God--Abstraction or Reality
By Vernon W. Hurst
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I suppose it was because he recognized that we wondered how he could entertain such a deep faith in God, and yet reject Jesus Christ, that he painted for us a picture of Christianity from his point of view. It was not a pretty picture. It did not shake my faith in Jesus as the Christ, but it did plant in my mind the very definite feeling that Christianity has failed in the hands of men. To express just what I mean, let me say that I heard a young preacher express, a number of years ago, his opinion as to why Christianity has not succeeded in a greater measure than has been the case. He put it this way:
"Christianity has failed to the extent that it has for the very simple reason that it has never really been tried."
I am not going to identify that young preacher (who is not so young any more) for I know there are many who will look upon his statement as being sacrilegious, heretical or both. I do, without hesitation, say that there was far more truth in what he said that most of us are willing to face. A lot of documentation is not necessary to prove his statement true. It is only necessary to recall that, after nineteen centuries of Christianity, there are still three out of every five people in the world who are unaware that a man by the name of Jesus ever lived, and those who are aware provide no tangible evidence that they know him on a realistic level.
I came away from that Jewish Rabbi's
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I was told that "some" were thinking that I was "emotionally disturbed." Quite recently I tried to discuss the matter with a very precious brother. I asked him if he could not see that the cause of true Christianity was dying for want of practical application. Imagine, if you can, my feelings at hearing him say:
"Yes, I can see that this is true, but I can't see that we should get "hung up" on it."
So, I want to discuss with you a situation where I feel that we have failed in such a way as to make it appear to others that God has failed. He did not fail, of course, but our failure has made Him appear as a failure in the eyes of the world. At first thought this may seem rather ridiculous -- that we could fail in such a way as to cause the world to think God has failed. It is not so at all, however, if we think about it a little. We will realize that fathers are generally judged by their children. People with even a modicum of justice in their thinking seldom hold it against a child that he has an alcoholic father. Most people, however, when they see a child gone wrong wonder if, perhaps it was not really the father's fault.
Let me say that if you find complete satisfaction in what is taking place in the religious world, perhaps there will be little profit in your reading further. If, on the other hand, you feel that Christianity has succeeded only to a very limited degree, and that it has done so because we who seek to promote it have caused this to happen, then it just could be that we can come up with the answer to a problem which has never been solved by any generation of Christians since the first. To those honest souls who may be disturbed by the very thought of Christianity failing, let me try to alleviate their fear by explaining that the failure was not on the Divine level, but on the human.
I indicated in the preceding paragraph that we are facing a problem which has not known solution since the first century of Christianity. Perhaps I should have said that it has not been solved since man fell in the Garden. In any event the problem first arose in the Garden, so let us begin to study it there.
In the third chapter of Genesis, after Adam and Eve had been beguiled into eating of the forbidden fruit, we read that God came down to walk in the evening breeze of the Garden, as seems to have been His custom. But since Man and Woman had eaten the forbidden fruit, their "eyes were opened." They were "like God" in that they were able to distinguish between good and evil. They, thus, came into possession of a conscience which condemned them for their disobedience, and they did not meet with God to walk with Him as before, but hid from him. Why? Well, Adam said, "I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself."
Now, I want you to get that well fixed in your mind. It was not God who produced that fear. It was man. It was NOT God who sought to avoid man's presence. It was the other way. It was not God who sought to avoid man on a common level; it was man who did so. Remember it! It has always been God who pressed for reconciliation. It has always been man who sought to avoid it! Look:
"The Lord's arm is not so short that he cannot save nor his ear too dull to hear;
it is your iniquities that raise a barrier, between you and your God,-- ."
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We have already found that man quickly terminated his personal relationship with God in the beginning. I want you to go with me now to what might have been a happy day in Man's relationship with his God. If our thought and meditation about God has been such as to be productive of any measure of empathy, we are aware that of all the words used to describe His nature, God seems to prefer "Father." Surely those of us who are parents can have something of a sympathetic understanding of how He must have felt at the prospect of opening the door which man had kept tightly closed for so long. If we are going to build a monument to man's perfidy as we, inevitably, must do if we view him objectively, let us leave out no stone that fits.
