Thursday, April 11, 2013

Relation of Tenderness and Severity

Today in the Church (at least in the USA) there is a great tendency toward displaying the elements of Jesus’ life which are gentile, kind, and tender. The Church has created a false Jesus who never existed, not because Jesus was not exemplary of these traits, but because Jesus was far more than these things.

The great error in the modern church is to fail to see the Jesus who confronted evil in his day with difficult and harsh (but true) statements. One scene never preached on in the modern day is Jesus driving those defiling the temple away with whips.

Of course the Jesus in the New Testament should not surprise us since the old testament revelation had always portrayed God’s righteous anger against sin.

Maybe the issue the Church faces today is that it has lost the idea that there is an anger which is righteous. The two it seems in the church are held antithetically at all times.

The bible speaks very harshly against most anger, but there is anger which comes from faith. The anger from faith acts in a way to protect the downtrodden and lost in the world. The church today has not come to terms with Jesus since it has failed to understand the complexity of human emotion.

Since the church has lost the concept of the wrath of God against evil. It is not surprising that it is also struggling with the Bible's very clear teaching on heaven and hell.

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