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At Our Death – No Fear of Judgment
From the Lenten sermon series: Christian Hope in Life and Death
Text: John 5: 24-25
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
Midweek Lenten Service, March 11, 1987
Transcription of the spoken sermon
I want to begin this evening a series of brief messages on the theme “Christian
Hope in Life and in Death.” And in so doing, I want to probe some of the biblical
teaching around the point of our death and the nature of that experience that we
will pass through at the moment of death. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is that great
positive announcement of what God has done in Christ for the salvation of the
world. The Gospel, in its radical announcement in the New Testament, is an
announcement of an accomplished reality which is announced by the Apostle in
order that people might simply open up their lives to it.
Oftentimes in the history of the Church, down through the centuries, salvation
has been made something that has been offered as a possibility, sort of dangled in
front of a person, almost used, on occasion, as a kind of manipulative motivator
in order to get people to toe a certain line or to mouth a certain confession, but
salvation as a reality has often been held out as something to be grasped and
appropriated. But a line has been drawn, a line around the redeemed with a very
clear demarcation between those who are in and those who are out, and
therefore, the idea of a final judgment or a continuing judgment, even in the
midst of history, has been used often in the Church to create fear and, at its
worst, even terror. Religious people have often been people who have been
controlled by that fear of the end, and religion has been as much a binder of the
human spirit as it has been a liberator of the human spirit. Indeed, I would not be
surprised if we could actually examine the annals of history and had a profile on
every human person that has ever passed through this way, if we might not find
that religion has been a burden to be borne rather than that which lifted the soul
and brought a person into the freedom of the grace of God. And the idea of
judgment has been one of the great tools that have been used in the religious
community to control, and fear has been a negative motivation that has often
been used in the church.
© Grand Valley State University
�At Our Death – No Fear of Judgment
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
It has been my own personal pilgrimage that we have moved from a response of
fear to a response of love and joy in the presence of grace. And, as I have done
that personally, I have found my own spiritual life enriched and I have found my
ministry enriched. You don't find a lot of fire and brimstone preached around
here, and you do not have often held before you in vivid fashion the leaping
flames of Hell, and I suspect that you probably won't as long as I'm around,
because I am, more and more, overwhelmed by the radical nature of God's act in
Jesus Christ by which He has brought about redemption of the world, and I see
that as an accomplished fact which has wider and broader implications than
those that seem to be evidenced within the narrow circle of the Church. I believe
that God's salvation of the world has been accomplished through Jesus Christ,
but I think that in our traditional understanding of salvation in the Church, we
have been far too narrow as to the scope, the breadth and the depth of that saving
act in Jesus Christ.
Now, it has often been the case that people who have moved away from that
fearful portrait of judgment and that threat of Hell have moved in a reactionary
way to the denial of the reality of judgment and the seriousness of human
experience and the testing nature of human life. I want to avoid that kind of
reaction in my own pilgrimage and so, as I have been probing these things
personally in my own life, I have begun to share them with you in preaching. A
year ago in December we talked about Heaven and Hell and Judgment and
Purgatory, and that was only the beginning, but I have continued to study the
theme and reflect upon it, and so during these Wednesday evenings in Lent, I
want to seek to share with you from the Word of God some conviction to which I
have come which I hope will be helpful to you.
I am convinced that there are many questions in the hearts and minds of God's
people about these themes and, in the Church in general; often not very much is
said about it. We have been a little bit embarrassed about the subject of Hell, a
little embarrassed about the subject of Judgment, we have oftentimes, in
becoming rather uncertain of some of the biblical images, backed away from it
and just left it alone, and yet I find that we really still have within our hearts –
educated, sophisticated, suave people of the last quarter of the 20th century – we
still wonder what lies before us, what is human destiny? What kind of an
appointment do we have with God? What has God done in Jesus Christ, and what
will be the implications of that for the whole world, for the whole human race,
and for me?
Well, with that as kind of a broad-stroke introduction, let me say that tonight I
simply want to say to you that at our death there need be no fear of judgment. But
the first thing I want to say is that there will be judgment, and that is clear
throughout the scriptures. In the 5th chapter of John's Gospel, which is really a
very difficult passage, – I read part of it this evening – in the 24th verse we have
these words,
© Grand Valley State University
�At Our Death – No Fear of Judgment
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
In very truth, anyone who gives heed to what I say and puts his trust in
him who has sent me, has hold of eternal life, and does not come up for
judgment, but has already passed from death into life.
Now, that statement would seem to say that judgment is a thing of the past, for
the one who has come to believe in Jesus Christ, there is no condemnation.
One has passed from death to life. That's a very common theme in John's Gospel,
and it makes a very important point, which we ought to take to our hearts and
minds and that is this: that, in coming to God through Jesus Christ, we have
moved beyond the fear of judgment, we have moved beyond condemnation. Paul
said it another way - in the 8th chapter of Romans,
There is now therefore no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.
In John's Gospel the theme of eternal life is dealt with to great extent, and it
means the present possession of a qualitative dimension of life which is the gift of
God's grace. Eternal life has often been popularly spoken of as something that
begins after our death, as though we live now, die and then come into the
possession of eternal life. That is not biblical teaching. John's Gospel is very clear
- Jesus' words here are explicit. The one who believes, who puts his trust in him
who sent me, has (present tense) hold of eternal life, and does not come up for
judgment, but has already passed from death to life. There is a state of spiritual
death; coming to God through Jesus Christ beings one into a state of spiritual life.
To come to life through Jesus Christ is to move beyond the threat or the fear of
condemnation.
But then you take the passage we read from Paul's letter to the Corinthians, the
5th chapter, and in that chapter Paul speaks about judgment, and he speaks
about judgment to those at Corinth who had committed their lives to Jesus
Christ. He says "We must all have our lives laid open before the tribunal of Christ
where each must receive what is due him for his conduct in the body, good or
bad." Now, how do you put Jesus' word from John 5:24 together with Paul's
words in Cor. 5:10? Jesus said he is passed from death to life and had moved
beyond judgment. Paul says our lives must be laid open before the tribunal of
Christ where each must receive what is due him, according to his conduct.
Both are true, obviously. In the one case, Jesus speaks about coming into that
condition or that state spoken of as eternal life, which is a qualitative change of
life, an existence in relationship, in conscious relationship with God through
Jesus Christ. For such a person, there is no fear of judgment. Yet, Paul speaks
about the judgment of Christian people and, in this case, he says our lives will be
laid bare before the tribunal of Christ. So, we have now a testing, an examination
that God's people will go through in the moment of their death. On the one hand,
Jesus speaks about no fear of condemnation. But, on the other hand, Paul speaks
about that testing or sifting that we will go through at our death. And both are
true.
© Grand Valley State University
�At Our Death – No Fear of Judgment
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
The subject this evening is, “At Our Death, No Fear of Judgment.” No fear of
judgment in terms of being turned away or turned out, or condemned. But
judgment, to be sure. Judgment that we need not fear, in fact, judgment that we
ought to seek. For when we reflect on our lives, don't we really know that we are
people responsible and accountable, and don't we really want to know the truth
about ourselves before the face of God? What is it to belong to God through Jesus
Christ and experience his grace, if it is not to free us up to want to have our lives
just that open in His presence? At the moment of our death, no fear of judgment,
but judgment, to be sure, in the sense of a testing and a sifting of the character of
our lives. And, indeed, that not only should not strike fear into our hearts, that
should give us great consolation. For, not only in our own lives, but as we survey
the whole course of human history with all of its horror and its tragedy and its
suffering and its evil - isn't it a necessary and desirable thing that somehow or
other wrongs will be righted, and justice will be done? Don't we really want to be
transparent before the face of Jesus Christ, and is that not what the biblical
theme, the New Testament theme of judgment is all about? There is now no
condemnation to those who are in Christ. That's behind us. But there is that
laying open of our lives before the tribunal of Christ.
Now that makes my living every day a very serious matter. Not that it strikes
terror in my life, but what it does do is cause me to seek to be a person of
integrity, of honesty, of honor, and to the extent that I know that I fail, and to the
extent that I know that I'm caught up in life itself where things are not black and
white, but various shades of gray, where I not only deliberately do that which is
wrong, but sometimes get caught up in the web of that which is wrong, do we not
really in the depths of our being long for that day when we will know as we are
known, and our lives will be laid open? That is not a cause for fear, but an
encouraging cause of hope, for we believe in the God Who takes us seriously and
Who takes human history seriously, and Who has a redeeming purpose in the
midst of our history, and Who has a destiny designed for us wherein His kingdom
will fully come, a kingdom of righteousness and joy and peace.
And so, our lives will be laid bare before the tribunal of Christ, and the conduct of
every day is a part of the ingredient of that which will be revealed. At our death,
judgment without fear, because the judge is Jesus, our Saviour.
Now, you know you've heard me say that God is not through with us at our death,
and I'll be coming to that on subsequent Wednesday nights. That moment of
death must be a fascinating moment when, in a moment, we will understand both
the wonder of grace and the record of who we have become. No cause for fear, but
a fascinating appointment before the judge of all the earth, who is none other
than Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world. He who loved us and gave himself for
us and has prepared for us that place in eternal fellowship with God through that
which he has accomplished for us in his death and resurrection.
© Grand Valley State University
�At Our Death – No Fear of Judgment
Richard A. Rhem
At our death, judgment without fear, for the judge is our Saviour, who in a
moment will give us bread and wine, his very life flowing into our lives.
What wondrous love is this, indeed!
© Grand Valley State University
Page 5
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Richard A. Rhem Collection
Description
An account of the resource
Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
Sound Recordings
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Rhem, Richard A.
Source
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
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English
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KII-01
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1981-2014
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text/pdf
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Event
Midweek Lenten Service
Series
Christian Hope in Life and Death
Scripture Text
II Corinthians 5:19
Location
The location of the interview
Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
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KII-01_RA-0-19870311
Date
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1987-03-11
Title
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At Our Death - No Fear of Judgment
Creator
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Richard A. Rhem
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
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Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
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eng
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Sound
Text
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audio/mp3
application/pdf
Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on March 11, 1987 entitled "At Our Death - No Fear of Judgment", as part of the series "Christian Hope in Life and Death", on the occasion of Midweek Lenten Service, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: II Corinthians 5:19.