In Exodus, chapter 19, we read that God made preparation for, if not an actual reunion, then a very close communication with those who had been separated from Him by their own choice. I would suggest that you will be in a much better position to grasp the full significance of this if you will turn and read the entire chapter before we go on. Let us notice a part of His words carefully.
"If only you will now listen to me, and keep my covenant, then out of all peoples you will become my special possession; for the whole earth is mine. You shall be my kingdom of priests, my holy nation." (Exo. 19:4, 5.).
Do not expect to grasp the full impact of this without serious thought and prayer. You must understand fully just what God is saying. Please note that He proposed to make of them "a kingdom of priests." If we understand the function of priests, we can see that God was proposing to set up a kingdom in which citizenship would constitute inclusion in the priesthood. To put it another way, there could be direct communication between God and each citizen of the kingdom without a priesthood. A priest is one who functions as the contact between God and man. Note!
"For every high priest is taken from among men and appointed their representative before God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins." (Heb. 5:1.). In this, the high priest is depicted as the one who occupied the highest position in the priest-hood. This however, is a study in and of itself. I recommend that you read the book written by the editor of this journal, The Royal Priesthood.
We are able to understand that in a large measure, God is preparing to remove the barriers and open the way to an intimate, certainly a much closer, relationship than had existed since that fateful garden scene. What a joyous, inexpressibly happy thought. How tragic to have to go on and face the unhappy fact that men preferred to go on hiding, and what God had planned as an happy occasion was relegated to the category of something which might have been.
It should be recalled here that God's promise to make them a "kingdom of priests" was conditional. It was predicated upon a two-fold condition. (1) They were required to listen to Him and (2) they were required to keep His covenant. To this they agreed. (Exo. 19:8.). It is somewhat disturbing, however, to remember that they only paid lip service to it. Their carrying out the agreement never got beyond the conversational level. How like our present situation, where such great emphasis is placed upon teaching (what we say) and so little upon
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"Whatever the Lord has said we will do." (Exo. 19:8.).
Now, notice what they did after God came close, or attempted to do so. God's approach was manifested in such a demonstration of power as they had not previously seen at such close range. They had accepted deliverance from slavery by that power. They had crossed the Red Sea by it. They had eaten manna and quail provided by it. They had quenched their thirst with water provided by it. All this they had been willing to do because the power did not contact them directly, or on an individual level. They were unable to tolerate it when forced to contact it on their own level of existence. When that happened, they were scared to death.
"Speak to us yourself," they said to Moses," and we will listen, but if God speaks to us we will die." (Exo. 20:19.).
Perhaps we are likely to miss the significance of this unless we give it the closest scrutiny. What it actually means is that they did not love God in reality! To illustrate, a child who might witness a professional fighter beat another man into unconsciousness might be scared almost to death upon meeting the champion on a "man to man" basis. This would not be the case, however, if the fighter happened to be his father. He could meet the man, place his diminutive hand in the ham-like fist without the slightest fear. Why? Because this is "Daddy," and a child does not fear a father, normally, no matter how big and powerful he may be. It comes out, then, that the children of Israel feared God because they did not actually think of Him as being their Father. It is obvious that they did not love Him, for had they loved Him, they would not have feared Him. "There is no room for fear in love; perfect love banishes fear" (1 John 4:18).
Now having seen that they did not love Him, even to the extent of tolerating His close proximity, God did not turn completely away from them as human reaction might have done. He began to make preparation to approach them through the only avenue they had left open to Him. Notice:
"Go and tell them to return to their tents, but you yourself stand here beside me, and I will set forth to you all the commandments, the statutes and laws which you shall teach them to observe in the land which I have given them to occupy" (Deut. 5:30, 31).
