QUOTE:The Christian is in a different position from other people who are trying to be good. Others hope by being good, to please God if there is a God; or – if they think there is not- at least to earn the approval from good men. But the Christian thinks that any good he does comes from the Christ-life inside of him. He does not think that God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us. (Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis, 1943)
COMMENTARY:
The struggle in the mind of man often focuses on the merit of man before his maker. This really is a terrible starting point; man has nothing to offer his maker that He cannot produce for himself. A person may be the kindest, most upright, honest, selfless person around, yet he must still face the reality that his goodenss really adds nothing to God that he does not already possess. This reality is what places the whole theological conversation of human merit before God out of bounds. Lewis gets right to the point, God will not love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us. The one who is blessed by doing good is primarily man, not God. Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD. Ps 1: 1-2
The first prophecy of the Lord Jesus Christ in the Bible, and, it is thought, the first prophecy period, occurs after the Man and Woman eat of the Fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
ReplyDelete"I will put enmity between thy seed, and HER seed", the Lord God proclaims.
Much has been written about the differences in the two Hebrew words translated into the one English word "made" in the context of "God MADE Adam" and "God.....MADE Eve". Suffice to say that, doubtless the "weaker" vessel in terms of physical strength, the Woman was not just made, but wondrously and marvelously constructed by the Lord God.
To say that our Western Culture's Masculine superstructure has devalued the Feminine is an understatement. ( It is true too, that our Western Culture's Feminine infrastructure, devalues the Masculine as well, but that is for another comment perhaps.)
In that ALL human beings, Male and Female, begin life, technically, as a female, within a female it may be a form of self loathing, (if I may be allowed a Hallmark Card Bumper Sticker-speak Psychobabble term.) All human life starts as female. The further transformation of female to male occurs some days after conception.
Let me get to the point. There is something so amazingly, beautifully, wondrously NECESSARY about the Feminine/Female, that only the Feminine/Female is capable of being the vessel of the fully Human God. Or the fully Divine human, if you will.
While the Lord Jesus Christ, is the Second Man with a Capital M, only a Woman could bring Him into our world.
There is also something so amazingly, beautifully, wondrously NECESSARY about our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, that in the very first prophecy of Him, and of His triumph, He is called "Her seed".
There is no devaluation of the female, in my view, in any part of the New Testament writings, unless one mis-interprets some hierachical statements.
In fact no one does more to elevate the Feminine/Female than does the Lord Jesus Christ, when he uses the feminine pronoun personally.
"Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how many times would I have gathered you under MY wings, as a hen gathers HER chicks."