The “True Meaning” of God: Divinity Defined

This summer I’ll be teaching two rounds of PHL204: Philosophy of Religion.

The first question we address is (quite naturally):

Is there a God? 

In other words...

Should people believe in God? Is there “sufficient intellectual warrant (i.e., epistemic justification)” for faith?

Ironically, this is a question the Old and New Testaments ignore.

Scripture offers no defense for belief in God (or at least very little, especially in the way most philosophical systems address it).

All it offers is an assumption: “In the beginning, God…”

From that, the rest of God’s story--and with His, the world’s as well as our own--unfolds.

The second question, however, (which follows logically from the first) is a different matter altogether.

Who is God? 

Upon this, the entire Bible, and in particular Philippians 2:5-11, turns:

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who,

though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,

but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant,

being born in the likeness of men.

And being found in human form,

he humbled himself

by becoming obedient to the point of death,

even death on a cross.

Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. 

God, as N. T. Wright puts it in his commentary on Philippians, is (by his own self-defining nature and actions)...

The “God of self-giving love”:

Only when we grasp [the Greco-Roman view of “heroic leaders” like Alexander the Great and emperor Augustus] do we see just how deeply subversive, how utterly counter-cultural, was Paul’s gospel message concerning Jesus of Nazareth, whose resurrection had declared him to be Israel’s Messiah and the world’s true Lord.

[T]he eternal son of God, the one who became human in and as Jesus of Nazareth, regarded his equality with God as committing him to the course he took: of becoming human, of becoming Israel’s anointed representative of dying under the weight of the world’s evil.

This is what it meant to be equal with God.

As you look at the incarnate son of God dying on the cross the most powerful thought you should think is: this is the true meaning of who God is.

He is the God of self-giving love (101-103). 

So yes, God is sovereign.

Yes, He is powerful.

He is great. He is mighty. He is omnipotent. He is supreme.

And yes, three times over the angels declare in Isaiah 6:3, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory.”

But over and above both His sovereignty and His holiness (or perhaps we should say, “in, through, and as the perfect expression of” these attributes)... God is love.

This is the defining predicate--the grand substantive claim--not only of 1 John 4:8 but of God’s cumulative self-disclosure.

God is not, however, love in the abstract.

He is not merely emotional love nor psychological love.

God is not the “feeling” of love (though this is certainly part of that claim).

God is love in action. He is love personified and embodied

He is love incarnate: love with flesh, blood, and bones.

And even this--“the true meaning of who God is”--is not left up to our imaginations.

The true meaning of God--the true meaning of His love--is a crucified Jew, resurrected.

Here is sovereignty, power, greatness, might, omnipotence, supremacy, and holiness.

Here is divinity defined.

Psalm 36 - The Blindness of Sin and the Hope of the Gospel

Text: Psalm 36:1-2

¹ Transgression speaks to the wicked deep in his heart; there is no fear of God before his eyes.
² For he flatters himself in his own eyes that his iniquity cannot be found out and hated.

Context:

Penned by David, Psalm 36 is, in the words of Derek Kidner “a psalm of powerful contrasts, a glimpse of human wickedness at its most malevolent, and divine goodness in its many-sided fullness. . . . Few psalms cover so great a range in so short a span.” The Psalm opens with a condemning and all-encompassing indictment of the wicked. Vv. 1-4 explain that evil infects not only the deeds and desires of the ungodly, but their heart, their eyes, their self-appraisal, their words, their will, their deeds, and their plans. Not just part but the whole of our being is consumed, given “over” and “up” (as the language of Romans 1 puts it), to willfully embracing the native desires of our fallen hearts. This corruption is so complete that transgression itself speaks “deep in his heart.” The picture here is one of a conscious turned in on itself: warped and mangled.

How very contrary is this to the messages we hear in literature, music, art, and entertainment? Again and again we’re told: “Just listen to your heart. Follow to the still, small voice inside you. And above all, be true to yourself.” Such is the power of sin that even our most inward part, the very center of our being, tells us to abandon God and live for our selves.

