Love & Wrath
My brother Ben jokes about a product he would love to manufacture. I’m not sure if he has finalized the name for it yet, but the marketing goes like this: “Nuts and gum, together at last!” Maybe he’ll call it Gumnuts, or just Num. Regardless, it’s a terrible idea, but funny. I forgot I was chewing gum once and threw a potato chip in my mouth. It was pretty much a write off for both the gum and the chip.
Sometimes it’s hard to believe that two such antagonists could ever come together and unite on a common cause. Polar opposites repel each other. It’s simply a magnetic thing. But we find it sometimes. Love and hate are not always that far apart - and not just when two people “love to hate each other.” Love is an exclusive sort of thing. Hatred comes easy when something gets in the way of that love. You may have heard people talk about “loving the sinner and hating the sin.” (That phrase can be taken too far, but bear with me.) Sin disrupts relationships and gets in the way of love. But love and hate unite on a common cause, and that being a person. A person is a combination of soul and sin – something to be loved, and something to be hated.
When it comes to the Lord, there are aspects of Him that seem like antagonists. He is the very definition of love, and yet we find Him wrathful. He is kind and merciful, and yet He demands justice. When it comes to us, he definitely loves, but has a consistent judgmental stance toward us due to the sin in our lives. It’s like a stalemate. Neither attribute can move into check. We do not find one outdoing the other.
The Pharisees had hoped that Jesus would be a kind of chess piece. On several occasions, they “played” Him to see what he would do. They presented a woman caught in adultery, and thought they had caught Him between his graciousness and his righteousness. If he has her stoned, they win, and if he lets her go, they win. But Jesus ends up playing them instead doesn’t he? “He who is without sin may throw a stone at her first.” He caught them in their hypocrisy (where was the other adulterer?). Another time, they asked Him if it was right to pay taxes to Caesar. Jesus tells them to bring the coin for the tax to Him, and asks whose picture is on it. They say, “Caesars.” Jesus then says one of the most profound things ever uttered, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.” They could not play Him, and in His responses we find that he joins these ideas of wrath and mercy, grace and justice.
These attributes are seen together no better than in the cross. Love and judgment are like the two beams of wood that formed it. There, Jesus was forsaken by God the Father whose felled wrath was pictured by those three hours of darkness. At the same time, the willingness and ability of Jesus to bear that wrath on our behalf is the epitome of love. The stalemate was over. Justice is completely satisfied by the offering of the life of the Son of God. Grace is also unfettered to lavish itself upon us because of the willingness of that offering. God is free to love us because his righteous requirements have been met by his only Son, for us.
The next time you drink orange juice immediately after brushing your teeth, remember how the attributes of God meet in Jesus. And let’s hope that my brother never gets to put nuts and gum together.
BJ
Sometimes it’s hard to believe that two such antagonists could ever come together and unite on a common cause. Polar opposites repel each other. It’s simply a magnetic thing. But we find it sometimes. Love and hate are not always that far apart - and not just when two people “love to hate each other.” Love is an exclusive sort of thing. Hatred comes easy when something gets in the way of that love. You may have heard people talk about “loving the sinner and hating the sin.” (That phrase can be taken too far, but bear with me.) Sin disrupts relationships and gets in the way of love. But love and hate unite on a common cause, and that being a person. A person is a combination of soul and sin – something to be loved, and something to be hated.
When it comes to the Lord, there are aspects of Him that seem like antagonists. He is the very definition of love, and yet we find Him wrathful. He is kind and merciful, and yet He demands justice. When it comes to us, he definitely loves, but has a consistent judgmental stance toward us due to the sin in our lives. It’s like a stalemate. Neither attribute can move into check. We do not find one outdoing the other.
The Pharisees had hoped that Jesus would be a kind of chess piece. On several occasions, they “played” Him to see what he would do. They presented a woman caught in adultery, and thought they had caught Him between his graciousness and his righteousness. If he has her stoned, they win, and if he lets her go, they win. But Jesus ends up playing them instead doesn’t he? “He who is without sin may throw a stone at her first.” He caught them in their hypocrisy (where was the other adulterer?). Another time, they asked Him if it was right to pay taxes to Caesar. Jesus tells them to bring the coin for the tax to Him, and asks whose picture is on it. They say, “Caesars.” Jesus then says one of the most profound things ever uttered, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.” They could not play Him, and in His responses we find that he joins these ideas of wrath and mercy, grace and justice.
These attributes are seen together no better than in the cross. Love and judgment are like the two beams of wood that formed it. There, Jesus was forsaken by God the Father whose felled wrath was pictured by those three hours of darkness. At the same time, the willingness and ability of Jesus to bear that wrath on our behalf is the epitome of love. The stalemate was over. Justice is completely satisfied by the offering of the life of the Son of God. Grace is also unfettered to lavish itself upon us because of the willingness of that offering. God is free to love us because his righteous requirements have been met by his only Son, for us.
The next time you drink orange juice immediately after brushing your teeth, remember how the attributes of God meet in Jesus. And let’s hope that my brother never gets to put nuts and gum together.
BJ
posted by BJ at 1:36 p.m.
1 Comments:
I informed my brother that I posted about him, and in so doing learned that the "nuts and gum" thing is from the Simpsons. Not surprisingly.
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