Judgment
Lent
Transforming Love
Universal Grace
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PDF Text
Text
Free to Care
From the series: The One Covenant of Grace – The Salvation of the World
Text: Galatians 6:2, 9-10
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
Thanksgiving Sunday, November 22, 1987
Transcription of the spoken sermon
Help one another to carry these heavy loads, and in this way you will
fulfill the law of Christ… So let us never tire of doing good…let us work
for the good of all… Galatians 6:2, 9-10
I am all excited again about being Christ's Community. You may respond, "You
have been excited about it for nearly 17 years," and, of course, you would be right;
I have been. But one goes through stages; sometimes the vision is clear and the
movement strong. At other times the direction seems less clear. Sometimes the
energy flows with great spontaneity; at other times it seems like an uphill grind.
Sometimes the focus is clear; at times I get sidetracked with peripheral matters
and I lose focus.
These past weeks have been rather difficult for me. The preparation to preach has
been a struggle. I take this business very seriously and I have experienced more of
the agony than the ecstasy of preaching.
We have been wrestling with the very center of what Christ Community is all
about. We have a unique identity. It is not the only possible identity for a
congregation. Every congregation has a distinct personality. Every congregation
has its niche. When I say we have a unique identity, I am not boasting. I am
saying, however, that for us, identity has been worked at intentionally and
deliberately. We are self-conscious, self-aware. We have worked at that biblically
and theologically over the past decade and a half. We re-named ourselves in May
of 1971 and we did that in the midst of an explosion of the Spirit's power and
grace. The name spoke a vision of what we wanted to become and it became a
formative influence in our becoming what we are – Christ Community.
Not a community church which represented the lowest common denominator of
biblical and theological understanding. Rather - Christ's Community - a
community of people united in Jesus Christ.
Both words are significant:
© Grand Valley State University
�Free to Care
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
Christ - The one through whom the grace of God has come to us.
Community - A fellowship of mutual love and support in which we share
life together.
A community of openness and healing for all persons needing the grace of God; a
community consciously seeking to transcend the limits and barriers to fellowship
- ethnic barriers, denominational barriers, confessional barriers, social barriers.
A radio jingle we used for a long time said it well - "A community that cares about
people."
That community finds its source in the radical grace of God. Radical grace is an
old, familiar theme here. Yet in these weeks I have wrestled with it anew. For
whatever reason, the messages have not come easily. But, now at the end of this
series, I sense a deeper grasp or a new conviction about the nature of what we are
and what we must continue to become. For me the focus has become very sharp
again. We are called by Jesus Christ to be a community of care.
If radical grace is our theme, then radical love issuing in radical care must be our
life.
I was struck with the power of the insight that came clear to me last week. Just as
we find in Paul's Galatians letter the statement of a radical grace issuing in
freedom, so we find in that same letter a statement of our radical obligation.
Galatians is about freedom and obligation. Grace sets us free. There is no hedging
on that. Paul's strenuous defense and exposition of God's radical grace issues in
his climactic charge:
Christ has set us free, to be free people. Stand firm, then, and refuse to be
tied to the yoke of slavery again.
You, my friends, were called to be free persons.
Free! That is our state in the grace of God - God's unilateral action binding us to
Himself quite apart from anything we are or any performance on our part.
But, is that not dangerous? Will we not take advantage of such grace that asks
nothing but simply sets us free? Certainly we might do that; we do do that! Paul
was not unaware of the possible abuse of grace. He anticipated the objection to
his understanding of grace in his letter to the Romans. He raises the objector's
question:
What shall we say, then? Shall we persist in sin, so that there may be all
the more grace? (Romans 6:1)
His answer is swift and direct:
© Grand Valley State University
�Free to Care
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
By no means!
Recognizing the danger, however, does not cause Paul to moderate his insistence
on radical grace. He will not tolerate a compromise – a mixture of law and grace.
Rather, he speaks of the obligation of the person set free by grace in as radical
terms as he had spoken of grace. God's people are called to be free, but, Paul
adds:
…Only do not turn your freedom into license for the flesh, or, for the selfprinciple, but be servants to one another in love. For the whole law can be
summed up in a single commandment: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
Radical grace issues in freedom to love radically. The parallel is very interesting.
In relating his own experience of grace and thereby pointing to the fundamental
experience of grace, Paul wrote:
I have been crucified with Christ: The life I now live is not my life, but the
life which Christ lives in me.
Paul died. The old Paul who so strenuously sought to fulfill the obligations of the
law, thereby justifying himself, was dead. He looked away from self; he looked to
God Who justifies by grace.
Now he is equally dead to self when it comes to the life he now lives. He looks
away from self to the neighbor. Self-ish existence is past in terms both of selfjustification and self-serving. Freed from self, the one graced by God is free for
the neighbor.
Only a free person can give self away. A person engaged in a self-project, a project
aimed at self-justification, self-validation, self-vindication has self at the center.
There is always the compulsion in a multitude of ways to guard, defend, enhance
and authenticate the self. A person who has died to self, having been given the
gift of life by the grace of God, no longer focuses on the self.
The graced self has no need to prove itself, defend itself, promote itself. The selfprotecting, promoting, validating project is over and done with. The terrible
driving, compelling need to be liked, recognized, rewarded is dead. Now one
possesses one's self by grace. God gives one one's life. That self can now give itself
away.
And Paul says the obligation to love is as unconditional and radical as is the grace
that frees and gives new life. One is never through with the obligation to love.
To live by law is easier and much neater. If there were a set of legal obligations I
must fulfill and thus find favor with God, then it would follow that there would
likewise be certain legal obligations incumbent on me in regard to my neighbor.
© Grand Valley State University
�Free to Care
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
We could probably come up with a code of duties to neighbor. But if it is a legal,
contractual obligation, then I can check off the list of duties and finally have done
with it.
But, if I am loved unconditionally, must I not love unconditionally?
If my obligation is to love my neighbor, I am never through with it. The radical
nature of my obligation to love my neighbor simply follows as a matter of course
from the radical grace that flows from the infinite love of God.
Galatians 6 deals with the obligation to love in terms of caring for one another in
the community of faith and beyond. Life in the community of God's people is
quite in contrast to the situation of human society as a whole. Listen to Paul:
We must not be conceited, challenging one another to rivalry, jealous of
one another.
Pride, competitiveness, jealousy - so characteristic of human society – are not to
be present. They are the consequences of a society of selves at war. But in the
Christian community, self has died.
And what if someone falls and really messes up his life? Ostracize? Criticize?
Trample? Not so! Rather,
... set him right again very gently.
Scott Peck opens The Road Less Traveled with the words, "Life is difficult. Paul
would agree. So he counsels:
Help one another to carry these heavy loads...
Again in verses 9 and 10 he calls us to the radical obligation to care.
So let us never tire of doing good… Therefore, as opportunity offers, let us
work for the good of all…
Do we grow weary of caring?
Sure we do. Compassion fatigue is a common experience. Paul knew that, too.
What are we tempted to do when we grow weary in well-doing? We are tempted
to short-circuit the obligation. We are tempted to say, "Well, I went the extra mile
but no one can expect me to do more." Or, "I tried, but I give up.”
But we can't get away with that with Paul. We ought to be honest. Let's not kid
ourselves. Let's simply admit when the nerve of compassion is cut. Let's
withdraw, find some space to be renewed and then go at it again. But, let's not kid
ourselves that any amount of effort, of care, of compassionate outreach fulfills the
© Grand Valley State University
�Free to Care
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
obligation. We are never through with loving and caring and we never finally turn
away from another human being having completed the claims of love.
We are graced - given life as a gift.
Therefore we are free of any need to perform to win God's favor. Therefore we are
free to love, free to care. And there is no end to it. In humility, with compassion,
we serve one another in love. We never miss an opportunity to do good to our
neighbor.
That word "opportunity" translates the Greek word Kairos, which is the word for
time, not in the sense of ongoing time, but in the sense of significant time – the
moment filled with opportunity, freighted with eternity. Paul's meaning is that
this time of the new age between Jesus' resurrection and His coming again is a
time for loving and caring.
The call to good to all persons concludes the paragraph that began with the
warning about trying to fool God. Paul reminds us that that simply is not
possible. God is not fooled. What we are is transparent to God and finally, in
God's presence, will be apparent to us ourselves. Within Paul's uncompromising
claim of God's radical grace there is as well his insistence that our lives will be
reviewed. This is not a threat; it is simply reality. How could it be otherwise? Life
is serious. It matters how we live. Grace sets us free from condemnation. It gives
peace with God. We are free from the driving compulsion to measure up – we are
loved just as we are and declared righteous in Jesus Christ. Precisely that
wonderful news changes us, frees us, sets us about responding joyfully to act out
what has been enacted in us, for us, in Jesus Christ.
There is no fear in judgment. Pain there will be. Regret there will be.
Refining fire will be necessary to finish the work in us until we are perfectly
conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. One day we will be just like him and
today is the day of opportunity to walk toward that goal by loving as we have been
loved and caring as we have been cared for.
I am excited all over again about what Christ Community is all about, about our
initial vision and our constant concentration. We are in the business of loving and
caring for people – all kinds of people in all sorts of conditions.
I was reminded this week of what I personally experienced through this
congregation. When I thought it was all over, you invited me back, believed in
me, trusted me, healed me, fed me, clothed me.
Remember my commitment to this congregation was not to a thriving 3,000member church, but to 678 persons in a village congregation. No vision of
grandeur, just a spontaneous response to love and care.
© Grand Valley State University
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Richard A. Rhem Collection
Description
An account of the resource
Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
Sound Recordings
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Rhem, Richard A.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Kaufman Interfaith Institute
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
KII-01
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1981-2014
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio/mp3
text/pdf
Sound
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Event
Thanksgiving Sunday
Pentecost XXV
Series
One Covenant of Grace - the Salvation of the World
Scripture Text
Galatians 6:2, 9-10
Location
The location of the interview
Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
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KII-01_RA-0-19871122
Date
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1987-11-22
Title
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Free to Care
Creator
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Richard A. Rhem
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
Relation
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Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Text
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audio/mp3
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Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on November 22, 1987 entitled "Free to Care", as part of the series "One Covenant of Grace - the Salvation of the World", on the occasion of Thanksgiving Sunday, Pentecost XXV, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Galatians 6:2, 9-10.