Interestingly, the psalm goes on to explain that the reason there is “no fear of God before their eyes” (v. 1) is because they “flatter [themselves] in [their] own eyes” (v. 2a). Pride blinds us, in other words, so that our iniquity literally “cannot be found out or hated” (v. 2b). As long as we oppose humility—defending ourselves and minimizing what we think, feel, and do—not only can we not dislodge and do away with sin, we cannot even see it. What possible hope is there if the entirety of our being, every faculty of mind and body, has been captivated by this self-glorifying addiction to love ourselves first?

Implication (Gospel):

Our hope comes from the gospel. As John Piper put it most recently, “There is no other object of knowledge in the universe that exposes proud, man-exalting thinking like the cross does. Only humble, Christ-exalting thinking can survive in the presence of the cross. The effect of the cross on our thinking is not cut off thinking about God, but to confound boasting in the presence of God.”

The cross exposes us simultaneously to the horrific depths of our sin—this is what it took for God to save us—as well as to the breath-taking depths of God’s love—this is what God was willing to do to save us. The cross humbles us by saying, “You are not loveable; but you are loved.” The gospel proclaims to us, in a single, unbelievable breath, that we are both more warped and sinful than we ever dared think and yet more loved and accepted that we ever dared dream. In this way, the gospel exposes to us how oppressive, disgusting, and ultimately suicidal our self-centeredness really is not by condemning us for it but by confronting us with the absolute and utter selflessness of God in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Application (Life):

Today I will distrust my natural instincts, thoughts, and feelings and instead focus on giving up my life in the pursuit of loving God and others.

The Greatest Commandment

Matthew 22:36-40 (cf. 34-46)

“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your life and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

Tom Wright, Matthew for Everyone (Vol. 2)

[Jesus] knows, and Matthew wants us to know as well, that his arrest, trial and crucifixion are precisely the way in which Jesus is fulfilling the two great commandments, and the way in which he is being enthroned as David’s son, the true king of Israel, and David’s master, David’s Lord. This is how, as the son of God in a still fuller sense, he has come to rescue his people (94).

[W]hat Jesus says here about loving God, and loving one another, only makes sense when we set it within Matthew’s larger gospel picture, of Jesus dying for the sins of the world, and rising again with the message of new life. That’s when these commandments begin to come into their own: when they are seen not as orders to be obeyed in our own strength, but as invitations and promises to a new way of life in which, bit by bit, hatred and pride can be left behind and love can become a reality (95).

A. Orendorff

Love, in gospel-terms, is never mere emotion. Neither, however, is it simply benevolent action. Love is a passionate and self-sacrificing commitment to the good of another person. Or, in the case of Matthew 22:37, the good of another Person (capital “P”).

The order in Matthew 22 means that before love can be anthropological (i.e., person-to-person) it must first be theological (person-to-Person). However, before love can be expressed in either of these two directions (whether God-ward or human-ward), it must first be experienced Person-to-person: “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (1 Jn. 4:10-11).

Caesar and God

Matthew 22:19-21 (cf. 15-22)

“Show me the coin for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius. And Jesus said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” They said, “Caesar’s.” Then he said to them, “Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

Tom Wright, Matthew for Everyone (Vol. 2)

Let’s be clear. Jesus wasn’t trying to give an answer, for all time, on the relationship between God and political authority. . . . He was countering the Pharisees’ challenge to him with a sharp challenge in return. . . .

Jesus knew—he had already told the disciples—that he was himself going to be crucified. . . . He wasn’t trying to wriggle out of personal or political danger. He was continuing to walk straight towards it. But he was doing so on his own terms. His vocation was not to be the sort of revolutionary they had known. The kingdom of God would defeat the kingdom of Caesar, not by conventional means, but by the victory of God’s love and power over the even greater empire of death itself (88).

