Posted on 06/20/2005 4:38:37 AM PDT by HarleyD
”Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God" (Rom. 11:22). “
In the early part of this century liberalism took mainline Protestant churches by storm. It might be argued that the first half of the present century ushered in the most serious spiritual decline since the Protestant Reformation. Evangelicalism, which had dominated Protestant America since the days of the founding fathers, was virtually driven out of denominational schools and churches. Evangelicalism managed to survive and even thrive outside the denominations. But it never regained its influence in the mainline groups. Instead it has flourished chiefly in relatively small denominations and non-denominational churches. In a few decades, liberalism virtually destroyed the largest Protestant denominations in America and Europe.
One of the most popular spokesmen for liberal Christianity was Harry Emerson Fosdick, pastor of the Riverside Church in New York City. Fosdick, while remaining strongly committed to liberal theology, nevertheless acknowledged that the new theology was undermining the concept of a holy God. Contrasting his age with that of Jonathan Edwards, Fosdick wrote,
Fosdick was never so right. He correctly saw that liberalism had led to a warped and imbalanced concept of God. He could even see far enough ahead to realize that liberalism was taking society into a dangerous wasteland of amorality, where "man's sin, his greed, his selfishness, his rapacity roll up across the years an accumulating mass of consequence until at last in a mad collapse the whole earth crashes into ruin." 2
Despite all that, Fosdick ultimately would not acknowledge the literal reality of God's wrath toward impenitent sinners. To him, "the wrath of God" was nothing more than a metaphor for the natural consequences of wrongdoing. Writing in the wake of World War I, Fosdick suggested that "the moral order of the world has been dipping us in hell."3 His theology would not tolerate a personal God whose righteous anger burns against sin. Moreover, to Fosdick, the threat of actual hell fire was only a relic of a barbaric age. "Obviously, we do not believe in that kind of God any more."
Fosdick wrote those words almost eighty years ago. Sadly, what was true of liberalism then is all too true of evangelicalism today. We have lost the reality of God's wrath. We have disregarded His hatred for sin. The God most evangelicals now describe is all loving and not at all angry. We have forgotten that "It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God" (Heb. 10:31). We do not believe in that kind of God any more.
Ironically, this overemphasis on divine beneficence actually works against a sound understanding of God's love. It has given multitudes the disastrous impression that God is kindly but feeble, or aloof, or simply unconcerned about human wickedness. Is it any wonder that people with a such a concept of God defy His holiness, take His love for granted, and presume on His grace and mercy? Certainly no one would fear a deity like that.
Yet Scripture tells us repeatedly that fear of God is the very foundation of true wisdom (Job 28:28; Ps. 111:10; Prov. 1:7; 9:10; 15:33; Mic. 6:9). People often try to explain the sense of those verses away by saying that the "fear" called for is a devout sense of awe and reverence. Certainly the fear of God includes awe and reverence, but it does not exclude literal holy terror. "It is the Lord of hosts whom you should regard as holy. And He shall be your fear, and He shall be your dread" (Isa. 8:13).
We must recapture some of the holy terror that comes with a right understanding of God's righteous anger. We need to remember that God's wrath does burn against impenitent sinners (Ps. 38:1-3). That reality is the very thing that makes His love so wonderful. We must therefore proclaim these truths with the same sense of conviction and fervency we employ when we declare the love of God. It is only against the backdrop of divine wrath that the full significance of God's love can be truly understood. That is precisely the message of the cross of Jesus Christ. After all, it was on the cross that God's love and His wrath converged in all their majestic fullness.
Only those who see themselves as sinners in the hands of an angry God can fully appreciate the magnitude and wonder of His love. In this regard our generation is surely at a greater disadvantage than any previous age. We have been force-fed the doctrines of self-esteem for so long that most people don't really view themselves as sinners worthy of divine wrath. On top of that, religious liberalism, humanism, evangelical compromise, and ignorance of the Scriptures have all worked against a right understanding of who God is. Ironically, in an age that conceives of God as wholly loving, altogether devoid of wrath, most people are tragically ill-equipped to understand what God's love is all about!
