THE GREAT YET TRAGIC EXCHANGE! ROMANS 1:18-32
When left to themselves, humanity spirals downwards.
I was interested to read some snippets from Brian McLaren's new book' Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2007). In this book he writes...
The Human Situation: What is the story we find ourselves in?
Conventional View: God created the world as perfect, but because our primal ancestors, Adam and Eve, did not maintain the absolute perfection demanded by God, God has irrevocably determined that the entire universe and all it contains will be destroyed, and the souls of all human beings — except for those specifically exempted — will be forever punished for their imperfection in hell.
Emerging View: God created the world as good, but human beings — as individuals, and as groups — have rebelled against God and filled the world with evil and injustice. God wants to save humanity and heal it from its sickness, but humanity is hopelessly lost and confused, like sheep without a shepherd, wandering further and further into lostness and danger. Left to themselves, human beings will spiral downward in sickness and evil.
When I read this I was reminded of Romans 1:18-32 where we read that humanity exchanged the glory of God for the images of mortal man and beast. Paul is bringing to his readers mind the image in Exodus where the Israelites made a Golden calf and began to worship it while Moses was receiving the 10 commandments. The human race has rebelled against it's creator God. And as we look around at our world we can see that things are broken, that things are out of joint, that things are not as they are meant to be. Slavery, war injustice, exploitation, hunger - things just aren't right. We were designed to worship, honour and serve our creator. Paul affirms to us however that humanity has suppressed this truth and the disease is spiralling out of control. Rob Bell writes in 'Jesus wants to save Christians too' -"The story is a tragic progression: the broken, toxic nature at the heart of a few humans has now spread to the whole world". It all starts in our thinking Paul wants us to know and then out of distorted and wrong beliefs our hearts become hard and black. It all starts when we begin to worship created things other than our creator thinking that we are wise, but infact we are foolish. And today we aren't any different to those Israelites who built the golden calf and worshiped it. Sure, I haven't built a golden calf as such, but I have at times elevated money, sex, and power above the line at equal footing or even greater than God. So, the God's we worship today just look different - perhaps are even more subtle than the creation of a giant golden animal!! It is all this that brings us down, brings us all down. Thank goodness that God is a God of Justice and cannot tolerate injustice and is not doing nothing but is at work now righting the wrongs. I am thankful that God is moved, that God hears the cries of the exploited, that he hears the groans and the pains of those in poverty and he doesn't sit there with his arms folded but is angry and grieved over the injustice.
2 comments:
It's not easy to accept as an 'independent' human being that we actually weren't made to be doing our own thing. It is obvious that the world is pretty much out of control, left to our own devices we don't seem to manage to fix anything for any length of time. We are relieved to hear that we have been freed (Romans 6:14 Sin is no longer your master, for you no longer live under the requirements of the law. Instead, you live under the freedom of God’s grace.)
However, what about the quid pro quo? (Romans 6:18,22 Now you are free from your slavery to sin, and you have become slaves to righteous living.... But now you are free from the power of sin and have become slaves of God.)
I think 'slaves' of God is a good way to look at things. Foreign maybe, - but the intent is appropriate. Because.. we don't like obedience, surrender or words like obligation, so we'd prefer to be a slave to ourselves, but a slave understands who their master is and that they are to serve them. Mind you, in saying this, when we look at the prodigal Son story in Luke, we see the Father not except the sons offer to come back as a hired slave - but that he was actually Re-Soned and given full rights as a Son again!! We forget alot that we are Sons and Daughters of God and everything that everything the Father has belongs to us!! I wonder if we fully understood as position as Son/Daughter of God we would be less likely to trust in ourselves!!
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