The Depths: The Human Condition

 

Clemens Scheer: Resurrection, 2017

Genesis 1-2 and Revelation 21-22 both present images of humanity in a pure state in communion with a pure God. The intervening scriptures present images of the struggle of God to restore the purity of humanity that he might save us from ourselves and reestablish communion with us by restoring our purity but also by forcing us to grow in our trust in him (Faith) and our empathy for others (Love). 

In the account of the Adam and Eve, these two foundations of character (Faith and Love) were undeveloped, which is to say that Purity is not the same thing as Maturity. They were created innocent in both senses of the word in insomuch as they were without sin but they also had little experience in life and had not really learned to trust God--neither had they developed much empathy for one another.

Maturity requires testing, and testing tends to take the form of trial and error even though testing itself is what actually builds maturity. Testing can take the form of Temptation or the form of Suffering, and these are the most prominent features of life as people generally experience it--especially in the case of the poor and the downtrodden. 

Genesis presents Temptation as the suggestion that that something that God has forbidden is in fact something that is good for us that we deserve and might have within our power to take for ourselves. Sin is belief that such is indeed the case, and the resulting act of rebellion is simply the outward manifestation of this transgression. 

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil presented Adam and Eve an opportunity to develop an increasingly deeper trust in God by its mere presence together with the ban on eating its fruit. However, we are all vulnerable to temptation to the degree that we have not established trust in God, so we are always more vulnerable at the beginning and therefore likely bound to learn the hard way, which invariably involves suffering.

Our direct suffering due to personal experience of hardship and injustice as well as our vicarious experience of the hardship and injustice experienced by others is the main way that we learn to trust God and to have empathy for others, which answers the question of why a loving God allows so much suffering and injustice in this broken world. 

We balk at this because, not trusting God to match our own woefully deficient sense of justice and empathy, we reject him as inferior to ourselves. The better path is to trust that everything will somehow make sense in the end, which is in part the lesson of Job. This is how Faith is perfected.

However, suffering of itself will simply crush us unless we understand the ways of God, something that requires immersing ourselves in the Word of God so that we may be transformed by the renewal of our minds as we submit to scripture and gradually come to grasp and approve the will of God. This perspective in turn allows us to perceive the emptiness of anything seemingly gained by sin, which fortifies us to see through temptation and turn away before it takes root in our hearts. Profound empathy for others also constrains us from embracing Evil. 

This brings us to the meaning of humanity between the first two chapters of Genesis and the last to chapters of Revelation, during which time we are to grow in our trust in God and our empathy for others to be better equipped for some unknown service in the world to come that rhymes with the purpose for which we were created, namely to extend the shalom of Garden to encompass the Earth.

The Depths: The Mind of Christ

John Piper. Road to Emmaus (1959)

To serve God, we must know his heart, and we cannot truly know his heart unless we surrender to him without reservation (Mt 6:24). We certainly cannot dictate terms—we can only offer ourselves as living sacrifices and follow where he leads us, which raises the question of how he leads us. This too is a matter of surrender: we can be mastered by the Word but we cannot be its master. We must instead be transformed by the renewal of our minds by the agency of the Word as wielded by the Spirit who resurrected Jesus from the dead (Rm 12:1-2; Hb 4:12).

This requires surrendering to the Word without any preconditions and trusting the Spirit to gradually make sense of what we read (Is 50:10-11). Scripture will slowly unfold according to its own internal logic, and the proof will be that everything will eventually come together. We must "play the long game," which in practice means not treating scripture like a fortune cookie or Ouija board but like language learned a by child.

In the meantime, we have pastors and commentaries to guide us, but these are often of little help as pastors tend to deal in general platitudes and commentaries usually pass over strange passages without meaningful comment—passages that are often the "check sum" that validates the meaning of the passage. Fortunately, the basic gist of any extended argument is usually discernible anyway if we bear in mind that scripture is highly repetitious; each argument is elaborated in a series of variations whose structure rhymes.

For example, 1 Peter opens with a sweeping declaration of our exalted status in Christ and our corresponding obligation to live accordingly. Peter drives home the point of dying to Self and living for Christ with an interwoven series of striking images: (a) Christ's expiation of Sin and his subjugation of the Unclean Spirits, (b) the Spirit hovering above the waters of Creation and the Ark floating on the waters of the Flood (c) Baptism (i.e. ritual immersion signifying a circumcision of the heart), and the Death, Resurrection, and Glorification of Christ whose earthly body we now comprise as a holy priesthood (1 Pt 3:4-5).

As we better understand the world from the perspective of Jesus and embed the Word in our minds, we increasingly discern and desire that which God ordains as Good (Rm 12:1-2). We thus gradually progress from blind trust to trust based on knowledge and understanding, which is half of our course of sanctification in this life—the other half being an increase in empathy through suffering.

The Depths: The Face of God

Jack Baumgartner: Moses in the Cleft of the Rock (2012)

Would that every heart should reply with David: "You have said, 'Seek my face.' My heart says to you, 'Your face, LORD, do I seek'" (Psalm 27:8). 

Scripture records manifestations of the presence of God that so overawed people that they feared for their lives, one particularly evocative instance being that experienced by the elders of Israel as they banqueted before the Mountain of God (see Exodus 24:9-11); but David surely seeks a more intimate knowledge of God than an overawing manifestation for he pleads: 'Teach me your way, O LORD, and lead me on a level path […]' (Psalm 27:11). 

David seeks to know the heart of God in accordance with God's own desire; and we should follow his example, for the injunction 'Seek my face' uses the plural form of address. God calls not just David but all who hear the call to seek the face of God that we might have communion with him. And how might we come to know the heart of God? 'Teach me your way' would imply that we come to know the heart of God and as such behold the face of God in scripture as we are transformed through the resurrection power of the Spirit by the renewal of our minds that we might discern and concur with the will of God:

Who among you fears the Lord and obeys the voice of his servant? 
Let him who walks in darkness and has no light  
Trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God.  

Behold, you who kindle a fire, who equip yourselves with burning torches!
Walk by the light of your fire and by the torches you have kindled.
This you have from my hand: you will lie down in torment.

(Isaiah 50:10-11)