Community of Faith
Freedom
Judgment
Radical Grace of God
Unconditional Love to Others
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/045f1ed44d00c68d0de586feee0aac78.mp3
a3c63b3a70f42088495a9ecc872fb5eb
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/743dcb215101ac73b41b4cb8736b597d.pdf
7633130373880364236bb916d97c8ade
PDF Text
Text
God’s Grace in Our Gloom
From the sermon series: This is Our Father’s World
Text: II Corinthians 5: 19, 20; 6: 2
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
Reformation Sunday, October 27, 1985
Transcription of the spoken sermon
God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses
against them… II Corinthians 5: 19
…be reconciled to God. II Corinthians 5: 20
…now is the day of salvation. II Corinthians 6: 2
It is fitting that on Reformation Sunday we should address the theme, "God's
Grace in Our Gloom,” because it was especially the Grace of God that came to
expression in the 16th Century in the Reformation of the Church. It was the
message of justification by faith, which was rooted in the gracious outreach of
God toward His lost and straying children that was the good news of the Gospel
that reverberated across the European continent. It was that message which had
gotten buried under Traditionalism; that message, that good news which had
been lost in the Church's control of people and its manipulation of people
through tradition and structure and a kind of sacramental practice that did not
come off as good news, but rather as bad news. God's grace in our gloom is a fit
Reformation theme and it is also a fit subject for discussion of these early
chapters of Genesis that we are looking for in these weeks.
This is our Father's world, and in this world He has a struggle because He created
us with the ability to disobey and turn our backs upon Him. He called us to a
great destiny but gave us the freedom either to respond or not to respond and
since He doesn't crush us or coerce us, since He doesn't use His almighty power
to roll over us like a steam roller, but rather waits and pleads, there is built into
the very structure of Creation the possibility that the one created in His image
will not respond to Him, but rather will reject Him; will not find his peace in
being the creature in the care of the Creator, but rather, as a rebel, will revolt
against the Creator and the authority of God.
© Grand Valley State University
�God’s Grace in Our Gloom
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
The early chapters of Genesis are foundational for all that follows, and in
Chapters two and three we find the creation of man and woman and their
Temptation and Fall, falling out of fellowship with God and bringing with it all
the consequences that came in the wake of that rebellion. As we look at these
chapters, I want you to see that in Chapters one and two we really have two
Creation accounts.
We looked at the first Creation account the last two weeks; the fact that all there
is, is because God said, "Let there be ..." And then the most fundamental fact
about the human being - that he and she are created in the image of God. I said
last week that was the most fundamental fact, and it is. I said last week there is
more to be said, and we will do that this week, but before I go on to say any more,
I want to stress once again that the human being is created in the image of God.
That means that you are a person of dignity, of worth and of value. It means that
the human being, then, can never be put down, and it means that we ought never
to put ourselves down. We have been created in the image of God, and that is the
most fundamental truth about our human nature. We reflect God. As the
Psalmist said, He made us a little lower than Himself. It was precisely in the
grandeur with which He created us that there lay the potential for the disaster
that has ensued upon our turning away from Him. But even in our turning away
from Him and the tragedy that we have introduced into the world, we have not
overcome the most fundamental fact and that is that we are created in the image
of God, we reflect God; in other words, you are really something!
Now, I think in the Church we have perhaps had the stress the other way around.
We have stressed the human being as sinner rather than the human being as
creature. I don't want to make that mistake. I want to say it again loud and clear the human being created in the image of God is really something! You are really
something. And our sin and rebellion with all of its disastrous consequences has
never wiped out that most fundamental fact - that we were created like God and
we are still called to be His ally and His friend and companion to live in
relationship with God and with our fellow men. That is fundamental.
Now, in these opening chapters, after Chapter one where we have the Creation
account, we have in Chapter two a second Creation account where the focus is on
the creation of man and woman. This is that delightful story of God's scooping up
the clay and forming the man and breathing into him the breath of life,
subsequently also seeing that it is not good for man to dwell alone, creating the
woman from Adam's rib from which some have derived the idea that woman is
really a "de-rib-ative" of man. (Sorry about that - I can never resist those.)
Actually, that creation of the woman, a second act of Creation, would indicate
that man and woman are created equally, that they stand equally before God. We
could have a whole sermon and a whole series of sermons on the legitimacy of the
feminist movement on the basis of Genesis one and two, and we could point out
the tale of error and of horror which has ensued from a misreading of those
© Grand Valley State University
�God’s Grace in Our Gloom
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
chapters in regard to the oppression of women down through the centuries. So,
women of the world, unite! You've got biblical basis. But I'm not going to go into
that today. I simply want to say that in Chapter two you have man and woman
created by God and set in a garden in what we call that state of paradise.
And then we have Chapter three and there we have the Temptation and the
succumbing to temptation and the consequent judgment of God. And then
Chapter four we will look at next week -the first murder. - it would seem that
there is another Fall. And Chapter six, the story of the Flood, the disobedience
and the judgment of God - another Fall. And then God starting over again, but in
Chapter nine the Tower of Babel - another Fall, where finally the race
demonstrates beyond a shadow of a doubt that they will not live as the creatures
of God under His care and His communion, but rather as rebels against God and
structuring life apart from Him.
The early chapters of Genesis are the prelude to the story of Israel, to the call and
the election of Abraham and the whole redemptive history that followed. The first
eleven chapters are like a prelude to all of that specific history, and in these first
eleven chapters the great issues of humankind and of God and of history are dealt
with. And what I want you to see is that man and woman created in Chapter two
and in that garden of paradise may not be separated from man and woman in
Chapter three. The chapter divisions of the Bible are very handy for reference. I
don't know what I would do about my text if it wasn't that there is Genesis one
and two and three and so on, and all of those little verses that give preachers text,
but as a matter of fact, what comes through is the idea in Chapter two that you
have man and woman perfect in paradise, Chapter three as though now you make
another step and you have man and woman in the Garden rebelling and falling
into sin.
If I were to try to wipe out of your mind the idea of a perfect state in paradise in
Chapter two and the Fall of mankind in Chapter three, I would give up before I
would start. It is so deeply engrained in our consciousness; we have thought so
long that way that I don't think it is possible to get that out of your head, but if I
could get it out of your heart, I would, because then I would say to you that what
we have in Genesis two and three is not the story of Mr. Adam and Mrs. Eve, two
historical figures way back in primeval history. What we have in Genesis two and
three is the story of every man and every woman; the story of Adam and Eve is
the story of you and me. The story of Adam and Eve is not about some primeval,
distant past at the dawn of Creation. The story of Adam and Eve is the story about
every human being that has ever been born, and those chapters which make one
continuous story and ought not to be read in two stories, are not historical
accounts such as we find later in the Old Testament when, for example, we read
the exploits of David. David was a real historical figure, he was a king of Israel, he
fought battles and did all kinds of things and we can read that in the kind of
interpreted history that we have in the Old Testament.
© Grand Valley State University
�God’s Grace in Our Gloom
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
We are not dealing with that kind of material in Genesis two and three. In the
first chapter we are told that God spoke and created all things, and we are told
that He created the human being in His own image. And now Chapters two
through eleven will begin to unravel that story in preparation for the real story of
the Bible that begins with Abraham. And these chapters are necessary because
the Israelite who knew God as the God of Redemption said, "How do we relate to
the rest of mankind? How does God relate to the rest of mankind? And if God is
good and Creation is good, why is life so tough? If God is good and Creation is
good - if it all came from Him, then why are things in such a mess? If God is good
and this is His good Creation, then why is there such sorrow and such pain and
such tragedy in the world?"
Those are ultimate questions. Those are not questions about fig leaves and apple
trees and snakes and two primeval human beings scurrying around the bushes.
Those are the ultimate questions of life. Why is there anything rather than
nothing? Who created the heavens and the earth? What relationship does the
human being have to God? He is created in God's image; he is like God; he
reflects the very being of God.
Well, if the human being came from God and if all of Creation was pronounced
good, then why is the human being like he is? Why are there wars and trials and
all of the dark shadows that are a part of the human scene?
Those are the questions underlying those early chapters. And in the third chapter,
which we read a moment ago, we have the people of Israel, the people who had
come to know God, the people who came to believe that their God was a God Who
redeemed them in the Exodus experience and was also the Creator of the heavens
and the earth. God alone. We have their testimony as to the fact that God is good
and Creation is good and that humankind was created by God for His own
purpose: created to live in relationship and fellowship with God, but given such a
great gift of freedom, there was the opportunity for him to become a rebel rather
than one who lived in relationship. And so those chapters are there to tell us the
story of the Fall. Let me say it again: Not an historical story as though on Day One
of Creation Adam and Eve walked to the Garden and picked grapes and chewed
nuts and had fellowship with each other and a chat with God that evening. Day
Two maybe went all right, and maybe Day Three, maybe six weeks, maybe six
months, but eventually a snake came in and then there was a time when it all fell
apart.
Friends, that’s not what the story is all about. The story is a symbol; it is a sign,
and it says to us that there is something about human nature that has endemic
within it this struggle against the God Who is its only hope and its salvation, and
in that story what it is saying to us, first of all, is that there are things that are
wrong in the world, and there certainly are; it's not God's fault. What it is saying
to us as human beings is that God created us good with a potential for good and
for obedience, for following the path of life, but that there is something within us
© Grand Valley State University
�God’s Grace in Our Gloom
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
that seems to choose the path that leads to disaster. It is saying to us that
whatever sin is, it is not part and parcel of Creation. It does not stem from God,
and you can't blame it on the Devil. Whatever sin is, whatever is wrong, is wrong
because you and I choose to be wrong. That's the biblical message. It's a tough
message because it holds us accountable. It does not allow us to slough off the
accusing finger in any direction. We cannot blame God. We cannot blame the
Devil. We cannot blame the environment or the circumstances, for that symbolic
story tells us that we were created in the image of God and put in a situation that
can be described as paradisiacal, that we had everything going for us and that in
spite of all that, we turned our back on the One Who is life-giving and the source
of all blessing. That is what the story is trying to tell us.
