Our Steady God
By John Gavazzoni
As the image of the invisible God, the radiance of His glory, the exact image of His Person, God's Son continues always, through thick and thin, steady as His Father: "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and into the eons." It's the character of Jesus because it's the character of Him who begat Him. For the Son, steady goes it, out from within His Father into the world, perfectly expressing that character of His Father by which He is unfazed in the face of the changing circumstances of this world, and especially unfazed by the enmity toward Him that characterizes, in the main, the present universal human condition.
That steadiness is the steadiness of love. The love that God is requires that He be unflinchingly steady whether He is loved or hated, obeyed or disobeyed, confessed or denied. He is never so conflicted that having been offended by us, He must set aside His love until proper punishment is handed out that satisfies His (supposed) need to have His holiness appeased: "Sorry, I've got to hurt you, or hurt Someone standing in for you, or otherwise my righteousness stands in the way of my love for you."
Conventional evangelicalism sees the need of, and the plan of, salvation as central to scripture's story. But it's not. What's central is what God planned before sin entered the picture, and what will remain when sin is gone. They seem to see God as being put on the spot by the entrance of sin into the world, thus requiring of Him to change relational-posture toward men after they've sinned than it was before they've sinned. Not so. Not so at all! Sin enters the picture and God deals with it by simply continuing to be the God that He is. You've heard the expression, "steady goes it." Well steady goes it with God.
There has always been the cross-factor within the nature of God, within the love He is. Enters a gem from the pen of E. Stanley Jones: "The historical cross of Christ, lights up the cross in the heart of God." From before the foundation of the world was laid, with God, it was, "Crucify Me, and nothing about my love will change except your enmity will only serve to inflame my love." The Greek, conventionally translated as "wrath" is, as Jonathan Mitchell brings out in his translation of the New Testament, has the root-meaning of intrinsic or inherent fervor. There's a fervor-factor when the love of God is challenged by our enmity. Love surges. Love becomes that grace which more-abounds, which super-abounds where sin abounds.
Jonathan and I have a dear mutual friend, Ed Browne, a student of both biblical Greek and Hebrew, who without pre-conferring with Jonathan, came up with that same root meaning of the Greek, "orge." One had "intrinsic" and the other had "inherent." When I found that from each of them, my heart leaped within me: "Yes, yes, that's it. Love drawing forth from within a fervor of response to the sinner's need. Our need as sin-sick sinners meets with intrinsic/inherent fervor, and love gushes, love...in the best sense of the word...goes into a ravishing mode. With God, it's "I must have you, all that you are, as I give you all that I AM." It's at the heart of God saying, "I, your God, am a jealous God...." Again, referencing E. Stanley Jones. Jones said that "jealous" there should be understood as "passionate." That's why I've said so many times, "nice" doesn't describe God, "passionate" does," and you better know that about Him if you're going to make sense of His dealings with you.
"We have an anchor that keeps the soul,
Steadfast and sure while the billows roll;
Fastened the Rock that shall not move,
Grounded firm and deep in the Savior's love."
Our anchoring faith is "steadfast and sure," because our God and Savior is a steady God. Rock-steady. Nothing can budge Him from that steadiness. "Immutable" is the big word for it. The steadiness of God lies within the immutability of His love. Let come hell and high water, sin and death, everything and anything arrayed against Him, and He can't, He doesn't, He won't, budge.
