Zechariah draws a sharp distinction between his people and those who are not his people in today's reading. Notice that even as people are besieging Jerusalem, coming against God's people to harm them, our Lord and Savior will make Jerusalem a stronghold that cannot be conquered. Simultaneously he pours out a spirit on his people who look on the God they have rejected. Notice it is God's chosen people who have rejected him. He moves them to repentance and to pleas for forgiveness as they realize their sin. See the Messianic prophecy, that the people will "look on...him whom they have pierced" (v. 10, ESV) and mourn.
How have we pierced our Lord? Have we denied him? Have we lived a life as if our Lord and Savior does not matter? Have we looked to ourselves for our safety from enemies? Have we considered that we are pleasing to God by our own works and that Christ's merit does not matter? Have we thought that we would be able to do things better than God? Have we thought that something isn't in Scripture but that it really should be? Do we mourn without hope, as if our Lord has not already conquered sin and death? No doubt we have pierced our Lord.
Yet how does our Lord treat us? He pours out on us a spirit of repentance, which is the spirit which should characterize every Christian. He gives us a heart to plead for mercy. He gives us a realization of our sin. He gives us a realization of the magnitude of his salvation. He shows us that he is indeed the only true God, one God in Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He shows us that we overcome not by our own ability but by believing that he has overcome on our behalf.
Lord, we have mistreated you. We have not believed as we ought. We have not acted as we ought. We deserve your everlasting punishment, yet we see that in your mercy you have taken our punishment on yourself. Grant us your forgiveness and a trust in the peace that you have made, the peace of the cross. Amen.
OK, I'm all for making apologies when they're due, but to approach God, saying, "We deserve to be eternally tortured by you!" is so wrong, on a number of levels.
ReplyDeleteFor one thing, what are you REALLY saying to God other than, "I can picture you inflicting pain on me and billions of others without any purpose to it!" You're calling God some sort of Cosmic Nazi!
But really, what purpose to hurting people have at all? Sure, a lot of people have bought into the idea of "justice" or what ought to be called by it's real name, "REVENGE," but there was someone who told us this whole revenge thing was bogus from day one--Jesus!
I've actually written an entire book on this topic--Hell? No! Why You Can Be Certain There's No Such Place As Hell, (for anyone interested, you can get a free ecopy of Did Jesus Believe in Hell?, one of the most compelling chapters in my book at www.thereisnohell.com), but allow me to share one of the many points I make in it to explain why.
Instead of an endless cycle of one vendetta for another for another, Jesus said we should just opt out altogether! He said, "Just forgive!" So, everytime we screw up, he wants us to own up to it, make amends if possible, but to ask for forgivenss. When someone does something toward us, we're to forgive them when they repent, no matter how many times it happens (70 x 7 literally).
The reason for this revolutionary new way of dealing with how we offend each other is because Jesus was trying to tell us God is like this! God forgives, period! He's not out to "get back at" anyone! That's NOT was he's about!
So, if God is not into "payback," that pretty much excludes Hell!
@ Rick,
ReplyDeleteInteresting point of view. Of course, it does not accord with the New Testament or any of historic orthodox Christianity.
I would counter that you are the one who is saying God is some sort of ogre by indicating he makes no distinction, thus allowing evil to continue forever. This is no sort of deliverance at all. Sin brings death. To allow sin to continue in the world is counter to God's righteous character.
The good news is that in Christ all who believe receive forgiveness. And it's real forgiveness, not the cheap substitute that we manage to dole out. The forgiveness in Christ is real because Jesus, being wholly man and wholly God, is able to make himself a substitute for Adam's entire race, dying in the place of Adam and his descendants, suffering the righteous penalty for the sin of the world. And it is not by our ability to forgive or the sufficiency of our repentance that we are forgiven, but by the sufficiency of Christ's substitutionary atonement. This is what satisfies the righteous wrath of God.
Where does real forgiveness show up? It's through Christ's death applied to people by grace through faith, as detailed in Ephesians 2 and elsewhere. What of those who do not believe? Jesus is quite clear that there is eternal conscious punishment and separation from God for those who try to earn their own salvation via their own efforts at forgiveness and right living.
Your anti-biblical philosophy makes man the arbiter of his own salvation. This binds people to making their own perfect righteousness. It consigns all who follow it to death and hell, rather than pointing them to the Christ who did not deny death, hell and the grave, but overcame them.
Go ahead and chime in, everyone!
Alex, it was very kind of you to respond to Mr. Lannoye with an orthodox, biblically based explanation, but he strikes me as a soul who is not interested in learning what the Scriptures have to teach but desires rather to teach the Scriptures what to say.
ReplyDelete