God in a Box

One reality about the Word of God and continually learning from its truth is that my concept of God changes.

God doesn’t change, but Scripture’s truth continually bumps against my preconceived notions about God, and I find I have to adjust what I’ve come to believe about him.

This isn’t always in BIG ways, but often in little tweeks to my understanding, so I can adjust my belief to what is more accurately spelled out in God’s Word.

My box of ‘who God is’ continues to take on new, bigger, and different form.

Example:

“God hates the sin, but loves the sinner.”

(How many have heard this little saying to explain the relationship of God’s justice and wrathful response against sin with his love for those who commit it? I have used the statement myself.)

This past month in one of my classes about God’s justice the professor introduced me to these three verses:

• Psalm 5:5-6 “The boastful shall not stand before your eyes; you hate all evildoers. You destroy those who speak lies; the Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.”
• Psalm 11:5-6 ”The Lord tests the righteous, but his soul hates the wicked and the one who does violence.  Let him rain coals on the wicked; fire and sulfur and a scorching wind shall be the portion of their cup.”
• Hosea  9:15 “Every evil of theirs is in Gilgal, there I began to hate them. Because of the wickedness of their deeds…”

Does God hate our sin? Yes

Does God love the sinner? Yes (we known this from many other passages in the Bible)

But is there a sense in which God hates the sinner? The Bible says there is.

Hmm….

So in my understanding of God, who He is in his justice, and the vastness of his righteous response to sin, I now adjust my box to include a category for him ‘hating the sinner’.

Because that  is what Scripture says.

If I continually pursue knowing, learning, and loving God, then I will grab my eraser often.  I’ll have to adjust the sides of the ‘box’ that my mind has for God so that it reflects what He says about Himself.

This teachable, submissive act of conforming my mind to his truth is an important discipline, so that I don’t cling to ‘truths’ that I really like (or reject those I don't), have known since childhood, or which make critical sense to me---- but are beliefs which aren’t consistent with what the Bible teaches.

His Word has to trump my own understanding.

What ideas & concepts about God have you had to adjust?