Christ and the Final Judgment

Yes, there is a Final Judgment — and thank God for it! It means that God finally puts everything right, even as God created it to be from the beginning. The Final Judgment is where we see that the end is in the beginning and the beginning is in the end. 

The Final Judgment is Jesus Christ crucified and risen. It is Christ upon the Cross, the Lamb of God upon his Throne. It is all in heaven and on earth being gathered together and summed up in Christ, which is God’s eternal purpose and the mystery of God’s good will (Ephesians 1:9-10). It is all in heaven and on earth being reconciled through Christ having made peace by the Blood of the Cross (Colossians 1:19-20).

Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all to myself. (John 12:31-32)

For this purpose the Son of God was revealed: to destroy the works of the devil. (1 John 3:8)

Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death — that is, the devil — and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. (Hebrews 2:14-15)

When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. (Colossians 2:13-15) 

We must all stand before the Judgment Seat, the Cross, where our Lord Jesus Christ poured himself for us in self-giving, other-centered love. We must all be tested and corrected by Divine Love. For our Lord has said, “Everyone will be salted with fire” (Mark 9:49).

The Final Judgment is the Fire of God’s Consuming Love. It is not retributive, for God is Love, and Love is not retributive. It is, rather, a Refiner’s Fire, burning away what is worthless, what does not come from God — the “wood, hay and stubble” — while purifying and preserving safe what is precious, what does come from God — the “gold, silver and precious jewels” (see 1 Corinthians 3:11-15). It is purgative, therapeutic and restorative.

Jesus Christ does not save us from the Final Judgment. Through the Cross and Resurrection, Jesus is the Final Judgment — on sin, death, and the devil. The Final Judgment, then, is salvation, for the judgment of God is never retributive but is finally restorative.

Theology is Not the Road

A good map can be a very helpful guide, but a poor map can be a disaster. Theology is like that. A good theology can be quite enlightening. But a poor theology? Not so much. However, a map is not the road, nor is theology the realm it seeks to understand. For it is one thing to know about God but quite another to actually know God.

Our Lord Jesus Christ did not come to bring us theology or to plot out a religious map for us to follow. On the night of the Last Supper, he said to his disciples:

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.”
     Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”
     Jesus answered, “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.” (John 14:1-7)

Jesus is not the map. He does not merely show us the Way; he is the Way. He does not merely tell us about the truth; he is the Truth. He does not merely give us Life; he is the Life we are given. And it is only through him that we are able to know the Father. This knowledge is not merely theological knowledge, or conceptual, theoretical, or propositional knowledge. But it is personal and experiential, even mystical and mysterious in its knowing. 

It is through our Lord Jesus Christ that we know the Father, for he fully and perfectly reveals the Father. Whoever knows Lord Jesus knows the Father as well. Whoever has seen Lord Jesus has seen the Father as well. To know the Father and the Son is the essence of Life, now and forever. “Now this is eternal life — that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you sent” (John 17:3).

Theology is just a map, not the road. Jesus is the Way through whom we come to know the Father. Even as we learn the road by walking it, so also do we learn the Way, Jesus, by following him.

Carriers of Heaven, Here and Now

Friends, our citizenship is in heaven, which means we carry heaven with us. Right here, right now. Writing to people of Philippi, a colony of Rome, and for whom citizenship was an important point of pride, Apostle Paul says,

But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body. (Philippians 3:20-21)

The Greek word for “citizenship” (politeuma) is about commonwealth or community. It comes from a word that speaks of the administration of a city. To be a citizen of heaven means that our lives are now administered from there. We no longer have to live in bondage to the lusts and desires of the old way of life we used to know. We are no longer subject to the world systems that are manipulated by principalities and powers.

As a colony of heaven, we are here to establish the life and culture of heaven on earth. For all authority in heaven and on earth has now been given to King Jesus the Messiah (Matthew 28:18), and He has sent out His assembly, the Church, to disciple the nations and teach them everything Jesus taught (Matthew 28:19-20). The end result will be heaven and earth coming together as one (Revelation 21), the will of God being done on earth exactly as it is being done in heaven (Matthew 6:10).

For more on this, see A Colony of Heaven on Earth.

Grace and the Gift That Is God

Grace is God giving Himself to us, thoroughly and completely, by uniting with us through our Lord Jesus Christ. For Christ is the Image of the Invisible God, in whom all the fullness of divinity dwells in bodily form, and in whom we are made complete and become partakers of the divine nature.

