The Center

I just finished one of four "papers" or letters that I have to write for an Individualized Distance Learning class at Fuller Seminary. The class is called Theological Anthropology and the Revelation of God, which is basically a fancy name for Practical Systematic Theology. I have not proofed the paper yet and would appreciate any feedback that you might be able to give. The first section is the assignement that I was given and the second section is the letter and the third section is the end notes. I would recommend all of the books found in the endnotes. Thanks for reading!!!


3. You teach an adult class in a large church as part of your intern assignment while completing your seminary degree. On one particular Sunday the class discussion focused on the implications of Paul’s statement in Romans 8:28, “ We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose.” You explained the verse in terms of our confidence in God’s providence, so that we know that God is always in control even over the power of evil. The following Sunday, Sara Smith, a member of the class handed you a note in which she wrote, “As you know, my husband and I had a child who was born with a severe microcephalic condition, and died 18 months later, after much suffering. I tried to understand this as part of God’s plan and purpose, but have given up. I no longer believe that God is allpowerful and controls every event which takes place. I have found Rabbi Harold Kushner’s book When Bad Things Happen to Good People, to be more helpful. I think that he is right when he says, ‘I can worship a God who hates suffering but cannot eliminate it more than I can worship a God who chooses to make children suffer and die.’” You decide to write a letter to her in response giving her what you consider to be the biblical teaching of God’s sovereignty and the problem of human suffering.



Dear Sara,
I wanted to infrom you that I have finished reading the note that you wrote to me and wanted to thank you for the honesty with which you spoke. Most importantly, I appreciated the honesty with which you shared the difficult circumstances that you and your husband have recently endured with the loss of your child. Please let me know if there is anything that my wife or I could do to help you in your journey through the loss of your child. I also appreciated the honesty with which you wrote regarding your new beliefs and your respect for Harold Kushner and his work. I have heard that his work is encouraging many people and I am also encouraged in hearing that his book has been helpful in your life.
The quote that you included in your letter from Kushner’s work, “I can worship a God who hates suffering but cannot eliminate it more than I can worship a God who chooses to make children suffer and die.” also deeply resonates in my life. I grew up in a church that used the King James Version of the Bible and subsequently had a Christian perspective that ultimately centered incorrectly around Romans 8:28. The TNIV translates Romans 8:28 as…And we know that in all things God works for the food of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. The KJV reads as following… And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose. I recognize that the difference in language is minute, but the practical difference between the two is colossal. As I read Romans 8:28 in the KJV as a young man, I didn’t understand how “all things work together as good”, especially in light of contexts similar to you and your husbands with the loss of your child. I especially had trouble wrapping my mind and my heart around Romans 8:28 when looking just a few chapters ahead to Romans 9:12 and Paul’s remarks on hating what is evil. Basically I did not understand how anything could be evil if “all things work together for good”. Yet the tension remained of clearly evil things happening around my life. However, as I looked closer at the original Greek language, I learned that the TNIV is much more correctly translated. This minute difference in translation has been essential to my personal understanding of the sovereignty of God.
Whenever pondering the sovereignty of God I like to remind myself to begin with the central Truth that God is love. As we often ponder God, and neglect to put love at the center, I feel that we miss the deepest reality of the character of God. Never in the Bible does a writer include the fact that control is what it means to be God, or that sovereignty is what it means to be God. Rather 1 John 4:8 says that God is love. John reminds us that love is what it means to be God. Thus, the question now turns into what the sovereignty of God means with the love of God at the center of the reality of God’s character.
I believe that the central and most important expression of God’s love and sovereignty is found in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Jesus was fully God and fully human and therefore gives us the most tangible way to intertwine our lives into the very character of God. I also believe that the primary way that we interact with Jesus is through relationship. Just as the Father and the Son were relationally connected, so we are to be relationally connected with the Father, through the Son. I feel as if many people live as if God was distant, rather than near. Jesus is the way that we know that God is near and the way that we know that we are called into relationship with God.
I also believe that the central portion of the life of Jesus was the cross. While many have found the resurrection of the cross to be central in their view on the love and sovereignty of God, I have often found it helpful to put the “hanging Jesus” as central to the love and sovereignty of God. Since Jesus is the essence that reminds us of the nearness of God, the cross then becomes a place where God’s nearness intertwines within the most difficult of contexts of our lives in a sovereign manner. Mark highlights this thought in Mark 10:45. “For even the Son of Man did not come to serve, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Mark seemed to pick up on this idea that the central mission of Jesus and the central act of the sovereignty of God, may have included God’s passion to immanently interact with an often suffering humanity through a “suffering servant” in Christ.
There seems to be a balance between the transcendence and the immanence of God within the reality of what it means to be living as a human. Basically, in recent years, I feel as if this balance has fallen too far in the direction of focusing solely on the transcendence of God and has left us with a distorted view on the sovereignty of God. More of balanced view of the immanence and transcendence of God may remind us that God is near, in both good and bad times, entering into the beauty of both with us.
What if God was so powerful that God chose to take on the very nature of a servant in Christ? What if within the beauty of the control of God, God chose to team with humanity in determining the spread of the love of God to the ends of the earth? What if God’s sovereignty includes sharing power, with the very creatures that God created in God’s image, in restoring, redeeming and determining the world? The idea behind these questions seem to leave more room for not only understanding the manifestation of evil within our world but also leaves more room for the immanence of God to suffer with us in the most difficult of times. Recently a quote from one of my favorite authors, Clark Pinnock, has been resonating in my life, especially in light of the letter that you wrote to me. Pinnock writes, “It requires more power to rule over an undetermined world than it would over a determined one.” Essentially, I feel as if more of a healthy balance between the transcendence and the immanence of God within the world will lead to more of a balanced view of the sovereignty of God and will lead to better responses to both beauty and evil with the church.
I never finished remarking on the whole verse of Romans 8:28. The verse finishes with Paul reminding us that God works “the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” Your love for God has been very clear to me Sara. Thus, I am encouraged that you have been called according to his purpose. I believe that God’s purpose is to sovereignly bring God’s Kingdom more fully into this world, and I believe that God wants to do this in community with the church. So often, as American followers of Jesus, we try to figure out the big questions and live the difficult times as individuals. I think that this is wrong and that we are purposefully called to live these difficult questions out with one another. Thus, I am excited to continue in conversation with you over the next weeks over these most difficult questions. Let’s be sure to get together for a double date with our spouses over the next couple of weeks to reflect over some of these thoughts. You pick the location and we’ll buy!
Grace and Peace,
Nick Warnes




