The Scarlet Letter
By: Nathaniel Hawthorne Modernised and edited by Jim McGuiggan (2004)
By: Nathaniel Hawthorne Modernised and edited by Jim McGuiggan (2004)
With heads and hearts in the spiritual trough, ducking for personal goodies, we reduce the cosmic to the individual, not knowing that to miss the cosmic is to miss the glory involved in the personal. We link vast galactic truths to too individual an agenda and end up with a bull elephant pulling a three-inch Tinker toy and some believers dare to implore God to get them a hairdresser who can fix their hair the way they want it fixed (yes!). God has redeemed a whole creation and it groans in eager expectation longing for the day when the children of God are revealed in inexpressible glory and we're obsessed with hair-dos and convenient parking places!
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There were those who would apologize for the doctrine of the cross but Paul wasn't one of them. He said, "We preach Christ crucified" - we don't whisper it. "We preach Christ crucified," said J.H. Jowett, " we don't timidly submit it for subdued discussion in the academic grove; we don't offer it to the hands of exclusive circles - we preach it, we stand out like the town-crier in the public way, and we proclaim it to the common and indiscriminate crowd."
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His death was more than something he and his Father agreed would take place, it was a purposed attack on the satanic kingdom. Revelation 12:11 in an outburst of joyful praise tells us the followers of Christ overcame Satan "by the blood of the Lamb". Not by his pitying love, not by his warm affection, not by his tolerance and bravery, not by his sweet words and true teaching, but by his blood!
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And what was it he strode half way across the world bragging about? What is it that set him on fire that he cared so little about his life that he left pints of his blood on the outskirts of every town in Asia Minor ? Well? What was it?
A public lynching on a public gallows!
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"This is one of the meanings of the anger of God: the end of indifference"
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Someone recently sent me a piece of Dakota Indian wisdom that said when you find yourself riding a dead horse you should recognize that that's the case and get another horse. He went on to say that the big, modern and wise Western world ignores this. Instead we flog the dead horse harder or buy a new whip or try a new rider or redefine "dead".
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Now try telling those people that the true measure of sin is not the crucifixion of the Jews and other nations by the Nazis at Auschwitz , Dachau and Buchenwald and elsewhere. Tell them that the true measure of sin is revealed in the crucifixion of a young Jew on a cross outside Jerusalem some 2,000 years ago. Tell them that and see their response!
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Even the cry of dereliction ("My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?") implies his innocence for if he had been a sinner the answer would have been obvious.
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It seems to me that there's so much pretence in views that claim that God saw Christ as a sinner. We know Christ wasn't really a sinner but we must pretend he is to support our theory of how atonement works. We know Christ isn't really sin but we must pretend he is to explain our atonement theory.
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Furthermore, if we see atonement as hinging on punishment administered how could the guilty ever be held accountable for their sins? If God took the innocent Christ and punished him with the full and complete punishment due the world's sins it couldn't be right to administer further punishment. On top of that, it would be to despise the self-sacrifice of Christ and consider it insufficient.
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When a psalmist prayed for "justice" he wasn't praying for some quality or other nor was he calmly admiring his moral excellence and asking God to treat him as he deserved. Almost always he was in real trouble and he was asking God who was his covenant Lord and partner to fulfill the covenant commitments (compare Psalm 82 and see Isaiah 59:9, 11 and 14).
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Everything less than the cross is a tragic underestimation of sin.
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And the faith of every believer and the corporate faith of the church demonstrated in her ordinances of baptism and the Supper make the triumph of Jesus Christ over Sin and the powers visible and concrete.
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When a boy, a mere twelve-year old boy, leads his first public prayer he carries out a world-defying act! For all his nervousness and for all the quavering of his voice when he closes with that familiar "in the name of Jesus Christ" the whole framework of the satanic world trembles.
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Some write about sacrifice averting the wrath of God and leave the impression that God is forever scowling at his sinning children, always on the verge of striking them a blow with his almighty fist. What does it matter if every now and then they remind us that God is gracious if every other page is filled with "proof" that God's wrath is about to burst forth if the sinner doesn't sprint to the tabernacle or temple with an atoning sacrifice?
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Some for their own reasons insist that our present bodies will be jettisoned. Some say so for reasons that sound suspiciously like the Corinthian protests. Others are afraid that if it is truly us who are resurrected we'll pine and be sad over those who "didn't make it" to glory. To avoid that sorrow (since there's to "be no tears in heaven") they have our identity obliterated and we all become strangers.
