Abiding in what we believe about …God

The first in a seven part series by Lora A. Copley

Dec 06, 2021

The Gravest Question

“The gravest question before the Church is always God Himself,” wrote AW Tozer. “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”[1]

Really? The most important thing? The gravest question? A dozen objections clamor: Isn’t how we live more important? This sounds like intellectualism! What about folks with cognitive impairments? What about other doctrines- the cross and empty tomb?

Yet when the objections pipe down and my contemplation sits up, the more I think Tozer is on to something. (Especially as it relates to “us” collectively.) How we understand God to be, or not to be, determines everything else—our understanding of the Gospel, of ethics, of ourselves, of life.

It’s been said worldview precedes morality. Perhaps Tozer is saying “God-view” precedes even that. God-view precedes worldview… and everything else.

The New (Old) View

In our day, we’re witnessing a new view of God capture the imaginations of people we love. Here’s a few representative quotes of this new view (that’s as old as Asherah):

“God loves things by becoming them”; “Remember again, God loves you by becoming you… the only thing that separates you from God is the thought that you are separate from God.”
“God is not a being outside of me: God is the fire, the nudge, the warm liquid gold swelling and pressing inside me.”
“When we talk about God, we’re not talking about that which does or does not exist….God is not a question about what may or may not be up there or above or out there—God is what we’re unquestionably in… A verb more than a noun, a direction as much as a beginning.”
“God is a mirror big enough to receive everything… rejecting nothing, adjusting nothing.” … “The first incarnation is described in Genesis 1, when God joined in unity with the physical universe and became the light inside of everything.” [2]

The authors of these quotes are Richard Rohr, Glennon Doyle and Rob Bell. These authors demonstrate their appeal by being New York Times bestsellers, but they also have demonstrated their appeal within our own Christian circles. Their message seems a siren song of openness and inclusion.

But is their view of God true?

The Thick Distinction

Dr. Peter Jones, scholar in residence at Westminster Seminary, boils down all worldviews to two: what he terms “One-ism” and “Two-ism.” Jones explains, “According to Paul, [there’s] only two options for thinking about the world. Romans 1:25 declares you either worship creation or you worship the Creator. Worship of the creation is Oneism—everything is ultimately and divinely the same. Twoism is a way of describing the eternal difference between the Creator and the creation, as well as the distinctions God places within the creation that reflect the ultimate Creator/creature distinction.” [3]

Through our confessions, CRC folk declare we are a people with a “two-ist” understanding of the world. Every time we open our services with “The LORD is in His holy temple, let all the earth keep silence” or “Our help is in the name of the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.” [4] we affirm there is an essentially thick boundary between that-which-is-God and that-which-is-not-God.

Trembling

God is not absorbed into His creation as his creation [5], rather the Bible shows creation reacting – noticeably- to the presence of the Creator. Because they are not to be identified. At Sinai, the whole mountain trembles violently at God’s presence. At the Exodus, the waters writhe. Even in metaphor, this distinction is celebrated. Hills melt. Trees clap. Landforms skip. Rocks liquify. All because of the singularly Holy presence of One who is decidedly Other. [6]

The Otherness, the holiness [7], of God is especially important when we turn our eyes to ourselves. “You thought,” says God to humans, “that I was one like yourself. But now I rebuke you.” Jesus says, “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world.” This is what the Sovereign LORD says: “’In the pride of your heart you say, “I am a god; I sit on the throne of a god in the heart of the seas.” But you are a mere mortal and not a god.” Or again: “For I am God and not a man, the Holy One in your midst. [8]

If we blur the distinction, we lose not only the wonder of “Holy, Holy, Holy” but also the wonder of “Immanuel, God-with-us.” It is only out of a “twoist” worldview that we weep when we read, “For this is what the high and exalted One says—he who lives forever, whose name is Holy: “I live in a high and holy place, but also with the one who is contrite and lowly in spirit.” …“who trembles at My word.” [9]

The fear of the Lord, the incommunicable attributes, the nature of holiness7, the impossibility of perennialism, the possibility for the gospel, the church and mission all flow from keeping this basic distinction sharp and clear.

Shema People

What does this distinction have to do with issues before our broader denomination? There is a magnetic call in our culture to give divine status to our experience, our truth, our reality, our voice, our Self. Popular authors tell us our “inner Knowing” is liquid gold. So then, our most important collective task becomes dialogue.

But in a “two-ist” view, with this kind of God, our most important task is Shema (to hear). “Hear, O people of God, the LORD is God, the LORD alone.”[10] We are Shema-people first. Dialogue is not even a close second.

It’s said, “You are enough.” (But we aren’t. Only God is enough.)

It’s said, “You do you.” (But what if the “you” to do is full of idolatry and cruelty?)

It’s said, “Don’t let anyone tell you what’s right or wrong for you.” (But the statement just did. And if the Holy One is who we confess he is, he graciously tells us both.)

There is a time for dialogue. But there also is time, as Deuteronomy 13 explains, to not dialogue. I think we are still in the former time, but we do so firm in a conviction that will not “exchange the truth about God for a lie and worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator, blessed forever.”[11]

We are people who have committed ourselves to the view of God in the Belgic Confession, Canons of Dort and Heidelberg Catechism.

May the grave question - and beautiful sight! – of God Himself cause us to dialogue a little less. And, perhaps, like creation, to tremble a little more.

Citations

Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy, pg1.
Bullet One quotes Rohr, The Universal Christ, pg 113, 80. Bullet Two quotes Doyle, Untamed, pg 64. Bullet Three is from Bell, Everything is Spiritual, pg 215. Bullet four is from Rohr, The Universal Christ, pg 228,13.
From interview: https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/truth-exchange. (Dr. Jones has a great book on these ideas: The Other Worldview.)
Habukkuk 2:20; Psalm 118:24
This is claimed by panentheists, like Rohr. See Universal Christ, pg 14. Pantheists say “all is God”; panentheists says “all is in God”. It becomes a distinction without a difference.
Exodus 19:18; Psalm 77:16; Nahum 1:8; Isaiah 55:12; Psalm 114:4,8
Public Service Announcement: holy does NOT mean whole. “Holy” comes from the Greek “haigios” and “whole” from the Greek “holos.” It’s distressing how often the transcendence, purity and set-apartness in the word “holy” gets twisted to mean its exact opposite. One example “Holiness is the union we experience with one another and with God. Holiness is when more than one become one—what is fractured is made whole.” (Nadia Bolz-Webber, Shameless.)
Scriptures quoted in this paragraph: Psalm 50:21, John 8:23, Ezekiel 28:2, Hosea 11:9
Isaiah 57:15; Isaiah 66:2
Deuteronomy 6:4
Romans 1:25.

Lora A. Copley is blessed to be a wife, a mother to four children and an ordained minister in the Christian Reformed Church. She serves as a director for Areopagus Campus Ministry, a ministry of the CRC classes of Iowa at Iowa State University.