Often times today God is associated with Tyranny and the desire to rule over the world and every person with an iron fist, forcing His moral demands on us. This misunderstanding often crops up in an accusation of God that goes something like “why would God create us the way He planned to hold us to a standard that is so high?”. The accusation here being two pronged, on one side why is God being a Tyrant with moral demands and the other why did God decide to make us so capable of doing evil.
God’s Creation Decision
The other morning I was having my Quiet Time and meditating and reading about Jesus in the Garden of Olives and Romans 8. The first thing that stood out to me afresh was Romans 8: 18-22:
18 For I consider that our present sufferings cannot even be compared to the coming glory that will be revealed to us. 19 For the creation eagerly waits for the revelation of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility—not willingly but because of God who subjected it—in hope 21 that the creation itself will also be set free from the bondage of decay into the glorious freedom of God’s children. 22 For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers together until now.
(Emphasis mine)
Notice that this passage says God subjected creation to futility, that futility pointing back to what Paul is saying about sin entering into the world through Adam (And humanity in general). In other words God did something that allowed the world to end up in a sort of broken state. By creating free rational creatures God made the decision to not have a perfect world but one where there was not only choices to be made but where very good or very evil choices were possible.
Free will to the degree it is given allows good and evil choices. Think for a minute from God’s point of view. Nothing yet exists and you wish to make creatures of some kind, but you don’t want to create just any kind of creature but one’s that can understand and relate. Even one’s who can relate with you enough that they can have a real relationship with you. Not just relate to you but who will also be good rulers good leaders of other creatures. In order to do that you need to create someone who does not just do whatever you tell them like a robot or a enslaved person, you want someone who can really make the choice to follow along with you and see the goodness behind the decisions you make. In other words God did not want to create a created order based on tyranny even so-called good tyranny, with Him giving good orders and everyone following out of fear of Him without understanding. No God wanted free peoples at the top of the created order, people who considered His commands and called them good not just because they were ordered to do so but because they see the goodness of them and freely follow them. Without this kind of good order from the top there is no good created order.
The next thing that struck me was reading Luke 22:39-46 and seeing Jesus’ reaction as He wrestled with the thought He would be going to the cross the next day. In context, I think its important to see that for Jesus this was not just the night before His death, this was the night before His Father who He had loved and been with since eternity past was going to sit on the judgement seat of heaven and judge Jesus for the sins off all humanity (Isa 53:5,10). Jesus weeps here even to the point of weeping blood the verse says, and yet resolves to do the will of God. Why? What is happening here? Well, we need to go back to what we saw in Romans, God chose to create a world where sin would have its effect, He did not choose to create a world where people would simply be forced on the good line. He instead gave people a free will and as a consiquence man sinned. What we also know is that from the start God (including Jesus in the trinity) knew this was what would need to happen (Eph 1:4-5, 1 Peter 1:19-20, Gal 4:4-5). In other words God knew when He chose to make us free it would cost His life to have a relationship with us. He knew that this creation picture would require His everything, His own Son in order for it to be realized. Hebrews 12:2 tells us the Jesus endured the cross because of this hope that layed before Him, the same hope I believe that the Godhead had before the foundation of the world. That a free people was worth the possiblity of evil and it was then worth even sacrificing the Trinitarian relationship to sin and judgement and death for the sake of the “Sons of God” and all the glory that those good Sons and Daughters in fact would bring to His name.
What’s this got to do with Tyranny?
While God is often accused of Tyranny this could not be further from the truth. In face God values personal freedom so highly He would not have a creation without free will as a foundation. The free chosing of good alone is truly good and God from the foundation or base of the whole world points this out. This is also an accurate picture of sactificaiton Paul says in Romans 6:17-18
But thanks be to God that though you were slaves to sin, you obeyed from the heart that pattern of teaching you were entrusted to, and having been freed from sin, you became enslaved to righteousness.
When we choose to do God in the power given to us through the Holy Spirit and run after God’s good will we actively show the world the emense value of true free will. In America today we so need a free Christian Church that chooses to run after Christ and lives relying on the power of the Spirit. Jesus tells us to take up our cross daily and to follow Him, to love God with all our heart our strength and soul and our neighbor as ourself. Only through pursuing Him and in turn realizing our great need for His Spirit to enable us to really more and more get close to this sort of Christ-Life can we be the sorts of light and salt that transform our communities.
God Bless you today. Run after HIM.
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