I have known people who, though having sought spiritual experiences
of God, admit to finding the bible itself to be a dry crust of a book.
“The best way I can describe it is that it’s like a textbook. On math.
Trigonometry,” said one man. I can not fault his honesty, though I
disagree with his perspective. Of course, I view the word of God through
a lens which makes all parts come to life and glow. That lens is
compound, its two elements being Law and Gospel.
What makes the message of the gospel, the “good news” of Christ’s redemptive work, so sweet to me is not what others might expect. Since coming to faith, my love of God hasn’t grown necessarily from experiences felt with my five senses, as if God holds my hand physically in the day or comes at night to coddle me palpably when grieving. Neither have I needed visions or wonders to charm my faith into fire. To be candid, very few of my “experiences” of God have involved anything that would appeal to the unbeliever. Yes, I believe I have heard God’s voice many times, but if one asks, “what does God’s voice sound like,” I will respond, “like my own voice reading the scriptures and believing them.” So for the most part, my faith in God and desire to live for Him, and anything I’ve felt, has grown out of my belief of the word.
What makes the message of the gospel, the “good news” of Christ’s redemptive work, so sweet to me is not what others might expect. Since coming to faith, my love of God hasn’t grown necessarily from experiences felt with my five senses, as if God holds my hand physically in the day or comes at night to coddle me palpably when grieving. Neither have I needed visions or wonders to charm my faith into fire. To be candid, very few of my “experiences” of God have involved anything that would appeal to the unbeliever. Yes, I believe I have heard God’s voice many times, but if one asks, “what does God’s voice sound like,” I will respond, “like my own voice reading the scriptures and believing them.” So for the most part, my faith in God and desire to live for Him, and anything I’ve felt, has grown out of my belief of the word.
The sweetness of faith did not begin very sweetly for me. I began where all believers must, believing in the rightness of God’s moral Law. Not only did I come to believe its morals were correct, but that the harrowing terms of the Covenant of Works, God’s first legal arrangement with Mankind, were fair. “The soul that sins shall die.” [Eze. 18:20] There I discovered the extreme gap standing between God’s holiness and mankind. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and love your neighbor even as you love yourself.” [Luke 10:27] “The wages of sin is death,” and “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.” [Rom. 6:23, 1:18]
Because of sin, there must be justice and judgment. No maudlin sentimentality exists in God to casually sweep the consequences under the rug. He will not, cannot, shrug off the crimson crimes of our deep disdain toward Him. We are bound by sin and He is bound against sinners, so far as His moral law is concerned. So then, to comprehend, ever so slightly, the magnitude of Christ’s condescension, lowering Himself to experience ineffable shame and suffering on our behalf; that He willingly and with love gave Himself for His enemies, and for myself in particular, moves my heart to know Him, to bless Him.
It is no dry thing to read the word with faith. Faith opens the faucet, as it were, and springs the flood of spiritual wonder and sensitivity. To study the scripture is to learn the particulars of an elaborate romance plot, a rescue mission, a tragedy of untold scale; a great drama of redemption playing through time and in my heart. The bible is interesting because it concerns my beloved, and teaches me how better to love Him.
Reader, ask yourself, has the Law taught your heart, and not your mind merely, the truth that everlasting judgment is not only the necessary punishment for sin, but a good and holy response of God to it? Have you felt, not only for particular sins, but for the original sin of your nature from which all corrupt motives flow, that it would be truly good and noble for God to bring swift, unflinching, merciless justice? I have felt this to be true, ever so weakly, and it was the breaking of my heart. I have felt it would be more deeply good and upright for God to crush me under hell than to cheaply receive my “best efforts”. His worthy name must be avenged! The Creator of all has been slighted and blasphemed by my selfish disregard! Should I walk free while He is made a mockery?
Yet in the Gospel I learn that He was pleased to endure even worse discomfort than we can imagine, in order to justly redeem His people from the guilt, power, and ultimate consequences of sin. I see a horrible scene, acted out beneath the skin of Jesus as He hung upon the cross. Beyond His physical agonies which perhaps we can vaguely comprehend, there was an unspeakably wholesome and noble Being loaded under the filth of our collective evil. His very essence is light, but now He was shrouded in the shame of our darkness and depravity. What grief it must have been for this lofty lover of purity, whose whole Law is love, to be so closely identified with impurity, made to feel responsible for all the selfish and hateful acts committed by His people, so much that it could be said, “he was made sin,” and “he bore our iniquities.” [2 Cor. 5:21, 1 Pet. 2:24]
Even beyond the weight of all this, was the massive capstone of his suffering, the turning away of His Father in heaven. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” he wailed. [Matt. 27:46] In our present state, you and I have little if any real love for the Father, as an end in Himself and not as means to an end. Christ Jesus, however, loved and cherished the smiling approval of His Father supremely. To lose that sight when His Father turned away in holy disgust, must have fallen upon Jesus’ heart like the cleaving of a colossal glacier onto the fragile waters of an ocean below.
And yet, “for the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame.” [Heb. 12:2] What awe and ecstasy to believe, that God the Son found more joy in humbling Himself and suffering to redeem sinners for eternal fellowship, than to see the Father’s face. He went willingly, though He sweat blood for the thought of it. Rather than preserve His comfort and dignity undisturbed in heaven, He stooped with a smile, as it were, to experience ruin for a season. “As a lamb lead to the slaughter,” Jesus went quietly to save His people. [Isa. 53:7] He came to save all who discover in their hearts a need of Him, and by faith look to Him. Even such enemies of righteousness as I have been.
The gospel is a story I do not tire of, because I see my own role in it. I am one for whom the Savior bled. I am that woman taken in the act of adultery, to whom He says, “I do not condemn you, go and sin no more.” [John 8:11] Faith is seeing my name in the script of scripture; believing I am welcomed when the Redeemer says, “Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” [Matt. 11:28]
The drama of Christian life is redemption itself, unfolding through history and our lives as upon a stage in the great theater of God’s wisdom and love. I am captivated to see the conclusion, after all enemies have been defeated and the Groom has taken His bride. For by grace, the victory and the kiss are ours. Hand in hand, radiant with joy before the booming applause of angels, we shall share in the everlasting bow. To such a God be all glory and praise. His Spirit imparts faith, and I cannot read His word dryly when trusting these things are so.
Was this helpful to you? Please share. Thanks!
© Michael Spotts:. 2011
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You are permitted to reproduce and distribute this article in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way and that you do not charge any fee beyond the cost of reproduction. For printed copies, as well as web posting, please include the following statement:
By Michael Spotts:.
Copyright © The Open Life
www.theopenlife.com
Titus 3:3-8
———————
You are permitted to reproduce and distribute this article in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way and that you do not charge any fee beyond the cost of reproduction. For printed copies, as well as web posting, please include the following statement:
By Michael Spotts:.
Copyright © The Open Life
www.theopenlife.com
Titus 3:3-8
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