And you see, it is my story and it is your story. Until we read the Bible as not
some ancient book with answers to the questions that our curiosities might raise,
but rather as a book that addresses us - until we can read this book so that my
story becomes a part of The Story, then I see that I am a part of Adam and then I
realize that whatever is wrong in my life and whatever dire consequences have
flowed from those wrong choices, they are my choices. I am responsible. And that
is one of the greatest things you can say to a human being. You are responsible.
You are responsible for your life; you are responsible for your choices; and you
are guilty when you choose the wrong way. Otherwise, what are we?
Animals cannot be guilty. They have no freedom of choice. And those who have
no mental capacity and no freedom of choice - neither can they be guilty. It is
only people who are created with that God-like characteristic that can be held
accountable as we are accountable, and in the story, this ancient story by which
Israel came to understand itself, it was saying that there is something that is
deadly wrong in the human heart and it stems from the human will. It is not
because God did it to us, and it is not because the Devil did it to us, and it is not
because the situation is so bad.
Now, some situations are bad and environment does shape and there does, over
the centuries and the generations, come to build up a kind of fate that does have
its impact upon us. I don't want to say that we all come into the world with
pristine situations where we can choose freely without any influence, any impact
of environment or of heredity. All of that is true. But finally to be human is to be
responsible and to choose. And the scriptures tell us that we chose to be gods
rather than to be creatures of God. And so, the story will go on, the prelude to
that history of God with Israel and Jesus, that we have in the Old and New
Testaments, will go on and we will see another instance and another instance and
another instance of this fatal flaw within us.
But as we see that, we will also hear the more dominant note - the note of Grace.
Even in this third chapter, if we had gone on to read, we would find that God
speaks to that serpent and says that, although the serpent will bruise the heel of
the seed of the woman, the seed of the woman will finally crush the head of the
© Grand Valley State University
�God’s Grace in Our Gloom
Richard A. Rhem
Page 6
serpent, and that has always been seen in the history of the Church as the first
promise of the Gospel, so that the seed of the woman Paul interpreted as
referring to Jesus. And the final crushing of the serpent's head as Jesus'
crucifixion whereby he put an end to death taking upon himself our sin and our
guilt.
Even in Chapter three of Genesis there is a foregleam of something to come. But
if we go to the New Testament we find those great themes that set Martin Luther
afire and Zwingli and Calvin and the rest. For the theme of the Bible is not human
disobedience, is not human depravity and human sin. Oh, it's there and really you
cannot underscore it enough, but if you stay there you miss the theme of the
Bible, which is the theme of Grace. It is the story of God's grace in our gloom.
Now, the thing that happened in the medieval Church was that the Church
became the controlling agent of people's lives. It was almost as though the
Church said, "You are sinners, and we're glad, because now we can control you."
And the thing that really set off Luther and set off Zwingli was that agents of the
Church were going through the land and were collecting money to say prayers to
release loved ones from purgatory and one could even buy one’s indulgence into
the sins that one might commit next week. And of course this was not the whole
Church, but it was right at the heart of the Church and there were those who were
going through the continent of Europe raising funds for the erection of St. Peter's.
And there were good Catholic priests who said, "This is wrong." Martin Luther
was one of them. Ulrich Zwingli in Zurich, Switzerland, was another. And they
began to preach the Grace of God and as they began to preach the Grace of God,
people responded to good news, because now it was no longer, "Come forward
and drop in a coin or burn in Hell." Now it was not the continual laying on people
their guilt and their unworthiness and their sin in order to hold them down and
control them and manipulate them, but now it was the announcement of what
God had done in the face of their sin. So that we have a proclamation like Paul's
in the New Testament lesson where he says certainly we are sinful; certainly the
whole world is guilty before God. But God was in Christ reconciling the world to
Himself so that if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation. Old things are passed
away; all things are become new. So that Paul understood himself as an
ambassador of Christ and he went through the world and he said, "Be ye
reconciled with God. Stop hiding in the bushes!"
Oh, that profound question of Genesis three as God walks through the Garden in
that symbolic story and he says, "Where are you?" and Adam says, "I was afraid."
Guilt, fear, shame. And the Lord God comes down and says, "Where are you?"
Where are you, not because I want to lombast you, but where are you because I
want to embrace you. Where are you because I want to love you, I want to tell you
about my Grace which is greater than all your sins.
For the New Testament message was that God was in Christ reconciling the world
to Himself, for God made him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be
© Grand Valley State University
�God’s Grace in Our Gloom
Richard A. Rhem
Page 7
made the righteousness of God in him. And so the Apostle goes on to quote the
Old Testament and he says, "In the day that you hear his voice, harden not your
heart. This is the day of salvation. Now is the day of salvation." In other words,
receive this good news. Accept this Gospel. Come and get a forgiveness that is
already provided. If we would take one other New Testament passage, the fifth
chapter of Romans, we would find Paul dealing with Genesis three and he says,
"As in one man all sin, so in one man all are made righteous." And in that fifth
chapter of Romans, it is the most glorious song, anthem, proclamation of the
superiority of Grace. For one man sinned but the obedience of one man far
surpassed it. And the disobedience of Adam was one thing, but the obedience of
Christ was greater and the greater triumph of Grace throughout that passage is a
marvelous testimony to the fact that the Church has one theme to proclaim and
that is the triumph of Grace. That's the good news.
And so you see, I didn't spend very long in Genesis three. It is the recognition of
the Old Testament people of God that there is something wrong; there is
something deadly wrong. I am wrong and you are wrong, and there is no softpedaling the guilt of the human heart. But I am Adam and I am Eve and you are
Adam and you are Eve and the last word is not, "Get out of the Garden." The last
word is, "Be reconciled to God." For where sin aboundeth, Grace did much more
abound.
Now, how can the Church be a place of bad news? How can the Church ever send
anyone out guilty? How can the Church ever send anyone out in despair and
hopeless, burdened with all of the rock of their life? There's only one message
that ought to be sounded from the pulpit, from the evangelical pulpit, from the
Christian pulpit, from the pulpit that is grounded in the Word of God and that is,
"Be reconciled to God. Accept your acceptance, because you are already accepted
and there's nothing you can do about it, except say, 'Thank you.'"
God's Grace in our gloom. That's the bottom line. Thanks be to God!
© Grand Valley State University
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Richard A. Rhem Collection
Description
An account of the resource
Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
Sound Recordings
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Rhem, Richard A.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
Contributor
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
Rights
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Language
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English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Text
Identifier
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KII-01
Coverage
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1981-2014
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio/mp3
text/pdf
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Event
Reformation Sunday
Pentecost XXII
Series
This is Our Father's World
Scripture Text
II Corinthians 5: 19, 20, 6:2
Location
The location of the interview
Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
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KII-01_RA-0-19851027
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1985-10-27
Title
A name given to the resource
God's Grace in Our Gloom
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard A. Rhem
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
Relation
A related resource
Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio/mp3
application/pdf
Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on October 27, 1985 entitled "God's Grace in Our Gloom", as part of the series "This is Our Father's World", on the occasion of Reformation Sunday, Pentecost XXII, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: II Corinthians 5: 19, 20, 6:2.
Creation
Forgiveness
Freedom
Genesis
Grace of God
Hebrew Scriptures
Judgment
Reformation
Sin
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/53f81032e4838a1bc663bbd9a6c514a3.mp3
899798d1d6b0bdc7607eb45a1e02d854
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/2445c212d6441a4228867e5288bf7a7e.pdf
e229b1f6a9b6372d0f2d77049bdca596
PDF Text
Text
Wrath – Sometimes Necessary: Never the Solution
From the series: Heroes in Clay: John the Baptist
Text: Matthew 11: 3, 14
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
November 22, 1992
Transcription of the spoken sermon
Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another? Matthew 11:3
...if you are willing to accept it, he [John] is Elijah who is to come. Matthew 11:14
Wrath is a word that we don’t use often. It bespeaks a violent kind of anger,
indignation. It bespeaks a strong passionate anger. When we think of wrath, we
often associate it with the “wrath of God.” We even use it colloquially, almost
flippantly when we speak about the “wrath of God” coming down on someone.
Why do we identify wrath with God? We do so legitimately because, both in the
Old and New Testaments, wrath, violent reaction, strong indignation is indicated
as that which, from time to time, God expresses. The wrath of God comes to
expression most often through a prophet. Israel gave to the world prophecy, that
speaking in the name of God, on behalf of God. Most often it was a word of
judgment, a word that called God’s people into account. The prophetic word
reflected the wrath of God against all that was wrong, all that thwarts God’s
purposes of love, and of grace in the world. All that oppresses, all that exploits, all
that dehumanizes calls forth from God a wrathful response. God is not all
sweetness and light. God is not a wimp. God cares too much. God loves too much.
When God’s care and love and God’s purpose for humankind is thwarted - the
prophet tells us that God’s response is wrath.
Now the prophetic word that announced God’s wrath was never the last word. It
was always a penultimate word. For it was spoken in order to elicit in its turn a
response from God’s people, a turning back to God in order that God may save.
The word of judgment that the prophet speaks, announcing the wrath of God
against all that is wrong, is a word that is intended to turn God’s people in order
that they might experience the saving love of God. But, nonetheless, that word
wrath has a legitimate place in the biblical story. It is the other side of God’s
passionate love and all that stands in the way of that love elicits from God wrath announced by the prophet.
© Grand Valley State University
�Wrath... Never the Solution
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
John the Baptist was among the greatest of the prophets. John the Baptist spoke
a word of wrath. John the Baptist was tough. John the Baptist was angry. John
the Baptist addressed his word of wrathful judgment against God’s people. The
prophetic word of judgment was not often spoken to the world in general.
Primarily the prophetic ministry of the Word of God which calls people to
account and announces God’s wrath is addressed to God’s people, to the faith
community that has failed to trust God and has failed to respond in the way of
living to which God calls God’s people. John the Baptist in his day rose up in the
wilderness and spoke this word of judgment to the religious leaders. And all of
Jerusalem and Judea came to him and heard his preaching. He was tough.