Endnotes

Craig Blomberg points out the essential differences between the KJV and the NIV. He writes that there are things that are wicked and contrary to God’s purpose but also recognizes that God nevertheless works in them. I felt this was important for me to connect my story to Sara’s story to let her know that I feel where she is coming from. From Pentecost to Patmos: An Introduction to Acts Through Revelation (Nashville, Tennessee: Broadman and Homan Publishers, 2006 p.251)

Richard Rice reminds us that central to the character of God is love. Soon after his work on page 19, he continues by quoting Emil Brunner. “God is love is the most daring statement that had ever been made in the human language.” Rice continues on page 21 by saying that God is not a center of infinite power, who happens to be loving, and that he is loving beyond all else. Overall, I feel that this paragraph is important in light of our mechanical, individualistic, Western influenced biases on who God is and led me to centralize the love of God in this letter. The Openness of God: A Biblical Challenge to the Traditional Understanding of God (Downers Grove, Illinois: Intervarsity Press, 1994 p. 19-21)

Richard Rice introduces reflections on the openness of God on pages 15 and16. This portion of the letter begins to highlight a different approach regarding the understanding of the sovereignty of God and was influenced by Rice’s introductory thoughts on the openness of God. Basically I feel like Rice is pointing us in the direction of putting the love of God at the center of our understanding of whom God is rather than the sovereignty of God as the central component of God’s being. The Openness of God: A Biblical Challenge to the Traditional Understanding of God (Downers Grove, Illinois: Intervarsity Press, 1994 p. 15,16)

Clark Pinnock uses the relational aspects of the trinity to describe God’s relational perfection. The context of the trinity did not fit well in this space, but I did highlight the relationship of the Father and the Son in this portion of the letter. Pinnock goes deeper in saying that this is the opposite of self-sufficiency. Self-sufficiency, especially within the context of the American culture, is something that I address at the end of the letter. The Openness of God: A Biblical Challenge to the Traditional Understanding of God (Downers Grove, Illinois: Intervarsity Press, 1994 p. 108)

Anderson tells the provocative story of the nominally Catholic women who gains hope through learning of a Christological approach to the providence of God via Anderson when he went to visit her on her death bed. Anderson put the dying Jesus at the center of his theology rather than the resurrected Jesus and then pointed towards the piece of art the symbolized the same thing on the women’s wall. This story was in lecture 9 of the lecture series entitled the Providence of God.

George Eldon Ladd Expands on Mark 10:45 extensively and claims Jesus’ death as the messianic mission of the Son of Man in his section called the Suffering Servant. He also goes on to explain the differences and confusions found in the death of Jesus as Son of Man and Jesus as messiah. A Theology of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eeerdmans Publishing Company, 1974 p. 154, 155)

In Clark Pinnock’s wonderful section on systematic theology he goes into a long discourse regarding the balance of the imminence and the transcendence of God and the intimate relationship that these two ideas play on one’s understanding of the sovereignty of God. I love how Pinnock does not take one side or another regarding this issue but focuses on a balance of both. It seems that in Sara’s context, the thought of an imminent God is going to be more powerful, so I pushed this side of the balance a little bit harder.

Philippians 2:7

Stanley J. Grenz goes on to say that God creates our experiences within community and not on an individual level. I feel that a context as complex as Sara’s will need to happen within community in order to be processed well. The leadership of the community also should have some sort of a similar understanding of the sovereignty of God that will empower Sara and her husband, rather than hand cuff them. Revisioning Evangelical Theology: A Fresh Agenda for the 21st Century (Downers Grove, Illinois: Intervarsity Press, 1993 p. 73)