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A Deep But Dazzling Darkness
LK: Hey Jen, this month let's talk about that most provocative of topics that's absorbing the minds of women across America... JS: I don't know, Les. . .I'm all talked out on new, improved Tide with bleach, borax and brighteners. Can we talk about something else? LK: Actually I was thinking about divine retributive justice. Isn't that what's on every woman's mind, or just yours and mine? JS: Oh, sorry, I thought you meant normal women. Now, if you had said you and me, I would have known you were talking about the topic that has absorbed our energies for the better part of the last two years. Yes, divine retributive justice has been on our minds. It has been quite a journey, hasn't it? LK: It's been a trip, in more ways than one. And as it's unfolded, I've asked myself more than once why I embarked on such a rigorous and unpopular study, and where I hoped to arrive when it was over. But I'm grateful for what I've learned--that God is both holier and kinder, and more dedicated to resolving the sin problem than I'd realized. How about you? JS: I admit that before we started the book, I had a personal legacy of mercy-bias. What I mean by that is that I loved and understood the mercy part of God's character, but I was afraid of, and less resolved on, the justice part. As a result of this past two years of research and wrestling with hard "Why God?" questions, I have fallen head-over-heels in love with God's justice. He's not just my friend, He's my hero. He doesn't just love me, He hates what destroys me. His grace is draped over the framework of law, and His compassion sings through the structure of righteousness. Ooo, I think I feel a song coming on... LK: Kind of a cross between "Jesus loves me, this I know" and "He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored"? God is so full of surprises, isn't He? That He would turn out to be this incongruous combination of self-sacrificing Lamb and sin-decimating Lion blows me away. But how could we expect an infinitely complex God to be otherwise? Anything less would be a figment of our finite imaginations. So here's a question--why is it important for us to know these things about God? Is it relevant only for wordy, theological types like us--or is there something of value here for everyone? JS: No and yes. Whether we're aware of it or not, postmodern thinking has seeped into our lives in one form or another. Like a computer virus attached to an email, it comes freighted with a very infectious, enticing picture of God. The current trend is to opt for a designer god of our own making rather than consult the objective source of truth, the Word. The resulting self-styled gods are modern idols--idolatry is simply the practice of making a god to fit into our own comfort zone. As our culture continues its moral dissolution process, and blatant sensuality and permissiveness increasingly reign, we are less and less comfortable with a God that would condemn such things. The result is a nearly universal infatuation with a God described by C.S. Lewis as "a senile benevolence that drowsily wishes you to be happy in your own way."1 So the answer to your question is that we are all in danger of dancing around the smiling golden calf. LK: That reminds me of something I just read in a really great book by Ravi Zacharias. Paralleling what you said, he comments, "The infrastructure of our society has become mindless and senseless because the foundation upon which we have built cannot support any other kind of structure." But he qualifies that with a very intriguing observation, "What we have actually done is smuggle in foundational strengths of Christian thought, buried far below the surface to maintain some stability, while above the ground we see humanism's bizarre experiments growing unchecked. If we truly put into place the same principles below the ground that we flaunt above the ground, we would completely self-destruct."2 Fascinatingly, while our humanistic/postmodernistic culture is in open rebellion against this robust picture of a sin-hating God, we're hostilely dependent upon the holy truths we hate. Yet God continues, in His Lamb-like way, to quietly sustain us in our rebellion while He attempts to convert us out of it. What incredible condescension! JS: Wow, Les, you and Ravi are really deep. Let me see if I can add something. .. ..Sin at its core is hostile dependency--a hateful clinging to God, even while defying Him. Sin depends upon God for its existence, so it can't act, it can only react, to Him. God has allowed the bloodsucker to exist because if He blotted it out, He would also blot out the people who are attached to it. Yes, in a sense God does sustain us in our rebellion. But not forever, and this is the subject of our book. You know, it occurs to me that we haven't even plainly told these people that this whole conversation revolves around a book we co-wrote. Should we give them the title? LK: Sure. As the title of our column might suggest, it's called A Deep But Dazzling Darkness: Exploring God's "Dark Side" in the Light of His Love.3 Actually, the title is smuggled out of a cool poem written in 1655 by a guy named Henry Vaughan. This is the stanza that especially captures the essence of our book: "There is in God, some say, A deep, but dazzling darkness; as men here Say it is late and dusky, because they See not all clear."4 When we look at God's more austere, justice-oriented qualities, we feel like we're seeing something very dark and scary. But what appears dark and frightening to our sin-damaged minds is seen to be light and love when viewed through the clarifying lens of God's agape. His wrath toward sin is a necessary component of His protective love; He hates the sin that hurts us, and has gone so far as to become human in order to absorb that wrath into Himself, that we may live. Really, it's sin we should be afraid of, not God--don't you think? JS: Now, that's a trick question if I ever heard one! Of course sin is the enemy, and God is our best Friend. But the speedster breaks into a sweat when he sees those whirling blue lights behind him on the highway. Should he be afraid of the cop? Well, yes, because the cop is going to give him a ticket. But if he had been afraid of speeding in the first place, he wouldn't be afraid of the cop at all. A week ago, when a burglar broke into his house, the cop proved to be his best friend. So the cop isn't his enemy, speeding is. But he has placed himself in a zone that forces the cop to treat him like an enemy. Now, I realize that this analogy falls short. No cop ever wept at people breaking the law. But there are some similarities. . .. . So Leslie, do what you do best and put my very blue-collar illustration into your very white-collar, fourteen-carat rhetoric. LK: I don't know, Jen--the only carrots I know anything about are the kind that Bugs Bunny likes. Diamonds haven't exactly been this girl's best friend. But I guess this is how I see it: if we can learn to be sufficiently afraid of our own deadly attraction to sin, we won't need to fear anything or anyone else--including God. Do you think that's a fair assessment? JS: Fair indeed. And perhaps we should exercise a little savoir faire here and say "Farewell" before we give away the punch line of our new book. Quesque tu en pence, (that means "What do you think"), Bugs? LK: I think it "bugs" me that you're showing off your French and the only language I know besides English is pig Latin. (Are-ay ou-yay impressed-ay?) So now I have an insecurity complex on two counts--I'm not only abnormally preoccupied with theology, I'm pathetically monolingual. So I guess it's back to the drawing board for another month until you let me out of my Skinner box again (sorry, I've been reading too much behaviorism). JS: I know your psych courses have been consuming you. It's a good thing you're such a nice person, or you'd make a very dangerous psychotherapist. And the same could be said of God. His power makes Him dangerous, but His love makes Him safe. So none need fear to peer into His dazzling darkness. We did, and we're better off for it, wouldn't you say? LK: Amen to that! Looking into the beauty of His character is its own reward--it's all the positive reinforcement we need. 1. C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1962), p. 46. "AMEN to everything, ladies! The same track of thinking the Lord has been taking me down (or up?) Unfortunately, to some lovely, loving Christians, it makes us look like the bad guys. I think the true meaning of the "fear of the Lord" is fear of the consequences of sin; having a healthy respect for what God says. Not a fear of God himself." -Patty LaVanture, Michigan |
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