Dear RLP,
I was wondering if you might be able to
clarify something for me. The pastor at my church said something this weekend
that has bothered me. He is doing a series on King Solomon and was talking about
Solomon’s greed. My pastor mentioned that God will judge him. I was under the
impression that God doesn’t judge. Can you help me with this?
Sherrie
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Dear Sherrie,
Before I answer you, can we both agree that no
one knows exactly what God thinks? You know that I’m a minister, so perhaps you
think that I know a lot about God. Well, I don’t.
I also know that many people say the Bible
teaches us a lot about God and what God thinks, but this makes me very
uncomfortable. The Bible does say things about God’s nature, but it also
preserves the mystery of God. I am convinced that the intelligence who created
the cosmos is far beyond anything I can ever understand.
And if you think about it, would you really be
interested in a God we COULD understand?
I can tell you things the Bible says about God,
and they are things that I believe. However, I always keep in mind that in many
Bible stories people are very surprised when they actually encounter God in
their lives. God often turns up in unexpected ways and in places where we’d
least expect to find God.
I also want you to remember that the pictures
of God that are found in the Bible can never be anything more than simplistic,
shadowy approximations of the real God. This is something about the Bible that
you must understand. This collection of books bears the incredible burden of
having to speak about God to all races, all ages, the illiterate as well as
those with Ph.D.s, and to a vast number of cultures, some that date well before
the age of science.
Keeping
all that in mind, I can tell you that the Bible says that God does indeed judge
us. Perhaps you have some rather negative ideas about judgment. Maybe you’ve
been judged harshly yourself. I understand why that word has negative
connotations nowadays. But when we speak of the judgment of God, it is another
way of saying that God understands some things to be right and others wrong. If
God knows what is righteous, how can God not judge us when we do things that
work against what is right and good?
But if the God of scripture judges us, the
Bible also makes it clear that this God loves and forgives us. The love and
forgiveness of God also exist in a measure that is utterly beyond our ability to
understand. The Bible speaks of God KNOWING us, and uses that word in a very
broad and ancient way. To be known by God is to be known completely. So the God
who knows when we are wrong is the same God who loves and forgives us beyond
measure.
If we tried to put God into an idea that you
and I can understand, we might say that God is like someone who knows all of
your faults but loves you anyway. Loves you enough to die for you.
I think that idea works pretty well, don’t you?
The story behind that idea is in the Bible as well.
So whether or not God was angry with Solomon
for the deep hunger of his greed or for the weakness that led him to desire a
thousand wives, it seems that God’s capacity to love runs as deep as God’s
capacity to know a good or a bad thing when He sees it.
Peace,
rlp
Used with permission from Sherrie.