How would you like it this morning if I said to you, “You brood of vipers, what are
you doing here this morning?” [Laughing] Tough word from old John. He never
took Dale Carnegie’s course. He didn’t know “How to Win Friends and Influence
People.” John was tough. John was serious. John was passionate, and John was
only half right. John was right and John was wrong. John was right in the words
he addressed to the community of God’s people at that time, a community that
had fallen into a kind of complacency, a kind of spiritual dullness and decadence
where religious service had become form and in many cases empty ritual and
where the religious worship of God’s people was not reflected in the life that they
lived. John preached against the tax collector for exploitation and the soldiers for
dehumanizing people, and the Pharisees and Sadducees and religious leaders for
their blindness and their unspirituality. He was right about that and in so
speaking he spoke a word of God, and the wrath of God on that dead faith
community was a word spoken in due season. But John was only half right.
When Jesus appeared John embraced Jesus. Jesus was baptized by John. Then
Jesus inaugurated his own ministry, and here is where we see that John, who was
in many senses a prophetic hero, was nonetheless a Hero in Clay, for Jesus
disappointed John. John hoped that Jesus would be the one to ring down the
curtain of history and bring fire on earth. John hoped that the world had come to
its end point, that soon the wickedness that so tore him up would be blotted out
by the judging vengeance of God. He hoped that Jesus would be the one to effect
this. John himself in consistency with his moral severity had the audacity to
confront Herod for his immorality and was thereby cast into prison. And
eventually he lost his head! But while in prison he heard reports of Jesus’
ministry and what he heard he didn’t like. Remember when the disciples of John
came to Jesus and they said to him, “John asks, ‘Are you the one that we are
looking for or should we look for another?’” That’s where you see the clay in
John, the human error. John had a preconception of what Jesus ought to be and
when Jesus failed to live up to that preconception John did not say, “I wonder if
I’ve got it wrong?” John was ready to look for another one. He could not hear
Jesus’ word of grace. He could not hear Jesus’ word of invitation. And he could
not countenance the compassion, the healing ministry of Jesus. He was ready to
switch messiahs rather than to question his own predisposition. He failed to
recognize that, as a forerunner, he had brought only half the message and that his
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message announcing God’s wrath against all that was wrong, was only Act I in
order for Act II to happen, which would be the announcement of God’s grace that
would embrace all. John was a hero, but a Hero in Clay. He had a true word of
God, but his error was making it God’s last word. Wrath is sometimes necessary,
but it is never the final solution.
I find that juxtaposition of John and Jesus rather interesting for our
understanding of what’s going on in our own world, our society, our own lives
today. Last week we focused on Samuel and we noted that there was a cultural
war in Samuel’s day. There were those who said to Samuel, “You are old and we
want a king.” But Samuel reflected those others who said that to serve a king
would be to undercut the old values and the old ways. In Samuel’s day there was
the conservative party and the liberal party. There were the orthodox and the
progressives and there was this great divide within Israel. So we noted that the
cultural wars in our day are really nothing new - that God’s people have always
lived with these kinds of tensions, the things that are dividing us today in our
society, the things against which fundamentalist Christians, especially, are raising
their voice: questions of abortion and homosexuality and family values and
education, etc. These tension-filled social matters that cut across denominational
lines and faith group lines and divide people with great acrimony and create a
polarization in society – these issues are not new issues. And we saw last week
that God somehow or other is able to embrace the whole spectrum. God does not
choose sides.
This morning as we look at John in juxtaposition to Jesus, I think we get another
interesting angle on what is going on today. Let me say first of all something that
you may not agree with, which is alright, and which I may not be able to express
with great clarity, I am sort of struggling with this, but it seems to me as I
experience what is going on today in contrast to biblical prophecy, the biblical
prophets spoke the Word of God to the people of God. And I find today that the
Word of God that is being spoken by fundamentalist circles is not addressed to
the people of God but to the world out there, as though the Church somehow or
other is a kind of a society of the righteous, and the world is a wicked old world
that needs to be bombarded with the threat of judgment and hell. It seems to me
that is to set prophecy on its head. If God is as Jesus reflects God, there is a great
deal of compassion for the world on God’s part. God is rather easy on the world.
It is the people of God that get the prophetic word - the people of God who ought
to know better. So, that’s the first thing that I would observe as I think about
John. John at least addressed the faith community. He addressed tax collectors
and soldiers, and Pharisees and Sadducees, and anyone else who dared come
within range of his voice, but essentially he was addressing the covenant
community.
I wonder what John might preach to the covenant community today. I wonder if
John would have anything to say to the fact that things in Muskegon Heights are
so poor that 68 teachers are getting laid off and class sizes will get doubled, and
© Grand Valley State University
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education becomes a joke, and the dropout rate can only increase, and the
unemployment among young blacks exacerbates, which results too often in a
reaching out for a quick buck through the passing of drugs - a temptation almost
too great for anyone to withstand. I think John the Baptist would have a Word of
God full of wrath maybe for us who sit twelve miles to the south.
Thursday night I saw Malcolm X. When I see a film like that, when I see the way
we white people treated black people before the Civil Rights Movement of the 60s
I could weep. It is treating people in a dehumanizing way. It is creating in them a
slave mentality where they cower and where they don’t rock the boat, where they
take abuse. They were treating them with paternalism and condescension.
Malcolm X experiences that and says to his people, “Don’t turn the other cheek.”
And that word, diametrically contrary to Jesus, was the right word. I think John
the Baptist would say, thirty years after the Civil Rights Movement, that racism is
alive and well in our hearts, and our society continues to be divided and the
people continue to be treated as less than human.
Time Magazine’s cover this week has God and women - the story of the Roman
Church’s continued intransigence against allowing women into the priesthood
and the Anglican Church’s admission of women into the priesthood amongst a
furious controversy. I think John the Baptist would have something to say about
that. We are in the midst of a cultural, social revolution. The Time article (which I
know is not the Word of God; nonetheless it is an astute comment on our social
situation) calls the movement of the women in the Church a “Second
Reformation,” and points out that an all male jury of bishops sits in judgment as
to whether or not a woman ought to be a minister of Christ. I think that some day
we will look back on this whole period like we look back after a hundred years on
the slavery issue. Again, there were those within the Church who were justifying
slavery from the Bible. So often the Church, rather than being the avant guard,
rather than sensing the movement of the Spirit, becomes the entrenchment of old
ways, full of prejudice, and blindness, unable to see the nose on its face.
Where in the world is the world going, and where must the Church be are the
questions to be asked of ourselves if the Church is to continue to be taken
seriously as a community of the people of God. I imagine, just out of events of
this past week, there would be enough fodder to keep old John the Baptist
preaching along the Jordan for a long time. And it would be a tough word. It
would be a hard word. He would say, “You Christian people coddle yourselves in
your aesthetic beauty and wonderful ritual and you don’t give a damn about
people who are bleeding, people who are hungry, people who are dehumanized.”
There is a place for the wrath of God to be spoken. But not out there to the world.
Goodness sakes, let MTV alone; let Madonna do her thing. An old English
professor of mine at Hope College had more wisdom than I did one day when I
was complaining about the worldliness on campus. [Laughing to himself.] She
said, “Let the wicked have their pleasure. They have so little.” We get all steamed
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Richard A. Rhem
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up about all of the nastiness in the world, and we don’t see the depths, prejudice,
racism, and lack of compassion in our own hearts. Sometimes a word of wrath is
necessary, but it is never the solution.
And now you see the juxtaposition of John and Jesus. John could serve as a
forerunner, but not the answer. The answer came in the one whose coming we
will remember next Sunday. Jesus full of compassion and full of grace. Jesus who
said, “Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they are doing.”
For wrath confronts and may make you cower, may bludgeon you into
submission, but only love can transform. Only love can change people. When we
are angry we lose our effectiveness. Jesus was no wimp. He was every bit as tough
as John the Baptist. But rather than anger that wished that the earth would be set
on fire, Jesus was full of anguish, “Oh Jerusalem, Oh Jerusalem, how often I
would have gathered you as a hen gathers her chicks under her, but you would
not.” He came to the crest of Olivet and looked across to the city on Palm Sunday
and he wept, and said, “If you had only known the things that belonged to your
peace but now they are hid from you. And there will not be left one stone upon
another...” But he said this with anguish, not with anger. I get angry. I get angry.
Sometimes I would love to run from it all. Sometimes I would love to throw in the
towel because it seems such a hopeless task. Anger is self-defeating and doesn’t
do the job.
Only love can change the world. Only love can change our personal relationships.
Anger begets anger. Love melts. Only love finally can bridge the abyss of our
culture wars. Angry accusation, acrimony and hatred only polarize and entrench.
Only love can change the world. John was a prophet of God with the Word of
God, announcing the wrath of God on my life when I fail to be God-like. It’s not
the last word. The last word is God’s love that will never let us go - and keeps
beckoning us to love in turn. God help us!
© Grand Valley State University
�
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Richard A. Rhem Collection
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Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
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Interfaith worship
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Rhem, Richard A.
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
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Pentecost XXIV
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Heroes in Clay
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Matthew 11:3, 14
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Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
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1992-11-22
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John the Baptist: Wrath - Sometimes Necessary: Never the Solution
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Richard A. Rhem
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
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Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
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eng
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A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on November 22, 1992 entitled "John the Baptist: Wrath - Sometimes Necessary: Never the Solution", as part of the series "Heroes in Clay", on the occasion of Pentecost XXIV, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Matthew 11:3, 14.
God's Grace
John the Baptist
Judgment
Prophetic
Transforming Love
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/38ad85e9decd838b26f99ef8cbc6d3a1.pdf
f3307799ff6cfc9318a5d3006730c8e8
PDF Text
Text
Purgatory Revisited
Article by
Richard A. Rhem
Minister of Preaching and Theological Inquiry
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
Published in
Perspectives
A Journal of Reformed Thought
January 1988, pp. 4-7
In the fall term of 1983, Hans Küng, the noted Roman Catholic theologian gave a
series of lectures at the University of Michigan entitled Eternal Life? It was an
investigation of life after death as a medical, philosophical, and theological
problem. He faced squarely and straightforwardly all the difficult questions
surrounding the subject, dealing with ancient and contemporary issues, the
question in the history of religions, the modern denial of anything beyond death,
and the near-death experiences recorded in recent years. He dealt with biblical
material, the question of resurrection, the resurrection of Jesus, and the church’s
teaching on judgment, heaven, and hell. The lectures were subsequently
published under the title Eternal Life? By virtue of a sabbatical granted me by the
Christ Community congregation, I was able to hear the lectures and to participate
with Küng in a seminar.
