What Happened to God? (cont.)
Recap: In the previous post - "The Journey Begins" - my wife and I had become part of a jail ministry team, conducting church services to the incarcerated men and women in the local jails. As we witnessed to these lost and troubled young men and women, my new-found Reformed theology began to weigh on me. It boiled down to two questions:
Does God love these men (and women)? and,
Did Jesus die for these men (and women)?
The answer to these questions was of very personal importance, since, at the time, my own son was one of the inmates facing a possible 25-to-life sentence in state prison. This stirred in me a passion to really understand the truth about God’s love, and justice, and sovereignty and plan. In short, I wanted to really understand the God of the Bible, and specifically, his doctrine of election and predestination.
My Bible "Junk Drawer"
"The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law. (Deuteronomy 29:29)
Whenever I encounter a passage of scripture that I find confusing, or cryptic, or incongruous, I mark it with a boxed ‘X’ in the margin of my Bible. For the time being, I tuck it away in my “junk drawer” – a mental storage place where I put things that I don’t know what to do with. But they don’t go away. Every time I open my Bible, there they are. Like the junk drawer in my house, every time I open the drawer all the “junk” is still there, and I still don’t know what to do with it.
For many years my Bible “junk drawer” has been filled with things that many theologians refer to as “tensions”, “mysteries”, or “paradoxes” – all polite terms to avoid the word “contradictions”, because all would agree that the Bible does not - indeed, cannot - contradict itself. I’m convinced that some of these “junk drawer” items in my Bible are truly the secret things that belong to the Lord (Deut. 29:29) and we will never understand them completely until the next life when we no longer “see in a mirror dimly”. I’m content to let these things remain unresolved.
Aha!
Over the years, however, I have been able to find the proper place for some of the odds and ends from the drawer. Over time, some of the “mysteries” have been solved, some of the “paradoxes” eliminated, some of the “tensions” relieved. This usually happens in a moment of revelation – an “Aha!” moment that leaves me in awe of God’s plan and scratching my head wondering why I wasn’t able to grasp the now-obvious meaning sooner.
These moments of clarity are usually accompanied by a sense of giddiness bordering on euphoria. I suspect the apostles experienced a similar feeling when, on their final night with Jesus, the light finally went on and they at last understood what Jesus had been trying to teach them for the past three years. We can sense their excitement when they suddenly say to Jesus, "Ah, now you are speaking plainly and not using figurative speech!” (John 16:29). I imagine a fatherly smile coming across Jesus’ face as he says to them, “Do you now believe?” Similarly, as I experience one of my “Aha!” moments, I can almost sense God smiling wryly and saying to me, “Ah, do you now understand?”
One such item that I have come to see clearly and have eliminated from my Bible junk drawer is the doctrine of divine election. After more than a decade of personal struggle, the pieces of this somewhat enigmatic doctrine finally began to fall into place. I have reached an understanding that is non-contradictory and biblically sound. I can’t begin to tell you how satisfying it was to be able to page through my bible and scratch out the boxed “X”s next to a whole bunch of verses related to the doctrine of election and predestination.
Victory, right? Well, yes and no. The problem is that my understanding doesn’t align with any of the theologians, philosophers, and scholars who, over the centuries, have endeavored to interpret this doctrine, many of whom I greatly admire. Believe me, I understand how tenuous that renders my position. My only source of solace is the fact that after 2000 years of debate there has been no consensus. Scholarly men and women with good intentions and firm convictions have been labeled heretics, thrown out of the church, and burned at the stake for expressing an unpopular view of this doctrine. Arguments have been made. Volumes have been written. Theories have been proposed. Yet there is still no consensus. So, I thought, what have I got to lose?
To learn more, please consider picking up my book - God's Elect: The Chosen Generation
(also available on Kindle)
Amazon - https://www.amazon.com/Gods-Elect-Generation-John- Chipman/dp/1632695723/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1507WZLOS9FHL&keywords=god%27s+elect+chipman&qid=1682632127&sprefix=god%27s+elect+chipman%2Caps%2C293&sr=8-1
(Also available at Barnes & Noble & Christianbook.com)
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