The Divine Ambivalence

During the Lenten season the hearts of Christians everywhere are gripped anew as they contemplate the two pivotal truths of salvation: Christ died for our sins on the cross and rose again the third day for our justification (Rom. 4:25). These two events portray what might be called the divine ambivalence. God who saved us is the God of love; he is also the God of wrath. Puritan theology greatly emphasized the wrath of God. Jonathan Edwards’s famous sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” had little of the love of God in it. In sharp contrast, today many people talk about the love of God and say little or nothing about his wrath. A balanced theology must include an emphasis on both sides of the divine nature, for we know the love only through the same biblical revelation that tells us of God’s wrath.

Augustine said, “Wherefore in a wonderful and Divine manner, he both hated us and loved us at the same time. He hated us, as being different from what he had made us; but as our iniquity had not entirely destroyed his work in us, he could at the same time in every one of us hate what we had done, and love what proceeded from himself.”

The God of wrath regards sinful men as his enemies until they are restored to him through the death of his Son on the cross; they remain under the divine curse until they accept Christ’s atonement for their sins; they are separated from the holy God until reunited to him by faith in Christ as their Saviour. The wrath of God springs from his holiness. He is “of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cannot look on iniquity” (Hab. 1:13). Divine righteousness is incompatible with iniquity.

For sinful men to become reconciled to God, the justice of God had to be satisfied; atonement had to be made for sin; the holiness of God had to be maintained. This is what made Calvary necessary. On the cross Jesus, who knew no sin, was made sin for us. The full demands of God’s justice, which we could never meet, Jesus fulfilled for us. Calvary’s darkness is the measure of the severity of God’s wrath against sin.

Because Christ is fully God, medieval theologians speculated that a single pain or a drop of his blood would have infinite value and thus suffice to blot out the sins of all men. By contrast, Calvin believed that Jesus not merely had to die (the “ultimate penalty” of ancient law), but had to do so as the result of a judicial sentence, in order to bear our condemnation and atone for our sins.

In this violent drama of penalty and satisfaction, where do we discern the love of God?

Let it never be said that God’s love for sinners is a consequence of Calvary. The reverse is true. His love preceded our reconciliation in Christ (Rom. 5:8). He loved us first, and because of this love he made provision for our reconciliation. If Calvary is the mark of divine wrath, it is also the mark of divine love. Here opposites are reconciled, not by the forging of a synthesis, but by the satisfaction of God’s holy wrath, permitting the triumph of love. As Paul said, Christ nailed to his cross “the handwriting of ordinances which was against us … and having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a show of them, openly triumphing over them in it” (Col. 2:14, 15).

Christ’s death on Calvary, while sufficient in its efficacy to redeem lost men, would be incomplete without his resurrection from the dead. Christians have been “begotten again to a lively hope by his resurrection from the dead” (1 Pet. 1:3). By his resurrection Jesus Christ showed that he had brought death to death. Indeed, he could not have liberated us from the hold of death if he himself had remained under its power. Therefore we owe our salvation partly to the death of Christ and partly to his resurrection. Easter is no less essential to the drama of redemption than Calvary. Calvary speaks to us of the wrath of God and as the measure of his hatred of sin; Easter speaks of the triumph of redeeming love in which God’s righteousness was vindicated so that he could be both the just and the justifier of those who trust in Christ.

The Lenten drama cannot be interpreted to mean that all men have been justified and their sins forgiven. It does mean that the gateway to heaven has been opened provisionally to all; to enter they must claim the merits of Christ’s atoning work by personal faith. God took the initiative and did all that needed to be done. Nothing need or can be added to Christ’s atoning work. Men everywhere are called upon to respond to the divine initiative by believing on Jesus Christ.

The glory of the Lenten season is the passion and the resurrection of Christ for us. Its tragedy lies in men’s failure to respond to God’s love. Those who spurn the divine love will someday be exposed to God’s wrath, for he is still an angry God toward those who refuse his offer of salvation even as he is the God of love and life toward those who have Easter faith.

Rouault: Beyond ‘Human Flabbiness’

Georges Rouault is a much misunderstood, though much discussed, twentieth-century painter. William A. Dyrness, for the centennial of Rouault’s birth, wrote the first full-length treatment of the man and his painting, Rouault: A Vision of Suffering and Salvation (Eerdmans, $8.95). Dyrness considers Rouault the greatest Christian painter since Rembrandt. Men such as H. R. Rookmaaker (author of Modern Art and the Death of a Culture) agree; others, such as Francis Schaeffer, include Rouault in the list of post-Christian painters.