“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14)

“Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death — even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name.” (Philippians 2:5-9)

“The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation ... For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.” (Colossians 1:15,19-20)

“In Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been brought to fullness.” (Colossians 2:9-10)

“His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.” (2 Peter 1:3-4)

The New Birth of All Humankind

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. (1 Peter 1:3)

The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. (Colossians 1:15-18) 

For just as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. (1 Corinthians 15:22)

The Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is the New Birth of all humankind, for he who is Firstborn from the Dead is Firstborn of All Creation. The universal nature of this connection, which brings it all together, is found in the Incarnation, by which Christ has united divinity with humanity, divine nature with human nature, divine being with human being, God with humankind. For we are not a collection of individual beings who happen to have similar features, but we are, each of us, instances of the one and only human being there is. We each partake of the only way there is of being human.

There is divine being and there is human being. Our Lord Jesus Christ is both. He is divine being by nature, but in divine grace he has become human being, so that we may become by grace what he is by nature. In the Incarnation, he did not become merely a singular instance of human being, he became human being itself, the human being of which we all partake and in which we all participate. 

By becoming human being, Christ defines for us what it means to be human. Humankind, which was once headed up in Adam, is now headed up in Jesus Christ. This means that we are all connected with Christ and each other. So, when Christ died on the Cross, all of humankind died. Likewise, when Christ was raised up as “Firstborn from the Dead,” all humankind was born again, given new birth through his resurrection.

Christ is Building His Church

When Peter confessed the revelation he received from the Father, that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of the Living God, our Lord Jesus said to him, 

Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. (Matthew 16:17-18)

Hades is the realm of the dead. Older English versions have often translated the Greek word ᾅδης as “hell.” Newer versions have begun to simply transliterate it as Hades. It is not to be confused with another word, Gehenna, found in the Greek New Testament and which also gets translated as “hell.” Gehenna refers to a geographical location and a temporal, historical judgment, and not some other-worldly, post-mortem experience.

Our Lord declared that he would build his Church and that the “gates of Hades” would not prevent it or prevail against it. In other words, not even death could stop it.

This is the Resurrection! It is Christ trampling down death by his own death on the Cross. The gates of Hades lay broken beneath his feet. The “strong man” has been bound, and Christ has plundered his house (Mark 3:27). The broken remnants of the chains and locks of death lay scattered about. Christ has taken the keys of Hades and death and has emptied them out (Revelation 1:18). He has taken Adam and Eve by the hand and brought them out to life — and with them, all who are in them!

Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death — that is, the devil — and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. (Hebrews 2:14-15)

For just as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. (1 Corinthians 15:22)

As St. John Chrysostom said, in his Homily on the Cemetery and the Cross, “Christ, by his death bound the chief of robbers and the jailer, that is, the devil and death; and transferred his treasures, that is, the entire human race, to the royal treasury.”

And so is Christ building His Church. Through the Incarnation, the union of divinity with humanity, of God with humankind, the death of Christ on the Cross is the death of all humankind, so that the Resurrection of Christ from the dead might be the resurrection of all humankind.

In his Treatise on 1 Corinthians 15:28, St. Gregory of Nyssa said, “Now the body of Christ, as I often have said, is the whole of humanity.” Fr. John Behr extends this to its logical conclusion: “The Church is the whole of Creation seen eschatologically; from which we already see islands in the present.”

This is the Good News of the Gospel: Christ has broken the gates of “hell” — of death and Hades — and is building His Church.

Love in Its Chastening Work

 

Love in Its Chastening Work

The Consuming Fire of God
and the Love of God are
not two opposing forces
which must be somehow
balanced out, one
against the other.

It is, rather, two
different ways of speaking
about the same thing ~
the Divine Love poured
out at the Cross.

It is the Divine Judgment
condemning sin and evil,
purging and cleansing us of it.

It is Love
in its chastening work,
correcting and refining us,
to deliver us from our
false self and restore us
to our True Self, which is
Christ in us.

The Essence of Human Being

Creation and the Incarnation reveal the true and inherent nature of humankind, the essence of human  being. The creation of humankind reveals that we are made in the image of God and to be like God:

Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
     So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:26-27)

This is what it means to be human, and the essence of who we are. Though through the disobedience of Adam death entered into the world and came upon all, whereupon all sinned (Romans 5:12), yet this did not change our true, inherent nature. Indeed, it could not, for nothing can change the nature of anything God has made. Though mortality and sin did distort and obscure the image of God in us, but could not destroy or remove it from us. Nor did they become part of what it means to be human; though all are affected by them, they are not essential to human nature. We remain made in the image of God, and to be like God.

