Too often we only think in terms of cause and effect. Now, of course, cause and effect makes sense some of the time: I strike a billiard ball and it rolls with the amount of force I hit it with. I think this becomes dangerous, though, when we make God into a cause and effect God--especially with our pain and hurts and lessons learned in those times. Let me explain.
After a loss or hurt or trial, we begin to look back and see what we learned--about God, about ourselves, about life. The cause was the hurt; the effect was the growth. This can lead us to think of God as being responsible for the hurt--bringing hurt so that we can learn one specific lesson. Let me offer another thought. Instead of thinking in terms of cause and effect, think in terms of story. As a Christian, put your life into the story of death and resurrection. See the hurts as the moments that bring death, but the lessons as those elements of life and resurrection!
Sometimes God does not cause the trials; they happen for all kinds of reasons. But God is not hindered by them. Seeing resurrection (hope, growth, life) after the death (defeat, trial, hurt) helps us to see the work of God as being against the evils that threaten, rather than being their author. To put it in terms of yesterday, God didn't give me the panic attack, but he has definitely worked through it!
Can you see moments of death in your life from which God has brought resurrection? Do you have a resurrection story to share?
After a loss or hurt or trial, we begin to look back and see what we learned--about God, about ourselves, about life. The cause was the hurt; the effect was the growth. This can lead us to think of God as being responsible for the hurt--bringing hurt so that we can learn one specific lesson. Let me offer another thought. Instead of thinking in terms of cause and effect, think in terms of story. As a Christian, put your life into the story of death and resurrection. See the hurts as the moments that bring death, but the lessons as those elements of life and resurrection!
Sometimes God does not cause the trials; they happen for all kinds of reasons. But God is not hindered by them. Seeing resurrection (hope, growth, life) after the death (defeat, trial, hurt) helps us to see the work of God as being against the evils that threaten, rather than being their author. To put it in terms of yesterday, God didn't give me the panic attack, but he has definitely worked through it!
Can you see moments of death in your life from which God has brought resurrection? Do you have a resurrection story to share?
8 comments:
I'm not sure that I ever saw God as a "cause and effect God", i.e. he caused a hurt or trial which accelerated my spiritual growth in some positive way.
I think my inaccurate thinking was more along the lines of sometimes God just didn't care if a painful or hurtful trial came into my life or the lives of other people. In spite of hours of prayer, fasting, meditation on scripture, or just generally being a "good" Christian he didn't seem moved to act on my behalf. On some level I knew he loved me but I guess I thought he was saying "This isn't a big enough deal for me" or "This too shall pass", or "Buck up girl, it's not that bad. Lots of people have it worse than you."
More recently in my journey I've realized at much deeper levels, through a fresh and exciting relationship with Father, that he loves me more than anyone ever has or ever will and there's nothing I can do to make him love me more or less. With that realization comes more faith and more trust in him to better manage my life and circumstances than I ever could with self-effort.
A truth I've come to embrace is that Father didn't need Jesus to die on the Cross so he could love us. We needed the cross
so we could be free from our shame - so we would be able to live in relationship with Father in spite of our sin nature, no longer having to work at becoming acceptable and worthy of his love - or his intervention in our trials. (We no longer have to "hide in the Garden" as Adam and Eve did when they realized their nakedness/sinfulness. God has made the way for us to be back in relationship with him.)
This has eliminated any thought of "God's too busy to be bothered with my problem", "I'm not good enough", or "I must need this painful lesson to change me."
I think "we" (most Christians I know) have way under appreciated the power of God's love and it's availability to us every day to transform us from the inside out - i.e. the death of our old self and ressurrection of a "renewed mind". Instead we substitute the "application of principles", the latest Christian program flavor-of-the-month, and various self-efforts to work change in ourselves from the outside in - perhaps trying to work out our own death and ressurrection.
Hi Beth,
As one fascinated by atonement theology, I think you are pushing down good roads. The idea of sacrifice in the OT was not because something had to die for sin, but because the power of life can cover shame. That is why blood--where 'life' is found in OT biology (Lev. 17:11, 14)--makes atonement. The power of a life given covers the shame of sin.
ap, help me understand,,, you said that OT sacrifice was not death for sin. If this is the case how do you have one without the other. That is if without the shedding of blood there is no remission then how can sin be covered without death?
Hey DW, it can't be. But the power is not in something dying. It is in life being given for it. That is a subtle, but significant change.
thanks ap, but is not the power in the substitutionary atonement, if and only if the dying is done by God?
hey, dw, yes, i think the substitionary element of atonement is essential and it is the nature of the sacrifice (God himself) offered that renders all future sacrifices unnecessary (hence, the entire book of Hebrews). but substitution in itself does not indicate *what about* the substitute is effective (whether it is death or life). Hebrews affirms that the blood of Christ is what cleanses (9:14). going back to what I mentioned about Leviticus, the life of Christ given is what cleanses and atones. his death could not have simply happened by an accidental slip and bump of the head or have been taken from him (as the OT sacrificial system worked). death does not give life. instead, life covers sin--hence, Leviticus 17:11: "For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one's life."
good question.
thanks for clarifying ap, but if life is in the blood would not the blood be the agent of change. And if the person carrying the blood is capable of satifying God's demand for others sins and if the method of sacrifice (not just a bump on a rock) is approved by God then the transaction would be, as it was on Calvary, fully effective in forgiving the sins of the world? Also, how can you give blood through a sacrifice without death? Which came first the chicken or the egg? You cannot have an acceptable sacrifice without death, and you cannot have life without blood? The systematic theology of the chicken and the egg has helped me understand this doctrine. I hope my humor does not offend. Since it rarely gets laughs I wonder whether I should of made the attempt:?
hey dw, your humour does not offend! :)
i am not quite sure what you are asking. could you clarify what the issue is you have with what i have put forth, simply: "Life given, not death itself, is what atones for sin"?
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