The evidence and analysis Dyrness offers to support his opinion are convincing. He considers the spiritual development of Rouault apart from his painting and then explains it through his work. Dating the artist’s conversion around 1900, Dyrness explores the subjects of Rouault’s paintings—from the early prostitutes through landscapes, clowns, and finally Christ, his passion and crucifixion. With vivid anecdotes and exacting detail Dyrness underscores the varying themes.

Many critics and artists have complained that Rouault’s art is tragic, even morbid or sadistic. He concentrates on the bleakness of humanity, but not to condemn or comment; he simply recognizes man’s sin and suffering for what it is.

Dyrness is helped with this analysis by Rouault’s poetic comments on his art:

Poor mariner

Upon the limitless ocean

I am indigent dust

That is swept by the wind.

I love the Divine Peace

And the light

Even in the blackest nights,

At war for a spiritual good

That I would never betray.

Rouault sees humanity’s loneliness and emptiness, while sensing the gift of grace God gives to man. This is the light that illumines the darkness.

As Rouault grew older, he pictured this grace more explicitly. In 1912 he painted “The Holy Countenance,” Christ’s face ill defined, almost featureless. In 1933, he painted another “Holy Countenance,” a sharp, clear, strongly featured head of Christ. These two paintings summarize the artist’s development, both spiritually and artistically. As one critic put it, “Rouault has stripped to the bone the human flabbiness of his figures in order to reach the wood and iron of Calvary’s agonies.” Studying Rouault—and Dyrness’s book provides us with a good beginning—helps us see man’s sin more clearly by juxtaposing it with Christ’s sinless suffering for us.

A Crust With Subjective Filling

There’s a new pie being sold, but Mrs. Smith doesn’t make it. The creator, Don McLean, insists that “ ‘American Pie’ is just a song,” not a cosmology or a theology or a history of rock. But with lyrics as exciting, illusive, and symbolic as these, rock students and disc jockeys all across the country can’t refrain from offering interpretations. Whatever the intended meaning (McLean won’t say what it is), the song seems to capture the mood of young drop-outs.

The search for spiritual meaning is evident in the questions McLean asks. One of them, “Now do you believe in rock and roll / Can music save your mortal soul?,” reflects the union in many young people’s minds of rock and religious experience. Another question asks, “Did you write the book of love [suggesting both a big hit by that name in the late fifties and the Bible] / And do you have faith in God above / If the Bible tells you so?”

McLean reflects the pessimism of the sixties in both words and music. The tempo quickens and his voice gets louder as he sings abstract allusions to the king and queen of rock, drugs, Mick Jagger, Dylan, and the occult’s satanic “sacrificial rites.” (In the song, the composer mentions Satan as a real person.)

The rejection of formal religion, associated with the Eastern establishment, and the beginnings of the Jesus movement end the song. As the tempo slows, McLean sings softer:

The church bells all were broken

And the three men I admire most,

The Father, Son and the Holy Ghost,

They caught the last train for the coast

The day the music died.

The world changed when “the music died,” and this song, probably the most provocative since Superstar, records what happened. Society’s dead youth (those who “died,” or dropped out, when the music died) understand the “American Pie” questions, for they too ask them. The answer is found, not in this song, but in another giant hit, “Put Your Hand in the Hand of the Man From Galilee.”

Choice Evangelical Reprints Of 1971

Beware the chronological fallacy—in both forms! Something is not necessarily better because it is older, nor is the latest always the best. This is especially true with books. We want to call attention to a few of the many titles by evangelicals that were published last year but in some way were not new. Some publishers feature this kind of work—for example, Sovereign Grace and Associated Publishers and Authors (surely well known to our readers through their retail counterpart, the Religious Book Discount House). As a general principle, books intended for reference, such as commentaries, incorporate the best from their predecessors, but some books now centuries old still speak forcefully to our age. Of course people who cherish the ancient Holy Scriptures need no reminding of that.

