And when Jesus had gone down the road a bit, a man ran after Him and knelt in front of Him with this question.
“Good Teacher, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?”
Jesus replied to him,
“Good? Why do you call me good? There is none good but the One. God.
You know the commandments,
Do not commit adultery,
Do not kill,
Do not steal,
Do not bear false witness,
Do not defraud,
Honor thy father and mother.”
The young man answered him, saying,
“Master, I have observed these commandments from my youth until now.”
Jesus looked at Him carefully and couldn’t help but love him. Then He said to him,
“There is one thing more that you lack.
Go back to where you live and sell whatever you have.
Give it to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven.
Come back to me, take up the cross, and follow me.”
And the young man was sad because of the things Jesus said.
He went away with a terrible heartache:
He was very rich. Mark 10:17-22
You hear a lot about “pursuing” in Christian circles these days. A lot of what is being said is nonsense that is made up by people who have a calvinist mentality. They seem to like the idea of God pursuing them – the logical outworking of their theory that God not only has to take initiative in delivering salvation to the preselected, but He must chase them down and inject it into their unwilling spirits. Jesus (Jesus is God) doesn’t pursue the young man. Quite the opposite is true. The young man chases Jesus down and stops him in the street. Interestingly, Jesus does not pursue the young man after the young man walks away from Him, rejecting the divine offer of service.
“Service.” There’s that word again that gives calvinists such headaches (Isaiah 41, 42, 43, 44, 45).
The calvinist/augustinian ideal of divine selection tries to maintain the notion that God loved and hated the chosen versus the reprobates in advance of creation. Often using verses such as Romans 9:13 (“Jacob I loved but Esau I hated…”), the calvinist puts forth a view of divine love that is not supported with the whole Bible, much less by the character of Jesus. Here we have an obvious example of the love of God (Jesus is GOD) that does not lead to an injection of “saving faith” into this perfect young man. Wow! What was Jesus thinking? Keeping a thieving traitor like Judas and letting this young man get away makes no sense. Seems that Jesus needed Calvin around back then to set up his administration – more efficient goat sorting to get the sheep where they belong!
Love is an emotion, even for God. God does not act solely on the basis of His emotions. The plan of salvation is predicated upon God’s love (John 3:16). God does love so much that He sent Jesus into the realm of time and the created order. The gift of Jesus must be accepted (what else can one do with a gift but accept or reject it?) by humans. God’s love does not mean that He will bypass His procedure – He neither does so in advance nor in time. The love that Jesus has for the young man compels Him to make an offer that is made to all. The young man can refuse the gift of the cross and keep his money. It is the only way for him to discover that he is covetous…and a sinner (Romans 7:7-11).
God loves us and has a perfect plan for our lives; a plan that fits one and all. Our eternal lives do not begin until we do things according to His plan. Simply put, the plan is:
Sinner.
Come to Jesus.
Come to the Cross.
No comments:
Post a Comment