God and Lightning Bolts
God and Lightning Bolts
In a recent article, writer Philip Yancey reflected on a news account of a terrible cathedral fire in England’s Yorkminster. The cathedral was destroyed after being struck by a huge bolt of lightning.
Some would say it sounded like an act of divine retribution. The cathedral, you see, was the site of the consecration of an Anglican bishop who had publicly denied both the virgin birth and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Now, I can imagine a lot of solid evangelical Christians nodding their heads in agreement. Served ’em right!
One problem with the cathedral lightning bolt theory, of course, is that it stands as such an exception. Okay, so fire from the heavens smashes down a liberal, perhaps even apostate church. But what about all the other so-called churches that brazenly deny not only the virgin birth and resurrection, but the majority of other biblical doctrines as well? If God consistently punished bad doctrine with lightning bolts, we wouldn’t have any apostate churches—not to mention cult halls, pseudo Christian temples, and phony religious reading rooms.
No, thankfully, God doesn’t normally work that way. There is no relentless reward or punishment system, and I, for one, am glad there’s not. Think about it. What if God arranged things so that we would experience a mild jolt of pain with every sin, or a tickle of pleasure with every act of virtue? Sort of a divine behavior modification, if you will. Would you obey because you loved God? I don’t think so. I think you’d obey simply because you desired pleasure and not pain.
Yancey puts it like this:
Any covenant requiring consistent reward for our good behavior and consistent punishment for our bad behavior is doomed to fail. We need instead a new covenant with God, one based on forgiveness and grace. And that is precisely why the New Testament exists. It took the most unfair act in history, the execution of Jesus the Christ, to satisfy divine justice in a world full of injustice. That event made it possible for the least deserving of all people—a convicted thief dangling on a cross, for example—to gain an eternity of undeserved happiness.
Ah, but that primal desire for “fairness” dies hard, doesn’t it? Who among us doesn’t sometimes yearn for a more obvious kind of fairness and justice in this here and now world? We may be tempted to see God’s hand behind the headlines of plane crashes, lightning bolts, earthquakes, or AIDS epidemics.
Whenever I’m tempted to think that way, I start reflecting soberly about my own relationship to God. By all that’s “fair” I should be on my way to hell. And there was nothing “just” about Christ paying my penalty and the Father adopting me into His family. It was all of His kindness and mercy.
Someday the Judge will come to set things right. As John put it, “He will clear his threshing floor, gathering the wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire” (Matthew 3:12). Until that time, His method on planet Earth is pure grace.
I wouldn’t want it any other way.