The Offensive God

When the man saw that he did not prevail agains Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob's hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. ... The sun rose upon him... limping because of his hip. from Genesis 32

But she came and knelt before him, saying, "Lord, help me." And he answered, "It is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs." Matthew 15.25-26

You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? Matthew 12.34

I sometimes find myself startled by different passages in scripture.  Jesus couldn't have really done that, or said that, or meant that- it just seems so offensive!

But what if He did? What if the scriptures are accurate, and we have a God who offends our senses, our emotions and our reason? It seems to me that this is a much more probable God than one who somehow conforms to all my expectations of behavior.

We have, in fact, a unique God, a God true to Himself and independent.  He is the First, the Prime Mover, and all else is contingent on His breath, His word, His will, His deed. Our theories of justice are as finger paintings of a ray of sunlight, weak impressions of that which streams eternally from Him. He is the source, the root, the pure, the form, the infinite truth. We can not weigh His behavior on our scales- what scale could bear Him? We can not circum-navigate His mind- what ship could surpass Him? Justice balances her scales by His gravity. Righteousness delights to claim the ground He walks upon (Psalm 85.13).

Yet if all we know and claim of justice, righteousness, and love comes comically short when placed beside Him, how can we know that He is trustworthy to be any of those things towards us? If justice and righteousness and love are defined by His hand, how can we be sure that His hand intends 'good' at all?

There is but one way to be sure. He has revealed His will, revealed what 'good' truly means. He has demonstrated justice, righteousness, and love. The cross is our evidence that His transcendence is truly good for mankind, even when we cannot understand it. Even when pain is great, or fear is dominating, when faith seems offensive or darkness cloaks all things. There was one day in which God bore that pain, that fear, that offense, and that darkness. And it is in the suffering of God that we find our assurance in Him. It is in His breaking for our healing that we place our hope. Our God is offensive, and challenging, and independent, never more than when He took on flesh and suffered in our place. Yet "Christ crucified, a stumbling bock to Jews and folly to the Gentiles, [is], to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the wisdom of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men." 1 Corinthians 1.23-25

We cannot define Him by our measures, but must base our measures on Him. Yet still His good is truly for us, in His justice, righteousness, and love, for He has suffered that we might be redefined in Him. Thus we submit to Him in the confusions of scripture and of life, trusting that He is greater, in wisdom and strength, than we could ever understand. But most of all, we submit to Him in love, for He has truly loved us with a love that surpasses all understanding (Ephesians 3.19).

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And, to be fair, our conceptions of justice, righteousness, and love (and many other things) are not created in a vacuum. I would suggest they spring from God's creative ordering of the universe, and more specifically from the law He has placed in the hearts of all. So, I wouldn't advocate for a total rejection of our senses of right and wrong- but as Christians, we must re-calibrate our measures to Him and His revealed word, not just to our sense of right and wrong.