The part where you talked about the prodigal's planned speech: I NEVER thought of it like that. I just assumed he had hit rock bottom and was actually repentant. Your article put that in a whole new light, and made the Father's love feel so much more profound.
Now perhaps we should go even further and apply this same lesson of divine love and self-delusion to the Incarnation and see what we find.
The God-man Jesus Christ didn’t reunite fallen human nature with divine nature, pay for our sins, appease the Father’s judgement so we can go to heaven, etc. Christ is what divine love looks like. It’s also who we are and are called to be, but have simply forgotten. It’s what both brothers failed to see and actualize. It’s ultimately the only sin there is.
Thank you! I preached a sermon on this about 50 years ago in my old Bible church. I got very mixed reactions (as you can imagine). It was one of the things (among many like it) that led to me eventually getting fired by the board of elders as an associate pastor. It is a hard message to hear for some people, and it is sad that the Gospel is hard to hear for people who are sincerely wanting to love and serve God.
I really appreciate this. As a total Elder Brother, I struggle with identifying myself as "the worst of sinners," because objectively I'm not, and language means something, and we can't all be the worst or the word loses its meaning, and it looks to my cynical eyes like false piety.
I also did not understand love until I had children. Knowing what I know now, as a mother, it's hard for me to truly stand "in fear and trembling." I don't know how to hold this confidence in the love of the Father in appropriate tension with the sort of creeping "I am a worm" language of repentence. I have been a worm and the worst of sinners; by the grace of God I'm getting better. Either way my loving Father is looking for me to come home, and is glad to see me.
I totally get it. I have a problem with the "chief of sinners" and ultra-self-condemnation stuff. Yes, I know I'm a sinner, I know I've done/thought some really bad stuff, but objectively there are greater sins... and not that I'd be an "Elder Brother" about God forgiving them, I can totally accept that. I get we're supposed to be humble, but the "out-humbling" each other game is the same kind of thing. But in the end I guess it's all part of how we're screwed up and at least trying to get it right, sometimes, maybe....
Love the illustration -- the best art I've ever seen of the father and the prodigal. (Think you had a typo of her name -- Grace instead of "Grave?")
I'd also like to thank you for several very perceptive points in your post. First, this one which expanded my understanding of the Greek. "The Greek says, “he arrived at himself”. He arrived at his inner house, the home within his heart that influenced and informed everything he did in his life up to now that got him in the far country, and would also inform and influence his plan to get out of it." Excellent insight.
Also, this really spoke to me: I"f we read the Gospels and see who gets forgiven, dined with, healed, raised from the dead, it’s a lot of people who are desperately going out on a limb for a glimmer of hope as a last ditch chance Jesus is for real". As a newly illumined Orthodox, I'm kind of in the same boat with appealing to the Theotokos. I'm asking her to intercede in situations that have gone on for years and some for decades without resolution. It feels very much like going out on a limb for that last glimmer of hope you mentioned.
The part where you talked about the prodigal's planned speech: I NEVER thought of it like that. I just assumed he had hit rock bottom and was actually repentant. Your article put that in a whole new light, and made the Father's love feel so much more profound.
I think the only thing standing in the way of knowing how bright God is, is our inability/unwillingness to recognize how dark even our piety is.
Now perhaps we should go even further and apply this same lesson of divine love and self-delusion to the Incarnation and see what we find.
The God-man Jesus Christ didn’t reunite fallen human nature with divine nature, pay for our sins, appease the Father’s judgement so we can go to heaven, etc. Christ is what divine love looks like. It’s also who we are and are called to be, but have simply forgotten. It’s what both brothers failed to see and actualize. It’s ultimately the only sin there is.
Thank you for this insightful bit of writing. May I ask who the artist is that created the painting?
Thank you! The attribution is at the bottom of the post (I try to do that whenever I can find the artist's name when I find an illustration).
*Grace* :-) Might help looking her up!
"There’s not much that looks like the “pious true repentance” we try to engineer." This is a keeper for me, Steve. Thanks. Do please keep writing.
Dana
Like! (My like button is broken.)
Steve, keep sharing this message of our Father’s love! We in the Evangelical community desperately need to hear it over and over again.
Thank you! I preached a sermon on this about 50 years ago in my old Bible church. I got very mixed reactions (as you can imagine). It was one of the things (among many like it) that led to me eventually getting fired by the board of elders as an associate pastor. It is a hard message to hear for some people, and it is sad that the Gospel is hard to hear for people who are sincerely wanting to love and serve God.
I really appreciate this. As a total Elder Brother, I struggle with identifying myself as "the worst of sinners," because objectively I'm not, and language means something, and we can't all be the worst or the word loses its meaning, and it looks to my cynical eyes like false piety.
I also did not understand love until I had children. Knowing what I know now, as a mother, it's hard for me to truly stand "in fear and trembling." I don't know how to hold this confidence in the love of the Father in appropriate tension with the sort of creeping "I am a worm" language of repentence. I have been a worm and the worst of sinners; by the grace of God I'm getting better. Either way my loving Father is looking for me to come home, and is glad to see me.
I totally get it. I have a problem with the "chief of sinners" and ultra-self-condemnation stuff. Yes, I know I'm a sinner, I know I've done/thought some really bad stuff, but objectively there are greater sins... and not that I'd be an "Elder Brother" about God forgiving them, I can totally accept that. I get we're supposed to be humble, but the "out-humbling" each other game is the same kind of thing. But in the end I guess it's all part of how we're screwed up and at least trying to get it right, sometimes, maybe....
I don't know that I'm humble enough to identify with the prodigal son.
Love the illustration -- the best art I've ever seen of the father and the prodigal. (Think you had a typo of her name -- Grace instead of "Grave?")
I'd also like to thank you for several very perceptive points in your post. First, this one which expanded my understanding of the Greek. "The Greek says, “he arrived at himself”. He arrived at his inner house, the home within his heart that influenced and informed everything he did in his life up to now that got him in the far country, and would also inform and influence his plan to get out of it." Excellent insight.
Also, this really spoke to me: I"f we read the Gospels and see who gets forgiven, dined with, healed, raised from the dead, it’s a lot of people who are desperately going out on a limb for a glimmer of hope as a last ditch chance Jesus is for real". As a newly illumined Orthodox, I'm kind of in the same boat with appealing to the Theotokos. I'm asking her to intercede in situations that have gone on for years and some for decades without resolution. It feels very much like going out on a limb for that last glimmer of hope you mentioned.
Thank you.