Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

• Romans 5:6-8

Greater lovehas no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

• John 15:13

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.

• John 3:16-21

“ ‘Indeed. how cruel and wicked it seems that anyone should demand the blood of an innocent person as the price for anything, or that it should in any way please him that an innocent man should be slain – still less that God should consider the death of his Son so agreeable that by it he should be reconciled to the whole world! These and like queries appear to us to pose a considerable problem concerning our redemption or justification through the death of our Lord Jesus Christ.’ (Exposition of Romans 3.19-26, Appendix)
“Abelard sees the significance of the death of Jesus Christ in the effect that it has on us — when we see his love for us, it awakens a response of love in us.
“ ‘Now it seems to us that we have been justified by the blood of Christ and reconciled to God in this way: through this unique act of grace manifested to us — in that his Son has taken upon himself our nature and persevered therein in teaching us by word and example even unto death — he has more fully bound us to himself by love. The result is that our hearts should be enkindled by such a gift of divine grace, and true love should not now shrink from enduring anything for him.’ (Exposition of Romans 3.19-26, Appendix).”

• Tony Lane, A Concise History of Christian Thought

Peter Abelard (1079-1142) was a great philosopher, theologian, and teacher.  But one day, while teaching people from around the known world, he met Heloise, possibly his intellectual equal, at least considered the greatest female intellect of her time.  In meeting and falling in love, Abelard was undone.  Celibacy was becoming the norm for priests and church leaders, but not officially at this point.  Yet, the affair was behind the back of Heloise’s uncle, a powerful church leader.  The sordid tale leads to the castration of Abelard and banishment to a monastery, Heloise to a nunnery, and their son raised by Abelard’s sister.  But, he was self-reflective in his autobiography, equal to St. Augustine of Hippo.

In the quote above, he spends one paragraph describing how God sending His Son to earth to die for sinners is utterly impossible to explain, but then he speaks of the love of God and of Mercy, Godly Mercy.

Where we cannot even explain why or how God did it, God did it because He loves us.  And we should respond to God with love.  In fact, giving God all the love possible for us to give falls short.

While Abelard felt God’s love expressed in this way to be impossible to understand, Jesus taught of that love.  He told us to love one another.

The point is that at some point, especially while dissecting the concept of love, we should set our intellect aside.  Abelard did so at great cost when he met Heloise, but that became his undoing.  We love God with all our heart, soul, and mind, but when it comes to physical love with another human being, they should at least be married first.

But whether we are intellectual and logical or we are all emotions, the concept that God sent His Son to the earth in the first place is one of the most confounding of miracles.  C. S. Lewis spends a seemingly disproportionate time in his book Miracles just on the aspect of Jesus entering this world.  Jesus’ miracle during the conduct of His ministry gets less coverage, as does His death and resurrection.  Lewis says God leaving Heaven, which is outside time and space, to come to earth in the flesh is both confounding and profound.

And Abelard only gets to his logical conclusion, by opening up to God’s Love, a love that shows no boundaries.  And in realizing that, we should love God with all our being.

If you like these Tuesday morning essays about philosophy and other “heavy topics,” but you think you missed a few, you can use this LINK. I have set up a page off the home page for links to these Tuesday morning posts. I will continue to modify the page as I add more.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.