The simple fact is that we cannot appreciate God's love until we have learned to fear Him. We cannot know His love apart from some knowledge of His wrath. We cannot study the kindness of God without also encountering His severity. And if the church of our generations does not regain a healthy balance soon, the rich biblical truth of divine love is likely to be obscured behind what is essentially a liberal, humanistic concept.
Notes
1. Harry Emerson Fosdick,Christianity and Progress (New York: Revell, 1922), 173-74 (emphasis added).
2. Ibid., 174.
3. Ibid (emphasis added).
A blessed Monday ping to you.
Why does God get angry, and punish people, when He knows exactly what they are going to do?
If He didn't want/allow them to do these things, why does He create them?
I don't believe we have a choice in our actions, because, if God does know what we are going to do before we do it, and if God cannot be wrong....then how can we do anything differently? I believe God knows what we are going to do, and the consequences of our actions, for years and years after.
God knowing what we are going to do, and causing it to happen, are two entirely different things.
How do you know? I believe it's the same thing.
If God is all-powerful, He knows what someone is going to do, the creator of all things, and cannot be wrong...then how can someone do anything different than what God knows he will do?
I never said we can do anything different. God has foreknowledge of everything that happens, but that doesn't mean that He causes it to happen. We have free will. God just knows the outcome of every decision we will make.
If God knows the outcome of our free-will choices, the results of these choices and all the ramifications and subsequent choices involved, and we cannot do any different...then where is the choice?...He has already pre-planned it.
God knew what Hitler was going to do, yet He still created Hitler, didn't He?
There is no way anyone can show, that they could have made a different choice.
You are trying to put God's foreknowledge into human constraints. God doesn't pre-plan what man will do, He simply knows the outcomes of out decisions. Therefore, man does have a choice. God knows which choice you and I will make, but we still are the ones making the choice.
Why do you think that God's foreknowledge is incompatible with your freedom to do what you want to do?
Should God not create men for the purpose of displaying His glory and majesty?
Cordially,
No, it's the opposite. I believe God has no restraints, that is why I believe His foreknowledge, does predicate our actions.
Beside, neither of us really knows what God does or doesn't do.
Please explain, how, (if God does know our decisions 100yrs before we are created, and how it will affect all other related decisions, and He cannot be wrong), your decision can be any different? You can only make one decision.
I don't think it's incompatible..I don't think our freedom to do as we want, exists. I just believe that we think we can do as we want.
I have no idea what God should or shouldn't do.
God having no restraints has nothing to do with whether he predicates our actions. The fact that God knows what will happen, all the while allowing His creation to make their own decisions, shows just how powerful God actually is.
Yes, powerful enough to have made a plan for all of mankind.
You haven't explained though, how, if God knows we are going to do something, we could do anything different? If one cannot do differently than that which is already known, then where is the real choice?
Because the Bible teaches that God died for the whole world and wants all men to be saved. This could not be the case if only certain ones are predestined to be saved. Therefore, we must have a choice.
Not everyone believes in the validity of the bible as you do.
Are you saying that you don't? If so, then where do you get the authority for your beliefs?
Yes.
They are beliefs, that I thank God for giving me.
I have no authority, I guess they are self-evident, besides why would you need authority?
***God knowing what we are going to do, and causing it to happen, are two entirely different things***
The Parable of the Talents
14"For it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants[c] and entrusted to them his property. 15To one he gave five talents,[d] to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. 16He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. 17So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. 18But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master's money. 19Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. 20And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, 'Master, you delivered to me five talents; here I have made five talents more.' 21His master said to him, 'Well done, good and faithful servant.[e] You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.' 22And he also who had the two talents came forward, saying, 'Master, you delivered to me two talents; here I have made two talents more.' 23His master said to him, 'Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.' 24He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, 'Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, 25so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.' 26But his master answered him, 'You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sowed and gather where I scattered no seed? 27Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. 28So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents. 29For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. 30And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'
God will judge us based on what WE have done with waht He has given us.
I agree that the fact that there is an all-powerful creator of the universe is evident by His creation. However, there is no way to know how to worship God, or how to enter into a relationship with Him without having that divinely revealed to us.
I agree, but how does this differ with what I said?
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