Crucify

God is Love

Most of you who are believers will know that the title of this post comes from 1 John 4:8. It is a truth that is quoted ad-nauseum among Christians, often to promote a view of God that is not biblical at all. You might hear someone say that God is love in order to convince the church to accept homosexuality. (By no means do I think homosexuals ought to be treated any differently than any other sinner, but homosexuality is, indeed, a sin.) This mistake is made because we have wrongly defined love.

When we learn that God is love, we make a dangerous mistake: Immediately, we apply our own definition and experience of love to God. “God is love, and I think love means this; therefore, God must be like this.” That such an absurd way of thinking could become so widespread among the Church is disheartening. In contrast to such foolishness, we ought to think “God is love, and this is what the Bible says about God; therefore, this is what love is really like.” The reason no one does this is because it is will give you a definition of love that all men will hate because all men are evil.

If you take this approach, you will find your idea of God to be far less appealing. It will begin to appear to you that His thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are His ways your ways. One doctrine that is contrary to our modern, humanistic idea of love, is the fact that God will place most of humanity in a lake of fire where the flame is never quenched and the flesh-eating worms never die to suffer for all of eternity. “That doesn’t seem like love. If God is loving, He must not really send anyone to hell.” Heresy. Heresy. Heresy. If God does something you don’t like, or agree with, or think is good or just, you are not suddenly allowed to redefine God. Instead, redefine what you think is good and just and holy and kind. When you do, people will really start to hate you, just like Jesus said they would. The gospel is not attractive to men. The gospel is true.

Just Like Jesus Did…

A little introduction before I begin: It is extremely important to me to have a right perception of God. Because the world is filled with a multitude of conflicting views on the point, this is not easily achieved. It requires guarding oneself constantly, weighing every word and idea carefully against the scripture, and carefully dissecting one’s own preconceived ideas. I have been charged on a number of occasions with being too critical, too quick to find flaws in a sermon or doctrine. In response, I charge that most of the church aren’t critical enough. We aren’t testing every spirit, we aren’t weighing every word; we are taking Jesus lightly. To be careless in our pursuit of the knowledge of God is to say that He is not worth our consideration. “Therefore, be on the alert—for you do not know when the master of the house is coming, whether in the evening, at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or in the morning—in case he should come suddenly and find you asleep. What I say, I say to you all, ‘Be on the alert!’” Mark 13:35-37

Many people in the church today make statements about how they want to do things “just like Jesus did.” This sounds great; the only problem is that it is rarely meant. Many of you have likely heard statements such as, “We don’t want to try to convince people to repent, we just want to bless them like Jesus did.” Even as I type I can barely contain how such absurdity stirs indignation in me. The crazed idea takes other forms: ”We don’t really talk about end-times (or any other topic that can be controversial); we just want to love and serve one another like Jesus did.”

Let us take a step back and look at what Jesus did:

He preached repentance (Matt. 4:17, Mark 1:15)

Told people BEFORE meeting them and “building relationships” to give up everything and follow Him (Matt. 4:18-22, 9:9) (notice they were among the most famous converts of all time…and they didn’t even say the sinners prayer!)

He talked about end-times (Matthew 24-25, Mark 13, Luke 21)

He prophesied and exposed people’s sins (John 4)

He healed the sick/forgave people…and preached repentance while he was at it (John 5:14, 8:11)

He called people children of satan (John 8:44)

He raised the dead (John 11)

He preached the fear of God (Matthew 10:28)

He told people they would be hated, beaten, and killed if they followed him (John 15:18, 16:2)

He handed out tracts (False)

He invited people to pizza parties so they could see being a Christian could be fun (False)

He told people just to say a little prayer asking Him into their heart and they’d be saved (False)

If you’ve made it this far, you get the point. If Jesus came in the flesh, would He come on your little outreach to “just bless” people without preaching the kingdom. No. He would not. God, save us from ourselves.

