Our Desperate Need for Glory
- David Fairchild
- Oct 14, 2007
- Series: Acts
TEXT
Acts 12:1-25: "About that time Herod the king laid violent hands on some who belonged to the church. 2 He killed James the brother of John with the sword, 3 and when he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also. This was during the days of Unleavened Bread. 4 And when he had seized him, he put him in prison, delivering him over to four squads of soldiers to guard him, intending after the Passover to bring him out to the people. 5 So Peter was kept in prison, but earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church. 6 Now when Herod was about to bring him out, on that very night, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, and sentries before the door were guarding the prison. 7 And behold, an angel of the Lord stood next to him, and a light shone in the cell. He struck Peter on the side and woke him, saying, ‘Get up quickly.' And the chains fell off his hands. 8 And the angel said to him, ‘Dress yourself and put on your sandals.' And he did so. And he said to him, ‘Wrap your cloak around you and follow me.' 9 And he went out and followed him. He did not know that what was being done by the angel was real, but thought he was seeing a vision. 10 When they had passed the first and the second guard, they came to the iron gate leading into the city. It opened for them of its own accord, and they went out and went along one street, and immediately the angel left him. 11 When Peter came to himself, he said, ‘Now I am sure that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from the hand of Herod and from all that the Jewish people were expecting.' 12 When he realized this, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John whose other name was Mark, where many were gathered together and were praying. 13 And when he knocked at the door of the gateway, a servant girl named Rhoda came to answer. 14 Recognizing Peter's voice, in her joy she did not open the gate but ran in and reported that Peter was standing at the gate. 15 They said to her, ‘You are out of your mind.' But she kept insisting that it was so, and they kept saying, ‘It is his angel!' 16 But Peter continued knocking, and when they opened, they saw him and were amazed. 17 But motioning to them with his hand to be silent, he described to them how the Lord had brought him out of the prison. And he said, ‘Tell these things to James and to the brothers.' Then he departed and went to another place. 18 Now when day came, there was no little disturbance among the soldiers over what had become of Peter. 19 And after Herod searched for him and did not find him, he examined the sentries and ordered that they should be put to death. Then he went down from Judea to Caesarea and spent time there. 20 Now Herod was angry with the people of Tyre and Sidon, and they came to him with one accord, and having persuaded Blastus, the king's chamberlain, they asked for peace, because their country depended on the king's country for food. 21 On an appointed day Herod put on his royal robes, took his seat upon the throne, and delivered an oration to them. 22 And the people were shouting, ‘The voice of a god, and not of a man!' 23 Immediately an angel of the Lord struck him down, because he did not give God the glory, and he was eaten by worms and breathed his last. 24 But the word of God increased and multiplied. 25 And Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem when they had completed their service, bringing with them John, whose other name was Mark.
INTRODUCTION
Expansion and Opposition
We've been on this great missional journey in the book of Acts and have in some ways been stunned by the incredible power and intense devotion to Christ and His mission through the Church in this world to lovingly capture the hearts of those who were wandering and estranged from Him.
On the one hand we stand in awe at the power of God in action and on the other hand we stand with a mix of fear of what this will look like in our church and disappointment that we're not individually experiencing this sweetness, confidence, and power in action in our own lives.
Yet, if we understand the flow of Acts, it should help us put our own feeling of uneasiness in context. Through the book of Acts the Gospel has broken out as the Church has experienced both external growth as well as internal growth.
As they've grown and expanded, they've also met opposition externally as well as internally. Some from within and some from without protested against this Gospel initiative. The legalists and moralists inside the Church were confused that God would let virtually anybody in by grace, and the religious leaders outside the Church were frustrated and concerned that they might lose their power base if this Gospel continued to go out.
With that said, it makes sense that as a Church we're working through these same things. We're on the one hand excited at what God is doing, yet fearful at what this costs us. We want God to be glorified, but at what expense? Our own hearts are struggling with including outsiders and yet it's the very thing we want more than anything, to see our city come to this incredible God who lavishes scandalous grace upon anyone willing to admit they need Him.
And really, if what we want is for our fear and disappointment to end so that we begin to individually experience more and more of this sweetness of life, confidence in our calling, and the power to follow the steps of our brothers and sisters in Acts, then we're going to have to come to grips with the theme of this chapter.