If you will scrutinize the above passage very carefully, you will see that it is a far cry from what God proposed when he offered to make them into "a kingdom of priests." Instead of being direct and personal, their communication was to be the cold, hard, unyielding inflexibility of commandments, statutes, and laws. God chose to approach them in this way because this was their choice -- the only alternative they proposed. It was in compliance with their wish that, instead of a "kingdom of priests," God made them now a "kingdom with priests."
I think we should take into account the fact that the children of Israel did not keep their agreement to listen to Moses if he would spare them the ordeal of direct contact with God. They made it necessary, evidently, for a barrier to be erected even between them and Moses. Look:
"With such a hope as this we speak out boldly; it is not for us to do as Moses did: he put a veil over his face to keep the Israelites from gazing on that fading splendor until it was gone. But in any case their minds had been made insensitive, for that same veil is there to this very day when the lesson is read from the old covenant; and it is never lifted, because only in Christ is the old covenant abrogated" (2 Cor. 3:12-14).
It was their refusal to dispense with that veil which prevented them from getting a clear view of God, through Christ. We could pile one scripture on top of another to prove this point, but little proof is required to prove that which cannot be denied. Let it also be noted that I have not the time, inclination, or the
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I come now to making a statement which many may regard as incendiary, upon first thought. I passionately hope, however, that most people will not draw a final conclusion from their first impression. Please think about it, and weigh it carefully in the light of all the truth you know. It may be a little unpleasant today, but if I am right, it can lead to a brighter tomorrow.
The attitude toward God manifested by the Israelites at the approach of God at Sinai is still the attitude mankind, generally, shows toward God. This is not aimed at others in the denominational world, for it is, perhaps, a little more true of "us', than it is of others in Gentile Christendom. That may be a sobering, unpleasant thought, but it is true, as I shall endeavor to show.
I ask you to consider, just for a moment, man's efforts down through the ages, to put the Lord's will into action. Starting with the first generation this side of those men prepared by Christ Himself, history records only a very modicum of success. Certainly, if anything stands out, it is man's utter inability to function in keeping with God's desire. Just think for a moment about what has been, and compare it with what might have been. Man has clearly demonstrated his utter impotency to implement God's will. To clearly illustrate this to the point of making it undeniable, I want to quote to you a statement by a scholar of undoubted ability. I am thinking of Dr. J. B. Phillips, whose translation many of you have in your library. Here is what he says, in his book, Is God At Home?.
"Without God's inner reinforcement Christianity remains a beautiful idea -- which no man can live up to. Man may admire the character of Christ, may see that his way of living is the right one, and may even try to follow him. But unless God can implant the moral power inside, the vision of being a Christian soon fades and becomes just another discarded ideal."
I have quoted Dr. Phillips because he seems to put it in such a way that makes it just startling enough to produce sober thought. It is not true because he says it, but it is true because it was lifted directly from an expression of the Holy Spirit as recorded by Paul. Paul was praying for the Ephesian Christians directly, but what he says applies to you. Thus,
"With this in mind, then, I kneel in prayer to the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name, that out of the treasures of his glory he may grant you strength and power through his Spirit in your inner being, that through faith Christ may dwell in your hearts in love" (Eph. 3:14-17).
The other day I asked a young Spanish-American lad about those things which he felt were giving him the greatest difficulties in living for Christ. Fundamentally, he felt that virtually all his problems stemmed from fear. He may not have realized it, but he was identifying himself with all mankind. Wherever man has significantly fallen, fear has been one of the underlying causes, if not the prime cause. The young man told me he was afraid of the following things:
(1) Of men, (2) of being overpowered by evil, (3) of being unable to distinguish between right and wrong, (4) that he was too great a sinner, (5) of false teachers, (6) of fear itself, (7) that his best would not be good enough, (8) of his own weakness, (9) of insecurity.
