"God Gave Them Over..."

"God gave them over..."

These words, repeated three times, are found in the first chapter of Paul's letter to the Romans, and of all the commentary written on the human condition, these words might be the saddest of all, for they represent the reality of a horror that few are aware exists, much less that is descriptive of them.

"God gave them over" means that God, in response to man's demand, turns him over to himself. He gives him what he wants. When we reject Him as God, preferring another or other gods, God responds by turning us over to ourselves.

To some, this may sound pretty good, but here's the problem: we are simply terrible at being God. We suck at it. We are immeasurably bad at it. If being God were playing golf, we would not even be allowed on the course because of how totally devoid we are of any skill whatsoever. It is the highest form of hubris to think that we can do better then God, that we know better, and yet that is exactly what we do when we say, "no thanks, God. I'm not interested in You. I prefer someone else, someone of my own design." This is what we have done in exchanging the glory of the incorruptible for the corruptible. Thinking ourselves so wise, we do the dumbest, most foolish thing we can do. We reject the best for the worst when we should give Him glory and thanks. After all, that is the reasonable thing to do.

But we are not operating according to reason, a reality made evident by virtue of the fact that we can't even see how terrifically awful we are at being God. Our minds have been darkened. It is a frightening fact that when we reject the truth, when we walk away from the light, we lose all ability to distinguish truth from untruth. Stumbling along blindly, the dangers that lie in our path are not recognized until we have already stumbled over them, and by then it is too late to do anything about it with our new god-powers. And yet we stubbornly continue on, foolishly and irrationally clinging to the fiction which is that we know what we are doing and that we can do it a lot better then God can. We abandon the truth and we embrace a lie. A lie nearly as old as creation itself. A lie which claims that God is superfluous, unnecessary, like a divine appendix. He can stay there so long as He's quiet, but if He causes us any trouble, we are better off without Him.

And so we declare that, for all practical purposes, God is dead. He has been usurped by another, and this god is in full agreement with us. Because he/she/it is us. This god may take many forms, from a golden calf to a stack of money to a __________-- you fill in the blank. But in the end, no matter the form it may take, what we are doing is declaring that we ourselves are god. We give ourselves the glory and we give ourselves the thanks (how silly we must look thanking ourselves! It's like a monumental delusion of grandeur blended with a heaping scoop of schizophrenia.) And we thumb our nose at the now-useless God and with a hearty "amen" declare ourselves blessed forever.

And God let's us do it. He gives us over to ourselves: to our lusts, to our passions and to the depravity of our minds. "This is what you want?" He asks. "Very well, this is what you shall receive." And the gavel drops and the sentence is pronounced and we walk out of the courtroom smirking, thinking ourselves so wise.

And hell begins.

Because we have exchanged the Lord for a lord, and that is never a wise capital investment. The return is simply atrocious. Furthermore (and oh, this is rich!), as a result of God confirming upon us what we have demanded, we are blinded to the blunder we have made. We barrel on mindlessly, stupidly unaware of the danger because we have demanded that all proximity alarms be deactivated. As a result of this horrible judgment of God--a judgment which we ourselves demanded--our very minds become enslaved to our stupidity. We have not emancipated ourselves from God. We have only exchanged Him for one who does not regard us as He does, but rather enslaves us to ourselves with a hiss and an asphyxiating squeeze.

There is the irony! Like a snake that begins to devour itself tail-first, so it is the way of man, slowly destroying himself while simultaneously believing that all is well. Sin upon sin, building on itself and then building on itself some more. Higher and higher and with greater depravity, until at last this monstrosity we have been constructing becomes more then we can maintain and comes crashing down. We have demanded more then we can bear. We do not possess the ability to be God and at last that truth dawns on us. But the light which brings this dawning of understanding does not bring with it a relief from the oppressive weight, for it is not the light of salvation. Rather it is the light given off by a destructive fire that never fully destroys and never is extinguished. We have asked for a life without God. God has obliged us in our request.

And hell begins.

Christ as the Climax of History

In his commentary on Romans¹, Doug Moo presents a conceptual framework for understanding what has taken place in Christ. He writes:

"God's work in Christ is the center of history, the point from which both past and future must be understood...With Christ as the climax of history, then, history can be divided into two 'eras.' or 'aeons,' each with its own founder--Adam and Christ, respectively--and each with its own ruling powers--sin, the law, flesh, and death on the one hand; righteousness, grace the Spirit, and life on the other. All people start out in the 'old era' by virtue of participation in the act by which it was founded--the sin of Adam...But one can be transferred into the 'new era' by becoming joined to Christ, the founder of that era, thereby participating in the acts through which that era came into being--Christ's death, burial, and resurrection."

I have taken the liberty of creating a graphic to try and capture Dr. Moo's argument:

As Moo notes, this was the popular way that the Jews understood the division of history. However, Paul nuances his understanding by recognizing that while "the new era has begun--has been inaugurated--...it has not yet replaced the old era. Both ages exist simultaneously..." The ruling powers of the old era are still functional in spite of the presence of the ruling powers of the new era. Moo writes,

Thus, the 'change of aeons,' while occurring historically at the cross...becomes real for the individual only at the point of faith. The 'change of aeons' that took place in Christ is experienced only 'in Christ.' Therefore, the person who lives after Christ's death and resurrection and who has not appropriated the benefits of those events by faith lives in the old era; enslaved to sin, in the flesh, doomed to eternal death."

The following graphic illustrates this concept.

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1 Douglas J. Moo. The Epistle to the Romans. Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans, 1996. 25-27.^↩

Trembling At His Word

The last chapter of Isaiah begins like this:

Thus says the Lord:

“Heaven is My throne,
And earth is My footstool.
Where is the house that you will build Me?
And where is the place of My rest?
For all those things My hand has made,
And all those things exist,”
Says the Lord.
“But on this one will I look:
On him who is poor and of a contrite spirit,
And who trembles at My word.

In these verses, the prophet proclaims that the Lord who is sovereign over all of creation says that what He values the most--the one to whom He will turn His gaze--is the one who is poor and has a contrite spirit and trembles at His word.

I have been thinking about that last line all day. And as I have thought about it, I have been asking myself, "Is this true of me? Do I tremble at His Word?" Do I even want to?

I recently heard Francis Chan say something related to this as he was recounting something one of his seminary professors had said to his class. It was a warning. A warning that the great danger of seminary is that the student can get into the habit of hearing and knowing the Word of God, but not doing anything about it. That can easily happen in a church as well. It can happen to me. It can happen to you.

Imagine for a moment what it must have been like to be one of the disciples who accompanies Jesus onto the Mount of Transfiguration. What that experience must have been like! To see what they saw, a glimpse of Jesus glory, Unmasked. Unshrouded. And then this voice comes from heaven: "This is My Son. Listen to Him." I would have been trembling at His word then, that's for sure!

So why don't I tremble at the reading of God's Word? Why does it not regularly result in an obedient response from me, the appropriate response of a poor and contrite heart that recognizes itself as such? I am good with Bible study, but how about Bible obedience?

Could it be that I have formed a habit of hearing and even knowing the Word, but not doing anything about it? This is a question I need to meditate upon on a regular basis with a sense of my own poverty and a contrite spirit.