Two Sides of a Coin

In the bible study I go to on Sunday mornings, we've been reading through 1 and 2 Samuel. Something stuck out to me that I'd never noticed before about Nathan's confrontation with David in 2 Samuel 10.

Nathan, essentially quoting God, uses the phrase "you have despised the Lord by doing this" to describe what happened. It strikes me that most people today wouldn't have put it like that. We might say that it was wrong, that it hurt God, that it was selfish, evil, or sinful. But I think most of us lack the theological perspective required to make this connection between David's sin, which we might see mainly as an act of the flesh (even if a failing of the spirit), and his love for God, which we might see as mainly as an act of the heart/will/mind.

Sure, we know that the mind and the body are connected and that true love for God on the inside must result in actions on the outside. But we also know that all humans fall short no matter how much they love God. It seems to me that there's a tension here that we've become too comfortable resolving, a paradox that we are too good at explaining away. We have become comfortable with something that Nathan deals with in a very uncomfortable way.

I have seen this dealt with in two extreme ways. One way is to try and use what the Bible offers to draw some line past which people do not love God enough to be called Christians. We might say that to get to heaven you have to die while loving God, or when you fail you have to do some penance or other to get back "in." This view, when held honestly, leads to fear and uncertainty towards one's relationship with God. When held dishonestly or arrogantly, it leads to condemnation of others who do not meet your criteria.

In either case, this view reduces love to act of the body or even blind obedience. It loses the truth that love for God also means aligning ourselves psychologically and emotionally with the mind and heart of God. It doesn't just mean doing what He says, it means learning to feel how He feels and think how He thinks about things, both of which greatly aid in the doing part. This, I think, is what is meant by "sanctification."

The other extreme is to become comfortable explaining failures away with something like "he's only human." We come to terms with our imperfections so that they don't bother us so much anymore. We become very accepting of failure to obey by reducing love to an act of the mind, making it a belief or feeling. But we then lose the truth that what we do really matters and that love isn't just a feeling or a psychological attitude, love is doing things. We blame God for where we are, waiting for Him to sanctify us so we can love Him better. We no longer feel the discomfort of admitting that when we sin we are not loving God, no matter how passionately we claim we are or how correct our doctrine might be.

I have found myself in both of these camps at various points in my life. I escaped the guilt and fear of the first extreme by fleeing to the other. After I left the first extreme, I had a hard time accepting that it is God's faithfulness and not mine that will end up saving me. When I did accept it, I let that fact ease a discomfort it isn't supposed to. I should not go on sinning because grace abounds. I realize now that it is not ok that so much of what I want to do I don't and so much of what I don't want to do I do anyway. I realize that in living the greedy, lazy, lustful, selfish, angry life that I do so much of the time, I show contempt for God. My mind and my body are not separate. When I do those things I do not love or honor God. There is no question about it. I need to repent.

I can realize this while still leaving my trust in God and not in myself. In fact, God's faithfulness should be the motivating force behind my striving to be faithful and my discomfort at my faithlessness. God's grace, properly understood, does not mesh with being comfortable with sin in my life. This is a difficult balance to strike.

I want to suggest that we can know that God's faithfulness will save us and sanctify us, that it is Him working in us when we repent, and still also know the importance of our own striving. We can know that God's grace in sanctifying us is inseparable from our discomfort with the disparity between our beliefs and our actions. God's grace is at work in our conviction.

We can know that real love for God is a thing of both the mind and the body. It cannot be one without the other. This is a tension we must restrain ourselves from resolving or becoming comfortable with. We have to learn to let it bother us without letting it push us to excessive fear or guilt but instead push us to strive all the more to be faithful.

God, in his mysterious way, has joined our minds and our bodies together, as He has joined His faithfulness to our faithfulness, His working in us to our working for Him. And what God has joined together, let no man separate.