What is your view of God? An old joke illustrates the view I grew up believing … and, I am embarrassed to say, what I taught for far too long.
Just after returning from a trip to Africa, a man sat in a restaurant with a friend, discussing his trip. The friend asked, "Did anything unusual happen while you were over there in the jungles?"
"No, not really."
"Nothing? No elephant encounters, no stalking lions, no warriors with poisoned darts? Nothing?"
"No, none of that. But my buddy, Ernie, had a rather unusual experience."
"Really? What happened to Ernie?"
"I’ll let him tell you." He pulls out a matchbox from his pocket, opens it and removes a little man only 1" tall. "Ernie, tell my friend what you said that made that witch doctor so angry!"
Make God mad enough and he’s just waiting to zap you … sinners in the hands of an angry God … sort of view was my experience early in church. Then, against all I’d been taught, I discovered God is not the God of retaliation, but the God of restoration! The ancient Hebrew’s Feast of Atonement was a reminder to Israel of God’s holiness in juxtaposition to her wickedness. But in reality, Atonement was all about God’s mercy.
The problem was simply stated: How could a holy God dwell among sinful people? At the heart of God’s covenant with Israel was his promise, "I will dwell among you."
In part, the solution was a physical model of the spiritual dwelling place of God. TheTabernacle.
All the tribes of Israel were encamped around the Tabernacle and just outside the entrance to the Tabernacle was the tribe of Judah … which is interesting because Judah means "praise." The psalmist writes in Ps.100:4 "Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise…" You could not enter the Tabernacle / presence of God without coming through Judah. Literally, you came into the dwelling place of God through praise!
Again, Psalm (spelled "Osakn" when you place your right hand in the wrong position on the keyboard) 22:3 declares: God inhabits the praises of his people.
If you came to God at all, you came through praise, but the problem remained: How could holiness possibly dwell among wickedness? The solution: Atonement.
More tomorrow . . .
I have had people say that we must abstain from the “appearance of looking like the denominations.†Your post tells us that we need to worry less about the above and “worry†more about having the appearance of “Praise†to enter into God’s Holy Place.
Think about what God has done for us and you start to get a small picture of who God is . . . he is the most loving, non-partisan, accepting being anywhere in the spiritual or physical world. I think it is telling that his harshest exhortations are to people with hard hearts and exclusive attitudes–the prophets to Israel, Jesus to the Scribes and Pharisees, etc.
Peace.
life would be so much easier if we didn’t have to spend so much time “unlearning” things…
Great thoughts Greg.
Good post, and I’m ready to hear more…but I’m still cracking up over the story. I hadn’t heard that one before.
Now…how do I tell that one and claim I made it up….
Atonement is such a beautiful word because it is a beautiful picture of God’s mercy. Brother Massey used to explain it by separating the parts of the word like this, “AT-ONE-MENT.” He explained that the word meant that God has made us “At One” with Him again. We are reconciled through the grace that that blood of Jesus purchased for us.
I’m sorry, Greg – I’m with Patrick – I can’t quit laughing over the story.
Maybe it is because we just finished watching two movies (one based on actual incidents and the other the documentary about the same stories) about five missionaries in Ecuador who who were all speared to death in 1956 by the savage Waodani tribe. Their wives ended up shortly thereafter moving with their very young children into the villiages of the same group and converting them all (eventually) to Christianity.
The movie that was made a year or so ago is called “The End of the Spear” and the documentary we just watched the other night was “Beyond the Gates of Splendor.” They were both magnificent and very well done. Tom and I both highly recommend them. They were narrated and the story was told by the grown son of one of the men who went in with his mother after his father’s death.
Today the Waodani are a peaceful loving people because of what they learned from the Americans. At the time the missionaries first went in their death rate by homocide was 60%!! Six out of every ten of them died by the spear.
Your story made me think of of all of this because it has been fresh on our minds. But it just shows the power of God in changing the hearts of men. May we be as open to that power as the Waodani people were and have been.
Dee
[...] of the Jews… If you are just joining us, the first two articles on Atonement can be found here and here.The rabbis said, "Until you have seen Atonement, you have never seen [...]