Let the Children Come

Obedience to God  in the pressures and stresses of day-by-day living  and trust in God’s ways in the large sweep of history are always at risk,  but especially in times of suffering and persecution.  Obedience to God is difficult when we are bullied into compliance to the God-ignoring culture out of sheer survival.  Trust in God is likewise at risk of being abandoned in favor of the glamorous seductions of might and size. Very few of us  live in settings congenial to God-loyalty and among people who affirm a costly discipleship.  Hardly a day goes by that we do not have to choose between compliance to what is expedient and loyalty to our Lord.   The story here in Daniel 3 can keep us alert to what is at stake day by day, hour by hour. King Nebuchadnezzar built a gold statue, ninety feet high and nine feet thick.  He set it up on the Dura plain in the province of Babylon.  He then ordered all the important leaders in the province, ev...

What kind of mediator and deliverer must we seek?  One who is a true and righteous man,  and yet more powerful than all creatures;  that is, One who is at the same time true God. For the Bible Tells Me So... 1 Corinthians 15:21  For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead.  Hebrews 2:17  Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. Isaiah 53:9  And they made His grave with the wicked; but with the rich at His death, because He had done no violence, nor was any deceit in His mouth.  2 Corinthians 5:21  For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.  Hebrews 7:26  For such a High Priest was fitting for us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and has become higher than the heavens;...

Can we by ourselves make this payment?  Certainly not.  On the contrary, we daily increase our debt. For the Bible Tells Me So... Psalm 130:3  If You, LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? Matthew 6:12  And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.  Romans 2:4,5  Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?  But in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God… Can any mere creature pay for us?  No. In the first place, God will not punish another creature for the sin which man has committed. Furthermore, no mere creature can sustain the burden of God’s eternal wrath against sin and deliver others from it. For the Bible Tells Me So... Ezekiel 18:4,20  “Behold, all souls are Mine; the soul of the father as well...

Since, according to God’s righteous judgment we deserve temporal and eternal punishment, how can we escape this punishment and be again received into favor?  God demands that His justice be satisfied.  Therefore we must make full payment, either by ourselves or through another. For the Bible Tells Me So... Exodus 20:5  … you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me….  Exodus 23:7  “Keep yourself far from a false matter; do not kill the innocent and righteous. For I will not justify the wicked.”  Romans 2:1-11  Therefore you are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are who judge, for in whatever you judge another you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things.   But we know that the judgment of God is according to truth against those who practice such things.  And do you t...

But is God not also merciful?  God is indeed merciful,  But He is also just.  His justice requires that sin committed against the most high majesty of God also be punished with the most severe, that is, with everlasting, punishment of body and soul. For the Bible Tells Me So... Exodus 20:6  …but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.  Exodus 34:6,7  And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth,  keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.”  Psalm 103:8,9   The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in mercy.  He will not always strive with us, nor will He keep His anger forever Exodus 20:5   …y...

But does not God do man an injustice by requiring in His law what man cannot do?  The reference here is to the demand of love.  For the thought from which we proceed in this post is really the right or the just claim of God’s love.  It is His love that demands everything. Already that demand of His love is denied from many sides. Apparently the thought is in the minds of many that love only gives  and that its nature in the highest sense is opposed to demanding.  Immediately we think of the love of Christ, Who having loved His own who were in the world, He now showed them the full extent of His love (John 13: 1).  These words about Christ also intend to say that He in His love gave everything without even placing any condition on those who were His own.  The fact of the matter is, however, that in itself man’s love does not have a single right or claim to love in response.  When human love also can assert the right and claim of love in response,...

We must pay close attention to the fact that when we discuss God’s justice,  we are dealing with the justice of His love.  We must not posit a contrast between divine justice and divine love.   God’s justice never comes to us with genuine heart-crushing effect except when we see it as the just claim of His love.  Only when we see it in this way does it bind us to an eternal judgment.  With that, we have again said that we can never see nor agree with this justice of God except by faith,  for only faith that has returned to God’s love in Christ is able to see the justice of that love. Thus nothing has really been taken away from the terror of God’s justice.  However, there is now a being tied to and pulled by His love  while at the same time a being consumed in our sinful nature by His justice.  That is also what Scripture says when it reveals to us that our God is a consuming fire.  We begin to see and admit that our God is a consum...