Some thoughts in progress for a possible Christmas essay. Perhaps you’ve had similar questions. If so, I’d love to hear how you have resolved them. My thought is that we believers in UR should look at Christmas a bit differently perhaps than do our fellow Christians…
Thanks, and Merry Christmas!
xxx
Jesus, the unwrapped gift: A Christmas meditation
Yesterday our family (less my son who is now away at college) continued a longstanding tradition by attending the wonderful Christmas musical put on at the First Baptist Church here in Orlando. Very inspiring music and always a wonderful blessing. And as usual, the pastor extended an invitation to those in the audience who have not yet made a commitment for Christ. An alter call of sorts. You don’t have to come up front, but can silently accept the invitation in the quite of your heart.
But there was something subtly disconcerting about the way he presented the invitation and I’m bothered that I’m not quite sure why.
He sat on an elevated bar stool on the stage with a package in his hands. Bright paper and shiny ribbon and large bow. And he likened Jesus to a gift which God has given us. Our task, our invitation is to accept that gift; to open and unwrap it for full effect.
And the question arose for me, yet again, what exactly is the nature of my participation in my own salvation? To the same extent that I effect or make real my salvation by “doing something”, isn’t that the same extent to which God is disallowed from acting and has less role? Yes, it’s my own private variation of the ancient argument of salvation by Grace alone vs grace plus works; in this case the “work” being put in words and phrases like “accepting” and “opening the gift” or perhaps it’s placed in more negative terms like “stop resisting” and “giving up running from God”.
Dangers lurk in veering too far in either direction it seems. Surely there is some response required on my part to God’s invitation if I am a sentient and free being. That God could be thought of as “forcing” this saving response upon me is troubling it seems. On the other hand, too many fall to the mistake of over emphasizing their “response” to the point of using it as a means of elevating themselves as an object of God’s special favor. Needless to say, this sort are never believers in UR; for the non-responders are eventually consigned to their final destination of ECT or annihilation.
The bible of course talks about ears that do not hear; of eyes that do not see; of choices and of consequences. Hearing, seeing, choosing, all requiring action on our part, and response. If a response is necessary for salvation, then to what extent does our response save us?
But right beside this is the notion from Romans 9:16 which downplays salvation as coming from us at all while emphasizing salvation as the work only of God. “So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on GOD who has mercy.” Ephesians 2:8 seems to contain much the same idea but with the addition of “faith” as something like a mediator connecting our response to God’s Grace. Yet even that faith is said to be “not of ourselves”.
How then to resolve this tension between salvation being only from God and yet also requiring some positive response on my part? Perhaps it is a tension which we are not supposed to resolve fully but which we are to move within with full awareness of the pitfalls on either side.
I would think that this dilemma should be especially poignant for we who hold to the truth of God’s Universal Reconciliation. It’s easy for us to place emphasis on God’s saving Grace as sole saving agent and to believe in it’s eventual total victory over sin. At the same time, however, we do not shy away from ideas of judgment and corrective punishment and consequences. All things that could be mitigated by our response to the all-pervasive Grace which baths us all indiscriminately.
Back then to the imagery of this Baptist pastor: Jesus as wrapped gift. To be sure, it is a gift of inestimable worth. But it is anything but wrapped. For the entire story of Emanuel should be seen as the great UNwrapping of God before the universe! As the Light which has come and has shattered the darkness! As the final and best Revelation of God Himself! (That’s sort of my paraphrase of Hebrews 1)
The gift of God then is the unwrapping of Himself to and for us and it is, already, in our hands. Already unwrapped. Hidden becomes unhidden. Mystery is revealed. Unknown becomes known. The gift of God, in Jesus, is God fully exposed. Vulnerable, compassionate, a baby.
As such, the gift of God cannot be un-given; for the gift is the full revelation of what actually is and has always been. One can no more refuse to accept this reality than he can the reality that the Oxygen he breaths cannot be ignored or rejected. The very source and sustainer of life is now made flesh and has walked with us; and walks still. And it is this reality that permeates everything. Denying that truth does nothing to make it less so; one may deny that he needs oxygen to live, yet breathes it and lives nonetheless.
It is this ultimate revelation of God, in Jesus, that unmasks the great truth of who God is and how we are a part of Him. We are, simply, His family. And are, through the truth of Jesus, thus saved. And this is not of ourselves. At all. The realization of the truth already in existence is not to be confused with the saving itself. Thus,
“When all things are subjected to Him, then the Son Himself also will be subjected to the One who subjected all things to Him, so that God may be all in all.” (1 Cor 15:28)
The gift of Jesus then is much more than an invitation; it is an announcement! God has revealed Himself completely. And He is here. With us. Heralding a Kingdom of which we are members.
Blessed Christmas!
TotalVictory
Bobx3