I believe this chapter is showing us something vitally important. It's showing us that we are desperately in need of glory. We are built for it. So much so that we're willing to suffer even unto death to get glory either for ourselves or for God.
This is really the point of the narrative; Herod the king is desperate for glory, his own, so he stretches out his human hand of power to kill James and imprison Peter to stop the progress of the Gospel. The story ends with the True King stretching out His hand of judgment upon Herod, the King's servant is freed, and the King's word increases and multiplies as God's glory is seen by more and more.
God ensures the Gospel continues to go out, but doesn't remove His servants from suffering. Not only that, God uses the suffering of His servants and the opposition of Herod to advance the Gospel and bring glory to His name for the good of the world.
Suffering, glory, and mission are inseparably tied together as the Gospel key to the entire Bible. This is what Christ taught us in Luke 24 on the Road to Emmaus.
Luke 24:25-27: "And he said to them, ‘O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?' 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself."
And again later in this chapter Jesus comes to His disciples and says essentially the same thing:
Luke 24:44-49: "Then he said to them, ‘These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.' 45 Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, 46 and said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, 47 and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things. 49 And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.'"
Jesus is showing them the point of the entire OT history, the point of His coming into this world. He's showing them the centerpiece of the Bible. It's the Gospel!
This means we can no longer read the Bible in the same way. Since history is about His suffering and glory it means every page is about the Gospel. This also clarifies our primary activity in this world, to spread the glory of the Gospel in the face of Christ to the world as His witness bearers who are empowered by the Spirit.
What is glory?
The word "glory" literally means weight. It means the permanent vs. the temporary, the real vs. the unreal, the substantial vs. the unimportant. When the Scriptures talk about God's glory, they're talking about His weightiness. It means that compared to anything else in the universe, God alone is permanent, God alone is real, and God alone matters.
If you drop a large rock into water there is a water-quake because the rock has more glory than the water. If you drop an object heavier than ice onto ice, there is an ice-quake because the object has more glory than the ice. And when the reality of God comes into your life it changes everything around you. When the reality of God comes into our life everything is rearranged and our view of ourselves, of history, of suffering, and of everything is changed.
Whenever God's glory comes down in Scripture it shakes everything around it. God's glory is weightier than anything else. When He came down on Mt. Sinai, the mountain trembled violently. When He came down at Pentecost, and as we read in chapter 2 when they gathered and prayed, the ground shook and trembled because God's glory is ultimate and weighty. Compared to God, everything else has no weight and whenever God's reality comes down, things are shaken.
What's the difference between a concept and reality? It's all a matter of glory. When God is a concept, He's lighter than you. This god-concept fits into your life and existing patterns. He doesn't move your life around, you move Him around as a concept to fit into your life. He's not weightier than you. If you say you've believed in God yet remain essentially the same, God is just a concept to you.
Two Ways of Suffering
There are two ways in which we can suffer for glory. Only one of them is permanent enough to bear the weight and freight of your life.
I. Suffering for self-glory
Verses 1-4: "About that time Herod the king laid violent hands on some who belonged to the church. 2 He killed James the brother of John with the sword, 3 and when he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also. This was during the days of Unleavened Bread. 4 And when he had seized him, he put him in prison, delivering him over to four squads of soldiers to guard him, intending after the Passover to bring him out to the people."
Verses 18-23: "Now when day came, there was no little disturbance among the soldiers over what had become of Peter. 19 And after Herod searched for him and did not find him, he examined the sentries and ordered that they should be put to death. Then he went down from Judea to Caesarea and spent time there. 20 Now Herod was angry with the people of Tyre and Sidon, and they came to him with one accord, and having persuaded Blastus, the king's chamberlain, they asked for peace, because their country depended on the king's country for food. 21 On an appointed day Herod put on his royal robes, took his seat upon the throne, and delivered an oration to them. 22 And the people were shouting, ‘The voice of a god, and not of a man!' 23 Immediately an angel of the Lord struck him down, because he did not give God the glory, and he was eaten by worms and breathed his last."
About Herod
Herod Agrippa was the grandson of Herod the Great. His crazy grandfather was the one who was obsessed with the prophecies of the Messiah coming. He realized that if this baby King was born, his puppet rule would be over. Herod the Great had all the male babies two years and under killed because he was bent on power and control and would stop at nothing to keep his kingdom, including executing his wife and son but let his grandson, Herod Agrippa, who was three years old live. His uncle, Herod Antipas, was the one who had John the Baptist's head cut off and eventually was part of Jesus' trial. Needless to say, this need for power and control ran in the family.
