Imagine a husband who gives gifts to his wife out of love for her. How should the wife respond?
What if she praises and thanks a male colleague at work for giving her the gifts, even though he had nothing to do with them?
Imagine she goes further and has an affair with this man. A man who has never given her anything, but is only taking advantage of her 'availability'. There may be loads of good things about how she relates to this man, thankfulness, love and respect are all admirable qualities, but she is giving them to entirely the wrong person.
Before long reality will hit home for her. She will be miserable in this relationship that offers her nothing and her husband will be justifiably angry for her behaviour.
But imagine the husband offers to take her back. You would marvel at the depth and quality of the love willing to overlook what has happened.
That's love!
ReplyDeleteAnd God loves us more than that! He loves us while we were still His enemies, before we ever loved Him.
Great post. Great illustration!
Thanks!
Thanks Steve, you're quite right.
ReplyDeleteOMG. No. You would question that man's level of self-respect.
ReplyDeleteSurely this account misses out propitiation.
Blimey Steve. You're absolutely right.
ReplyDeleteIn my analogy I guess propitiation would come between the 4th and 5th paragraph. Without including it though you are right that it appears that he has just brushed his anger under the carpet - which would mean you loose his self-respect.
Very good criticism. You're bang on.
typo. Sorry. I meant he would have no self-respect, and you would join him in loosing your respect for him too.
ReplyDeleteThe tricky question is: what would the satisfaction of his just anger look like? How could he both be just and justify the sinners? I've no idea. Any theology I have of atonement is far from worked out, but I suspect propitiation must be in there somewhere.
ReplyDeleteI guess we don't have to work it out perfectly. But you've got to be right that propitiation must be in there somewhere as its in Romans in just the context of being just and the justifier of the ungodly (Rom 3:23ff):
ReplyDeleteall have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.