~Part 2 - My Questions

My Glass Wall – SHATTERED!

Part 2 – My Questions

I’m assuming you would probably like to know what has been so powerful to sway my 30-year view of God. Previously, I had been under the impression that questions were bad; that they revealed a lack of faith, especially if we questioned passages in the Bible. But the healthiest thing concerning all this that I have learned so far, is that it is ok to ask questions. The world is questioning our faith and our Book. Our questions are imperative. Sometimes, we blissfully ignore the critical thinkers because we are afraid our faith will crumble if a crack is found in any of our beliefs. Maybe we have misplaced our trust in our doctrines instead of in God. So far, this journey has released me to think hard thoughts and to humbly discuss with others without feeling the need to be right. I no longer feel it is my duty to defend my set of beliefs, and even as the fringe of some of my earlier held convictions begins to unravel, I no longer assume that I am losing my faith. My trust is in God and not in man’s various interpretations of Him. Things that I still don’t understand can be held loosely, with an open hand before God, as He and I dialogue about them. This helps drive our relationship. Regardless of whether I have answers or not, here are many of the questions that I have gladly wrestled with:

What really happened on the cross - not physically but in the spiritual realm? What was the main purpose of the cross? Was it vindictive? Punitive? Curative? Overcoming? Was it a payment? If so, to whom was the payment made? What happened there between the Father, the Son, wrath, sin, and shame? Did Jesus’ death satisfy or appease the angry God? Did God need Jesus to die in order to love us, forgive us? Was it something more - Were they working together so that wrath could confront the power of sin on the cross in the person of Jesus and destroy it? Did the cross overcome and destroy Sin and Death completely, or just for some? Does Jesus save us from ourselves? From our sin? From God?

Did God really forsake Jesus while he was in the uttermost depths of our sin on the cross? In the depth of pain, anguish, and the darkness brought on by sin, did God turn His back on His own Son? Could there really be a split in the most beautiful and united relationship in existence? Is God not infinitely more powerful? Was it merely perceived forsakenness that blinded Jesus to His Father in that moment, just as it blinds us (Psalm 22) in the midst of our sin to a God who deeply loves us? Is sin a personal offense to God? Is He incapable of being in the presence of sin? Unaffected, like a drop of poison in the vast ocean, wouldn’t God’s infinite holiness swallow up any sin in His presence without consequence to Him? Could that be wrath? – the perfectly virtuous character of God naturally and automatically overcoming, consuming, cleansing, and healing sin?

What is wrath? Is it God’s “holy anger” against people who have offended Him? Is it passionate love poured out on sin, an inherent disease that is ravaging, devastating, and polluting mankind? In his incomprehensible love for people, is it a jealous fury that must cleanse a disease, in order to bring healing, peace, and restoration to people that He zealously loves?

What is hell? Is it eternal conscious torment, or annihilation; is it punitive, or redemptive, or both? Is someone causing anguish – God and His angels? Satan and his demons? Or maybe is it something? Is it the be-all-end-all of sin at its worst, played out by people and on people who have arrogantly and knowingly rejected Jesus, the only means by which they can be saved from sins destruction? Since God is GOOD and God is LOVE, then might evil be what is left in that void, just as shadows and darkness only exist in the obscured rays of direct light? If evil is what exists in the shadowy space where sin has obscured God’s presence, then might hell simply be the self-torment of souls who have continued to turn away from the Light, that is God? Will its doors lock from within by its inhabitants who still, even in death, want to shut out the loving Hound of Heaven? If “on no day will [Heaven’s] gates be shut,” is there a possibility of rescue after death? Is hell the culmination of all that is evil and how that might look without any restraining by the loving hand of our Good God? Since God is omnipresent, can He actually not be there? In His omniscience, will His heart be forever panged for the people who turned away from His outstretched hand of love? Was Christ’s death and resurrection perfectly victorious over Sin, Death, and Satan? – like, did He utterly conquer them and blow them out of existence? If God’s love endures FOREVER and His mercy is EVERLASTING, will He not pursue every last one of us into the eternal beyond forever and ever?

