Jesus extends mercy beyond theology.
~ Andy Stanley
The most blessed result of prayer would be to rise thinking, But I never knew before. I never dreamed… I suppose it was at such a moment that Thomas Aquinas said of all his own theology, “It reminds me of straw.”
~C. S. Lewis (1898-1963)
Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you is no trouble to me and is safe for you. Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh. For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh—though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and may share His sufferings, becoming like Him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
~ paul, The Least of The Apostles, in Philippians 3
Oh beloved, it is true. We, each of us, are doomed apart from Him. And one of the worst enemies of the Truth is our improper handling on the same. We each want to know what it is going to take for us to escape the fires of perdition, and this is both necessary and noble. However, in obsessing on the real, but negative sense of the whole thing, we can miss the entire point of Theology.
Him.
Our shame drives us into these troughs of guilt about our depravity. Oh yes, our fallenness is real. We are completely broken, apart from Him. We are alone. We are dead. And we are completely stuck. However, the answer to this problem is exceedingly simple.
Him.
But we rail against answers that are this simple. We have, over the centuries, developed numerous systems of comprehending the enormously Good News presented in His Word. And each of them take a really good run at the truth. But no matter what, they miss an element or two or three or four. There are just too many things in Scripture that are bigger than language and culture and history and time.
His ways are higher – exceedingly higher than ours. However, we still miss the opportunity to let Him be who He is, and try a little harder by walling off our little area of truth and beginning to defend it to the point that we begin to call everyone else in the Christo-centric world, wrong.
Anyway, this fool of a writer is just going to say it… Anyone who is counting on their theology to save them is doomed. The Reformed Protestant who worships his doctrinal precision and “Solis” is just as doomed as the Roman Catholic who counts on his works and a priest to save him.
Can we see it? Most theological discussion has very little to do with G_d, other than to be used as a platform to display our fear and shame and pride. We are so frightened to be wrong, because we listen to the liar telling us that we could end up in hell. We use our theology to mask (rather than heal) our shame. And we honestly have the audacity to believe we are the first people to have figured out the Gospel, even though it has been laid out for thousands of years.
What is we took a completely different approach here? What if we realized that Theology was really not about us? What if we simply looked at the word itself. It is all about Him. Yet, once we do this, something really amazing begins to happen within us.
Our fear melts away
Our shame is healed
Our pride in our position is decimated.
And we come back to rest on the central reality.
Him.
So, are you looking around and seeing how messed up other people’s theology is? They may indeed be messed up, but there is no way to help bring them to the Truth unless you really know Him. Perhaps tonight, you and i could join the author of Summa Theologica and see our views as nothing, compared to Him.
