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| Why Does God Use Men? |
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The Lord answered this question for me recently while discussing Bible innerency (or lack of it) with a few atheists on an ex-christian forum. They were trying to prove the non-existence of God by pointing out several minor contradictions in the gospel accounts and theology of the Bible writers. Their argument was that if God indeed wrote the Bible, then there would be no inconsistencies or diffferences in what was written from author to author.
The truth is that the whole Bible reveals God's purpose of placing an eternal and perfect spirit within mortal and imperfect men. Although Jesus was perfect as a man also, the whole point of the incarnation was to bring God to man and to unite in one both the human and the divine. Jesus was both Son of Man and Son of God. Why did He do this instead of just comong down as God to reveal Himself to man without preparing a body for the Lord?
Now, this may shake some people to say, but God was not diminished one bit by coming in a man. In fact, His ability to speak to man and to reveal Himself to man was greatly inhanced by using a man to carry His glory. The Bible reveals that Jesus came so that He could be touched by the feeling of our infirmities and to be tempted as we are so that He could be a faithful High Priest.
On the other side of the coin, God became flesh so we could know the Father as He is. Being human, we have a hard time relating to an eternal and invisible God. But, when Jesus walked the earth blessing and healing and said that if you had seen Him, then you had seen the Father, we have a place at least to start in understanding God. Thus, we see, that God was not diminished, but inhanced by coming through a flesh and blood man.
Now, let's look at the written Word of God. Many will ask why God used imperfect men to reveal the perfect Word of a perfect God? I submit that it was for the same reason that He came in the body of Jesus Christ. He certainly could have delivered His Word in the mouth of angels and there would have been none of man in the Words written. Or, He could have created a giant CD player that just replayed what God had said over and over again so there would be no errors and no mistakes. But, would we have listened?
Have you ever seen a person who has never had a drink try to witness to an alcoholic? Or a person who has never ever jaywalked try to preach to a bunch of hardened prisoners in a maximum security prison. Or even a person raised with Mom and Dad on a small country farm trying to relate to intercity gang members? The lack of "street cred" quickly makes it a joke.
I had to explain to these atheists that inspiration from God is not like a medium channeling another's voice or penning God's Word is not like "automatic writing" where we go into a trance and our hand moves without our control and we do not know what we were writing until we read it back. If it was done this way there certainly would be no change from author to author and no errors or inconcistencies.
No, God breathes into man what He wants to reveal of Himself and it is like a momentary light that allows us to see. If our spirit is quick enough, we will capture this light just long enough for our trained soul to put it into a few words. This is the only way that the light of God can be retained. If we do not catch it this way, it disappears like a dream and we have to repent and ask the Lord to show us again because we were too preoccupied with other things to be used by Him this time. However, if we do catch and hold the light, we must now release the burden of the Lord contained in this Heavenly light using our own words and our own experiences.
Please hear me on this as some may disagree, but the Word of God is not diminished by this process of using the souls of men to convey His Word. In fact, it is inhanced through the process. The Word can now become flesh and dwell among us once again. Our lives that have been formed in the furnace of God have become tools to make what the eternal and invisible God shows us into something that other humans can see and hear.
I will end with what may be the most controversial part of this piece. I may even loose some of you here. I think we can see that the Word was inhanced by coming in Jesus and that the written Word was inhanced in the days of the Bible writing by being breathed into holy men of old who penned in their own words what they saw and heard. Yes, there are human imperfections as a result of the process where man have added his culture and experience, but it is far outweighed by the "humanizing" of the Word so it could be received. The thing is that God has not change His ways in our day and age. Many want to dismiss ministers and ministry gifts as a less desirable way for God to speak than directly to each vessel. But, why would it change today?
I know there are times when God speaks directly to us all without going through flesh and blood. But, these times are rare in the big scheme of things. Most of what we have learned from God, we received as a seed from the mouth or the pen of another child of God and not "in our closet alone". The truth is that most Christians are not at a place where they can hear directly in their spirit and we should not criticize or make fun of those who still are sitting under a pastor or elder or what have you. God still does breath His Word into the spirit of men and expect them to catch this light and to dispel the burden of the Lord through their own words. And what is more, this is not a lessor way of Him speaking as many in their pride have tried to say. It is no less of a way than of the Word becomeing flesh in the body of Jesus Christ. It is the way of God to bring spirit and flesh together in one vessel unless anyone has seen a giant CD player lately.
John |
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| November 14, 2007 |
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| Notice in 1 Corinthians 5, Paul rebukes a man for having incestual relations with his mother. He commands this man to be exiled from the assembly and that they have nothing to do with him. Yet, where is the rebuke of the mother? That is something I have noticed in Scripture all the time. Generally, as you know from the most recent of discussions in the forum, women seem to think there is some sort of unfairness against them, but fail to notice that even Jesus didn't condemn the woman caught in adultary, nor did he condemn the woman who had five husbands. Yet, he has some pretty hard words concerning the sons of Gehenna, and even his own disciples. Men are always condemned for their sin, but women givn grace. |
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