How do I reconcile the violence in the Old Testament done in the name of God with the nonviolence I see in Jesus? Undeniably, His lovingkindness, forgiveness, rich mercy, and long-suffering are sprinkled all throughout the Bible. But, if the “fullness of God dwelt in Jesus,” if Jesus perfectly reveals the nature of the Father, if there is “no deceit in Him,” if from His mouth we are to “love our enemies” and “turn the other cheek,” then what are we to do with the verses that promote enemy killing? Have we not used those texts to support our own “Christian” religious violence/revenge presently and on down through church history? So, maybe at times God is monstrous? (Doesn’t the command to kill women, children, and infants sound monstrous?) Or maybe God is changing overtime? (We could question His immutability.) Maybe we just sweep those verses under the rug and call it a mystery. Or maybe we could stop for longer than a second and ask all kinds of questions about the text in order to seek other answers to these seeming contradictions? We really do credit (blame) God for everything from our own holy-wars to natural disasters. Just like the Jewish/Roman culture scapegoated Jesus for their/our Sin, might we be scapegoating/blaming God for our own naturally-inclined cultural violence presently and throughout the Old Testament?

Had anyone unerringly seen the precise nature of God before Jesus stepped into our universe? In the midst of pagan cultures that were so inundated with Molech/Odin/Zeus-type gods, and without having seen Jesus yet, could God have inspired these OT authors to write from their skewed and limited views with their assumptions, doing the best they could to understand God in the midst of their context and culture? If the appearance of Jesus gave us the ultimate revelation of God; if He is the pinnacle of every God-portrait we have, then might our reading and understanding of who God is in the OT make a logical and necessary shift in the NT with His arrival on the historical timeline? Prior to Jesus, we saw actions that we concluded were God’s and then assumed that He was moved by motivations similar to our own and those of the surrounding nations. We didn’t completely understand His ways. But the fullness of God dwelt in Jesus and by listening to his words and watching how he lived, we suddenly see God’s heart and His motivations. His very nature is love and the Bible is littered with portraits that show us the perfect heart of God toward all His creation. Now, that we are able to see the heart of God through Jesus, are the challenging sections of Scripture a mystery to be shelved in the dusty recesses of our mind or are they a divine challenge to be wrestled with for the purpose of deepening relationship with our Creator? Thus, should we continue to question and think critically about the Scriptures, or question God’s immutability, or maybe just blow Him off as monstrous, as so many of our critically thinking peers have done?

How should we read the Bible? Literally? A surface reading? Did God dictate every word? Did he inspire the unity and the common thread and themes throughout but allow individual culture, genre, and writing style? There is definitely an inspired telling of Israel’s story, but did God uphold their dignity, allowing them to write the story from their perspectives? Did He come in with His red pen, correcting every wrong assumption that they made of Him? If God permitted their own records including their human assumptions to come through, could it have been in order that the Scriptures might be a mirror in which we see the horrors of our own sin? What kind of God do we want? The possibilities are many and Scripture can support all kinds. In every Christian community, God looks a bit different. Why?! when we have Jesus, the One who came to show us what God is really like. Does God look like Jesus or does He look like Jesus plus something? Because we can only discern the Scriptures through the Holy Spirit, did God bury the treasures of Himself in words that mere men would gloss over? I believe the simplest mind, a child even, can understand enough to know the Truth. I also believe the levels of understanding go infinitely deep that without the Holy Spirit, even the most intellectual genius among us would not have complete comprehension of all that God has there for us. The Bible is full of gems attesting to the God who is exactly like Jesus. But, again, how are we to read the Scriptures? Since man is fallible and I believe God is not, I must conclude that God has given us a book in which He has exactly the content He wants. In relationship with Him, we are to seek His counsel on those parts that don’t appear to measure up to His nature as He has shown us most clearly in Jesus. Working through the challenges with God brings intimacy. How ever we are to read it, I believe God wants those words there and He has a purpose for them whether we understand it or not. Therefore, I reject that God is monstrous at times or mutable, and I choose, instead, to engage with Him about the challenges that I find in Scripture.

These are difficult questions and ones I’m eagerly searching the Scriptures for, even as I seek the Spirit’s guidance. Like Job, I walk a fine line of “uttering what I don’t understand, things that are too wonderful for me,” but, I am on a curiously delightful journey and I’m no longer satisfied with pat Sunday-School answers. I desperately want to know my God. This is so consequential to me because my view of God drives every aspect of my life – what I pursue with my time and my resources, how I relate to people, raise and educate my children, and whether I sincerely love or pass judgment on a lost and broken world. Understanding more of God’s character is crucial to me – having more accuracy in what minuscule limited understanding I have of Him. I simply want my snippet of Him to be untwisted and truthful.