by Damion Boyd
The Secret to Life
If you really want to live, recognize with God how things operate. He suggest you live by faith. What is “faith”? Faith is a way of seeing into the layers of reality and acting upon it. The threshold of Faith is Wisdom and the “fear of the Lord” is the beginning of Wisdom. It all starts with a cornerstone virtue known as “the fear of the Lord”—a primary recognition of how things operate. Now, the Bible mysteriously reveals to us that the Fear of the Lord is an eternal virtue. And this is odd indeed. Isn’t fear a weakness? Don’t many well-educated people express the opinion that fear is the underlying basis for almost every psychological malady? I’ve even heard preachers say that fear is the basis for all sin. How then could it be strength? How could it exist eternally amid the greatness of heavenly perfection?
Answer—the concept of the “fear” of the Lord is nearly lost in translation. It is actually a tremendous respect for how things are. And, yes, even God eternally respects how things are—what we call the “nature” of things. For example, God seems to have immense respect for human volition or “free choice”. Since volition is part of our nature, God has reverence for its law—His Law. In other words, to override the liberty of a free creature is to contradict its nature or purpose; and God, it seems, chooses not to distort His own perfect nature with such contradictions. Consequently, we might learn a couple of things from this: that God Himself seems to possess a free spirit, because this is implied in the very concept of the Fear of the Lord being eternal, and that such “fear” or respect begins with God.
This tremendous respect for the nature of things is indeed a virtue. The Bible tells us it is the primary virtue for anyone to achieve. Now, “virtue” comes from the Latin word “virtus” which [roughly translated] means power. I believe that God is an overflowing source of every power. And, this overflow is referred to as “glory”. But, we are getting ahead of ourselves.
The analogy of God as virtue
We know from our own existence that God’s nature must comprise a vast list of powers or virtues that include such things as intelligence and mercy, in the sense that a highly, fine-tuned and enormous universe of terrible forces gently envelope humanity without the immediate destruction of our frailty. And, we sense God’s uncountable virtues are so great, durable and interconnected that we simply use the word “perfect” to describe it all.
Now, one of the first things to know of God’s perfection is that He apparently does not violate his own nature--His own “virtuous interconnectedness”. I really don’t know how to explain it better. “Purity” is one of the words used throughout history. Anyway, God apparently safeguards His sanctity/purity with an eternal virtue of the “fear of the Lord”. And this “fear” begins with God’s own respect for how things are. In a very real sense, this is the One Rule which God mysteriously follows—whether by free choice or natural containment I did not really know. I suspect that God is utterly free but eternally wise in following this Divine Law. Could we really believe that God is “contained” by what He claims gives Him delight and pleasure and creative play?
Yes, God tells us in Scripture that He delights in Wisdom and that following the Law gives life and joy. Furthermore, the Bible assures us that God loves Wisdom and played with Her (in a place of unlimited, creative possibilities?) before ever a thing was made. Hence, God seems to freely enjoy following a kind of Law He refers to as Wisdom—which is, at the very least, an immense respect for His own nature and the nature of every possible thing.
The sea of possibilities
“The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.” Genesis
Now, just as you and I can imagine a seemingly endless amount of possibilities, whether viable or completely absurd, God knows of every possibility. He can see every potential thing that could possibly, if only temporarily, exist or happen. Thus, He knows ( or transcends) an immense variety of potentially weak and limited creatures, none of which can hold together for very long, because only God resides within the interconnected power of perfect Wisdom. Furthermore, it is only in Wisdom that He dares to transcend this sea of possibilities or “Knowledge”.
But what is the difference between Wisdom and Knowledge? Wisdom is the Divine Law while Knowledge can look into both the Law and contradictions of the Law. In other words, Wisdom is a kind of safe path of God’s interconnected power which leads to life, while Knowledge is a vast expanse of raw possibilities—much of which is too weak or contradictory and, thus, leads to death.
This is clearly illustrated in the Garden of Eden. There we see both the Tree of Life (the power of Wisdom) and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (the dangerous realm of possibilities). Imagine it this way: acts within the interconnected power of God—according to the nature of things—are life giving and “good”. Acts that contradict this Divine order—distortions that cannot hold shape--we could refer to as “evil” or “sin” leading to death.
