Grace and Grace

First, let me recommend for your viewing pleasure Amazing Grace, the movie about William Wilberforce. He fought for the abolition of the slave trade in Britain. Its not a perfect movie, but it will get you desiring to take action in life. I think that's good.

Secondly, whoever switched my phone ring to doncha.midi (that Pussycat Dolls song) - i'm not impressed. And it only went off just now in my room, so... yeah.

On a different topic, lately I've been thinking more about Grace. So, here's a story I thought of:

King Daniel has two sons: Benjamin and Phillip. He loves both of them. A lot. Phillip is a very rebellious son (let's say he's a teenager and listen's to Good Charlotte a lot while skipping chemistry class). Benjamin, however, is caring and self-less and honours his father often.

Phillip is really angry. One day, Phil downs most of a 26er of gin and stabs his brother in the throat. Ben dies. King Daniel authorizes Phil's execution.

Now, there are some problems with this analogy (like, if Ben represents Jesus, then King Dan should actually love him more than Phil), but for the sake of this point, I think it works.

A friend of mine was having problems with the idea of Hell. She asked me - "If God loves us, why does He send us to Hell?" Here's the problem:

P1 - God is loving
P2 - God is all-powerful
C - God should let everybody off the hook

This seems to be the belief of the average non-Christian and, unfortunately, in my opinion, the belief of the average Christian. But this is not the case. King Dan does not NEED to cancel Phil's execution. Phil hates King Dan. Phil killed King Dan's son. And Phil is under the law of the Kingdom. King Dan is a Just King. Phil does not have any right to demand a pardon.

Grace means unmerited (we don't deserve it) favour (its good). God's love is not contradicted by His wrath. So, next time someone says "A loving God would never allow Hell!", just say "Yes He would" (and give a good explanation).

What I've also been thinking about is how that is a good thing. I just heard John Piper say "You should preach God's Wrath as Good News". God's wrath is good news because of (at least) two things:

1. When a doctor gives you a bad diagnosis early enough to treat it correctly, its good news
ex. "You have appendicitis. If the inflammation and infection spread through the wall of the appendix, your appendix could rupture. After rupture, infection could spread throughout your abdomen. Luckily, we have detected it!"

2. When a doctor gives you a bad diagnosis and the treatment is available, its good news
ex. "You have appendicitis. If the inflammation and infection spread through the wall of the appendix, your appendix could rupture. After rupture, infection could spread throughout your abdomen. Instead, now you just need to come for a fifteen minute surgery"

Back to the story. We are all Phils. God loves us, but He has no obligation to save us. But He DID take on His own wrath so that whoever believes in Him will be saved. This is all Good News. And this is Grace.

For further reading: (at least so far) The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer.