We were having a lovely discussion in preparation for Don Rags, when I suddenly had the most amazing epiphany. God is so amazingly beautifully merciful. I had been getting inklings of it while I was studying the Pentateuch, and more as I studied Hebrews with Melanie, but I saw a much more full picture of it tonight. I shall try to explain it here, but I'm really not sure that I can do it justice.
We started the semester with Homer, Virgil, and Ovid. These books taught us that the gods are arbitrary, unjust, and chaotic. Ovid in particular portrayed the gods as being immortal and powerful humans, more human than we are.
Then we moved on to Dante, who even in Hell offered us hope. Here was a system that is ordered. Hell is not a random pile of all the humanity that ever offended a God. It is instead a carefully organized and orchestrated system of punishment based on a very detailed moral system. In Purgatory and Paradise, we got a glimpse of a way of escape from the doom that we all seem to deserve.
Spenser's Faerie Queen was next. Here we saw the possibility of redemption displayed in myth. Here was a good human wanting to accomplish his quest, but he is incapacitated by weakness. Then he is healed, and equipped to conquer, redeemed.
Milton then went to the root of everything, the very beginning. He showed how the thing that brought this chaos in the first place was that Satan wanted to be God, and then brought mankind around to his way of thinking as well. Satan is the ultimate Homeric hero. He is in it for the glory. In Paradise Regained, we see the perfect man being the perfect hero: Christ is in it for God's glory, not his own. So here we see the problem begin, and how to defeat it, but we are incapable of being the perfect man. We cannot beat this problem.
Then we move on to the Pentateuch. Here we see God show an insane amount of mercy. Even as he punished mankind for their disobedience, he shows mercy. He saves us from immortality. If the gods are what we would become if we were immortal, than this is a mercy indeed. Humans, in this weakened state cannot stand immortality. Also, from the midst of the horror of the Canaanite and Egyptian gods, we see him rescue a nation. He calls them his own people, and says that he will be their God. He gives them these laws that separate them from the other nations and mark them as his. Some of these laws must have seemed so arbitrary at the time, but with modern technology, they make perfect sense. The laws he gave them protected them from many ills, both physical and societal. He offers them a way to atone for their rebellions so that he can live among them without destroying them. His mercy seen here is exquisite.
But then comes Hebrews, and the world suddenly becomes painfully beautiful. In Hebrews we see that the mercy show in the Pentateuch is nothing compared to the mercy that has been shown us. We thought that the sacrificial system was merciful. Christ accomplished more in one death than the death of all of the animals killed in the history of the world. In the death of the perfect man, the debt owed by sinners was forever paid. In the resurrection of the triumphant sacrifice, death was forever conquered. We may die, but there is no longer any need to fear. The sort of immortality we were created for awaits us on the other side. In the continual perfection of the perfect man sin was destroyed. Suddenly we are no longer trapped in the chaos. The door to heaven has been unlocked, and all that is needed now is to enter it.
How is that we miss this? God is good. infinitely so. He is not safe, but he is good. The beauty of what he has done and who he is is breathtaking and so much more than we can even begin to imagine...I am blown away.
Friday, December 08, 2006
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