Therefore, Knowledge includes both good and evil possibilities. And, Knowledge is like a vast sea of possibilities where God can encounter both “good” and “evil”. Apparently, God knowing the immense possibilities of acting outside the Law (evil), always chooses the interconnected good. Put another way, when God can Wisely or safely traverse the sometimes violent sea of possibility (Knowledge), it is through a primary ability He calls “Understanding”. Yes, this virtue of Understanding is closely wrapped up in the Fear of the Lord. Understanding means to discern the path of life in Wisdom—the interconnected, Divine Law—as one travels the dark realm of possibilities: Knowledge. In other words, the power of Understanding is needed to safely transcend Knowledge. Apparently Adam and Eve were very limited creatures: created “good” but very weak in Understanding. They foolishly ignored God (Who had balanced His wise advice with the serpent’s temptation—thus not overriding the freedom of free creatures) and explored the deadly realm of possibilities without the full power of Understanding.
Understanding our own pain
Now, you might ask: “If God is so full of virtue and understanding, then why did God create this sorry universe so full of suffering and pain and horrible acts of cruelty? If God is “good” then why does He allow what is obviously “bad” to happen? And, if God does not choose evil and death then where did it come from? Why does He allow it?” The answer seems counter-intuitive. But, the answer to why God chose to allow, out of all the vast possibilities, this place for creation is…Love.
The apostle John summarized all this up with a simple phrase: “God is Love”. Now, the first thing to understand about God’s love is that it is not only conforms to His interconnected virtue, it is an overflow! Love is glorious. Love is creative. Love accomplishes the seemingly impossible.
Here is the great mystery. Through Love and Understanding our perfect God found a miraculous Way to transcend the dark realm of imperfect possibilities and share His eternal stability (peace) and interconnected power with some of its weak and limited creatures. This Divine Path of creation/salvation, this glorious “Way of Love”, Christians refer to as “Jesus Christ”—the Son of God. (“I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”) “Through Him all things came to be.”
God always chooses the good
Now, God says He knew you before the foundations of the world. How? Apparently in that vast, shapeless place of unrealized possibilities, He saw a Way of eternally choosing the imperfect weakness of you without violating His own perfection. In other words, God mysteriously found a Way to choose the good (of Jesus) while rescuing the bad (of us). Our Father of Wisdom and Life
found a Way to rescue us from death. But how?
Much of this Way is clearly revealed to us in Scripture. There we see God is an interconnected Unity. The ancient text tell us repeatedly that God is One. Yet, the Bible also reveals distinct personalities within that Divinity. This is an age-old mystery but here is an insight. Just as all virtues are interconnected in power but separate in kind, so God is united but distinct. For example, there are virtues which are naturally extroverted like Justice, Courage and the expression of Supreme Power and Authority. There are also virtues that are introverted or recessive in nature like Temperance, Mercy, Compassion, Humility and Patience. (“He made them male and female. In His own image He made them.”) Yet, every virtue is one within the Godhead.
Now, might God’s Way have been accomplished through a creative and perfect act of God’s recessive virtues in submission to His expressive virtues—something akin to God the “Son” of Mercy, Patience, Compassion, Humility showing Loving Obedience to the “Father” of Justice and Authority? Could God have, thus, acted out all His Virtues at once? In other words, God’s wise plan seemingly involved the Son completely and, therefore, perfectly laying down His powers in Loving submission. In an act of perfect Trust, the Son turned everything over in Love to the Father. (After the resurrection, Jesus tells us that the Father has, in turn, given everything over to the Son.)
Yes, the Son went so far as to take on the lowest possible place within this last, dark realm of possibilities—where free spirits blend into unreasonable animals. Jesus literally took the least place when He took on our skin and bone. And, here in this dark corner the Christ suffered the supreme Humiliation of our murdering Him—the Lord of Life. Yet, it was on Calvary, the Son of God also acted with perfect Patience, Courage, Obedience, Compassion, Self-restraint and every other virtue. Indeed, the cross of Christ is actually a shocking act of Divine power, where we get only the slightest glimpse into the interconnected beauty of Wisdom and the heart-wrenching depth of the Son’s glorious love of the Father.