I came away with two striking realizations: first, that there was intense interest in
these questions of death and dying, of life after death, of heaven and hell on the
campus of a large secular university. The lectures had to be moved from the
largest lecture hall available to the Rackham Auditorium. Secondly, I realized
how little these vital questions were probed in the church, how little reflection I
had personally given to them in my ministry, and how comfortably and
uncritically we in the church have accepted traditional answers.
Once awakened to the questions that are not nearly so simply answered as once I
had thought, and also to the deeply existential interest of today’s people, both
secular and religious, I began to open again questions on which I had come to
premature closure. For me, the greatest surprise came in a new appreciation for
the teaching of purgatory, which was resolutely rejected at the time of the
Reformation and which has received little serious reflection in the Protestant
tradition.
This is quite understandable since the sharp reaction of the Reformers was
precipitated by the Roman teaching and practice in regard to indulgences,
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intercessory prayers, and masses for the dead. The abuses at this point are well
documented; Luther’s protest was justified, as Küng would testify. Calvin railed
against the teaching of purgatory as “a deadly fiction of Satan, which nullifies the
cross of Christ, inflicts unbearable contempt upon God’s mercy, and overturns
and destroys our faith.” (Institutes, 3.5.6) Certainly there was enough abusive
practice to make such strong reaction necessary. When the abuses have been
exposed and the questionable teaching surrounding the state of the dead rejected,
however, have we finished with the subject?
The Roman Catholic church traditionally taught that people who died at peace
with the church but who were not perfect (which included just about everybody)
had to undergo a penal and purifying suffering before they could be translated to
heaven. Purgatory was an intermediate realm and the purgation process was mild
or severe and of short or long duration, depending on the moral condition of each
individual.
Traditionally, evangelicals have taught that those who in life embrace Jesus
Christ by faith are saved by the grace of God and those who reject Christ are
condemned eternally. One’s historical existence is the time in which a decision
regarding Jesus Christ must be made and with the drawing of the last breath the
issue is determined irreversibly and eternally.
A little sober reflection shows us that the matter is not quite that simple. Even if
those who are exposed to the gospel are judged on their acceptance or rejection of
Christ, what about those who never heard? What about those who die in infancy?
What about the mentally impaired? More questions arise: What about those who
have been terribly wounded by the church? What about those who have been
abused as children and are never able to trust? What about those whose only
exposure to the gospel has been of a garbled and distorted nature? It would seem
that we must begin to make some exceptions; some qualifications are necessary.
Reflecting on the traditional teaching of evangelical faith, a further question
arises: Do we imagine that the transformation necessary to complete in us the
work of grace will happen in an instant at the moment of death? In his discussion
of the resurrection at Christ’s coming, Paul does speak of those remaining alive as
being changed “in a flash,” and in the First Letter of John we read that we shall be
like him because we shall see him as he is. But are we to understand
instantaneous perfection by these statements, something totally foreign to the
process of sanctification, which is our experience on this side of death?
Obviously, the first thing we must admit is that we are dealing with a subject
beyond our knowledge. And throughout this discussion we must be aware, as
well, that we can speak only in temporal categories and think only of a succession
of moments, while we recognize death as the break between time and eternity.
Into the philosophical discussion of the relation between the two we cannot enter
but the distinction must not be lost.
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We must admit, too, as is recognized by both Protestant and Roman Catholic
biblical theologians today that there is a paucity of biblical material to which to
refer. The thrust of Scripture is the imperative to repent and believe, and the
stress is on the urgency of decision. Yet there are indications that there is something more.
For example, Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 3 of the necessity of care in building the
superstructure of the church which is founded on Jesus Christ. He points to two
kinds of builders: one builds with wood, hay, and stubble; the other builds with
precious stones, gold, and silver. The work of the first is consumed by the testing
fire; the work of the second stands the test. He then wrote:
If the work which any man has built on the foundation survives, he will
receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss,
though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire. (Cor. 3:14-15)
The latter person will enter the life beyond, having lost everything. He will be
secure in God’s eternal presence, yet with nothing to show for his earthly life.
Paul seems to indicate that there is, beyond death or through death, an encounter
with God in which one’s life is tested. The issue is not salvation or condemnation;
the issue is whether we bring into God’s presence something or nothing. Does not
this passage indicate that Paul thought in terms of encounter with God and
perhaps a continuing process beyond death? If it is a matter simply of being
saved or lost as we enter the moment of death, that is, entering a status of
salvation or condemnation, and that is all there is, then why be concerned about
what one brings to death’s moment—a fruitful life or a barren life?
The apostle seems to suggest that at death there is not only break and
discontinuity between our time and God’s eternity, but also continuity between
this life and the life beyond death. We bring something (or nothing) with us, and
whatever lies beyond is influenced and determined by what we bring (or fail to
bring).
In Luke’s gospel, Jesus calls us to be watchful and ready for the end. He is
encouraging loyal, faithful stewardship of life (Luke 12:35ff). He then speaks of
two servants, one who knew the master’s wishes, but failed to fulfill them, and the
other who also did not comply with those wishes, but did not know them. The
first was flogged severely, the second less severely. We must not attempt to push
this vivid language of Jesus too far. Yet it seems that Jesus was saying that the
judgment will vary in light of individual circumstances—a gradation of judgment
on the basis of the individual life being examined.
If at the moment of death the encounter with God will be very personal,
individual, and discriminating, and if the sentences will vary, does this point to a
process beyond death’s moment?
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The traditional understanding of these texts is that, in the case of the Lucan
passage, there is gradation of punishment—yet to be lost, eternally condemned, is
to remain in a state spoken of as hell—separation from God. In the case of the
passage from Paul, the understanding has been that the “saved” enter into
heaven, or union with God, but some with greater, and others with lesser capacity
to experience the joy of salvation.
Let us push those conventional interpretations. I entitled this essay “Purgatory
Revisited” not simply to get attention. Surely in a day when Roman Catholic
theology itself is very self-critical and is engaged in a serious encounter with
Scripture, I am not about to suggest we reinstate a teaching that has been
thoroughly sifted and carefully redefined in contemporary Roman Catholic
thought. Yet, I am suggesting that behind the teaching of purgatory there was a
significant insight, even if the practical application of that insight led to
disastrous results. That insight is simply that God is not through with us at our
death. I am raising for reflection this question: “Is the issue of our lives
irreversibly settled at the moment of our last breath?”
This question is meant in no way to detract from the strong call to decision, the
seriousness of choices in this life, or the urgency of the gospel call. However, is it
not possible that in the experience of death itself, understood as an encounter
with God, there is the possibility of something of eternal significance occurring?
In Christian Faith, Hendrikus Berkhof, discussing the idea of the judgment of
works done by believers in their earthly lives, writes:
In Protestant theology, this viewpoint is almost completely pushed aside
by the accent on grace. In Roman Catholic piety it is (or used to be) very
prominent in connection with the veneration of saints and purgatory. The
Roman Catholic Church assumes correctly that believers differ greatly in
regard to their progress and fruitfulness....
So the idea of a judgment according to one’s deeds leads of itself to the
consideration of a process of purification, called purgatory in the Roman
Catholic tradition....The Reformation broke with that doctrine because of
its moralistic conception of salvation and its detrimental effect on the
practice of piety (indulgences, intercessory prayers and masses for the
dead). It imagined a sudden, radical transformation after the judgment,
usually without giving it further theological reflection and without
connecting it with the struggle for sanctification on earth. Meanwhile
Roman Catholic thinking, too, has become much more reserved. Typical of
the modern Roman Catholic conceptions is the idea of “ripening”...which
K. Rahner develops in “The Life of the Dead”(Christian Faith, Revised, p.
493).
Referring to the text discussed above, 1 Corinthians 3:15, Berkhof asserts that
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that statement does suggest that Paul thought of more than an abrupt recreation of man; salvation is accompanied by a painful becoming aware of
one’s own failures on earth. The difficulties here are more an open
question for theological reflection than a subject for back and forth
theological denouncement. The matter of making inferences from faith
about what lies beyond death is fraught with far too many difficulties. One
can state with Bavinck: “After death there is no more sanctification, one
enters upon a state of complete sanctity...for death is the greatest leap
someone can make, a sudden transposition of the believer into Christ’s
presence, and thereby a complete destruction of the outward man and a
complete renewal of the inner man” (CD IV, no. 650, under 4). But one can
also ask with G. J. Heering: “Does this change instantaneously, when God
shows mercy to the repentant soul and takes it to himself?...Life is called a
training school, but perhaps there is a higher training school above” (De
menselijke ziel, 1955, pp. 190,192). (p. 494).
In another context Berkhof writes:
God is serious about the responsibility of our decision, but he is even more
serious about the responsibility of his love. The darkness of rejection and
God-forsakenness cannot and may not be argued away, but no more can
and may it be eternalized. For God’s sake we hope that hell will be a form
of purification (p. 536, Christian Faith, Revised).
That word “purification” is one used by Küng. In the published lectures, Eternal
Life?, Küng treats the idea of purgatory in his discussion of the question whether
hell is eternal.
Some theologians, however, argue that it is not God who damns man by a
verdict imposed from outside. They are human beings themselves, by sins
committed with inward freedom, who damn themselves. The
responsibility lies not with God but with man. And by death this selfdamnation and distance from God (not a place, but a human condition)
becomes definitive. Definitive? Do not the psalms say that God rules over
the realm of the dead? What is supposed to become definitive here,
contrary to the will of an all-merciful and almighty God? Why should God,
who is infinitely good, want to perpetuate enmity instead of removing it
and in practice to share his rule forever with some kind of anti-God? Why
should he have nothing more to say at this point and consequently render
forever impossible a purification, cleansing, liberation, enlightenment, of
guilt-laden man? (Eternal Life?, p. 137)
Then he refers specifically to purgatory.
Purification, cleansing, liberation, enlightenment Here perhaps may lie—I
want merely to prompt a few reflections—the particle of truth, the real
core, of the problematic idea of purgatory, which has been translated in
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German from the Middle Ages onward with the unfortunate designation of
Fegefeuer (“winnowing fire”). This may be the true core, but it remains
true only if the idea is not reified.
