The Consequence of Redefining God

With the glut of self-appointed social media theologians, one would think God was neurotic and had a personality disorder. He has been described in a variety of ways. Some of these descriptions give angels pause.

God did not change between covenants. There is no Old Covenant God and a New Covenant God. He remains the same in His nature through all time and eternity. He is the unchanging One. What changed was how he relates to us in the New Covenant through grace instead of law. The law would eventually kill us. Grace gave us another chance.

Yesterday, I read with horror the barbaric decision made by New York lawmakers regarding late-term abortion. When I recovered from my real sense of nausea, I wanted to lash out, grab someone’s collar and declare my disgust. I wanted justice. I did not see justice. In my nightmarish imagination, I saw a sea of dismembered, full-term babies floating atop a system of law that allows this insanity and calls it democracy. 

There are several ways the justice of God will be experienced this side of the final judgment while we are living in the New Covenant and horrible decisions are being made. One of the ways justice comes is through consequence. God can remove His protective hand over individuals and nations, not as a loveless gesture, but to allow the consequence of sin to visit our decisions. A consequence is allowed to give us a realistic perspective and hopefully motivate a change in our behavior. God allows consequence as an act of love, not as punishment. This line of thinking can trainwreck some theologies that have defined God into an unresponsive corner. 

When the doors of darkness have been opened and a culture accepts the invading hordes of demonic delusion as just another acceptable worldview, a consequence will arrive if we continue to ignore repeated appeals by God for us to change our ways. When our hearts grow so hard we no longer see our atrocities in the light of truth, barbarism will become the law of the land in more than just the issue of “reproductive rights.” These are the sad results of the consequences we released in our midst, not the hard hand of an angry God. 

In a strange way, how the world gets better and improves can, at times, seem like it is getting worse. We need to keep the long game in mind while the death of deception is taking its last gasp of polluted intellectual air and kicks violently in the throes of its own demise.

What we are seeing being played out in our culture is a combination of decades of biblical illiteracy, every person doing what is right in their own eyes and fulfillment of what Paul said would take place in this time of human history. You and I need to walk with wisdom in this unwise and deceptive time. That wisdom only comes from God, not our opinions. Ask Him for wisdom. Let your wisdom become acts of spiritual courage that are visible and verbal so that in the end you will not be one who went quietly into the night of cultural darkness.