Herod Agrippa, the one we're looking at today, was well educated in Rome but constantly over extended himself by acting like he was more than what he really was. He ended up with incredible debt and had to be chased out of Rome to Antioch where he did the same there. He ended up in a Roman prison until his good friend, who was totally insane, Caligula, became emperor and set him free. Eventually he came to rule the same territory that his grandfather once ruled.
One thing we learn about Herod from reading Josephus and other historians is that he was a man who desperately needed glory. So much so that he had silver sheets hand sewn into a gown so that when he took his throne at the right time of day, which is when he preferred his orations, his beauty would be noticed by all.
It's easy to villainize Herod; he's an easy target. In all probability, he had our brother and one of the Apostle's heads cut off. He had another brother and apostle thrown in prison. He's easy to despise, easy to loathe. If we're honest, we're kind of glad God did what He did by striking him dead in the end. In many ways, the point of the story is to show that seeking self glory only leads to suffering and destruction.
But I think if we end there, we're stopping short of learning all we can from Herod's story.
We know that he sought glory for himself but why? What was working in him which caused him to take what he knew only belonged to God? What is it about a man like Herod that would drive him to do the unthinkable? If nothing else, he was committing career suicide once the rest of the Jews found out that he refused to stop them from shouting, "the voice of a god and not of a man."
You could say that his pursuit for glory was killing him, and it eventually did.
Let's look at the text to see:
It says in verse 3, "when he saw that it pleased the Jews he proceeded to arrest Peter also."
This story begins with what appears to be a man in total freedom doing whatever he wanted. But when we look at his life back in Rome and Antioch, when we see the trouble he got himself into time and time again, causing imprisonment and suffering, even the threat of death by Rome at one point you begin to see a pattern emerge.
He needed to please the Jews. This wasn't just political expediency, though that is part of it, it was deeper than this. Herod needed glory because he needed approval.
Something had become so important to Herod that he was willing to lose his life to get it, approval.
The most basic question which God poses to each human heart is this: Has something or someone besides Jesus Christ taken title to your heart's function, trust, loyalty, service, security, joy and delight?
What do you really want and expect out of life? What would really make you happy if you are honest? What would make you an acceptable person? Where do you look for power and success?
The answers tell us whether we're serving God or idols, whether we're looking for salvation from Christ or from false lovers of our hearts and false saviors.
Who or what rules my behavior, the Lord or an idol? For Herod it was the idol of approval which caused him to do most anything to get it.
When we are seeking approval we're willing to pay the price of less independence. We would be willing to give up some of our freedom to have someone affirm us. And our greatest nightmare becomes rejection. It is almost unbearable. Others around us feel smothered by our need to be affirmed. There are reasons Herod needed glory and without it he felt he was nothing.
But we see this in our own day. Glory seeking is killing us. Glory through fame, popularity, or success is killing us. How many Kurt Cobains do we need to show the world that fame and self-glory causes nothing but an empty suffering of the soul? Why do so many actors, musicians, and other celebrity figures become utterly depressed at the peak of their careers? Because their idol of approval promised them glory if only they would bow down and serve. Unfortunately, these broken image bearers of God find out that these false lovers don't keep their promise.
Beauty in our culture is killing us. Why do we pursue it with such vigor? What is it about us that needs to be seen as beautiful? We'll starve ourselves to death and implant silicon into our bodies for the express purpose of gaining the approval of people we don't know. We want glory. We want to be permanent, weighty, important, and significant. We want to matter. Our hearts yearn for glory.
Do you see why suffering and glory are inseparable?
Let's be honest though, this isn't unique to Herod or actors and musicians. How are we like Herod? What things have become so important that we're sewing together our own garments of glory?
Results of seeking self-glory
- When I seek my own glory, I begin to believe that I need to seek out approval for my self-esteem from others' opinions I consider important. I become a slave to the smiles and frowns of others. I feel like I'm nothing more than the sum total of the opinions of others.
- When I seek my own glory, I forget the value of other people. Every human being is created by God in His image for His glory. The reason God is so concerned with how we treat other humans is because they represent His image. To deface the painting of someone great is to show dishonor to that person. God's glory is the basis for treating every human being with dignity and value since they are of infinite worth to God.
