A group of friends and I had set up a monthly theology study in which we each took it turns to prepare a paper (a very grand word for what we actually did I’m sure), and present it to the others. We’d sit around on a Saturday morning, over beer and biscuits (did I mention we were students?) and kick around the things we’d read in text books, trying to piece together an understanding of Christian orthodoxy we could call our own. I was almost certainly out of my depth, but always one for believing that enthusiasm could mask ignorance, I nodded along piously, doing my best to keep up. One month Hugh presented a paper on God’s holiness, another Geoff on the Trinity… and then it was my turn.
I cobbled some thoughts together on Christ’s atonement and it was then, whilst presenting them, that the ‘penny’ sort of, well dropped. I saw something, clear as anything, that I’ve come to see is not just one of the best and most important things I’ve ever learnt but is, I’m convinced, an important ballast missing from many people’s worldview. What I saw, seems so at odds with how most of us are taught to see the world that I can only believe it came from the Bible and from church history; I certainly never learnt this from my culture.
I learnt two essential and twinned truths (that, in fact mustn’t be separated):
- I deserve death and hell
But, thanks to what God in Christ has done:
2. Instead I have been given, daily and for eternity, the opposite: goodness, forgiveness, love and divine adoption
There is essential and immeasurable power in these two truths, but in fact I saw again how odd they sound to secular culture when chatting to a friend.
My friend Pete and I were watching the races, an Easter Monday tradition and somewhere between losing £4 on Dark Gerry in the 2:35 and £6 on Proper Twelve at the 3:35 we were discussing philosophies for a fruitful life. He shared with me how he believed adversity and overcoming it seems in fact to be an essential part of a healthy psyche. I don’t disagree, but I found myself saying (sort of without thinking) that whilst I agreed, I saw things a little differently: “I believe that I deserve death and hell,” I said “but instead I’ve received forgiveness and kindness and a thousand other good gifts instead. This is vital for me and means that I’m grateful for everything I get, since whatever happens it's better than what I deserve.”
As the words tumbled out of my mouth, I was back in Hugh’s student digs, sat with my friends considering God’s holiness and Christ’s atonement. Whenever the seer’s of old encountered God, they had no thought of self beyond ‘I’m done for.’ Sat discussing Isaiah and Ezekiel, Moses’ face to face encounter with the Divine and Daniel’s vision of Son of Man, we touched something of that same reality. Well, we didn’t really ‘touch’ it so much as we located it on a map, but that was close enough for us to be struck dumb. Woe is me, a speck of dust before an all consuming furnace, a gust of wind or a blade of grass, here for a moment but gone for far longer.
Pete didn’t seem impressed mind you, “do you really believe that?” he asked, his tone betraying his barely hidden mockery.
And so I expanded for him, hopefully heading off some of his concerns for my wellbeing, “yea I do.” I said “I mean it depends, doesn’t it, who we compare ourselves to. Compared to one another or to another human being I might not think I’m that bad, but against the One who made up all that we can see, and who keeps it all existing minute by minute. When I think how often I’ve acted as though I am the most important being in the universe, ignoring him and his centrality… it’s utterly treasonous isn’t it? And yet,” here I could barely hide my excitement “instead of death and hell, I get all this. I get blessing upon blessing, we all do - it’s incredible, and it makes me so incredibly grateful.”
At this point other people joined us and the conversation ended, but the thought was sort of left hanging, the idea floating in my mind. I still can’t quite get over it: friendship, laughter, colours and lights, chocolate, alcohol and sport. I get to enjoy all of it, and much more besides. I have running water, electric lighting, bluetooth headphones and sunny moments of early morning stillness.
On and on and on it goes,
Dogs, and dandelion clocks, books, stories and music. Beauty, imagination, memory and texture…
There’s so much to marvel at and revel in awestruck gratitude for. God’s goodness is extravagant to the point of being wasteful. It’s as though every minute of every day he shows off his generosity, and all of this is before I even come on to consider what Christ did on the cross.
Martin Luther once wrote to Erasmus “your thoughts about God are too human.” and that seems all the more true today. If God exists at all surely we can agree that he is not a pet or a genie or servant of mankind. He is not remote either, nor unfeeling or dispassionate. He owes me nothing, needs me not and is no man’s debtor. He is most high, utterly good, utterly powerful, most omnipotent, most merciful and most just, deeply hidden yet most intimately present, perfection of both beauty and strength, (to quote St. Augustine).
Only someone who has a shrunken view of God or an inflated view of themselves could consider that God owes them anything at all, or that they are capable of standing in his presence; standing, no - crawling and cringing maybe but not standing.
Then comes what Christ did.
It feels to me like there’s little point even in trying to put into words such a thing. Words seem such blunt tools, at least in my hands, for what I’d hope to do. Let music, art, emotion, song and dance accompany any words that try to attest to what occurred in history, once upon an Easter morning. The pale Galilean, the Nazarene, did indeed come and did in fact conquer. St Paul said it best: “he loved me, and gave himself for me,” except that it wasn’t only me, but a billion other ‘me’s’ besides. Now I’m told, commanded even, not to crawl at God’s feet but to stand before him. I, the god-denying, self-promoting scoundrel, the death deserving one am told to stand and come, and enter into his delight. He has made me his brother and his son and given me a hope and a future. He has erased my past and poured grace on my future.
And I contributed nothing to it. More, I contributed only nails to the cross.
Where is entitlement, or arrogance or a fist shaken in the universe’s face? Where is any thought of self at all in fact? I would want to forget my name if I could except that he has said it’s written now in heaven, known by him. I needn’t therefore seek annihilation or long for it, since he addresses me as beloved!
On and on and on it goes, the implications of this truth; on now into my fourth decade, and I hope for many more. I deserved death and hell, but he has called me his own. I am my beloved’s and he is mine.
That’s what I learnt when I was barely nineteen and that’s what I tried to share with a confused friend last week. The day at the races ended well mind you. Having spent £30 and won £0 we were done, until a friend offered us a free £5 bet on the final race of the day. We won £50. There's a lesson of grace in there also...