The great love-hate....

"For God so loved the world..."

     "You hate all who do wrong..."

          "For while we were still sinners..."

               "the one who loves violence, his soul God hates..."

                    "Jacob I loved..."

                          "Esau I hated..."

So.... which is it? Does God "hate the sin but love the sinner"? Recently (this morning), I was challenged in my "uber-calvinist" tendencies. I don't claim to be "uber-calvinist" and am typically very reluctant to label my self with the dirty word of "calvinist." Yes, I do believe in election and in God's sovereignty. I believe that the doctrines of grace are the surest form of the gospel. However, I also believe in the inerrancy of God's Holy Word. I believe that God's vocabulary is much more extensive than mine. I believe that there are mysteries that are yet to be revealed. I believe that the foolishness of God can confound the greatest of earthly wisdom.

My blog post I recently published was on the eternal security of the believer. I believe this to be a great encouragement and wanted to share my thoughts on the subject. By relation, I felt the need to touch on God's sovereignty in our salvation to establish the footing for why we can trust our salvation to be eternally secure. I also linked another post in which I detailed why I believe in the doctrine of election. Here is where I now feel the need to give clarity.

I don't know about you, but I tend to be a very boundary oriented person. I like to know where the fence is and I meticulously color "in the lines". I think most of us are like this to an extent, at least in things we think are important. Because of this, we like to see things in black and white. As my friend put it, "either or." He makes a valid point that I often fail to put forth in my writing. There are many cases in scripture that require a "both/and" understanding of God's character and the truth of scripture.

Now, why do I tend to lean (quite heavily) on the calvinist side of the arguments? For one, I grew up as a charismatic holy roller steeped in the doctrines of man's volition and the 'off the road' Christianity that depended heavily on personal spiritual revelation (often more so than simple biblical study). I am fairly new to these concepts and am exploring them heavily. I love to discuss theology and the word of God. It is my favorite pass-time. That said, you can hopefully see why I write so much on the topic.

But there is another side to the coin. I live in south Mississippi, the left ventricle of the heart of the Bible Belt. I grew up and live in an area where "predestination" is a dirty word and "hell, fire, and brimstone" preaching is as sinful as murder. We have an understood culture that involves church on Sundays, family meals that afternoon, bumper stickers and flags, but a do what you want on Friday and Saturday mentality. Everyone and their Moma is a Southern Baptist. A few of us are tongue talkin' holy rollers. And much fewer still are the Methodist, Catholics, and Episcopalian (so few in fact, I had to look up the spelling of the last one). Then even smaller are the Presbyterians, those frozen chosen.

The issue with my part of the country is that we have made Christianity more of a culture than a religion. We have created an idea that so long as I go to church, profess Christ, and live a relatively good life, then we can go to heaven. Sadly most of us don't even really want to go to heaven, we're just so sick of the heat and humidity of the south we don't want to go to hell. We like to think that we are in control of our destiny and it is the great southern temperament to not let anyone tell us what to do (it was the whole basis of the civil war..). We like control and we like our God-fearin' beer bellied wranglin' bubble. We don't like anyone to stir the waters. We have more churches per square mile than probably any place else, almost all competing to fill more pews than the church down the road. The reason is because everyone seems to be called to preach, which here is just another way of saying that no-one wants to submit so anyone else. It is a matter of control and it plagues the south more than any other place (obviously this is just my opinion).

This is why election and predestination, etc are such a taboo subject. I believe in both the will of man towards his salvation and also the sovereignty of God over that choice. I believe both because both are evident in Holy Scripture. Do I have certain opinions as to how they operate together? Yes. Do I think one doctrine is more vital than the other? I do. But does that mean I am to explain away all seeming contradictions in the Bible simply to make sure my theology can fit into a nice, understandable shrink-wrapped box? No.

Indeed, man has a place in his choices and in his salvation. One can be still be sure that God is still sovereign and that election is plainly taught in scripture. We can be sure that when we are told that God loves the world and sinner, this is a true statement. We can also be sure that the Bible teaches the hatred of God towards sinners. I guess you can call it a love-hate relationship. I love cake and fried pickles, but I hate the fat-cells they add to my waist. God surely loves His creation and he surely hates sin, even to the point of hating the sinner. The cool thing is that God is big enough to do both. To love us, to reject us in our sin, and to provide a means to make us acceptable through Christ Jesus. Does man's will affect our salvation? Of course. Does God sovereignly elect us and place His seed in us to live righteously? Yes. Can these two be thoroughly explained? Probably not. The question is: Are you okay with it?

We must resolve to pursue first and foremost Christ. We are not called to "fix" each other's theology or to make full sense of every aspect of the Christian walk. We are called to read the Bible. To proclaim its good news in Jesus. To study it, showing ourselves approved. We are called to love one another, to serve one another. I write a lot in my blogs on the doctrines of grace, but only because I ride the grain against the settled beliefs of my precious Bible Belt. When given two valid options, we will always choose our comfort. However, when struck with the more difficult option, we grow and expand our pallet of understanding. Then, we can return to our comforts balanced and matured.