[A]s no human being is entirely bad, neither is anyone entirely good. Any
human being, even the best, falls short of what he might be, fails to meet
his own demands and norms and thus never wholly realizes himself. For if
he is to be fully himself, even the “saint” needs completion, not after death,
but in death itself. And, in view of so much unpunished guilt in the world,
a number of people wonder—not entirely wrongly—if dying unto God, the
absolutely final reality, can be one and the same for all: the same for
criminals and their victims, for mass murderers and the mass of the
murdered; for those who have struggled a whole life long to fulfill God’s
will, true helpers of their fellow human beings, and for those who for a
whole life long have only carried out their own will and at the same time
shut out others?...[H]ow this...purification, cleansing, follows is not left to
the speculation or calculation of human curiosity, but remains a matter for
God as merciful judge, is God’s all-embracing final act of grace. (pp. 137)
The key idea Küng stresses is the shattering effect of the encounter with God. We
die not into nothingness; we die unto God. Küng cites Karl Barth:
Man as such, therefore, has no beyond. Nor does he need one, for God is
his beyond. Man’s beyond is that God as his Creator, Covenant-partner,
Judge and Saviour, was and is and will be his true Counterpart in life, and
finally and exclusive (sic) and totally in death (Church Dogmatics Vol. Ill,
2, pp. 632-33).
Küng also cites a Roman Catholic theologian, Greshake:
From this standpoint we can understand what was pointed out earlier, that
God himself, the encounter with him, is purgatory. But this means that we
need not fall back on a special place or still less on a special time or special
event to grasp the meaning of purgatory. Still less do we need to work out
crude ideas about the “poor” souls. Instead we can understand what the
Church teaches and has taught from the earliest times as an element in the
encounter with God in death....[W]e should avoid any talk of fire and
speak instead of purifying and cleansing as an element of the encounter
with God. At the same time what should be particularly clear is that
purgatory is not—as it often seems to be in popular piety—a “demihell”
which God has erected in order to punish the person who is not entirely
bad, but also not entirely good. Purgatory is not a demihell but an element
of the encounter with God: that is, the encounter of the unfinished person,
still immature in his love, with the holy, infinite, loving God; an encounter
which is profoundly humiliating; painful and therefore purifying (cited,
Eternal Life?, p. 139 from Starker als der Tod, pp. 92f.).
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
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Küng concludes,
That is to say that since it is a question of dying into the dimensions of
God, where space and time are dissolved into eternity, nothing can be
discovered, either about place and time or about the character of this
purifying, sanctifying consummation (p. 139).
A Lutheran theologian, Hans Schwarz, discusses the views of Ladislaus Boros
(The Mystery of Death, p. 129), who suggests something similar—the significance
of the final decision at the moment of death. Boros, he maintains,
decisively modifies the traditional concepts of purgatory and death. Boros
agrees that the Church has only gradually developed the doctrine of
purgatory. Though the Scriptural basis of purgatory may be obscure, the
fact and the essential nature of purgatory are of such quality that it must
be called a “truth of revelation.” However, through his hypothesis of a final
decision, Boros seems to view purgatory as the “point” of intersection
between life and death. Purgatory is no longer conceived of as a process of
purification which can be measured similar to the days and years we live
here on earth. According to Boros, “purgatory would be the passage, which
we effect in our final decision, through the purifying fire of divine love. The
encounter with Christ would be our purgatory.”...Boros replaces an
untenable concept of purgatory with the idea of a confrontation with
Christ in death…[H]e calls death “man’s first completely personal act”
and, “therefore, by reason of its very being, the place above all others for
the awakening of consciousness, for freedom, for the encounter with God,
for the final decision about eternal destiny.” (On The Way To The Future,
pp. 142f.).
It has been obvious to me as I have pursued this subject that those who have
reflected on the biblical material, the whole context of Scripture, the revelation of
God in Jesus Christ, and the human person are very restrained in their
conclusions and very cautious in their statements. There is in all serious inquirers
into this question,
—a recognition of the serious nature of human decisions,
—an acknowledgment of the urgent need for repentance and faith,
—a reckoning with the reality of evil and human wickedness that demands
response if there is any justice,
—a serious view of judgment as the exposure of our lives to the scrutiny of
the God of truth.
All responsible biblical thinkers recognize that God takes us seriously; our wrong
and guilt are not simply soft-pedaled, and our exposure to God’s light and truth
will be painful, even while we are conscious of being embraced within a larger
grace. Judgment will be experienced: No one will “get away” with anything.
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
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If an eternal hell is questioned, it is not because passing through God’s final
examination is not a serious matter, and neither is it because there is no sense of
the need for change and renewal of the person who through the earthly
pilgrimage has become scarred and tainted, falling far short of God’s intention.
Recognizing that one cannot simply move from the ambiguity, partial insight,
fickleness, and unfaithfulness of one’s human experience into the presence of the
God of light and truth, there is the belief on the part of some that a purifying
process will be necessary.
C. S. Lewis has dealt as creatively and profoundly as anyone with the questions of
heaven, hell, and purgatory. In The Great Divorce, he records an imaginary
conversation with the Christian writer, George MacDonald, on the outskirts of
heaven. Lewis exclaims,
“But I don’t understand. Is judgment not final? Is there really a way out of
Hell into Heaven?”
“It depends on the way ye’re using the words. If they leave that grey town
behind it will not have been Hell. To any that leaves it, it is Purgatory. And
perhaps ye had better not call this country Heaven. Not Deep Heaven, ye
understand....[Yle can call it the Valley of the Shadow of Life. And yet to
those who stay here it will have been Heaven from the first. And ye can call
those sad streets in the town yonder the Valley of the Shadow of Death:
but to those who remain there they will have been Hell even from the
beginning.” (The Great Divorce, p. 63)
Lewis’s fertile imagination is thought provoking; great caution is there; our
curiosity will not be satisfied this side of death’s portal. Yet, he clearly seems to be
saying that the life processes and the significance of choice do not end at our
death.
In his Letters to Malcolm, chapter 20, Lewis speaks clearly on the subject of
purgatory:
Our souls demand Purgatory, don’t they? Would it not break the heart if
God said to us, “It is true, my son, that your breath smells and your rags
drip with mud and slime, but we are charitable here and no one will
upbraid you with these things, nor draw away from you. Enter into the
joy”? Should we not reply, “With submission, sir, and if there is no
objection, I’d rather be cleaned first.” “It may hurt, you know.”—“Even so,
sir.”
I assume that the process of purification will normally involve suffering.
Partly from tradition; partly because most real good that has been done
me in this life has involved it. But I don’t think suffering is the purpose of
the purgation. I can well believe that people neither much worse nor much
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
Page 9
better than I will suffer less than I or more. “No nonsense about merit.”
The treatment given will be the one required, whether it hurts little or
much.
My favourite image on this matter comes from the dentist’s chair. I hope
that when the tooth of life is drawn and I am “coming round,” a voice will
say, “Rinse your mouth out with this.” This will be Purgatory.
I have raised questions for reflection more than coming to fixed conclusions
about this subject veiled in mystery. But the questioning will prove fruitful if we
open again for discussion a subject of intense existential interest, confident that
the faithful and gracious covenant God will finally realize his eternal purpose for
us who have been predestined to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ.
References:
Hendrikus Berkhof. Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Study of the Faith.
Wm. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1979.
Hans Küng. Eternal Life?:Life After Death as a Medical, Philosophical, and
Theological Problem. Doubleday, 1984.
C. S. Lewis. The Great Divorce. First published HarperColins, 1946; HarperOne,
Later Printing edition, 2009.
C. S. Lewis. Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer. Harcourt, Inc., 1964.
Hans Schwarz. On the Way to the Future: a Christian view of Eschatology in the
light of current trends in religion, philosophy and science. Augsburg Publishing
House, 1972.
© Grand Valley State University
�
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Richard A. Rhem Collection
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Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
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Rhem, Richard A.
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
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1981-2014
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Hendrikus Berkhof, Christian Faith, 1979, Hans Küng, Eternal Life?, 2003, C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce, 1946, Letters to Malcolm, 1964, Hans Schwarz, On the Way to the Future, 1972
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Purgatory Revisited
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Perspectives: A Journal of Reformed Thought
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Richard A. Rhem
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Article created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on January 1, 1988 entitled "Purgatory Revisited", on the book Purgatory Revisited, written by Hans Küng, it appeared in Perspectives, January, 1988, pp. 4-7. Tags: Purgatory, Judgment, Grace, Sin, Non-exclusive. Scripture references: Hendrikus Berkhof, Christian Faith, 1979, Hans Küng, Eternal Life?, 2003, C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce, 1946, Letters to Malcolm, 1964, Hans Schwarz, On the Way to the Future, 1972.
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Purgatory
Sin
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https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/fe84308f8c827e539c1872fa95336bfd.mp3
f16030dfcac039db2a0043f1bdfa5a28
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/cd717ff899bf7a876f53b7e956fd3be5.pdf
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Text
The God Who Forgives Us
From the sermon series: God, Our Ally
Text: Micah 7: 18-19; Romans 11: 33-36
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
July 28, 1985
Transcription of the spoken sermon
God is our Ally.
That is the center of our faith, the heart of the biblical revelation. He is there for
us, our friend, at our side, on our side. Our lives are undergirded by His
faithfulness and mercy, overshadowed by His love.
Even when we cannot sense it amidst tragedy, in the darkness, He holds us still.
Even when our conscience condemns us and our guilt threatens to overwhelm us
- even then, God is our Ally, for He is the God Who forgives us. That is the theme
of this message.
We recite the familiar Apostles' Creed and we affirm,
I believe the forgiveness of sins.
That is a great affirmation. That speaks to the deepest need of the human heart to be forgiven, to be accepted, to be right with God. That which is our deepest
need is that which God has provided, for He is a God Who forgives us.
Micah ends his prophecy with a great exclamation of hope and confidence, an
expression of sheer wonder at the grace and mercy of God.
Who is a God like Thee? Thou takest away guilt, Thou passeth over the
sin of the remnant of Thy people... Thou wilt show us tender affection and
wash away our guilt, casting our sins into the depth of the sea.