Herod not only had James killed and was planning on doing the same to Peter, when Peter was released he killed the soldiers for making him look bad. His self-seeking glory had to lash out at others.
- When I seek my own glory, I handle suffering with guilt and anger. If I'm receiving glory and living up to standards and suffering comes, I feel I deserve a better life and become angry and bitter at God. If I'm failing and not living up to standards, I feel like a failure that God has rejected. This gives me a sense of guilt and shame.
Is self-seeking glory what we were built for? No. God wants us to seek glory in Him, not ourselves. To find satisfaction in him, not look to our moods. God's desire for us to glorify Him is just another way of saying He wants a relationship with us. To want Him for the sheer beauty and worth of His glory is what a true relationship is built upon. We were designed to be struck by glory.
We are all starved for the glory of God, not self. No one goes to the Grand Canyon to increase self-esteem. Why do we go? Because there is greater healing for our soul in beholding splendor than there is in beholding self... The point is this: We were made to know and treasure the glory of God above all things; and when we trade that treasure for images, everything is disordered. The sun of God's glory was made to shine at the center of the solar system of our soul. And when it does, all the planets of our life are held in their proper orbit. But when the sun is displaced, everything flies apart. The healing of the soul begins by restoring the glory of God to its flaming, all-attractive place at the center.
When we consider a God that not only desires, but commands us to glorify Him, we can quickly slip into confusion. How can God on the one hand command us to delight ourselves in Him and on the other command us to glorify Him? Aren't these two things at odds? Is God being egotistical in calling us to glorify Him?
When I first began to draw near to belief in God and even for some time after, I found a stumbling block in the demand that we should "praise" God; still more in the suggestion that God Himself demanded it. We all despise the man who demands continued assurance of his own virtue...but the most obvious fact about praise-whether of God or anything, strangely escaped me. I never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise. The world rings with praise-lovers praising their mistresses, readers their favorite poet, walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favorite game... praise almost seems to be inner health made audible...
Men spontaneously praise whatever they value, so they spontaneously urge us to join them in praising it: "Wasn't in glorious? Don't you think that was magnificent?" Indeed we can't help doing it...because praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment...To understand what heaven means we must imagine ourselves in perfect love with God-drunk with, drowned in, dissolved by, that delight which, far from remaining pent up within ourselves...flows out from us again in effortless and perfect expression...The Scots catechism says man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. But then we know these are the same thing. To fully enjoy is to glorify-in commanding us to glorify Him, God is inviting us to enjoy him.
Would it be egotistical if I approached someone and asked them to tell me where I can find the best Philly cheese-steak if their response was, "Well, I'm from Philly and I own a deli that serves the best cheese-steaks in all of San Diego?" It would only be arrogant if it wasn't true! But what I'm really saying to this person is that I want to enjoy a cheese-steak that's the best in San Diego. If the owner were to point me anywhere else, he really wouldn't be helping me if he knew that all the other places were second rate.
So it is with God, we come to him wanting our deepest joys and longings of our heart to be met. We come to Him to find this. If He were to point us to anything other than Himself, if He were to commend us to anyone other than Himself, if He were to ask us to bask in the glory of anything else but Himself, not only would He be an idolater but also a liar. I don't want God for fear of not seeming humble to ask me to find my greatest joy in something else if it can only be found in Him. Please don't do me that favor! God can't commend us to any other glory than His own because it is in His glory that we find our greatest delight reach its climax.
This kind of glory bears you and helps you to deal with the weight of this life. It helps us to deal with tragedy and disappointment, suffering and pain because we know we have a treasure given to us that surpasses anything we could ever ask for.
When we begin to understand the weight and beauty of God's glory, we start to see how James, Peter, and the early Christians could suffer so well. Historians recognized that Christians seemed to die far better than any other group. They would be cast into the coliseum for their faith, and instead of cursing the officials, instead of fearfully abandoning their faith, they would sing hymns, praise God, and embrace one another in joy as they were about to enter into the presence of their Lord together. The credibility of Christianity to the Pagan world was greatly increased in their death because Pagans never saw so many people die with such joy and peace.
This is the second way we can suffer for glory. We can suffer for God's glory.
