Worshiping through Thought

March 29, 2007

Joe,

You put me in a bind, brother, because that was some good stuff you just laid out from Proverbs, and I want to talk some more about that. But I think that first I’ll add some more to our discussion from the quotes from Mahaney’s Living the Cross-Centered Life, and return to your thoughts from Proverbs tomorrow, Lord willing.

Anyway, yesterday you gave me your thoughts on this quote: “[On the Cross, Jesus] is being made to experience the full fury of the wrath of God — the intense, righteous hatred of God for sin, a wrath that has been stored up beginning with Adam’s sin and extending to all of your sin and mine, and to all the sin to the end of this world’s history.”

You said you felt that it was the last part, “and to all the sin to the end of this world’s history” that presented a problem. And I think I agree. I would love to talk with CJ about this, because as you pointed out, I believe that his understanding of the atonement is something I would agree with. I know that Mahaney esteems highly what are often called ‘The doctrines of grace.’ Perhaps we’re both just not tracking with him about his meaning in this quote.

I have to admit, I hesitated to write my first post about this subject the other day, for fear that we might take an absolutely glorious subject like the atonement and diminish the wonder of it by getting ‘nit-picky’ about this small thing. I mean, what a staggering work it was on the Cross that Christ accomplished, to bear the wrath of His Father for all the sins of every believer that has ever or will ever live. To bear the eternal, conscious torment of millions of people in six hours on the Cross; what a Savior we have! So I hate to diminish that marvelous work by talking about this little issue about the last few words of what is otherwise an awesome theological truth.

Having said that, I wrote what I wrote knowing full-well the danger that we might be perceived as nit-picking, and I decided to write anyway. Because I believe God is greatly honored when we seek, in a spirit of humility, to stretch our understanding of these marvelous truths. I believe that the one who says, ‘I don’t care about learning all that Jesus accomplished on the Cross; that is irrelevant. I know he died for my sins, and that’s all I need to know,’ the one who says that is, I fear, belittling the value of the atonement in a serious way. Isn’t it belittling to Christ and His glorious saving work to say to Him that we aren’t interested in probing the awesome depths of glory and understanding them more and more, with a view toward loving Him more and more. And yet in the Church today, that is just what countless professing Christians say, explicitly and implicitly.

Let us press on to know the Lord, and all His marvelous deeds. To exalt having a perfect definition of the atonement over cherishing the value of the atonement is an insult to the Lord; but to persist in indifference toward knowing the riches of what happened at the Cross is also an insult to His beauty. Let’s strive to not make either of those two mistakes.

I’ll try to get to that second Mahaney quote later today, but just felt like I wanted to clarify that!

Larry

Posted by Larry | Filed Under Random Musings