What They Are Looking For

It will probably be helpful as you read my posts to understand that I believe the bible explicitly and indisputably presents a monergistic gospel. Today, I would like to make a specific point, and I do not have the time to lay the groundwork for monergism, which would require deconstructing the core of most Westerners worldview. At some point I may undertake this endeavor; until then, bear with me.

It is not uncommon among professed Christians to hear the idea that unbelievers are simply misguided souls looking for love in the wrong places. If we could just get them to understand exactly how great God is, they would realize He is exactly what they want, right? Wrong. The Bible teaches the exact opposite of this ridiculous ideology. Let us take a step back from all our satanic pet doctrines and look at God-breathed truth:

“There is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God; All have turned aside, together they have become useless.” Romans 3:11-12a

“Among them too we all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.” Ephesians 2:3

More than this could be cited, but I think these two are enough to remind you what the Bible actually says when you read it, not what you want it to say.

My point is this: You cannot convince someone to follow Jesus. You can be nice, invite them to your cool church, tell them all your stories, present a false version of God who never gets angry and who isn’t coming in vengeance; you can be very careful not to “force Jesus down their throats,” and you can tell them all about Christianity isn’t a religion, it’s a relationship. It will even look like you have been able to win people to Jesus. The truth is, you’ve really only won them to yourself. You’ve won them into a neat social club called a “church” where everyone is really nice. I like nice people, I really do, but being nice is not the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Fortunately, God, in His wisdom, understood how grossly we would misunderstand His nature. He knew that we would find the pure gospel presented in scripture disgusting, and that we would twist it to make it more palatable and easier to listen to. He looked, and saw that there was no man to intercede, and He brought about salvation by His own arm. He saves those whom He saves in spite of themselves.

Please. Preach the gospel, and nothing else.

Backwards

I have not posted here in quite some time (I do not promise to do so regularly now), but I find writing is sometimes helpful in forming and testing my own thoughts. In the past, others have told me they found reading my thoughts helpful to them, so I plan to share here now and then. Feel free to challenge me, question me, and search diligently for the truth. I want to grow. I want to know God, lest, if He is silent to me, I become like those who go down to the pit.

Over the past several years my thoughts about God and the gospel have changed dramatically. Often, I have found myself face to face with apparent scriptural truths that are jarring and offensive. The natural human response in this situation is to explain away every inconvenient and unpleasant passage, idea, or book (I have often encountered Christians who dismiss the entire book of Ecclesiastes as if it were not God breathed). This is not the way of truth. The way of truth says “I do not understand this, this idea is repulsive to me, and yet I agree and proclaim that it is good because it comes from God, whose thoughts are not my thoughts and whose ways are not my ways.”

If you give yourself to the difficult task of honestly assessing your life in light of the scripture alone, you will find that you have believed many false things about God. You will not chuckle when you read of how the disciples did not understand and the pharisees were offended; you will see that you also do not understand, you also are arrogant and offended. You will see that you need God.

As a fresh start to my blogging, here are a few scriptures I used to get backwards. I think a terrifyingly large portion of the church today makes the same mistake:

“But you do not believe me because you are not My sheep.” -John 10:26

“He who is of God hears the words of God; for this reason you do not hear them, because you are not of God.” -John 8:47

“Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice” -John 18:37b

In each of these passages, Jesus is speaking. Much of the church thinks that when you believe, you become Jesus’ sheep, but this is clearly false. Jesus says it is the other way around; belief and unbelief correspond to whether or not you are already His sheep. The same principle exists in the other two verses as well. Whether or not you hear God’s words depends on whether you already belong to Him. Whether you hear Jesus’ voice depends on whether you are already of the truth. The statement Jesus makes in John 10 should completely shake everything most of us have believed about God’s nature. If it doesn’t…if you can not hear that word of God which is so plainly stated…it may be because you are not of God to begin with, nor are you of the truth.