Sunday, 20th July 2008
Part III of V
continued from Part 2
Now having given you a brief (?!) background about my own spiritual journey, please allow me to comment on your comments on the book.
As I mentioned earlier, if I had read your comments as recent as 2 years ago, I would have agreed with your views 100%. After all, we probably have similar upbringings in terms of growing up in a Methodist family, attending a Methodist church and having studied in a Methodist school.
I suppose what has made my journey somewhat different to yours is what happened to my son. In spite of being a Christian practically all my life, the answers that were previously given to me regarding his condition just did not seem to satisfy, such as "accept it as God's will" or "maybe it is a generational curse" etc.
The gospel is not good news if the news is not good. Abundant life is not abundant life if one is being hooked up to a dialysis machine.
Having now heard and embraced the grace gospel, I have understood that it was the devil that gave my son the kidney condition. Had my wife and I known back then, we would have not just prayed for a son, but claimed the blood of Jesus over him, that because of Jesus' finished work on the cross, we have every right to demand that he would be born in perfect health. In fact, because God had already judged Jesus on the cross, we could have told the devil that he had no right to put any disease on our offspring. My wife and I used to struggle with guilt and condemnation about whether it was our unconfesssed sin that led to our son's condition, but we now know that such thoughts are from the devil, because he is the accuser of the brethren and there is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus (Rom 8:1). Generational curses no longer apply to us because Jesus took them upon Himself when he hung on the tree (Gal 3:13).
Ever since discovering that Jesus was made poor on the cross, so that we can in turn be made rich (2 Cor 8:9) , I have no problems believing God for material blessings, and He has proven Himself faithful in this area by giving me the means to tithe 60% more than I did four years ago.
So you see, the gospel of grace is not only liberating. It is also relevant and applicable for everyday living.
Okay, let's (finally) get down to your comments on the book.
[1] This is what you wrote about God's anger:
What I had reservations about:
In stressing grace, the book appears to suggest that God no longer gets angry with Christians. If this is what it really means to teach, then this is not biblical. On p. 41, read: “We do see God being angry in the Old Testament, and in the book of Revelation, where his anger is toward those who have rejected Jesus. But for you and me, believers in the new covenant, we are not part of the Old Testament and we will never be punished because we have already received Jesus. As believers, God is no longer angry with us because all His anger for our sins fell upon Jesus at the cross.”
I suspect (and hope) that what the book really means is that God’s anger is not the type that takes delight in condemning us and pointing out how horrible we are. Also, I think (and hope) that what the book means to say is that God’s anger and punishment on believers does not result in the loss of eternal salvation. But to say the above is very different from saying that God gets angry only with unbelievers and never with true believers (p. 41), or to insist that “the Holy Spirit never convicts you of sin” (p.134). Does the Bible really say that God never gets angry with believers anymore? In the Bible (both Old and New Testaments), God is presented as getting angry with believers. For example, the letters to the 7 churches (i.e. people who profess to be believers) in Revelation 2-3 include a lot of stinging rebuke and condemnation from Jesus himself, including the use of threats of punishment and judgement. (I find attempts to say that the “churches” in Revelation do not really refer to believers as far-fetched.) God Himself seems to punish two professing believers Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5:1-11. Isn’t this an example of the Holy Spirit, through Peter, convicting Ananias and Sapphira of their sins? Or must we assume the (not so gracious) judgement that Ananias and Sapphira cannot have been true believers?? For argument’s sake, even if they were not true believers, they were certainly in the church assembly. So there is place still for Spirit-inspired preaching for the conviction of sin within church walls. There may be many “believers” like Ananias and Sapphira who need the Holy Spirit to convict us of sin and our need for grace. Perhaps the book could have made a clearer distinction between divine anger at Christians that results in the loss of eternal salvation (which is what he is most concerned to speak against) and divine anger at Christians that aims to correct and discipline (which he seems to reject). To be fair, Prince does accept the positive idea of child discipline or training (pp. 65-67), but he rejects any association of this discipline with the words “anger” or “punishment”.
God’s anger was, and can still be an expression of His love and grace, just like a loving mother who sometimes scolds her child. (Prince is, hopefully, only joking when he implies, p.37, that children will become schizophrenic if parents sometimes express happiness and at other times anger!) To say that God will never get angry or punish believers anymore may promote (unwittingly or mistakenly) a distortion of the Bible’s teaching about God’s grace. God’s anger is an expression of His love and grace towards his children. Prince would perhaps do better to speak of righteous anger (Ephesians 4:26) versus unrighteous anger. God never gets (unrighteously) angry with us, but loving grace demands a place for righteous anger as long as His beloved children still need discipline.
I used to hold the same view as you on this. As children, I remember my parents getting angry with my sisters and I whenever we did something wrong. Although we did not feel good about it, we knew at the back of our minds that it was an expression of their love for us. Likewise, before I embraced the grace message, I would also get angry with my kids when they did not obey. I remember getting very upset with my daughter when she wanted to give up swimming lessons when she was in K2. She had shown lots of potential and I even imagined her winning medals. She could sense me withdrawing my love from her during this time, and it was actually a result of how I viewed my own Heavenly Father. I would picture Him withdrawing His protection and blessings from me whenever I did something wrong.
So is there a Biblical basis for saying that God is no longer angry with His children? Yes there is. In Isa 53:9, God spoke about a time when He swears that He will be no longer be angry with us. The author of Hebrews quotes Jer 31 when he writes in verses 16 and 17 of chapter 10 that under the New Covenant, God remembers our sins and lawless deeds no more.
In fact, the best illustration of this is depicted in the parable of the Prodigal Son. Even though the wayward son squandered all he had on prostitutes and riotous living, not even once did Jesus mention that the Father was angry with him. On the contrary, the Father went the other extreme by putting a robe on him, giving him a ring and sandals, and killing the fatted calf for him!
This has in turn transformed the way I deal with my kids too. Last year, when my daughter wanted to give up table tennis (even though she was captain of the school team) as the number of practices was 3 times a week and was affecting her studies, I no longer pictured lost medals but a child who has so much joy knowing how much her dad loves her, no matter what. When she misplaced a 512KB thumb drive containing some project work she did about 2 months back, I did not chide her because I knew she felt miserable enough having to redo the work, without me having to add to that misery. Instead, I bought her a 2GB one, no questions asked. Her friends were amazed and said that their parents would have scolded and even punished them. Does this mean I am lax in the disciplining of my daughter? Well, if you want to put it that way, then I suppose I am, but definitely not as lax as compared to the father in the Prodigal Son parable :-)
As for the story about Ananais and Sapphira, please read the following blog entry:
The Ananias in Acts 5 vs the Ananias in Acts 9
to be continued in Part 4
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