Post by Admin on Jun 14, 2024 16:15:49 GMT -5
The Covenant of Grace
(Chapter 14 of Our Reasonable Faith* )
[But who can stand in the judgment?] To that question all mankind
has at all times and in all places given the answer that men, such as
they are, may not appear before the face of God nor dwell in his
presence. There is no one who can say or dares to say: I have made
my heart clean, I am pure from my sin (Prov. 20:9). Everybody feels
himself to be guilty and defiled, and everybody acknowledges, if not
to others, at least internally to himself, that he is not what he should
be. The hardened sinner has moments in which restlessness and
turmoil master him; and the self-righteous in the last instance always
continue hoping that God will blink at what is lacking and accept the
intent for the deed.
True, there are many who try to banish these serious thoughts from
their minds and plunge into life as though there were no God and no
commandment. They deceive themselves with the hope that there is
no God (Ps. 14:1), that He does not bother about the sins of men, so
that whoever does evil is good in His sight (Mal. 2:17), that He does
not remember evil nor see it (Ps. 10:11 and 94:7), or else that, as
perfect Love, He may not seek out and punish the wrong (Ps. 10:14).
And whoever holds to the demand of the moral law and lets the
ethical ideal stand in its loftiness, can only agree that God must
punish the wrong. God is love, indeed, but this glorious confession
comes into its own only when love in the Divine being is understood
as being a holy love in perfect harmony with justice. There is room
for the grace of God only if the justice of God is first fully established.
After all, the whole history of the world gives an irrefutable
testimony to this justice of God. We cannot speculate out of the
world the special revelation in Christ which tells us of the love of God
if we were to do that the general revelation with its benefits and
blessings would be lost to us. But, if we were, but for a moment, in
our thoughts to leave the revelation in Christ to one side there would
remain very little ground for belief in a God of love. For if the history
of the world clearly teaches us anything, it is this: that God has a
quarrel with His creature. There is disagreement, separation, conflict
between God and this world. God does not agree with man, and man
does not agree with God. Each goes his own way, and each has his
own idea and will about things. The thoughts of God are not our
thoughts, and His ways are not our ways (Isa. 55:8).
Therefore the history of the world is also a judgment of the world.
No, it is not as one poet has said, the judgment of the world, for that
will come at the end of days; and it is not judgment alone, for the
earth is still full of the riches of God (Ps. 104:24). All the same, the
history of the world is a judgment, a history full of judgments, full of
struggle and war, of blood and tears, calamities and afflictions.
Above it are written the words which Moses once spoke when he saw
the race of the Israelites dying away before his eyes: We are
consumed by thine anger, and by thy wrath are we troubled (Ps.
90:7).
This testimony of history to the justice of God is confirmed by the
fact that mankind has always looked for, and still looks for, a lost
Paradise, for a lasting bliss, and for a redemption from all evil that
oppresses it. There is in all men a need for, and a seeking after,
redemption. It is just this which specifically comes to expression in
religion. True, one can take the word redemption in so large a sense
that it includes all the labor which men do on the earth. For when
man by the world of his hands tries to supply the needs of his life,
when he tries to defend himself against all kinds of antagonistic
forces in nature and among men, and when in science and art he
strives to subdue the whole earth, all that has also the purpose of
being liberated from evil and ushered into the good.
(Chapter 14 of Our Reasonable Faith* )
[But who can stand in the judgment?] To that question all mankind
has at all times and in all places given the answer that men, such as
they are, may not appear before the face of God nor dwell in his
presence. There is no one who can say or dares to say: I have made
my heart clean, I am pure from my sin (Prov. 20:9). Everybody feels
himself to be guilty and defiled, and everybody acknowledges, if not
to others, at least internally to himself, that he is not what he should
be. The hardened sinner has moments in which restlessness and
turmoil master him; and the self-righteous in the last instance always
continue hoping that God will blink at what is lacking and accept the
intent for the deed.
True, there are many who try to banish these serious thoughts from
their minds and plunge into life as though there were no God and no
commandment. They deceive themselves with the hope that there is
no God (Ps. 14:1), that He does not bother about the sins of men, so
that whoever does evil is good in His sight (Mal. 2:17), that He does
not remember evil nor see it (Ps. 10:11 and 94:7), or else that, as
perfect Love, He may not seek out and punish the wrong (Ps. 10:14).
And whoever holds to the demand of the moral law and lets the
ethical ideal stand in its loftiness, can only agree that God must
punish the wrong. God is love, indeed, but this glorious confession
comes into its own only when love in the Divine being is understood
as being a holy love in perfect harmony with justice. There is room
for the grace of God only if the justice of God is first fully established.
After all, the whole history of the world gives an irrefutable
testimony to this justice of God. We cannot speculate out of the
world the special revelation in Christ which tells us of the love of God
if we were to do that the general revelation with its benefits and
blessings would be lost to us. But, if we were, but for a moment, in
our thoughts to leave the revelation in Christ to one side there would
remain very little ground for belief in a God of love. For if the history
of the world clearly teaches us anything, it is this: that God has a
quarrel with His creature. There is disagreement, separation, conflict
between God and this world. God does not agree with man, and man
does not agree with God. Each goes his own way, and each has his
own idea and will about things. The thoughts of God are not our
thoughts, and His ways are not our ways (Isa. 55:8).
Therefore the history of the world is also a judgment of the world.
No, it is not as one poet has said, the judgment of the world, for that
will come at the end of days; and it is not judgment alone, for the
earth is still full of the riches of God (Ps. 104:24). All the same, the
history of the world is a judgment, a history full of judgments, full of
struggle and war, of blood and tears, calamities and afflictions.
Above it are written the words which Moses once spoke when he saw
the race of the Israelites dying away before his eyes: We are
consumed by thine anger, and by thy wrath are we troubled (Ps.
90:7).
This testimony of history to the justice of God is confirmed by the
fact that mankind has always looked for, and still looks for, a lost
Paradise, for a lasting bliss, and for a redemption from all evil that
oppresses it. There is in all men a need for, and a seeking after,
redemption. It is just this which specifically comes to expression in
religion. True, one can take the word redemption in so large a sense
that it includes all the labor which men do on the earth. For when
man by the world of his hands tries to supply the needs of his life,
when he tries to defend himself against all kinds of antagonistic
forces in nature and among men, and when in science and art he
strives to subdue the whole earth, all that has also the purpose of
being liberated from evil and ushered into the good.