In the Incarnation, our Lord Jesus Christ united divinity with humanity, God with humankind. This shows that human nature is able to bear the image of God and to be like God. For Christ, who united himself with human nature, and so with all humankind (for we all partake of the same human nature, the only one there is) is God.

The Incarnation also shows that sin is not inherent to being human. For though Christ was fully human as well as fully divine, he did not sin.

Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death — that is, the devil — and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. (Hebrews 2:14-15)

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are — yet he did not sin. (Hebrews 4:15)

Sin is not essential to what it means to be human but, quite the opposite, takes away from it. It is the same with mortality; it is not essential to human being but is an aberration. We are made in the image of God and to be like God. Death is not essential to God, and so it is not essential to us. Death does not even come from God. It is not a creation of God. It has no being but is a lack of being. Just as darkness is not a thing in itself but is the absence of Light, so death is not a thing in itself but is the absence of Life. Likewise, sin and mortality are a lack of human being and not inherent to it.

By the Incarnation, our Lord Jesus Christ defines what it means to be human. For he did not become merely a human being but he has become human being itself. All humankind is summed up in him. United with us by the Incarnation, he is what God intended from the beginning for humans to be, and in him we are made complete and become partakers of the divine nature. It is, then, in Jesus Christ that we are made in the image of God and become like God.

The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. (Colossians 1:15)

For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority. (Colossians 1:9-10)

Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. (2 Peter 1:4)

Grace Before the World Began

The good news of the gospel is that God has saved us and called us to a holy life — not because of anything we have done but because of His own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. This is essentially what Apostle Paul tells us in 1 Timothy 1:9. He says something similar in Ephesians 1:4: “For God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him in love.”

We are saved by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8). Saved by the grace of God granted us in Christ Jesus before the world began. Saved by the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. For we are God’s workmanship, God’s doing (not our own), created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them (Ephesians 2:10).

How were we chosen and created in Christ Jesus? It was not by anything we have done or ever could do. It is purely by the grace of God and the faithfulness of Jesus Christ before the world ever came to be. It is by the Incarnation, by which Christ united divinity with humanity, God with humankind — and eternity with time. It certainly happened in time, but by that union, time itself was transfigured by eternity. And so were we chosen and created in Jesus Christ, “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” As as I have said elsewhere, Christ Crucified and Risen is the foundation of the world).

In our human frame, we think of past and present and future as three different moments, a linear succession. But there is really only one moment, the Eternal Moment. It is the moment of divine love and grace and faithfulness, the moment of the Incarnation, the moment of the Cross and Resurrection, the moment of Creation — and also the moment of the completeness and fulfillment of all things.

God made known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment — to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ. (Ephesians 1:9-10)

Our Lord Jesus Christ did not merely come in the fullness of time; he himself is the fullness of time. In him, time has come to its completion. What we experience as temporal succession, within our limited perspective, is in reality the fullness of time transformed by Jesus Christ, in whom all of time is revealed. It is one with the Eternal Moment, in which all things in heaven and on earth are brought to unity and summed up in Christ.

Christ the Singularity

In Colossians 1, we discover that Christ, who is the image of the invisible God, is the creator of all things. Through him, by him, for him, and in him all things are created — not merely created, as if once and done, but continually sustained through and by and for and in him. 

Yet, he who is Creator has also become part of his Creation. He did not leverage divinity for his own benefit, but taking on the form of a servant, he became human. For our sake, he made himself subject to the mortality of our humanity, even to the point of a shameful death on the cross, crucified by our own wicked hands. But he being Life, death could not hold him, and by his death, he put death itself to death, and was resurrected.

This is of great significance not only for humankind but for the entire cosmos as well. All Creation is transfigured by his Cross and Resurrection. For he is, as John the Revelator says, the Lamb Slain from the Foundation of the World. Indeed, Christ Crucified and Risen is the foundation of the world, he who is the “firstborn from the dead” is the “firstborn of all creation.” The language of “firstborn” (Greek, prototokos) is not the time bound language of chronology but the eternal import of his absolute primacy in every way. 

It is not merely that Christ who created all things, including time, would one day be crucified in time and raised from the dead — that is all true, of course — but it means that Christ, who is eternal and has transfigured time by his coming into the world, is eternally the Crucified and Risen One. And it is as the Crucified and Risen One that all things are created through him, by him, for him and in him. Christ Crucified and Risen is the singularity from which all of heaven and earth explodes into being.

The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. (Colossians 1:15-20)

Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death — even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:6-11)

Christ Shatters Our Delusions

Here is the primary thing: Jesus Christ is the Logos, the Word of God, who indeed is God. Through Christ, God created humankind in the image of God — to be like God. Our delusion was that we could ever be divine on our own, apart from God, determining for ourselves what is good and what is evil. Apart from God, and the goodness of God, we experienced evil and its relentless pull toward non-being. We became futile in our thinking, and our foolish hearts became dark.

