February

Purity is not emptiness.

Purity is not just end of conflict.

Purity is not the mere absence of evil.

All of that is sterility,

and death is sterile.

Purity is the infilling of life.

It is breathing fresh air, then speaking peace.

Purity is sitting under the wide open sky,

letting the heart be drawn up and out,

letting the soul expand in the space.

Purity is filling the ears

with the honking chatter of a multitude of geese.

Purity is a positive, an abundance, an overflowing

like a waterfall cascading down the mountains.

Seek purity.

Seek fullness.

Seek abundance of heart.

Sin breaks nature, the unfallen universe, us, and God Himself.

Nature

And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons. (Genesis 3:7)

By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin. (Romans 5:12)

Man was given power and responsibility over the entire world. When he sinned, the robe of life that blanketed the world and infused everything quickly faded away. Death entered the first dominion and all nature suffered from the sin of its former prince.

Unfallen universe

And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. (Genesis 28:12)

For we know that the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now. (Romans 8:22)

The family in heaven and earth broke in two after Lucifer rebelled and again after Adam fell. The loyal universe suffers in sympathy from the separation we persist. They no longer have the experience of innocence in a perfect universe because of the moral black hole created in our galaxy.

Us

The wages of sin is death. (Romans 6:23)

Your iniquities have separated between you and your God. (Isaiah 59:2)

Millenia has shown that death is even more certain than taxes. We get sick. Marriages and families break apart. Nations war. It is more than clear that sin has broken the human race.

God

The LORD is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked. (Nahum 1:3)

And the LORD passed by before [Moses], and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty. (Exodus 34:6-7)

Anger is what the wicked perceives on the receiving end of God’s justice. Justice merely discerns between the righteous and the wicked, then rewards accordingly. Obey and live, or disobey and die. There are no feelings involved, neither sorrow nor anger. There is only a concern for effectiveness, protection, and keeping a perfect universe.

Therefore, God’s “anger” should be instantaneous in wiping out sin. What slows it down? Mercy.

How merciful is God? Infinite. How just is God. Infinite.

So now we see the infinite mercy of God slowing down and restraining the infinite justice of God. Now do you see why God is longsuffering?

Every sin puts God at conflict within Himself. He wants to immediately snuff out sin’s fire at its source to protect the innocent, but He also wants to save the sinner, which requires time. Justice and mercy cannot both be immediately satisfied. They work in opposite directions, but they must work together for some period of time to try to accomplish all that God wants.

For a time, a long time, God takes on the responsibility for dealing with sin. He breaks Himself rather than breaking the sinner.

The conflict within God is not like a contradiction or a war of opposites. God is holy and God is one. Yet, Scripture tells us that God suffers from mixed feelings. Every sin causes God an infinite headache.

We see this in Gethsemane. Jesus sweated blood as He struggled with the decision to die for humanity or not. Justice and mercy both struggled to be satisfied. He knew legions of angels would happily escort Him back to heaven’s throne, but it would be at the cost of abandoning precious people. In the end, there was no other way to keep both sides of Himself together. Justice would make sure the cup was full. Mercy would drink it.

Every sin causes this struggle inside God’s heart. Omnipotent justice wants to rise up and protect innocent people from becoming victims. Omnipotent mercy puts the foot on the brake to slow down justice and beg for time. This internal stress happened the very first time Lucifer sinned and it happens every time we sin. Lucifer, Gabriel, and all the angels learned that lesson before the rebellion was finalized and the heavenly exile took place. Fallen human beings, however, needed the cross to show them that truth.

The Father stayed on His throne to maintain the perfect harmonies of the unfallen universe. This was His promise to all created beings at the moment of creation.

The Son left the throne to become human to take sin and death upon Himself. During those dark hours, He was incapable of being the Life of the universe. The two were mutually exclusive.

It was just and reasonable for the Father to do what He did. It was merciful and gracious for the Son to do what He did. It was utterly heart breaking for the Godhead to be split apart. When the Father forsook the Son, the Son also had to forsake the Father. Justice and mercy worked together by working apart. There was no other way. Sin broke the Godhead.

Summary

As we look at the cross and contemplate the Prince of sufferers, we see through His broken body into the heart of the King Himself. We begin to dimly feel and understand the infinite price paid by the separation of Infinity. We think it lasted a few hours, but we are blind and selfish. We impose our finite limits on that event. Finite separation for a few hours is finite pain, but when Infinity breaks asunder for even a moment, that is infinite pain. The Father, Son, and Spirit still feel it with every sin.

All penalties and pardons were finished on the cross. The healing blood made by mixing justice and mercy are freely available to every humble soul. Therefore, let us boldly go to the throne of grace where we have a merciful High Priest who is still touched with the feelings of our infirmities every time we sin.