Last week, we featured a piece in Item #10 entitled, “The Cost of Our Freedom.” It was all about how I (Doug) personally have never really understood, “if God is God (and we believe He is), why He had to design a system that required the death of His Son. If He is in charge of the universe, couldn’t He have just written laws that were less just?” One thoughtful reply came from a worker named Dan who works among unreached peoples. He wrote, “Hey Doug, I really like your article/meditation. As you pointed out, there are many things in this world that we don’t understand. It seems to me that many of the people(s) to whom we have been sent also have similar questions about God’s “system” of salvation and life. On the surface, in man’s eyes, it doesn’t really make sense. Paul said the same thing, “Jews demand signs and Greeks search for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” Living in the Land among both of these categories of people makes this lack of understanding of God’s ways readily apparent. It’s why we pray and labor every day on behalf of these same people.” It sounds like he has experienced his own inner struggles. He closed, “So, I’m joining with you to thank our Lord Jesus Christ for giving us — and those to whom we have been sent — the way out of the darkness into his marvelous (and eternal) light!”
If you were going to write a paragraph for the people with whom you work (about this demand for justice), how would you have explained it? Does Dan’s reasoning stack up for you? We hear what he’s saying, but frankly, we still had to ask, “But again, why invent such a system?”
What would your answer be? (To chip in an answer, just click “Comment” please.)
I don’t believe he invented it, any more than He created the flow of time. I believe they are all part of Hs nature. As love is His nature so is the necessity for a sacrifice. Now many in the evangelistic and mission world say it is a free gift. That is not helpful it cost God everything and it cost us everything, we just have to realize ours was only worth something because of Him.
“For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all. Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how INSCRUTABLE His ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been His counselor?” Rom 11:32-34
INSCRUTABLE: Unsearchable; incapable of being searched into and understood by inquiry or study; impossible or difficult to be explained or accounted for satisfactorily; obscure; incomprehensible.
I can just imagine that as Paul, directed by the Holy Spirit, was writing those words, said, “This I have to put in the context of I Corinthians 13:12: “Now we see things imperfectly (obscurely), like puzzling reflections in a mirror (or through a dirty window), but then we will see everything with perfect clarity.”
TO ME, IT IS ABSOLUTELY INSCRUTABLE!!!!
Or, to say it another way: “…the foolishness of God is wiser than men….” (I Cor 1:25) I picture it this way: Stack up the thoughts of man, from the most foolish (Ex. “I can’t define ‘woman'”) rising to the wisest thoughts (Ex. “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”)…that is where the foolishness of God begins and soars to incomprehensible heights of wisdom! I find it “inscrutable” that He would allow us to “have the mind of Christ!” (I Cor 2:16)
“Why invent such a system?” God is Just and Holy from all eternity. He created humans as an overflow of His love within the Trinity. Hence it becomes an “uninvented” eternal necessity that we too are just and holy in order to be with Him in eternity. That is only possible through the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross.
O love divine how sweet thou art . . . !