Tag Archives: god’s love

“God is on the throne.” What does this even mean?

Posted on by

“God is on the throne.”

The saying gets pulled out any time something happens that isn’t to our liking. A roadblock in a relationship. A cancer diagnosis. An unwanted election result.

“Don’t worry. God is still on the throne.”

It’s well-meaning, intended to bring comfort when hard things happen. It’s equivalent to “God is sovereign.” Or more directly: “God is in control.”

“God is in control.” That’s getting to the heart of what most people seem to mean when they say, “God is on the throne” or “God is sovereign.” All these are intended to suggest that God controls the circumstances in our lives, that things only happen because God decrees that they happen, or at least that God allows them to happen.

There are certainly texts in the Bible that suggest this way of thinking about God. Psalms that lyrically portray fire and hail, snow and ice arriving at God’s very command (Psa 148:8). Proverbs that sagely profess that every decision derived from casting lots (like throwing a dice) is from God (Prov 16:33). Prophets that poetically proclaim words of God like this:

I am the Lord, and there is no other.
I form light and create darkness,
I make weal and create woe;
I the Lord do all these things. (Isa 45:6-7)

But it doesn’t take much reflection to problematize this view of God. What kind of loving God is it who allows or even decrees evil things to happen, especially to good people? Or, another angle on this problem: how can we reconcile this evil-decreeing or evil-allowing God with other passages of Scripture, like the statement that it is “the thief” who comes “to steal and kill and destroy,” not God, whose Son brings “life, and life abundantly” (John 10:10)?

Or, perhaps most to the point: if “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16), how can this God be party to any harm against others, which is the antithesis of love (Rom 13:10)?

It seems some choices need to be made as to which biblical texts we start and end with, which ones will control our interpretation of other texts. And as I do this, I can’t help but conclude that God is not in control of all things.

For this, I look primarily to none other than Jesus, and the prayer he taught his disciples. If we are to pray, “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt 6:10), this presumes that at present God’s will is not being done on earth, at least not fully. No, God is not in control of all things, and no, God is not the author of evil, or even its passive partner. God is, indeed, love.

So let’s go back to “God is on the throne.” This is a metaphor—“God is sovereign” is another version of the metaphor. And the metaphor is this: God is comparable to a king or queen, ruling over their realm from their throne.

Makes sense. The basic metaphor is not hard to grasp.

But here’s the thing—there is no king or queen who, in their sovereign rule, controls all the things that happen in their realm. That’s not the point of declaring their sovereignty. It’s not the point of saying, “The king (or queen) is on the throne.”

Rather, the point is this: because the monarch is on the throne, because they are sovereign in their realm, all within their realm owe their allegiance to them. Those under their sovereignty are not controlled by them. Rather, they owe their fealty to them, and are called upon to obey their will.

“God is on the throne,” then, is not equivalent to “God is in control.” Instead, it’s more like “God is in charge.”

Yes, “God is on the throne.” Yes, “God is sovereign.” But this doesn’t mean God controls everything that happens, or even that God allows all things to happen, and especially not all this world’s death and destruction, degradation and devastation.

Rather, to claim that “God is on the throne” or “God is sovereign” means that God calls us to allegiance to God and God’s ways, which is allegiance to Jesus as God’s Messiah and Jesus’ way of love (Matt 28:18-20). Which means that God calls us to resist the reign of sin and death and evil and injustice as it is in the world, to instead “seek first God’s reign and God’s justice” (Matt 6:33), praying, longing, working for “God’s reign to come, God’s will to be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt 6:10).

Is God present with us in all things, even poverty and sickness and death, even injustice and evil? Absolutely (Heb 13:5-6).

Does God work through all things, even suffering and sin, to bring about God’s good purposes? Most definitely (Rom 8:28-30).

These are tremendous promises of God, growing out of the goodness of the God who is love. But God does not control all things, for God neither decrees nor allows evil to happen. Rather, God calls us to allegiance to God as revealed in Jesus and his way of love, resisting the forces of sin and death, evil and injustice.

And it is when we walk in this way of faith and hope and love that we can have the full assurance of God’s faithful presence always with us and God’s good purposes ultimately worked out for us.

© Michael W. Pahl

David and David’s Son on Love and Power

Posted on by

In this coming Sunday’s lectionary texts there’s quite the juxtaposition between the Old Testament reading and the New Testament epistle.

On the one hand there’s 2 Samuel 11:1-15. The headings in the NRSV describe the story as, first, “David Commits Adultery with Bathsheba,” and second, “David Has Uriah Killed.” More accurately, these should be “David Rapes Bathsheba” and “David Murders Uriah.” This is Israel’s favoured king, the king who would form the template for the Messiah to come. But instead of walking in righteousness and establishing justice through self-giving love, David’s lust and abuse of power leads him to rape and murder.

“Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” (Carl Bloch, “Healing of the Blind Man”)

On the other hand there’s Ephesians 3:14-21. This is a prayer of Paul (or a Pauline disciple) for power and perception, but not the kind that David displayed. This prayer is for spiritual power, to be “strengthened in our inner being” by the presence of the risen Christ and to “know the love of Christ” in all its multi-dimensional fullness. This is a power that walks in righteousness and establishes justice through self-giving love. It’s the power of Jesus the teacher and healer from Nazareth, crucified and risen. It’s the power of the Son of David, the Messiah who surpasses the expectations of his template.

In these days of #MeToo and #ChurchToo, of #EveryChildMatters and #CancelCanadaDay, David’s story is a cautionary tale of what happens when we wed ourselves to earthly power and then abuse that power for our own selfish ends. Paul’s prayer points to a different way: living in the infinite love of God, the Jesus-love that compels us toward justice and peace and joy in the kingdom of God.

You Are Loved

Posted on by

This post in an adapted excerpt from my sermon in the series “Four Things,” preached at Morden Mennonite on January 10, 2016. See others in the series: “Forgiven,” “Needed,” “Not Alone.” Here is the full audio of this sermon:

There is something beautiful about falling in love, but there is something sacred about choosing to love.

There is something sacred about seeing people as they really are, a unique bundle of interests and passions and hurts and wounds and skills and experiences and sorrows and joys and hopes and dreams and pet peeves and quirks and more—seeing them for all this, and choosing to love them, choosing to commit yourself to them, choosing to shower them with your affection, your attention, your time, your energy, your very life.

There is something sacred about choosing to love—because this is how you are loved by God. God sees you as you truly are, every bright spot and dark corner of your life, and chooses to commit himself to you, to shower you with his affection, time, and energy, God’s very life.

You are loved by God.

Being loved by God, though, doesn’t mean that everything will come up roses. In fact, the New Testament promises that following Jesus means you’ll get an extra special share of hardship, and opposition, and suffering.

I often think our view of God hasn’t changed all that much from ancient times.

In ancient times, people tended to believe one of two things about the gods. Either the gods don’t really care at all about humans: the gods only seek to use humans or be amused by them. Or if there is any “love” from the gods it’s about reciprocity: you do X for God, and God will do Y for you. It’s love as payback for services rendered.

But Jesus breaks the pattern. In Jesus God acts first: God so loved the world God sent Jesus into the world, God first loved us. And there is no condition for God’s love: God loves us, period. We don’t need to do the right rituals with the right words. We don’t need to clean ourselves up first, make ourselves presentable. God looks at us, warts and all, and loves us.

This also means that Jesus has severed the connection we make between our circumstances and God’s love. In the ancient view, a view that is still prevalent among many people, including many Christians, if life is good it means God is pleased with me; if life is bad, it means God is not pleased with me.

Again, Jesus breaks the pattern. Think about Jesus himself: he perfectly did God’s will, did exactly everything that God wanted him to do. And yet where did that lead him? Suffering in agony and dying on a cross, crying out in anguish to God.

Here’s the point: our circumstances don’t tell us anything about whether or not God is pleased with us, whether or not God loves us. God’s love has nothing to do with whether or not we are beautiful or rich or smart. Nor does God’s love have anything to do with whether or not we are poor or sick or sorrowing.

But then what does it mean to say, “You are loved by God”? It means this: you have God’s unconditional acceptance, and you have God’s constant, abiding, strengthening, compassionate presence.

Think about it: when push comes to shove, this is how we hope other people will love us. At the end of the day we don’t measure their love by how many gifts they give us, whether they give us stuff to make us happy. Sure, a parent who loves her children loves to give them good gifts, just like God enjoys giving good gifts to us. But those gifts are not a measure of her love; those gifts are not a measure of God’s love.

No, when push comes to shove, when we’re at the end of our rope, we know people love us because they accept us just as we are, and they are there for us when we need them most.

So stop measuring God’s love by whether or not God gives you stuff to make you happy! Stop measuring God’s love by how healthy or comfortable or “blessed” you are!

Instead, know that this is what it means to say “You are loved by God”: God accepts you even when you’re at your worst, and God is right there with you even when you’re at your lowest.

I love how Paul in Romans 8 describes God’s love, and I love how Eugene Peterson has rendered this in his paraphrase, The Message:

Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture…

None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I’m absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.

You are loved.

You are loved by others, whether you see it or not.

And you are loved by God—unconditionally, without reservation, and always.

Cross-posted from http://www.mordenmennonitechurch.wordpress.com. © Michael W. Pahl.