A Very Real God
I’ve been reading Justin Phillips’ excellent book, C. S. Lewis in a Time of War
As Lewis gets into his series of BBC broadcasts in the Spring of 1944 titled Beyond Personality he notes that,
“God has no history – He is too real to have one.”
You’ve got to admit – that’s deep.
My history slips off into a shadowy past that becomes less real as time passes. I start remembering some things differently from the way they really happened, and a vast portion of it simply ceases to exist in my mind. It is my nature to lives days that lose reality once they pass – or to put it another way: the ‘me’ in 2007 is no longer very real at all. I’m not there anymore – I’m over here in 2008. This is not God’s nature, however; He has no past that can be left behind and no future to hope and dream about because He is always present. All the days of my life – past, present and future – are in His sight simultaneously. That’s what His name means. The universe’s creation and its ultimate demise – perhaps, as some scientists think, to be recreated all over again – are in His sight as well.
Everything God did in our history He is doing right now from His perspective. Moses and the Red Sea; feeding the five thousand; sending the Holy Spirit to the upper room. All done in the present (to Him). Speaking with Moses on Mt. Sinai and at the same time two thousand years later at His Son’s baptism.
Imagine being like that as a human being, and one of the things you do is commit a sin. That sin would always always be in front of you. No escaping it. One spot of tarnish on a field of gold.
Then imagine being God … and rejecting Your beloved Son for my sin. Your act of rejecting Him because He took on my sin would always always be in front of You. No escaping it. OK to say, “Jesus is seated at the right hand of His Father, so it’s all over” – The Act is still there for ever. OK to say, “But God’s joy is in reconciling me to Him through that act; out of the act comes His delight” – The Act is still there. For ever.
I’m having a bit of a melt-down at the cost He’s bearing for me.
Mike
Dave Travis
Rose
Thanks for this great synopsis. (BTW, “No Name” near bottom of your list was Mel Lawrenz, Elmbrook...
September 5th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
1) I’ve been thinking about the “eternalness” of the death of Jesus lately, too… sparked by Rev. 13:8 where it refers to Him as “…the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” Also by something I heard recently that Jesus said to Graham C. once, during a time of meditation and worship…”I really died, you know, Grae…!” It’s pretty mind-boggling… what unfathomable love… and sometimes I sit in the dark on my back steps and look up at the stars and try to imagine eternity (which of course is foolish, but then…), to get my head around the “beforeness” of God, Who has no “before”, and the “foreverness” of eternity with Him… (and the horror of the “foreverness” of eternity without Him, for those who refuse to accept His sacrifice for them…)
2) Thanks for the tip on the book, C. S. Lewis in a Time of War . I’m a big fan of Clive Staples (no wonder he went by “C.S.”, or “Jack” to his friends!
) but had never read that book yet. It’s now on my “Buy It List.”
3) (I digress, too…) I’ve read a lot about WWII in the UK, mostly from my pile of books by or about Churchill, and I like your “David & Goliath” comparison… it crystallizes what I admire so much about WC & the British at that time. It’s the same feeling and inspiration I get every time I re-read the Lord of the Rings Trilogy… that determination to carry on the fight no matter how high or impossible the odds, to be faithful to the death to a carry out your assignment in a cause that you know is just. It’s also how I imagine a lot of missionaries and other Christians feel, in those areas of the world where their lives are constantly in danger for sharing the Gospel, and yet they do it with courage, determination and even joy…