II. Suffering for God's glory
Verses 1-4: "About that time Herod the king laid violent hands on some who belonged to the church. 2 He killed James the brother of John with the sword, 3 and when he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also. This was during the days of Unleavened Bread. 4 And when he had seized him, he put him in prison, delivering him over to four squads of soldiers to guard him, intending after the Passover to bring him out to the people."
Over and over again we're invited to share in Christ's suffering and glory:
1 Peter 4:12-13: "Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. 13 But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed."
And lastly we're told in Romans 5 that since we've been justified by faith and not works, we can actually rejoice in suffering.
Why did the early Christians, including James, die at the hands of others without putting up a fight? Why would they be willingly executed? Why did they willingly suffer imprisonment, loss of family, loss of goods and jobs, loss of prestige and power, and loss of reputation? Because there was One on a throne whose glory was irresistibly attractive. The weight and beauty of God's glory demoted everything else to their appropriate place. These things pale in comparison to the surpassing worth of God's glory.
When something is beautiful to you, you have to commend it to others. The more beautiful you see it, the more passionately you share it with others.
I will annoy my friends by sharing something I believe is beautiful: a film, a song, a hobby. In some ways I can't really help myself because it's natural to do so. But the response isn't always welcomed by an immediate apprehension of what I perceive as beautiful and significant. Often times the look, comments, or even withdrawal from some of our friends because of what we're glorying in can cause relational suffering.
These are fairly light matters though. They are the difference between rocky-road ice cream and mint chocolate chip. They are a matter of taste. Yet still, our tastes can irritate others even though they really are in many ways simple individual preferences. How can you tell someone that they should like rocky road over mint chocolate chip? It's seems silly, but we'll argue over such things like music and movies and other individual preferences.
How much more is the problem compounded when we begin to talk about weighty and significant matters? When we move beyond what we believe is our own personal taste to actually prescribing God to others. To be so gripped and stunned by His beauty and glory, His weightiness and significance, that we can't leave it to just personal opinion? This kind of glory has to be shared.
When the Gospel moves us to praise God beyond our view of it just being good for us, but needful for everyone, the weight and significance has come down on us. We can live in a land of personal preference, but this only means our hearts have yet to be stirred enough to commend the most beautiful, weighty, glorious and significant Being in the universe to others. In some ways, God's glory becoming real to us and moving from a concept into reality can only be evidenced when we want to share Him with others. We simply can't keep this beauty to ourselves.
Is God a public truth to you when He is not just needed for you but or everyone? Or is God still just a personal preference or taste you have? The answer to that question is significant.
When God moves from light to weighty, from personal taste to public truth, from concept to reality, things in your life may be shaken for God's glory. Your comfort may be disrupted.
Romans 5:1-5: "Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3 More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."
Oddly enough, suffering-one of the greatest and deepest ways in which God draws us closer to Himself and matures us-is the very thing we work so hard to avoid.
When we grasp this, we can endure anything.
Only the Gospel of God's glory and grace can do this.
Since we're saved by grace, we no longer have to have an I hate Thee or I hate me disposition when things fall apart in our lives.
The Gospel, on the one hand takes away our surprise and hatred towards suffering. It helps us to get out of our self-pity because we know that we deserve so much worse than this suffering, we deserve to be eternally lost, but because of God's mercy we will never get what we deserve.
On the other hand, we realize that God could not be punishing us for sin since Jesus paid for our sins, and God cannot receive two payments. This means whatever suffering we are receiving is not retribution but instruction and discipline from a loving Father.
CS Lewis struggled profoundly when he lost his only true love in this life, his wife Joy, whom he married after 50 years of being a bachelor only to have this beautiful relationship that CS Lewis says couldn't last because it was too perfect, taken from him only 4 years later by cancer.
... Meanwhile, where is God? This is one of the most disquieting symptoms. When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing Him, so happy that you are tempted to feel His claims upon you as an interruption, if you remember yourself and turn to Him with gratitude and praise, you will be - or so it feels - welcomed with open arms. But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence. You may as well turn away. The longer you wait, the more emphatic the silence will become. There are no lights in the windows. It might be an empty house. Was it ever inhabited? It seemed so once. And that seeming was as strong as this. What can this mean? Why is He so present a commander in our time of prosperity and so very absent a help in time of trouble?
CS Lewis comes to learn something great about his trial and about himself.