A. Orendorff

It really is tempting to play God’s game by Caesar’s rules. It’s so easy to get seduced into redering unto Caesar the things that are truly God’s. Every time we deal with difficult people or face a hard (and potentially damaging) situation, our natural response is to fight fire with fire. To lash out. To talk back. To outflank. To win. What we see in Jesus, however, is an unwillingness to play the game by anyone’s rules but those established by his Father. The gospel way is always the way of the cross. It is never the way of revolution by force. It is always the way of self-effacing and self-forsaking love (reckless and wonderful).

Invitation and Love

Matthew 22:8-10 (cf. 1-14)

“Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding feast is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore to the main roads and invite to the wedding feast as many as you find.’ And those servants went out into the roads and gathered all whom they found, both bad and good. So the wedding hall was filled with guests.”

Tom Wright, Matthew for Everyone (Vol. 2)

But there was a difference between this wide-open invitation and the message so many want to hear today. We want to hear the everyone is all right exactly as they are; that God loves us as we are and doesn’t want us to change. . . . When the blind and lame came to Jesus, he didn’t say, “You’re all right as you are.” He healed them. They wouldn’t have been satisfied with anything less. . . . His love reached them where they were, but his love refused to let them stay as they were. Love wants the best for the beloved. Their lives were transformed, healed, changed (84).

Carrying the Sheep Back

Luke 15:5

And when he [the shepherd] has found it [the lost sheep], he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing.

Kenneth E. Bailey, The Cross & the Prodigal

After finding the lost sheep the shepherd’s hardest job was still before him because he had yet to carry the heavy beast back to the flock. . . . The shepherd takes his heavy burden “rejoicing” and accepts this backbreaking task happily. . . . When the lost is found, the task of restoration has barely begun. . . . [This] is a crucial theme within which lies the cross (31-2; emphasis original).

Grace, One-Way Love

Paul F.M. Zahl, Grace in Practice: A Theology of Everyday Life (pg. 36-38)

What is grace? Grace is love that seeks you out when you have nothing to give in return. Grace is love coming at you that has nothing to do with you. Grace is being loved when you are unlovable. It is being loved when you are the opposite of loveable.

Grace is a love that has nothing to do with you, the beloved. It has everything and only to do with the lover. Grace is irrational in the sense that it has nothing to do with weights and measures. It has nothing to do with my intrinsic qualities or so-called “gifts” (whatever they may be). It reflects a decision on the part of the giver, the one who loves, in relation to the receiver, the one who is loved, that negates any qualification the receiver may personally hold.

Grace is one-way love.

The one-way love of grace is the essence of any lasting transformation that takes place in human experience. . . . One-way love lifts up. One-way love cures. One-way love transforms. It is the change agent of life.

Grace depends on the fact that its origin is wholly outside myself. This is the heart of love; it comes to me from outside myself. Moreover, while it almost always elicits a response, which is my love in return, it comes toward me without any reference to my response. One-way love does not deviate on the basis of its goal. It is determined solely by its source.

One-way love is the change agent in everyday life because it speaks in a voice completely different from the voice of the law. It has nothing to do with its receiver’s characteristics. Its logic is hidden within the intention of its source. Theologically speaking, we can say it is the prime directive of God to love the world in no relation to the world’s fitness to be loved.

One-way love is also irrational because it reaches out to the specifically undeserving person. This is the beating heart of it. Grace is directed toward what the Scripture calls “the ungodly” (Romans 5:6). Not just the lonely, not just the sick and disconsolate, but the “perpetrators,” the murders and abusers, the people who cross the line.

A. Orendorff

The more difficult it is to love someone – the less lovely and lovable they are in themselves – the more our love towards them reflects and images God’s love towards us. It is no credit to your faith to love those who are inherently lovely; it is when we love those who we would naturally and justly recoil from that we show the authenticity of our faith. To love in the name of Christ is to love those who Christ loved: not the well, but the sick, not the righteous, but sinners.