Reading: The Cross of Christ pg. 124-132
How can I give you up, O Ephraim?
How can I hand you over, O Israel?
How can I make you like Admah?
How can I treat you like Zeboiim?
My heart recoils within me;
my compassion grows warm and tender.
I will not execute my burning anger;
I will not again destroy Ephraim;
for I am God and not a man,
the Holy One in your midst,
and I will not come in wrath.
Hosea 11.8-9
So then, the cross of Christ “is the event in which God makes known his holiness and his love simultaneously, in one event, in an absolute manner.” “The cross is the only place where the loving, forgiving, merciful God is revealed in such a way that we perceive that his holiness and his love are equally infinite.”
At the same time, we must never think of this duality within God’s being as irreconcilable. For God is not at odds with himself, however much it may appear to us that he is. He is “the God of peace,” of inner tranquility, not turmoil. True we find it difficult to hold in our minds simultaneously the images of God as the Judge who must punish evil-doers and of the Lover who must find a way to forgive them. | Stott pg. 131
Many times we tend to view God as either only angry and judgemental or merciful and forgiving. How does the idea of God being both “Just and the Justifier” increase your ideas of His glory and nature?
Lord, we are simple people who can only understand simple things. But You are majestic and infinite! We are much too small to understand the divine. Help us, by Your Spirit to understand what we can about You and appreciate in awe, what we cannot. Amen