I do miss her something dreadful. But they say these things are sent to try us. ...But of course, one must take 'sent to try us' in the right way. God has not been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find out their quality. He knew it already. It was I who didn't. In this trial He makes us occupy the dock, the witness box and the bench all at once. He always knew that my temple was a house of cards. His only way of making me realize that fact was to knock it down.
Only the discontented person thinks that everything that he does for God is too much and everything God does for him is too little.
Because of my sufferings, I will appreciate (in heaven) the scars of Christ and also the scars of other believers. (In heaven) I will see men and women that in the world were cut in pieces, burnt in flames, tortured and persecuted, eaten by beasts, and drowned in the seas-all for the love they had for the Lord. What a privilege it will be to stand in their ranks! But what a shame it would be if, in conversing with them, we could only shrug our shoulders and prattle Me? Suffer?...... Perhaps we would bite our complaining tongues more often if we stopped to picture this scene in heaven. The examples of other suffering saints are meant to inspire us upward on our heavenly journey home.
-Joni Eareckson Tada
And look at the difference in how someone who trusts in God and has Him as their great treasure responds to suffering:
Verses 6-12: "Now when Herod was about to bring him out, on that very night, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, and sentries before the door were guarding the prison. 7 And behold, an angel of the Lord stood next to him, and a light shone in the cell. He struck Peter on the side and woke him, saying, ‘Get up quickly.' And the chains fell off his hands. 8 And the angel said to him, ‘Dress yourself and put on your sandals.' And he did so. And he said to him, ‘Wrap your cloak around you and follow me.' 9 And he went out and followed him. He did not know that what was being done by the angel was real, but thought he was seeing a vision. 10 When they had passed the first and the second guard, they came to the iron gate leading into the city. It opened for them of its own accord, and they went out and went along one street, and immediately the angel left him. 11 When Peter came to himself, he said, ‘Now I am sure that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from the hand of Herod and from all that the Jewish people were expecting.' 12 When he realized this, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John whose other name was Mark, where many were gathered together and were praying."
What in the world could possibly cause Peter, who no doubt knows that James was beheaded, to sleep so soundly that he had to be awakened by an Angel of God, and still walked around groggy for a spell? This is a deep sleep. But he was resting in Christ and Christ's glory was far more weighty and permanent than what he was experiencing.
This is what grace can produce in us if we believe the Gospel, not works of our own righteousness. To the degree that you believe that you are far worse a sinner than you'd dare imagine, and yet at the same time far more loved and approved than you can ever hope for, to the same degree you'll be able to bear up this kind of horror and tragedy in your life.
Lastly, Christ is the answer to our suffering:
God does not stand idly by, coolly observing the suffering of his creatures. He enters into and shares our suffering. He endures the anguish of seeing his son, the second person of the Trinity, consigned to the bitterly cruel and shameful death of the cross.
Some theologians claim that God cannot suffer. I believe they are wrong. God's capacity for suffering, I believe, is proportional to his greatness; it exceeds our capacity for suffering in the same measure as his capacity for knowledge exceeds ours. Christ was prepared to endure the agonies of hell itself; and God, the first being and Lord of the universe, was prepared to endure the suffering consequent upon his son's humiliation and death. He was prepared to accept this suffering in order to overcome sin, and death, and the evils that afflict our world, and to confer on us a life more glorious than we can imagine. So we don't know why God permits evil; we do know, however, that he was prepared to suffer on our behalf, to accept suffering of which we can form no conception.
The chief difference between Christianity and the other theistic religions lies just here: according to the Christian gospel, God is willing to enter into and share the sufferings of his creatures, in order to redeem them and his world.
Of course this doesn't answer the question why does God permit evil and suffering? But it helps the Christian trust God as a loving father, no matter what ills befall him. Otherwise it would be easy to see God as remote and detached, permitting all these evils, himself untouched, in order to achieve ends that are no doubt exalted but have little to do with us, and little power to assuage our griefs. It would be easy to see him as cold and unfeeling-or if loving, then such that his love for us has little to do with our perception of our own welfare. But God, as Christians see him, is neither remote nor detached. His aims and goals may be beyond our understanding and may require our suffering; but he is himself prepared to accept much greater suffering in the pursuit of those ends. In this regard Christianity contains a resource for dealing with this existential problem of evil-a resource denied the other theistic religions.
What is the result of all this suffering and God's display His true glory? The Gospel of God increases and multiplies (v. 24).
0 Comments | Login to Post Comments