July 19, 2009
Psalms 103 : 10
He has not dealt with us according to our sins;
Nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.
The world of cinema has had a long fascination with extraterrestrial movies. They maximize the assumption that we are not alone amongst the galaxies. At some points in time we are being visited and each confrontation is stranger than the last. There is an even stranger confrontation in scripture, man’s experience with the alien love of God.
Webster’s New World Dictionary has a three fold definition of alien. An alien is one belonging to another country or people. It can also mean strange or not natural. Finally, to be an alien is to be opposed or to contradict accepted status or practice. All of these definitions are applicable to the alien love of God. This love is nonexistent within the community of man.
What radical qualities make this love somehow beyond duplication by we mortals? There appears to be three extraterrestrial love characters in this verse. The first is the source of this love,the “He”. Human kind has doggedly refused to value the bigness of God. In our narcissism we have historically insisted on an anthropomorphized version. This has left the believer correctly open to criticism by the skeptic. The Christian God with human character is not God but most akin to the deities of all other totem pole religions.
The wholly other Deity is not so portrayed in Scripture. “He” is so holy, so out of this world, that to look upon Him would mean death. Even the greatest hero of the Old Testament, Moses, was not so blessed to look into His face. Yet this Deity proved to be powerful beyond all human understanding in this world. In the New Testament God was in Christ, a fully human visible reflection of this world yet specifically gifted of the alien Love of God.
Secondly, this alien God does not deal “with us according to our sins”. Every society on this planet structures relationships in a historical context. We relate to one another by what our history says. Our history is a large part of every resume or job application. The past is the best predictor of ones future potential. A society brings labels to bear upon the lower rungs of the group and finally the group accepts it‘s place.
The alien love of God has no application forms, a resume is not required. In fact the first target is always the lower rungs of every society. Words like always and every should probably never be used. In this case they seem to be justified. A favored New Testament application is the parable of the wedding banquet. The priority guests are issued an invitation but they are all about the bustle of life and have no time or inclination to party. The host, God, issued another invitation as related in Matthew 22: 10. “And those slaves went out into the streets, and gathered together all they found, both evil and good; and the wedding hall was filled with dinner guests.”
Thirdly, the alien love of God does not reward or punish us “according to our sinless success”(Goslaw translation). The avoidance of this truth is the great sin of the church. Inherent within this sin is a lie. For one to commit to following the King, surely a “needed reward” must follow. The predominate theme of the Gospel has become reward not sacrifice. Give to this or that ministry and you shall reap the reward of healing, money, success, spiritual status or an eternal destiny. Fundamental to this damnable lie is church leadership. They are either spreading the lie or are so spiritually disfunctional that they have not the courage to confront the abuse.
This is a critique of our failure to understanding the alien love of God. Today’s sour expression of His love has been interrupted positively on occasion but there are few of late. The tragedy is that this sin is occurring when the hearts of humanity are crying out for the authentic gospel. Church,who do we represent?
G.Goslaw
Victorville, Ca
