God Is Not Nice by Ulrich L. Lehner

Author:Ulrich L. Lehner
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: RELIGION / Christian Theology / REL067000 - General, RELIGION / REL062000 - Spirituality, RELIGION / Christianity / REL010000 - Catholic
ISBN: 9781594717499
Publisher: Ave Maria Press
Published: 2017-08-21T16:00:00+00:00

The love of the real God, however, forgives rather than downplays sin. A good example is the adultery committed by King David (2 Sm 11:1–12:25): David cannot stop thinking about the wife of his general Uriah. He lusts for her. In order to get her into his bed and later on to hide her pregnancy, he sends her husband into war, where he dies on the battlefield. After the obligatory time of mourning, Bathsheba becomes David’s wife.

A nice god would have minimized David’s deed, but the God of Israel expresses his displeasure (2 Sm 12:11). He sends his prophet Nathan to ask the wise David his opinion of a story that Nathan tells to David. It is a slightly veiled tale that is actually all about David and his sins. David declares that the evildoer of the story deserves to die, and then realizes right after he has announced his verdict that he has effectively sentenced himself to death!

What follows is David’s sincere repentance and plea for forgiveness. God indeed forgives him, but the child Bathsheba had conceived dies. To the reader this might suggest that God did not forgive David’s sin or that he punishes the innocent of another generation for the sins of their fathers. The exegete Gerhard Lohfink, however, explains that such a reading would be theological nonsense. The text rather insinuates that every sin corrupts something in this world, even if the sin itself is forgiven.10

Imagine you start a rumor about your colleague in a Facebook post. Even if you feel truly sorry, apologize, and are forgiven by your colleague, you cannot take back the bad words you uttered—they have been disseminated through cyberspace into the minds of countless people. The effect of your sin will remain. Despite the fact that sins are forgiven, the shock waves they cause reverberate through the universe and can only be wiped out by the merits of our actions and the strength of our faith.

David’s story therefore exemplifies that a loving God does not explain away the reality of sin but takes it seriously because he desires us to grow in faith, hope, and love. A nice god would not care for our transformation but would downplay the seriousness of our moral failures—all, of course, under the pretext of love. Real love never minimizes our responsibility but seriously assesses it: It is like a giant flashlight that shines painfully on our souls’ diseases so that we can be healed. This light of God’s love is so bright that if we accept it, it permeates even the darkest corners of our lives and makes them as radiant as the stars.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.