Against Oblivion

Against Oblivion--April 2, 2019

"What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else?" [Romans 8:31-32]

"If God is for us..." the apostle says.  I wonder--do we actually dare to believe that much?

"If God is for us," our English translation says, but the Greek carries a sense of "Since," or "Granted that," and not just the open-ended question of our word "if."  It is a launching point, as if to say, "Ok, so taking it as a given that God is for us, who could possible be against us?"

But maybe that's just it--what Paul takes as a sure promise of God, we have a hard time really accepting.  For all of our religious talk, and all of our pious language about having faith, I'm not really sure that deep down we dare to believe that God is actually for us, especially an "us" as big as Paul has in mind when he says "all of us."

To be honest, I think that sometimes we picture God like a Supreme Court Justice--someone whose official position is to insist they don't take sides, but only to mete out pure, unvarnished jurisprudence.  A Supreme Court Justice, so they say, isn't supposed to be rooting for one side or the other, but like an umpire in a baseball game (to use a cliché analogy) is just there to call balls and strikes.  Is a law permitted by the constitution or not?  Nice and clean and tidy and unbiased, at least in theory, so they say.  And we often just take that picture and project it onto God; I suppose it's only natural, since they both are usually depicted wearing robes.  But honestly, what I mean is that we often imagine that God, the cosmic judge, is bound simply to observe "the rules" and evaluate who gets "in" and who is cast "out" into the outer darkness.  Our religious talk often says, "The rule is that you must _____ (and everybody seems to have a different listing of the requirements here) in order to be saved, and God just has to abide by those rules.  If you have done _____, then God stamps you Worthy of Salvation and if you haven't, God rules that you are Damned.  Nothing personal, it's just God calling balls and strikes.  He's in, she's out.  You met the criteria of the rubric; they didn't.  

In this picture of God, we sometimes assume that God--like a supposedly unbiased judge--doesn't have a stake in the outcome, or at least chooses to set aside God's own personal preferences, in order to be perfectly objective, sending the righteous onto their just reward, and condemning the wicked who don't measure up.  This sort of God doesn't really care if heaven is full of people or tumbleweeds, and doesn't do anything to affect the outcome of our cases--God only holds each of us up to the letter of the law and decides if we make the cut or not.  And whether you picture the requirements as a certain number of good deeds, or having prayed the right prayer, or believed the correct facts about God on your theology test, it is still basically a matter of God saying, "Hey, I don't make the rules here--I just have to apply them.  You didn't do the acceptable minimum amount of work, so you're out."

But Paul here says that whole picture of God was mistaken from the start.  God, the apostle says, isn't objective or impartial.  God doesn't set aside personal preferences--not for a hot second.  Christ doesn't pretend he isn't pulling for a particular outcome--he is unabashedly "for us."  Always has been--Paul says the cross is the evidence.

This is what Paul takes as an assurance: since God is for us, there's nothing else that can ultimately get the final word on us.  God, Paul says, really is rooting for us.  Pulling for us.  And more than merely cheering for us, actively working to rescue us.  God doesn't indifferently watch over human history just sorting out good people and bad people into different bins--God is actively working for humanity in order to redeem humanity.  

In a sense, you could even say that God loves humanity more than God cares about a cold, pure legalistic sense of justice.  If that were God's highest commitment, God would simply see that we are a world full of mess-ups, failures, and letdowns (the shorthand is "sinners"), and say, quite literally, "To hell with the lot of 'em!"  If God were merely meting out punishments decreed by some invisible cosmic Law, we'd be out in the outer darkness already.  But Paul says that God isn't simply an unbiased referee, deciding what is constitutional or unconstitutional regardless of the outcome for real people. God takes sides.  Paul says that is our only hope.  God takes our side--humanity's side--over against oblivion.  God would rather find a way to rescue us than to leave us to our just deserts. 

In other words, the system has been rigged all along.  God is unashamedly, unabashedly FOR us: FOR humanity, FOR a broken world, FOR us in our messiness, FOR us even with these rebellious and recalcitrant hearts of ours.  That makes God not some imaginary unbiased Supreme Court Justice in the sky, but wholly biased on behalf of all humanity.  The cross is the sign of God's unapologetic show of favoritism for our ornery species.  "If God didn't even withhold Christ the Son, can't we also count on this same God to give us everything else?"  Yep.  Good point, Saint Paul.  God's reckless bias for our salvation--God's willingness to tip the balance and put a finger on the scales for our well-being--this is our hope and assurance for whatever else comes our way.  If God's favor for us, we human beings, is so strong that God was willing to take on death on our behalf, then whatever else this day can throw at us will be manageable, too.  

God is biased.  For us--an "us" that is big and wide and surprising.  Thank God.

Lord Jesus, give us confidence to trust that you really are FOR us, so that we can face whatever else comes our way today.