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Will the Real God Please Stand Up?
by Lewis McNeely on Wednesday, Feb 17th, 2010 at 10:26 am
This morning I am inspired by a teaching I'd heard last year about the nature of God. I've been living for Jesus for 25 years. The first 15 years I thought I understood the nature God.  Now I realize much of what I'd learned about Him was an erroneous mix of tradition and bad theology. Let me illustrate: The first major sin recorded in scripture after the fall was Cain murdering Able. God's response was He tells Cain he is now under a curse. That the ground would not produce and he would be a wanderer. Cain then laments that He will be away from God. His words in Genesis, "Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.”  Notice the fact he equates being out of God's presence with danger. He feels if he's with God, he will stay alive and if not he may be killed. God furthers the point that He desires to protect him by saying, “Not so; if anyone kills Cain, he will suffer vengeance seven times over.” Then the Lord put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him.  So Cain went out from the Lord’s presence and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden.

This is remarkable. By this we can determine that even after the garden, Adam and his family were still in the presence of God. God was living among them as He did in the Garden. I believe they were not in the same place with God spiritually since they had died spiritually. But God had not changed. Many people allude to the fact that God chased them from the garden because of sin they could no longer be with Him. The fact is He removed them from the garden so they would not eat from the tree of life and live forever in a sinful state. AND he went with them. Why else would He need to leave an angel with a flaming sword to block access to the garden if He were staying behind? No, the Father loved His family so much, He packed up with them and headed out.
 
Fast forward.  Man is now under the Law and a man in Numbers 15:32-36 is stoned for picking up sticks. "And all the congregation brought him without the camp, and stoned him with stones, and he died; as the LORD commanded Moses." Wow! Which seems to be a greater sin? Killing your brother or picking up sticks on the Sabbath. Yet Cain is protected from death and the sabbath stick man is killed. Now fast forward to the woman caught in adultery. By Moses' Law she is to be stoned. Yet Jesus forgives her and admonishes her to sin no more. Double wow!

Why does God, before the law, let Cain off the hook and even preserves his life? Then He requires a man to be stoned for picking up sticks. Then He forgives the woman caught in adultery? Is He bipolar? What's the deal?

The fact is before the Law, sin was not counted against humanity. Romans 5:13 "for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law."  And we also know after the cross, sin is not counted. Romans 4-8  "Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him."  Only during the Old Covenant law was sin accounted for.

This is why Jesus forgave the adulterous woman. This is why He did not call fire down on the city.  This is why He does not resist us when we have a repentant heart. "Moses brought the Law but Jesus brought grace and truth". John 1:17.

The truth of God's nature is with Cain before the law and after with Jesus and the cross. The law served its purpose to show us we could never live up to His standards. Most people stretch the harsh justice of God under the Law back to before the Garden and then past the cross to say this is the true nature of God. But mercy triumphs over Justice. Moses brought the Law, Jesus brings truth and grace. HE is the express image the Father. Some say this teaching subtracts from the Old Covenant. Not at all. To say God is harsh and angry, subtracts from the work on the Cross.  Even the Father on many occasions says He never really liked the law. It was not pleasing to Him. It was not His heart. So let's learn and remember who the real God is. His yoke is easy, His burden is light. He is meek and lowly of heart.  He by His own choice forgives the sinner. He is deeply in love with His creation.   (more to come in part 2)

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