There was a time in my Christian life that I looked around my world, the world in which I lived, and observed that it did not match the world that the Bible talked about. In the Bible I saw a world of supernatural power, that of God. In His word, I read about the promises toward the believer; and especially I read about the greatness of the new covenant. I read about the surpassing greatness toward those who believe. In Philippians I thought about the promise that “He who started a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.” Elsewhere I saw that “sin shall not have dominion over you.” Yes, this all was encouraging…but reality was not. In my reality, I saw believers oppressed and harassed by sin. I knew people who loved God and were seemingly enslaved to sin. Many, many were like this. I looked around and saw very few who could gain ground, who overcame deceptions. And the disparity between scripture and reality drove me to despair. I felt as if there was nothing in scripture that I would not believe. But the brutal contrast between the word of truth and what I saw happening caused me to doubt for just a moment what God had spoken.
I asked in fear whether it was possible that God could be mistaken. Fear is the operative word because, for me to believe that I was wrong in this regard would be a change in my worldview, and one’s worldview affects every decision and action. I was immediately comforted by the thought that God can not lie for that would be wrong. I was flooded with relief at this thought that even God was held to a standard and could not transgress against His word. But even in my relief, something seemed to be wrong with this analysis. However, it was what all other Christians thought… how could it be wrong? I was struck with the realization that the definitions of what is good and evil would not exist if God did not exist. We Christians use that logic on atheists all the time. We ask them “how can you speak of right and wrong when you don’t believe in God?” Our logical assumption is morality can not be created out of empty space. So, then how can God be held to a standard outside Himself? Indeed He can not. Therefore, what God says is good must be good. I then asked something I have never seriously considered before…”what prevents God from pronouncing something as good at one time, and later on pronouncing it as evil? The standard answer most Christians would give is that God can not do this because he is changing His mind and God can not change because that would be wrong. Thinking this through though, I saw that this answer is flawed, for it again holds God to a standard outside Himself. What keeps God from never changing?
Christian, I ask you, how do you know that God won’t lie to you? How do you know that God will not change His mind about things that He has told you? My conclusion was that we do not know with 100% certainty the answer to that. I do not know for sure (100%) that God will not change. And this, I am persuaded, is a good thing because it causes the Christian to have a righteous fear of God. Psalms says “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” The second good thing that this realization brings is faith. Faith is needed when something is not known with absolute confidence. And without faith it is impossible to please God. God wants us to believe Him when He says something because we have faith, NOT because God is held to a standard and cannot change even if He wanted to.
I ask the reader, do you dislike this analysis? If so, what do you think it promotes that is wrong? Does it promote disbelief in God? Never may it be! As far as I know, I am the only one who has thought about this, and my end conclusions have driven me closer to God. I can say that I would hope to serve God and love Him even if He should hate me and even if He should thrust me into hell. This belief fosters true faith, not a non-biblical faith in a God that can not do what is wrong supposedly because this God is constrained by the higher laws of morality outside of Himself.
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