By the Incarnation, our Lord Jesus Christ united himself with all humankind, joining divine being with human being. He became not just one of us; he became one with us. Not merely a human being, he became Human Being itself, defining for us what is means to be human. He is the humanity of which all humankind partakes, the truth of who we really are. Our true identity, our true self, is found in him alone.

And so Christ entered into our darkness and our delusion, for he is the True Light, who gives Light to everyone in the world. Our darkness could not overcome it, our delusion could not comprehend it, but is itself overcome by it. The same John who tells us this, in John 1, also tells us, “the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining” (1 John 2:8).

Christ, the True Light, has come into the world and has never ceased to shine, so the darkness is already passing away and must finally succumb to his Divine Light. In Jesus Christ, then, God has come to shatter our delusions from the inside out.

What We Become By Grace

We are created by Christ, through Christ, for Christ and in Christ, as indeed are all things. “For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:16-17).

By the Incarnation, all humankind is united with Christ — divine being made one with human being. “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” (John 1:14). “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death — that is, the devil — and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death” (Hebrews 2:14-15).

So are we included in the death of Christ on the Cross, and so also in his resurrection. “For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again” (2 Corinthians 5:14-15). “For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:22). 

Through the Creation, the Incarnation and the Cross, we become by grace what Christ is by nature. Indeed, in Christ, we become partakers, participants, sharers in, the Divine Nature. 

His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. (2 Peter 1:3-4)

The Saints Are Alive and Well

The Saints are not dead and gone. They are alive and well in the unhindered presence and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, where all is unveiled. They are with us and we are with them, because they are with Christ and he is with us, ever and always. This is the Communion of Saints, which the Church has long confessed in the third portion of the Apostles’ Creed:

I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the Holy Catholic Church,
the Communion of the Saints,
the Forgiveness of Sins,
the Resurrection of the Body,
and the Life Everlasting. Amen.

Lord Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live even if he dies, and the one who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25-26).

Do you believe this? The early Church certainly did, for it is the gospel. And so they believed in the Communion of Saints.

There is No Separation

All things are created by Christ, through Christ, for Christ and in Christ. In Christ, all things consist, and in him we all “live and move and have our being.”

The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. (Colossians 1:15-17)

God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. “For in him we live and move and have our being.” As some of your own poets have said, “We are his offspring.” (Acts 17:27-28) 

There is no separation between us and God — and never has been. The only separation there has ever been has only been in our own minds at enmity against God. It was never in the mind of God but is purely an idea of our own deluded thinking and does not correspond to reality.

God is not a being among other beings, not even the greatest of beings. No, God is Being itself, of which everything that has existence partakes. So there is nothing that is external to God, nor can there be. Everything that has being exists within God. God has never separated himself from us, nor can we separate ourselves from God, for if we could, we would simply cease to be. That we exist at all is evidence that we are not truly separated from God.

Sin is the foolish imagination that we can somehow exist independently of God. When in our minds we pull away from God, that is never the end of it. For in turning away from God, we turn away from all other persons and things, for all have their being in Christ alone. So we come to odds not only with God but with each other and with all of creation as well — even with our own self — alienated by our own darkened understanding.

The gospel is the good news that God was in Christ reconciling the whole world to himself, not counting our sins against us (2 Corinthians 5:19). “For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross” (Colossians 1:19-20).

Notice the direction of reconciliation here. God did not need to reconcile himself to us, because he never turned away from us, and certainly never separated from us. But in Christ, God has reconciled us to himself, for we were the ones who turned away from God, hostile to God in our own minds.

Repentance becomes very important here, for it is a renewing of our mind, reorienting us back toward God, each other, and the world God created. It is a return to wholeness of mind, so that we are not longer at odds within our own self. Such repentance is a gift, for as Paul says, it is the goodness of God that leads us to repentance (Romans 2:4). It is only because God has already reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ, not counting our sins against us, that we are able to repent.

Through Christ, God has reconciled us to himself, for he is not only God’s faithfulness toward us, he is also our faithful response to God. So Paul says, “We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God” (2 Corinthians 5:20). This call to be reconciled to God is a call to repentance, to let ourselves be transformed and our minds renewed by the truth that we are not separated from God but are reconciled in Christ, in whom we have always had our existence.

Love Overcomes Evil With Good

The deep revelation and mystery of the gospel is not just that “God so loved the world,” (John 3:16), but that “God is Love” (1 John 4:8). Love is not merely what God has or does or shows; love is what God is within God’s own being.

