Paradox and Doxology | Lessons from the Last 15
The long-time pastor’s wife at Trinity, Nordis Christenson, famously said, “The Christian life would be easy—if it wasn’t so daily.”
Human nature, according to the good book, is bad. Really bad. Some call it a low anthropology. You know, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” “All flesh is like grass.” “No one is righteous, no not one.” But don’t let that “low anthropology” description fool you. The Bible’s low anthropology of humans must also include God’s anthropology, God’s other word about humans, which places the highest value on the lowest of anthropologies. David must have understood this paradox. At his lowest, he dares appear before the Highest and prays, “Create in me a clean heart.” Create is the same Hebrew word used in the beginning when God created everything out of nothing except his word (Genesis 1.1). This is no creative renovation where God takes existing material and repurposes it. God must make something new in David—and he does. David is praying, “I’ve got nothing, you can do anything, you can even do it in me.” Now, the lowest is touched and transformed by the Highest. David, the rascal is simultaneously righteous. The murderer is given life. The adulterer is made pure.
“The believer is simultaneously just and in need of justifying. Those two truths don’t sing in dissonance, they sing in harmony.”
The reformers phrased this paradox: simul justus et peccator. The believer is simultaneously just and in need of justifying. Those two truths don’t sing in dissonance, they sing in harmony. Hans Urs von Balthasar writes, “Truth is symphonic.” The best symphonic work involves many, is enjoyed by many, but the glory is reserved for the Composer alone.
A desperate member needed an appointment as soon as possible. They unloaded their resentment tank about another member who “couldn’t be saved” if they said what they said or did what they did. That conduct was unbecoming of a true Christian. The wounded one sitting in my office was not wrong. The wounder was not acting anything like Jesus. But, who always acts like Jesus? Even the running-on-forgiveness-fumes wounded one wasn’t acting like Jesus. Jesus forgave his killers with his last breath. This person had plenty of huff and puff, and zero forgiveness.
In our daily interactions with one another, holding both sides of this paradox is essential. If the only minor-key-melody you sing about human nature is a dirgey death march, you are singing something true but not true enough. We need a resurrection descant, a hopeful harmony. Yes, we are dead in our trespasses and sin, but God knows what to do with the dead. Truth is, only God knows how to raise the dead. Human nature apart from the intervention of God is hopeless. But, God has intervened. When someone wants an appointment with me, I assume I am meeting a dead person. They are not on a pretty good to pretty bad spectrum. They don’t need makeup or cosmetic surgery. They need resurrection. Because of the high-value God has placed on the lowly, he can, and will raise the dead to new life.
“Yes, we are dead in our trespasses and sin, but God knows what to do with the dead.”
Likewise, if we operate with a high anthropology only, we will live a life of constant surprise. And by surprise, I mean dashed expectations. No one around us will measure up to even their best versions of themselves, much less our expectations. And we won’t live up to our expectations either. Sometimes when people confess their sins in front of me, they expect that I will be surprised, that I will let out a gasp that releases a little of my previously glorious view of them. Little do they know that I am still, after 45 years, the worst sinner I know. Their news doesn’t make them fall off my pedestal, they weren’t there in the first place. No, I am dealing with a human, like myself. Someone who is capable of making not only self-destructive choices and holding toxic attitudes and beliefs, but also of hurting others in unimaginably painful ways.
I am also dealing with a human that is loved to death, whom God means to love to life. So God in Christ Jesus pursues old Adam and Eve and you and me. He runs out past paradise gates, to blood-sweat-tears world, and all the way to the realm of the dead. The only way he gains entrance is by dying himself. You were buried therefore with him by your baptism into his death. That as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. (Romans 6.4)
The Composer has written a symphony. The descant is doxological. For the glory of God, get up from your grave!
Lessons from the Last 15 is a series of articles from Pastor Nathan Hoff on the occasion of his 15th year in ministry at Trinity San Pedro.
“It seems like they need me,” I said pretentiously to a dear family I was visiting in the first congregation I served. Just shy of three years at that Call, I broke the news about our upcoming relocation to Southern California. It was the Fall of 2005, and I had recently received and accepted a new Call to Trinity Lutheran in San Pedro, California. How that family managed not to roll their eyes is more impressive as the years go by. I had a lot to learn.
October 31st marked the 15th anniversary of my installation as pastor at Trinity San Pedro. They didn’t “need” me in the way I thought they might need me. They did need the Gospel, and I needed it too—as desperately as anyone else. I still do and they still do. We are a good match.