Speaking of the Bible, a splendid paperback on principles of interpretation, Hermeneutics (Baker), appeared last year; its ten essays were published four years earlier in a larger work, Baker’s Dictionary of Practical Theology, and the eight authors include Bernard Ramm and E. M. Blaiklock. Zondervan published a skillful abridgment of a century-old eight-volume work: Ellicott’s Bible Commentary in One Volume. Another abridgment, this one from four volumes into one, is Christology of the Old Testament (Kregel) by E. W. Hengstenberg (1802–69). A sixteenth-century translation of Calvin’s Commentaries is being re-bound into eight volumes from forty-five by Associated Publishers and Authors. One of the handful of men like Calvin whose commentaries are not superseded by more recent work is Johann Bengel (1687–1752). Once again a translation of Bengel with clearly indicated updating to the mid-nineteenth century is available in two large volumes as New Testament Word Studies (Kregel). Jumping to the present, the three volumes of Donald Guthrie’s standard New Testament Introduction (Inter-Varsity) have been updated and issued (without abridgment) as one volume.

John Calvin: Selections From His Writings (Doubleday Anchor), edited by John Dillenberger, will probably become the standard for its purpose, as has the earlier counterpart on Martin Luther. Two more recent thinkers have also had anthologies. Henry Venn (1796–1873) was long associated with the home office of the Church (of England) Missionary Society and a pioneer missiologist; Max Warren compiled To Apply the Gospel (Eerdmans) that this generation may learn from Venn’s insights. P. T. Forsyth (1848–1921), a British free-church theologian, has been much more appreciated in subsequent generations than in his own. Harry Escott collected numerous excerpts from Forsyth’s practical writings as The Cure of Souls (Eerdmans), and Marvin Anderson gathered eight of Forsyth’s journal articles on the still timely topic of The Gospel and Authority (Augsburg). For a good overview of contemporary evangelical understanding of the Bible’s message, we recommend a series of forty-three articles by as many writers that originally appeared in our pages a decade ago and is now available in paperback as Basic Christian Doctrines (Baker), edited by Carl F. H. Henry.

A slightly revised edition of Helping Families Through the Church (Concordia), edited by Oscar Feucht, speaks to a universally felt need. Fortunately not as universal, but increasingly prevalent, is fascination with the psychic and the occult. The distinctions, legitimacies, and dangers are competently treated by J. Stafford Wright in Mind, Man and the Spirits (Zondervan), a paperback reprint of a decade-old British publication.

Honor And Love

Through the centuries religious discrimination has been a stain on the pages of human history, including church history. How often it has happened—and still happens—that a Jew has been turned away from the Messiah who came to save him because he was made to feel unwelcome among that Messiah’s Gentile disciples. To discriminate against another human being is to dishonor him as a man, and that is radically at variance with the attitude of Jesus Christ, of whom it is said, “He is not ashamed to call [men] brethren” (Heb. 2:11). But the strange thing is that while we may easily dishonor those who are not our Christian brethren, we do not necessarily therefore more easily love those who are.

There have been many campaigns for interfaith brotherhood in the United States, and they have achieved some good. In a sense all mankind has been made by God “from one blood” (Acts 17:26). But it is a fatal error not to see that this common origin is but a pale shadow of the true brotherhood to which God is calling us, as children of the one Father.

How often is it said of any group of Christians, “See how they love one another”? And yet this, according to our Lord, is one of the tokens by which men are to know that we are his disciples. The Apostle Peter had to learn to forget traditional racial and religious animosities in order to be able to witness to Cornelius the centurion. But he had to learn something more: that Jesus Christ had called Cornelius to be Peter’s brother. Being brothers in Christ has to mean something deeper and more binding than mere co-humanity. It does not downgrade the natural ties that exist among all people, as members of the same common humanity, to point out that Christian brotherhood must mean much more than this. Peter sums this lesson up for us: “Honor all men; love the brotherhood” (1 Pet. 2:17).

We often talk of love in a glib sort of way; to speak of loving everyone usually results in loving no one very well. It may not be possible to show love in casual contacts with people in stores, with government officials, with chance visitors, but it is certainly possible to show them honor. In English we do not have the honorific or respectful forms of address used in other languages, such as the French “vous” and the German “Sie,” but there are ways to express mutual respect.

We should beware of trying to perform more than the apostolic writer commands. If we disdain the attempt to perform the simpler task, that of honoring all men, because we aspire to love them all, we will probably succeed only in debasing our concept of love. It seems that much that is called Christian fellowship does not come up to the standard of courtesy and mutual respect indicated by Peter with the word “honor.” The Bible’s admonitions and commands are usually given in a particular order or context for a good reason. If we are concerned about the quality of love among Christians, we do well to act on the apostle’s words, “Honor all men; love the brotherhood.”

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