The Patriarchs - Perfectly Balanced

This is the fourth post in a series that I am doing based on the lives of the Patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob), the accounts of which are found in the book of Genesis.  In spite of the title of this series, the record of the experiences of the men listed above are only incidental to me.  What I find far more interesting, relevant, and important is the revelation of the character and nature of God that we can see by observing these men's lives.  Each post will coincide with a lesson being taught in a classroom.  As such, they will not be in a traditional essay format.  Rather, it will be a slightly expanded version of the notes that I hand out in class. 

The Genesis Account

    Gen. 30:25-31:16 – Jacob hatched an ingenious plot to breed his flocks into the stronger of the two between he and Laban.  Yet in spite of his scheming he gives God full credit for all of his success.  This was precisely the molding and shaping of character that God had in mind when He arranged it so that Jacob would stay with Laban for 20 years.  Furthermore, we can observe in this situation an evidence of the tension that exists between God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility.  This relationship between two seemingly contradictory and competing elements is prevalent throughout the Bible.

Supporting Scriptures

    John 6:35, 44, 65 – There is a bewildering paradox of salvation contained within this single conversation between Jesus and the Jews.  On the one hand, Jesus says that only those who come to Him and believe (lit. to be persuaded of) in Him will be saved.  But on the other hand, Jesus says that only those whom the Father draws (lit. drags) and allows (or permits) can come to Him.

     Rom. 6:12-14 – Yet another confusing tension exists in this passage; this time relating to sanctification.  Paul writes, essentially, that “you” (meaning Christians) will not be mastered by sin because of God’s grace, so don’t let it master you via an act of the will.

Questions For Meditation

With those mystifying passages in mind, and as it pertains to the overall point of this series, is there an aspect of God’s own nature that causes these types of tensions to exist within the biblical account?  I think so.  I believe that the perfect union of every one of God's attributes, including ones that we would perceive as contradictory, results in doctrinal truths that run parallel to each other and which humans also perceive as contradictory.  The Bible is God’s written revelation of His own character.  As such, it naturally reflects what He is like in the truth claims that it espouses.  Therefore, if we struggle to wrap our minds around the reality of God’s nature it is only natural that we also have difficulty in comprehending aspects of the biblical text; in this case various tensions that exist in scripture that at first glance may appear to be confusing, incompatible, or contradictory.

Alright then, if the preceding is true, then is there any evidence in the Bible of two (or more) of God’s attributes, that would appear to be in conflict with each other, merging together in a single act or event?  Again I would say emphatically yes!  We see just such an example of this when we consider God’s wrath and God’s love.  From a human perspective there are few emotions that are more diametrically opposed to one another than wrath and love.  To our eyes they would appear to be mutually exclusive.  I believe we would have to travel a long way to find a person who did not consider wrath a negative emotion and love a positive one.  

But when we consider God’s version of these two attributes we see a completely different picture emerge.  Examples of both can be seen throughout the Old Testament.  In Deuteronomy 7:6-8 The Lord specifically mentions His love for Israel as the foundation of the entire Abrahamic Covenant and His establishment of the Jews as a nation.  Conversely, in 2 Kings 17:18 we see one of many examples of God’s burning anger against the abominations that His people had committed.  Now to be sure, these are unconnected passages separated by several hundred years of history.  So we might be tempted to say that even with God these emotions do not merge into perfect balance and harmony.  But this is not all of the revelation of God that we possess.  One of the beautiful aspects of the Bible is the way in which God reveals a little more of Himself over the course of time.  So the longer humans spent interacting with Him the better they were equipped to understand Him.  This perfectly mirrors our own individual lives.  And in the case of this topic (the union of God’s wrath and love) what we see when we pull our lenses back and examine the full revelation of His character is the miracle of the cross of Christ.  

D.A. Carson puts it like this: The reality is that the Old Testament displays the grace and love of God in experience and types, and these realities become all the clearer in the New Testament. Similarly, the Old Testament displays the righteous wrath of God in experience and types, and these realities become all the clearer in the New Testament. In other words both God’s love and God’s wrath are ratcheted up in the move from the Old Testament to the New. These themes barrel along through redemptive history, unresolved, until they come to a resounding climax in the Cross.  Do you wish to see God’s love?  Look at the Cross.  Do you wish to see God’s wrath?  Look at the Cross.

But if these things be so, then why is it so difficult for humans to come to terms with the perfect union of every aspect of God’s character?  The reason we have trouble fathoming this is because our perception is extremely limited and in some ways is fundamentally contrary to God's perspective.  As an example, we have trouble seeing anger in a light other than negative.  Yet scripture says that God displays His wrath every day and that He cannot sin.  Furthermore, we are encouraged to be angry without sinning, in emulation of God's example.  “How is this possible?” we might ask ourselves.  

Our inability to comprehend righteous anger stems from our fundamental inability to understand emotions in general.  James 1:19 teaches that anger is not a rapid and instinctive response to stimuli.  Rather, it is a slow and measured choice based on circumstances.  Yet in spite of this truth, who among us has ever actually experienced anger in this way?  Typically, our anger is immediately felt and hastily acted upon either in word or deed, almost invariably without much in the way of thought.  Even in those rare occasions when our anger manifests itself more slowly it is usually as a seething and bubbling pool of hate and selfishness lurking just beneath the surface of the pleasing veneer of civility we paste onto our faces.  James follows his prescription for anger with the following condemnation: the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God.  

Our primal understanding of human experience as a mirror of divine character is distorted, twisted, and corrupted.  Since this is the case it ought to come as no surprise to us that we struggle to understand and resist accepting the harmony of God’s character when it is revealed in the tensions of scripture.  Rather than be surprised and put off by these portions of scripture, or worse yet use them as excuses to ignore the Bible, we ought to acknowledge the tensions, admit that we are handicapped in our understanding, and seek to become diligent students of the word of God so that in the due course of time He might be pleased to graciously reveal the fullness of His character to us and in so doing richly bless our lives.