On to the next couple of lines:
Draw near to God
And He will draw near to you
Again, there's a paralellism here that shouldn't be missed. Rememeber, this is synthetic paralellism, where the second line advances the thought of the first rather than simply repeating it. What is the consequence of drawing near to God? He draws near to us. This also makes the important point that, while God always initiates relationship with us, he desires a dynamic relationship in which we take some initiative as well. Over the last 1500 years or so, the church has encouraged this idea that we are an entirely passive party in this relationship with God, who elects us to salvation or elects us to perdition. In the same breath we've also encouraged a theology that states that God himself is immutable (unchaging) and unpassable (unaffected by emotion). So, in that case both parties in the relationship are incapable of carrying on relationship. Clearly, that won't work. God is dynamic and passionate without the sinful, fallen aspects of emotion that we deal with. He is not fickle, for instance...what he says, he will do. He does change his mind though, over and over, based on our response or lack of response. Because he desires a loving relationship, he allows a world where his will is not always done, at least not in the short term.
Jesus, when speaking of the kingdom coming makes this statement: "The time is coming and has now come..." This is the same verb root that's used for "draw near" or "come near". Though it's conjugated a bit differently, it's still a present tense verb with a continuous aspect. It carries the meaning, "be drawing near to God". Again, these imperative continuous verbs in Greek are not about one-time action. They are about lifestyle. There is an ebb and flow in this relationship to God. We are near, and he is near...we fall away, he comes to find us. How many of us would think our marriages healthy without any dynamic? How many of us who've been married a more than a couple of years thought we knew our spouse before the first real fight? I did. So why do we think that we should have any maturity in our relationship with God until our first real fight with him? Go ahead, tell God how you feel. Don't be rebellious; clearly there's a line there that we don't want to cross, but God is big enough to handle all of our feelings. He's big enough to meet us right where we are. Jesus came and suffered right along with us (read Hebrews), so he knows exactly how we feel. This is about drawing near again and again and again and again...it's an action undertaken with great discipline and intention. It's not feelings based. To connect it with the verse 7, this is about submission, which is always intentional, never coincidental.
Draw near to God
And He will draw near to you
Again, there's a paralellism here that shouldn't be missed. Rememeber, this is synthetic paralellism, where the second line advances the thought of the first rather than simply repeating it. What is the consequence of drawing near to God? He draws near to us. This also makes the important point that, while God always initiates relationship with us, he desires a dynamic relationship in which we take some initiative as well. Over the last 1500 years or so, the church has encouraged this idea that we are an entirely passive party in this relationship with God, who elects us to salvation or elects us to perdition. In the same breath we've also encouraged a theology that states that God himself is immutable (unchaging) and unpassable (unaffected by emotion). So, in that case both parties in the relationship are incapable of carrying on relationship. Clearly, that won't work. God is dynamic and passionate without the sinful, fallen aspects of emotion that we deal with. He is not fickle, for instance...what he says, he will do. He does change his mind though, over and over, based on our response or lack of response. Because he desires a loving relationship, he allows a world where his will is not always done, at least not in the short term.
Jesus, when speaking of the kingdom coming makes this statement: "The time is coming and has now come..." This is the same verb root that's used for "draw near" or "come near". Though it's conjugated a bit differently, it's still a present tense verb with a continuous aspect. It carries the meaning, "be drawing near to God". Again, these imperative continuous verbs in Greek are not about one-time action. They are about lifestyle. There is an ebb and flow in this relationship to God. We are near, and he is near...we fall away, he comes to find us. How many of us would think our marriages healthy without any dynamic? How many of us who've been married a more than a couple of years thought we knew our spouse before the first real fight? I did. So why do we think that we should have any maturity in our relationship with God until our first real fight with him? Go ahead, tell God how you feel. Don't be rebellious; clearly there's a line there that we don't want to cross, but God is big enough to handle all of our feelings. He's big enough to meet us right where we are. Jesus came and suffered right along with us (read Hebrews), so he knows exactly how we feel. This is about drawing near again and again and again and again...it's an action undertaken with great discipline and intention. It's not feelings based. To connect it with the verse 7, this is about submission, which is always intentional, never coincidental.
posted by Frank Oesterheld at 3:15 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home