Explanations?

I am not a fan of Paul, but his writings hold great weight in "Christian" scripture. This is from Romans 5:8 7For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. 8But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 9Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.…  (a reader's response to my last posting).

Let me begin to answer this in a very roundabout way, with a quote from St. Anselm:  Those who have not believed will not experience; and those who have not experienced will not know.

"Knowing," and "understanding" God's revelation in Scripture is based on experience--our own, to be sure, but also the experience of those who have gone before us or walk with us today; "theology" or "doctrine" puts into words the understanding of our experience, and that of others, in light of what has been revealed by God. 

Mary "pondered in her heart" her experience with God, and the result was the Magnificat:  My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for He has been mindful of the lowliness of his servant....His mercy extends to those who fear him...He has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.  He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble.  He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty.  He has helped his servant Israel, remembering to be merciful to Abraham and to his descendants forever, even as He said to our fathers (Luke 1).

This was Mary's God, the One in whom she rejoiced and magnified -- not someone who was holding a grudge, waiting to be appeased by a "perfect sacrifice," but Someone who beheld the lowliness, the weakness, the insufficiency, and the ignorance of mankind.  Someone whose "wrath" was at the service of His compassion for the weak and the powerless. Someone who sent His Son to embrace the suffering of man in all its "It doesn't make sense; I don't understand; why is this happening to me?" confusion and helplessness.  No philosophy of life inherited from the logic and intelligence of Greek culture can make sense of the loneliness, isolation, helplessness and alienation of one who suffers without deserving it.  Only the cross of Christ can incorporate meaningless suffering into a larger picture -- one that makes sense.

The Blood of Christ mingles with our humanity; indeed, from Mary, it IS our blood lifted to divinity.  When our blood is shed by man, literally or figuratively, He gathers it to Himself, mingling it with His own suffering on our behalf.  I think of Pastor Saeed from Kansas, now in his third year in an Iranian prison cell so cold that he cannot sleep at night and beaten without mercy every day.  His crime:  He went to Iran to finalize plans for an orphanage that he was sponsoring from the states.  Does his suffering make any sense at all?  Has he deserved in any way what he is suffering?  What about his wife and children back in the states, suffering from knowing what he is suffering.  How do we make sense of human cruelty, of injustice inflicted on the poor?

God entered into our world in the person of Jesus Christ, not to condemn it, but to save it, to unite Himself with us and with all that concerns us.  This is the marriage, the union of souls, par excellence:  whoever hurts you hurts Me!  One of the things that concerns us the most is the meaningless of innocent suffering -- the isolation, the loneliness, the heartache of one who suffers without having deserved it. This is why God has always had regard for the "lowly," the poor, the humble, the weak, the suffering -- and why we also are commanded to do the same.

If anyone knew about alienating, isolating, and inflicting suffering upon others, it was Paul.  If anyone "deserved" the "wrath of God," it was surely Paul. His experience of being "the chiefest of sinners" prepared Him to understand how the death of Christ on the cross saved him from the 'wrath of God."  He was to say also in Romans, "We died to sin.....it is no longer I that live, but Christ Who lives in me to the glory of God...the mind of the sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace."

Here is where an understanding of Isaiah, for example, comes in.  To read any one of the OT prophets is to understand the meaning of the term "the wrath of God."  It is the same wrath a mama has toward anyone who is hurting her babies.  Yes, God is 'angry' when we walk away from Him, because He knows where we will end up -- just as any parent is both anguished and angry when a teen decides to leave home and live on the streets, among those who will take advantage, rob and rape, and misuse the precious life of the teen. He is angry with those who abuse children, tell lies, and rob the poor also, because of what they are doing to others as well as to themselves.  His love and compassion for us is the same as His "wrath."  But unless we experience that, or at least reflect upon the experience of Scriptures such as Isaiah, we cannot comprehend either the "wrath" of God or the death and resurrection of Christ.

Through the blood (senseless suffering) of Christ, we are re-united with the Father; in Him, we once again draw near, into the same Family, with no separation.  The Incarnation reveals to us the love of God that suffers when we suffer. It is not that the Father is "appeased by blood," but rather that once again, we are gathered up, as blood-brothers and sisters with the Holy Family of the Trinity.  There are so many mysteries wrapped up in this passage from Romans that it is impossible to unpack them all at once -- or even over a lifetime. Even the concept of the "Blood" must be understood from the history of blood throughout the Scriptures, beginning with the 'sacrifice' of the animals in the Garden whose skins covered the nakedness of Adam and Eve, and going through the Blood of the Passover Lamb on the doorposts of Israeli dwellings.

In any case, it is always dangerous to use one passage of Scripture without understanding it to build a case.   I recently saw a beautiful film called "I Am David," where a good man willingly dies for a "criminal," to allow the young child to live.  This is what the "blood" of Christ has done for us -- it has set us free from the "Law" of sin and death that reigns in our bodies until we 'pass over' into the "Law" of the Spirit of Life poured out on us in the "New Adam."  (To get all of this requires reading not only the Book of Romans but those of Exodus, Corinthians, and Ephesians also.)

So I have to go back not to "explanations," which cannot explain to those who have not experienced the love of God in Christ, but rather, I must turn once again to the experience of those who know Him.  Quoting Deuteronomy, written 1000 years before the life of Jesus, He testified that the "greatest of the commandments" was to "love the Lord your God with your whole heart, your whole mind, and your whole strength."  If our image of God is wrathful, grudging, unforgiving without appeasement, who can love Him like this?  It is impossible.  And without loving God like this, it becomes even more impossible to love our neighbor as ourselves.

People who have this idea of God must imagine themselves to be more humane, more understanding, more forgiving, more gentle and loving, than the Divinity, and yet we are supposed to be created 'in His image and likeness."  This is why we cannot read Scripture without the ministry of the Holy Spirit, who will 'reveal all things to us.'  Reading with the mind can only lead us to the place where we cry out, "Abba, Father!  Send the Light of your Spirit into my spirit and enlighten my mind with your Truth!"  And in the meantime, we need to keep reading and not stop with one passage.