into corruption, and I retained no strength.”
What caused these reactions? God’s transcendence.
What Does Transcendence Mean?
When we say that God is transcendent, we are saying that God is exalted far above the created universe. So far above that human thought can’t touch it.
As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. Isaiah 55:9
We’re not concerned with location. Nor altitude. We’re concerned with life. A person. A being who’s essence is existence.
Using an Imagined Monster to Explain Existence
There is something about objects of worship–whether man, self or sun–that we miss: something had to create the objects.
Nothing can not create something. So, the universe as we know it can’t be eternal. It needs a cause.
But that which caused it has to be something entirely different from that which was created. This is where Thomas Aquinas was headed in “On Being and Essence.”
From our existence we can know something about God, namely, that he exists. He has to, otherwise where did humans, the earth or the universe start? We’ll think like a theist when we say, if God created us, then his essence must be something entirely different from us.
How is it different? In people, essence and existence are two different things.
What do I mean by that? Just because a child can imagine a fierce, thick-boned, child-hating monster doesn’t mean that the monster is real. It’s existence is separate from what it is–its essence.
God’s essence, on the other hand, is existence. In other words, he is self-existent.
And God can’t create himself, because that implies that nothing [which is the state of God before he created himself if he once never existed] can create God.
Because of this distinction, God is utterly different than you or I. We are different–our existence and essence is separate. Why? We can die. God can not. In other words, God is transcendent. He is the Other.
But he’s involved in this universe. He sustains it. The ultimate culmination of God’s presence in this universe is Christ. Christ provides the bridge between God and man. Between the limitless and the limited.
The Controversy Over the Mind
Naturally, not all people agree God exists–let alone transcendent. And some materialists will object to the idea that a mind could exist separate from the body.
I disagree. Here are four proofs that the mind does exist apart from the body:
- No real proof that my mind is a function of my brain.
- Just because my mind and brain work together doesn’t mean they’re identical.
- We commit the reductionist fallacy when we reduce my mind to my brain.
- How could I know I was more than my brain unless I was more than it?
Imagine if your child got lost in a crowded mall. I bet you would abandon every single shopping bag to find that child.
The bags full of stuff can’t love or laugh or speak or pray. It is the child’s quality of being that gives it worth. It is soul that gives significance to matter.
Which brings me to my original question: how do we explain America’s moral slide. The answer is easy. We’ve lost the fear of God.
What the Strangeness of God Can Do for Us
Contemporary men have found that in order to indulge themselves in their vices, they need to do away with God. Moreover, the history of evangelism has made that shift easy.
In the early 20th Century the Gospel of the Cross was abandoned for the Gospel of Life Enhancement: Jesus will make your life easier. Lost in translation is God’s transcendence–his strangeness to us.
That strangeness comes to us as a healthy respect of our Creator, a healthy worship for our redeemer and a healthy fear of him who can destroy both body and soul in hell. We’ve lost the value of God’s eternal wrath. We acknowledge his kindness but dismiss his severity. This makes it easier for us to dismiss God.
Finding Comfort in God’s Transcendence
Charles Hodge once said, “The infinitude of God, so far as space is concerned, includes his immensity and his omnipresence…He is equally present with all his creatures, at all times, and in all places. He is not far from any one of us.”
God’s transcendent holiness is biblically balanced with the teaching of his immanence. This means God is wholly present in his being and power in every part and moment of the created universe.
This is seen especially in relation to humans. The Holy One who lives in a high and holy place also dwells with the “contrite and lowly in spirit.” And this is seen in the very physical visit to his creation in the person of Jesus Christ.
The Nature of God: A Quick and Dirty Guide
Any close reader for the past few months might have picked up on a small pattern: Monday’s are devoted to the character of God.
That’s been on purpose.
See, one of my original motives for launching this blog was to dig deep into the foundations of my faith…to understand whom I worship…what I believe.
I could’ve done this by tackling an MA in theology. But I thought better…
Yes, the reason why I blog is so I can learn. But the other reason I blog is so I can instantly share my knowledge with you.
Listen: ever since my conversion all I’ve wanted to do is pour myself out for Jesus. And ever since I launched Fallen and Flawed all I’ve wanted to do is pour myself out for you as well.
So any fiber of my being I can give to help you nurture your passion for God in the midst of the daily grind…I want to give it.
Thus this blog. Thus this series on the nature of God.
I’m more than halfway through all the attributes I want to explore. That’s why I thought today would be a good time to publish the past and future posts dedicated to this topic. Enjoy. And thank you so much for your readership!
Wrong Thoughts about God: 5 Dangerous Conclusions
Seven Ways of Looking at God’s Wrath
A Crude, Skeptical Curmudgeon Looks at God’s Love
Do You Want to Live Forever? Exploring God’s Eternality
Six Ways of Looking at God’s Omniscience
What Can Leo Tolstoy Teach You About God’s Jealousy?
The Thoroughly-Painless Guide to the Doctrine of God’s Trinity
Omnipresence: Does God Lounge Like a Man Lounges?
Omnipotence: Can God Defeat Evil?
10 Biblical Illustrations of God’s Self-Sufficiency
A Simple, Straightforward Guide to the Justice of God
Does God Suffer? An Argument for God’s Emotions
Can God Die? Nitty-Gritty Guide to Self-Existence
God’s Grace: The Essential Meaning
Does Evil Point to God’s Perfection?
Holiness: A Headlong, Under-the-Hood Look
Truthfulness: A Cure for Your Anxiety and Angst
Sovereignty and Why It Doesn’t Contradict Man’s Freedom
The Problem with God’s Righteousness
Infinity: The Abyss of God’s Being
The Case for God’s Immutability
God’s Transcendence: Why You Should Care
Mercy: The Unsurpassable Attribute of God
Note: These are in order of date published. And let me know if there is an attribute of the Christian God you’d like to see on this list.
God’s Grace: The Essential Meaning
**Part of The Nature of God: A Quick and Dirty Guide series.**
In a nutshell, grace is God’s desire to be good to his unruly children–children who don’t deserve squat.
That means, grace involves mercy over misery. Favor over futility. Access over alienation. Reconciliation over rejection.
In a minute we’re going to explore the presumption, promise, purpose, predestination, prosecution, preservation, passion and our response to God’s grace…
But first, a little history.
Brief History of God’s Grace
The history of God’s grace begins with Abraham’s election–a national blessing that extended to all the families on the earth.
After Abraham’s election, the nation of Israel then ushered in Moses. Moses received the law of God.
With the law in place, those who broke the law deserved punishment, even if it was God’s chosen people. We need this because grace without law is meaningless and what I say below won’t make any sense.
One of the ways God’s grace worked in the Old Testament was through animal sacrifices. Animal sacrifices satisfied God’s wrath towards those who broke the law.
Therefore, in the New Testament, Jesus’ death–another type of sacrifice–satisfied God’s wrath towards those who broke the law.
Now, justification through grace is by faith in the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Justification makes us children of God. In other words, repentant sinners are adopted into the church.
So, to make a long story short, Abraham and the nation of Israel were simply the mechanism to God’s long-range goal.
Presumption of God’s Grace
There are four crucial truths in which the doctrine of God’s grace takes for granted.
1. Man is totally depraved.
2. God is not true to himself if he does not punish sin.
3. It is beyond our power to mend our relationship with God.
4. God is not obliged to love us or help us.
Only when you see that your destiny depends on whether or not God resolves to save you from your sins can you begin to grasp the biblical view of grace.
Promise of God’s Grace
What does God’s grace promise? Grace promises salvation and eternal life.
Grace brings justification by faith through grace: God can declare us just and include us in his eternal purpose. We become adopted, children of God.
Salvation finds fulfillment by grace and not race, so Abraham’s physical and spiritual descendants could experience God’s grace.
Purpose of God’s Grace
On the macro level, this is what all the work of grace aims at: an ever deeper and closer knowledge of God. A thick relationship.
On the micro level, grace narrates the truly dramatic transition from condemned criminal awaiting a terrible sentence to that of an heir awaiting a fabulous inheritance.
Bottom line, the purpose of God’s grace is to reconcile a rebellious people.
Predestination of God’s Grace
Salvation is no accident. In the book of Ephesians Paul says:
He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will.
And since it is executed by sovereign power, nothing can thwart it.
Prosecution of God’s Grace
God wants to overwhelm you. He wants to create in you a sense of inadequacy.
That’s why we aren’t shield from the turbulence and terror of life. We are exposed to the world, the devil and the flesh. And we are cold-cocked by our own temperament.
God wants you to feel your way through life, rugged and roughshod, so that you shed your own self-confidence and rely on him. And him only.
Preservation of God’s Grace
First Peter 1:5 says we are “protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.”
You don’t need to torment yourself with the fear that your faith may fail. Since grace led you to this faith–so grace will keep you believing until the end.
Passion of God’s Grace
God’s grace is the limitless capacity to forgive and bless in the face of endless rebellion and rejection.
Why would he do this? He delights in mercy as a father delights in compassion towards his children. It is part of his nature.
God removed our banishment–not because of anything we’ve done–but through the virtues of Christ’s atoning death. Yet, none has ever returned to the divine favor except through the sheer, passionate goodness of God.
Our Proper Response to God’s Grace
The irreducible condition for receiving God’s grace is humility. God works through repentant sinners.
And once we repent, we become missionaries. Missionaries in our neighborhoods, workplace and churches. Full time missionaries. We share God’s grace bottom up: I repented because I saw I was dead in sin. We see the tragic state of the lost and mourn for them.
In other words, our proper response to God’s grace is, as John Piper says, “to live hour by hour in the forgiving, justifying, all-supplying grace of God, and then bend it out to all the others in your life.”
What has been your response to God’s grace? Let me know what you think.
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