We can see what this divine love looks like in God’s act of giving his only begotten Son for the sake of the world. Love is self-giving and other-centered. Love is cross-shaped. The apostle Paul gives us a profound description of divine love in 1 Corinthians: 

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. (1 Corinthians 13:4-8)

Now, notice that retribution has no place in this description. It is not merely indifferent to love, it is antithetical to love. Love is not self-seeking; retribution is. Love keeps no record of wrongs, is not resentful; retribution takes careful note in order to pay back, to take revenge. Love seeks what is good for the sake of the other; retribution seeks vengeance for one’s own sake. 

God is love, and love is simply not retributive. Yes, there is divine wrath and divine judgment, but these are not for the purpose of retribution; they have a very different end in view. In the hands of angry men, wrath and judgment are destructive, but in the hands of divine love, their ultimate purpose is not destruction but restoration. And, yes, there is divine vengeance, but the way God — the way Love — pays back is very different from the way of the world.

Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (Romans 12:17-21)

Paul instructs us here on how we should live. He is not telling us to be different from our heavenly Father, or from our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the express manifestation of the Father. No, he is showing us what God is like. God does not pay back evil with evil, but overcomes evil with good.

The Greek word for “revenge” and “avenge” in this passage are not about settling old scores — as least not in hands of God — but about putting things right, with nothing missing or broken. So, God repays evil with good, for as Paul says earlier in this letter, it is the goodness of God that leads to repentance (Romans 2:4).

God overcomes evil with good, just as Paul instructs us to do. Though there is yet much evil in the world, God has already acted to overcome it all by the Cross and Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. The expectation of the Christian faith is that we shall see the full manifestation of that great victory.

For more on this, see The Surprising Vengeance of God.

The More We Know the Lord

The more we know the Lord,
the more obedience to the Lord
flows naturally from us,
not as duty but as delight,
doing things with Papa. 

The obedience of our
Lord Jesus Christ to the Father
was nothing more nor less
than intimacy with the Father.

Theology Must Be Lived

St. John the Theologian said:

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
 
Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

We love because he first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister. (1 John 4:7-21)

Understanding Scripture With the Church

The best way to understand the Scriptures is in the context of what has been handed down in the Church from the beginning. The whole Church has been given the Holy Spirit, to teach us and lead us into all truth (John 14:26, John 16:13). This does not mean that each individual may come up with his own private interpretation with which to judge everyone else. It means precisely the opposite; we must learn to read and understand the Scriptures together, as one body, the body of Christ, the Church, being of one heart and mind.

The Church is not above the Scriptures, but the Church interprets the Scriptures. Without interpretation, the Scriptures yield no meaning to us. Even if we should say, “The Holy Spirit showed me this meaning,” it is an interpretation nonetheless. The Holy Spirit certainly reveals the meaning of Scripture to the Church, but to the whole Church, and not with contradictory interpretations to contradictory people. The Scriptures are multivalent, capable of many interpretations, but not mutually incongruous ones.

There are many new and varied interpretations that have arisen over the years, and they abound today. But where they are out of sync with how the Church has consistently understood Scripture from the beginning, they should be left to the side. They are independent voices that do not reflect the mind of the Church, the mind of the Holy Spirit who guides the Church. It is important, then, to pay careful attention to how the early Church understood the Scriptures. It is the safest and best way to proceed, and will help keep us from error.

Sin is the Soul Rejecting Itself

Sin is often thought of as the infraction of a law, the breaking of a commandment. But it is really the brokenness of a relationship. When Adam turned away from God to his own way, he turned away from the very source of his life and being — he turned away from his true self, toward non-being.

From the beginning, we are created in the image of God, to be like God. That is our true self, yet we continually resist it. Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible God, in whom all the fullness of divinity dwells in bodily form, and in whom we are made complete and become partakers of the divine nature. This is the Incarnation, and it includes us all, for Jesus Christ is the image of God we were created to be. The good news of the gospel is that God is transforming us, conforming us to the image of Christ. In turning to Christ, through repentance and faith, we become reoriented to our true self, what God intended for us from the beginning.

The Gospel of Deliverance

Christ did not come to save us from God
but to deliver us from the power of death
and the darkness of sin.

“Therefore, since the children share in blood and flesh, Christ also in like manner shared in these same things , in order that through death he could destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and could set free these who through fear of death were subject to slavery throughout all their lives.” (Hebrews 2:14-15)

“For this is the way God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world should be saved through him.” (John 3:16-17)