He thought he was unique in fearing these things, but the actual truth is that he was simply verbalizing fears which most, if not all, of us have in common. This brings us face to face with a universal need among God's people. In order to function with effectiveness in the face of the needs of this day, we need to divest ourselves of the fears which beset us. Now, get this point. Conquering most fears, if not all, is simply a matter of
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Years ago, when I used to be involved in electronics, after I had worked on the same problem for a long time, they used to say I was suffering from "circuit blindness" and put me to doing something else for a while. The editor of this journal has, for so long, been pleading with people not to expect from the written Word things which God never meant for it to impart that they may think that he is getting "circuit blind." Nevertheless, as long as there remains in the background of our thinking that the written word was designed to do everything, there is very little hope of our ever being able to derive the full benefit from it which He intended.
No erroneous concept in our day has been more damning than the one which supposes that the written word is the one thing needed to perfect the man of God. This is just not so, and the Word itself denies it categorically. I am aware that this statement will send a lot of readers rushing, in a display of every motivation from high indignation to blind panic, to 2 Timothy 3:16, 17. But when they get there, there is just no way to make that passage say what they want it to say. What it does say is that the scriptures are essential to perfection -- absolutely essential. There is just no way of being "efficient" and "fully equipped" without "every inspired scripture." However, to read into this passage that the inspired scriptures are, alone, capable of constituting "full equipment" and "efficiency" is to read something which is just not there. To illustrate:
I might, in all truth, say of the physical essentials that man was given two hands in order that he might be efficiently and fully equipped for living. But is there any way in which that can be made to say that he does not need feet? In this same connection, how can it be said that the man of God may be fully equipped by the scriptures alone, without those things which the scriptures themselves say are to be provided by the Holy Spirit? Face it! We have spent so much time trying to exploit the scriptures that we have become blind to everything else even the spirit of God. We must have done with handicapping ourselves with the knowledge-imparting power of the holy writ alone, and trying to get by without the wisdom and strength-imparting power of the Holy Spirit.
Why have we made this serious mistake? Why have we pursued it so far that it may even now be too late to turn back? For the very simple and, if we have the courage to face it squarely, obvious reason that we are afraid of close proximity with God. We can tolerate the thought of Him on another level, especially a different level than the one on which we live. But even as the Israelites said, "Speak to us through Moses, but don't you speak to us directly or we will die," so we are saying, "Speak to us through the written word, and we will listen, but don't you step from between its pages and try to communicate with us in any other way."
What I am now prepared to say will not be accepted by many. They will be so victimized by tradition that they will exceedingly fear and tremble. Perhaps the most charitable thing they will say about me is that I have "gone Pentecostal." There is far more at stake, however, than my personal popular evaluation, or how it may be affected. I believe and, therefore, I speak.
The cold, hard fact is that we have "gone the last mile of the way" insofar as harvesting the benefits of scholarship is concerned. No longer is the world being influenced to any great degree by what we say. They have stopped listening. They have not stopped watching, however. They will still be influenced by what we do, if we do the right thing.
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We must have done with fear which causes us to deny God a place of real tangible involvement in our lives now. He must become solid enough in the nature of his existence to provide us with something to lean on, and tangible enough to provide the hand and footholds necessary for us to climb to yet unattained heights. We must achieve sufficient faith (trust) to enable the nail-scarred hands of Jesus to tear down the barriers men have erected to prevent God from occupying a place of reality in their lives, and have demanded that He remain in the realm of abstraction.
We must reach the place where we can "boldly approach the throne of our gracious God, where we may receive mercy and in his grace find timely help." We must come with the faith necessary to believe that there will be an answer. We must open all lines of communication to receive that expected answer. Only in such an attitude do we have reason for hope. We often sing the song, "I Won't Have to Cross Jordan Alone." Let me point out that crossing alone would be little less traumatic than crossing in the company of a stranger. We sing "Jesus Savior Pilot Me." Little is likely to happen so long as we deny Him a place at the wheel.
What about you? Is God a reality, or have you welcomed him only to the fractional reality of abstraction? Just remember He is little concerned with your ability, or lack of it. That is His department. He can provide ability, if you will only provide availability. What about your availability?
-------------------------- Editor's Note. we suggest that you read this article again, and then write your impressions to the author, Vernon Hurst, P.O. Box 823, Powell, Wyoming 82435.