Regarded
Estates
Charles Spurgeon once
remarked that the study of God is a subject “so vast that all our thoughts are
lost in its immensity; so deep that our pride is drowned in its infinity.”(1)
Theologians attempt to capture such immensity by speaking of God in terms of
sovereignty and holiness, omniscience and immutability.
But not everyone finds
such images of God comforting. English biologist, Julian Huxley once said,
“Operationally, God is beginning to resemble not a ruler but the last fading
smile of a cosmic Cheshire cat.”(2) Similarly, musician Dave Matthews sings of
God’s “mischievous grin” while Tori Amos croons, “nothing I do is good enough
for you.”
Similar glimpses of
fear, guilt, and cynicism exist all around us, at times in our own hearts.
Sovereignty can seem suddenly tyrannical when life takes a tragic turn and you
find yourself on the wrong side of sovereignty. Holiness can seem tortuous when
you see a unit of measurement God expects us to stand up against. Omniscience
can seem taunting if you imagine every thought, deed, and intent exposed and
invaded. And in an ever-changing world such as ours, immutability can seem an
out-dated, suppressive concept.
At this, I have found
an illustration made by C.S. Lewis remarkably helpful. In a scene from The Lion
the Witch and the Wardrobe, Mr. and Mrs. Beaver help prepare the children to
meet the great Lion Aslan for the first time. Mrs. Beaver declares that anyone
who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking is either braver than
most or else just silly.
“Then he isn’t safe?” asks Lucy.
“Safe?”
says Mr. Beaver. “Don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything
about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good.”(3)
As Ravi Zacharias
powerfully observes, sovereignty is not tyrannical when it is bounded by
goodness. Holiness it is not tortuous when it is tempered by grace. Omniscience
is not taunting when it is coupled with mercy, and immutability is not
suppressive when it is certain of good will.
As good theology is the
best answer to life’s crises, so a biblical understanding of God is a certain
comfort in uncertain times, a sound hope for humanity’s deepest questions. One
can hardly pass over the haunting tragedies in the life of hymnist Horatio
Spafford without pausing to ask, “How can a life go through so much and yet
stand so firmly upon the certainty of God?” In a hymn written shortly after the
death of his four daughters, he wrote:
Though Satan should buffet,
though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control:
That Christ
hath regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.
Spafford’s words profoundly hint at the image of Christ with a choice
before him. Alone in the garden, facing the same questions you and I have faced
when life has us in a valley where life does not seem fair, Jesus bowed in
prayer to the God whose plan he had yet to fulfill. He plead, “Is there any
other way?” Yet, he ended his prayer with the words, “Not my will but yours.”
Fully knowing the dark reality of what it meant to obey, Jesus chose to regard
your helpless estate.
God has given us a
lifetime to explore the immensity of his love, the truth of his sovereignty, the
vastness of his holiness. That you and I can approach Him as Father not only
gives life inherent worth and meaning, it invites a relationship with the only
one in whom we can say in life and in death, “It is well with my soul.”
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(1) Charles Haddon Spurgeon on Malachi 3:16, as
quoted by Arthur W. Pink in The Attributes of God (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker,
1975), 89.
(2) Julian Huxley, Religion without Revelation, (New American
Library, 1957).
(3) The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (New York: Collier,
1970),
76.