This amazed exclamation comes at the end of a prophetic book that had dealt
seriously with the sin of God's people, Judah. Micah prophesied near the end of
the Eighth Century, B.C. With Amos, Hosea and Isaiah he formed the quartet of
Eighth Century prophets that represents the golden age of Hebrew prophecy. The
social structures of Judah were in a state of deterioration. The nation lacked
moral integrity and Micah realized that this people was ripe for judgment.
© Grand Valley State University
�The God Who Forgives Us
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
He was a contemporary of Isaiah and although Isaiah, too, knew of the sin of the
nation, he could not yet conceive of the fall of Jerusalem. Micah, however,
predicted that fall, believing that Judah was not immune to the righteous
judgment of God. He did not whitewash the estate of a people who had left the
paths of righteousness.
But as for me, I am filled with power, with the Spirit of the Lord, and
with justice and might, to declare to Jacob his transgression and to Israel
his sin. (3:8)
Micah was no "soft touch."
But true to the prophetic tradition and the whole biblical perspective, judgment
was not the outpouring of the wrath of a vengeful God Who found pleasure in
destroying but rather the disciplining hand of a loving Father Whose purpose was
always and forever the redemption of His children. For Micah, then, the last word
was not judgment, but grace; not wrath, but mercy.
He does not retain his anger forever because he delights in steadfast love.
The forgiving grace of God is the last word and the psalm that concludes this
prophetic book sings it beautifully with a sense of wonder - the wonder known
and understood by all who know what it is to be forgiven.
Let us attempt to understand the wonder expressed in our text by acknowledging
the biblical diagnosis of the human condition - the condition of sin.
We can get this diagnosis from Micah or any other biblical writing. The text is a
statement that takes this human condition for granted; it is an expression of
amazement at the forgiving grace of God, given the human condition of sin. Paul
cites a Psalm and puts it bluntly:
All have sinned.
To be in a state of sin is to be in a state of alienation from God and one's
neighbor. In the Old Testament the Genesis stories portray the human person
doubting God's word and God's goodness, the unwillingness to live as creature
trusting the Creator, but rather wanting to usurp the place of God and to be Lord
of one's own destiny. It was Israel's lack of trust in God that is portrayed as the
root of their alienation and separation from God, which led to all the disastrous
consequences of their corporate and individual lives.
Sin is an old fashioned word. Its reality has been soft-pedaled, its seriousness
denied. Yet its manifestation is universal and its devastating effects everywhere to
be seen. Anyone with a pinch of common sense must acknowledge that
something is wrong. Those profound stories in Genesis, full of symbolic meaning,
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
tell us that something is wrong indeed, because we are out of relationship with
the God Who created us for Himself.
Modern psychiatry recognizes that something is wrong. A few years ago Karl
Menninger of the famed Menninger Clinic wrote a book that was titled, Whatever
Became of Sin? in which he implored the pulpit to preach on human sin because
this was to recognize the humanity of persons - that they are free and responsible
beings, accountable, with the need and capacity to repent. Otherwise we rob
persons of their unique humanness, their freedom and responsibility, making
them marionettes in a cosmic drama of fate.
This is the biblical perspective... God is good and not the author of evil. We make
wrong choices, foolish and brazen, and create chaos for ourselves and our world.
We get entwined in a web of wrong and we are wrong-headed and wrong-hearted.
We must own our wrong but we cannot unwrite the record of our deeds.
Therefore, we need to be forgiven or our situation is hopeless.
Ernest Becker, in his book, The Denial of Death, gives a fascinating analysis of
how the biblical picture of human sin parallels the findings of depth psychology
and psychoanalysis. He compares the work of the psychoanalyst, Otto Rank, with
the insights of the Christian thinker, Soren Kierkegaard. He writes:
Both men reached the same conclusion after the most exhaustive
psychological quest: That at the very furthest reaches of scientific
description, psychology has to give way to "theology" - that is, to a worldview that absorbs the individual's conflicts and guilt and offers him the
possibility for some kind of heroic apotheosis (to be exalted to the rank of
a god). Man cannot endure his own littleness unless he can translate it into
meaningfulness on the largest possible level. Here Rank and Kierkegaard
meet in one of those astonishing historical mergers of thought: that sin
and neurosis are two ways of talking about the same thing - the complete
isolation of the individual, his disharmony with the rest of nature, his
hyperindividualism, his attempt to create his own world from within
himself. Both sin and neurosis represent the individual blowing himself up
to larger than his true size, his refusal to recognize his cosmic
dependence... In sin and neurosis man fetishizes himself on something
narrow at hand and pretends that the whole meaning and miraculousness
of creation is limited to that, that he can get his beatification from that.
Rank's summing up of the neurotic world-view is at the same time that of
the classic sinner:
The neurotic loses every kind of collective spirituality, and makes
the heroic gesture of placing himself entirely within the immortality
of his own ego ... (p. 196)
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
There is not only the neurotic and the sinner's unreal self-inflation in the refusal
to admit creatureliness, but also a penalty for intensified self-consciousness "The failure to be consoled by shared illusions."
The result is that the sinner (neurotic) is hyperconscious of the very thing
he tried to deny: his creatureliness, his miserableness and unworthiness.
(p. 197)
But there is a significant difference between the classical sinner and the modern
neurotic.
Both of them experience the natureliness of human insufficiency, only
today the neurotic is stripped of the symbolic world-view, the God ideology
that would make sense out of his unworthiness and would translate it into
heroism. Traditional religion turned the consciousness of sin into a
condition for salvation; but the tortured sense of nothingness of the
neurotic qualifies him now only for miserable extinction, for merciful
release in lonely death. It is all right to be nothing vis-à-vis God, who
alone can make it right in His unknown ways; it is another thing to be
nothing to oneself, who is nothing. (p. 197)
In Rank's own summary:
The neurotic type suffers from a consciousness of sin just as much as did
his religious ancestor, without believing in the conception of sin. This is
precisely what makes him "neurotic"; he feels a sinner without the
religious belief in sin for which he therefore needs a new rational
explanation. (p. 198 in Becker from Rank, Beyond Psychology p. 193)
Thus declares Becker:
Thus the plight of modern man: a sinner with no word for it or, worse, who
looks for the word for it in a dictionary of psychology and thus only
approaches the problem of his separateness and hyperconsciousness.
Again, this impasse is what Rank meant when he called psychology a
"preponderantly negative and disintegrating ideology." (p. 198)
And sounding like a biblical prophet, Rank concludes, according to Becker, that
if neurosis is sin, and not disease, then the only thing which can "cure" it is
a world-view, some kind of affirmative collective ideology in which the
person can perform the living drama of his acceptance as a creature. Only
in this way can the neurotic come out of his isolation to become part of
such a larger and higher wholeness as religion has always represented. (p.
198F)
© Grand Valley State University
�The God Who Forgives Us
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
That is the conclusion of the best insight of the science of psychoanalysis and it is
a striking conclusion. Believing religion an illusion, Rank nonetheless believed
that human health could be achieved only by living in that illusion. Only thus
could the isolation and alienation of creatureliness be overcome by one being
caught up in a larger framework of meaning and purpose.
The diagnosis of the human condition is the same whether read from the Bible or
from the journals of psychiatry. The terminology differs but the meaning is the
same.
The human being turned in upon himself, rejecting the status of creature,
grasping for autonomy - that person is in biblical terminology a sinner, in
the parlance of modern psychology a neurotic.
Probably as much as anybody, Robert Schuller has attempted to utilize the
findings of the psychological science in his presentation of the Gospel. In his
book, Self Esteem, he contends that we are born with a lack of trust. This is
suggested by Erik Erikson in his studies in child psychology. Thus Schuller
contends we are by nature fearful, anxious, but not wicked. However one
responds to Schuller's dialogue with classical Reformed theology, he does make
an important point. For too long in the Church we have assaulted the dignity of
human personality and have ground persons even deeper into the paralysis of
their sinful condition with our heavy handed preaching of human sin.
The question is not whether we are sinful and thus commit sins for which we are
guilty. That is plain for anyone to see. The question is rather how can we
understand the human predicament and meaningfully bring the Gospel to that
predicament so that human transformation will result?
Somehow we must recognize that all the wrong we do, all the hell on earth we
create, is a reflection not of the human nature God created in his own image, but
of a negative response of that human nature which fails to understand God, itself,
and the way to wholeness.
This is not to downplay the havoc wrought by the person. Schuller uses the image
of a golf ball. Outside is a thin, dimpled cover. Beneath are layers and layers of
rubber wrappings. The core is a hard rubber ball. To describe a golf ball simply in
terms of the outer cover is superficial. The real nature of the golf ball is still
unknown. The outer cover he compares to human rebellion. But whence comes
that rebellion? Schuller claims we are like that golf ball. At the core is a natural
lack of self-esteem, a negative self image - all coming from a lack of trust. From
that core come all those rubber wrappings: anxiety, fear and all negative
emotions resulting in a face that appears angry, mean, rebellious. At the core of
our being we are non-trusting, insecure, defensive and our response to life is
angry, negative, destructive. Projecting our fear and suspicion outward, we ruin
our interpersonal relationships and generally make a mess of our lives and the
community.
© Grand Valley State University
�The God Who Forgives Us
Richard A. Rhem
Page 6
Berkhof in his Christian Faith sees our sin "rooted in the creaturely structure of
the risky being called man." We do seem to live in two worlds; we are part of the
animal kingdom and we are created in the image of God. There is both our
misuse of freedom and therefore our guilt and there is a gravitational force from
below. In Berkhof s terms:
Sin is not a fall from a higher form of existence, but the refusal to rise to
the higher form of existence of loving fellowship with God. Sin is contrary
to nature precisely because it is a yielding to the pull of our inherited
nature. Man falls victim to it if he does not in confidence, in surrender,
and in obedience open himself to the call from on high as it invites him to
join unconditionally and with his whole being in God's venture of a joint
history with man. (p. 207)
While not contending that Schuller and Berkhof are saying the same thing or
share a common analysis of the human condition, this much can be said - and
needs to be said - it is possible to understand the sinful behavior of persons,
acknowledging the seriousness of the wrong that we do, without painting the
human being as a monster, wicked and incorrigible.
Invited to friendship with God from above, pulled by a gravitational force from
below, the human being is both guilty and tragic, wonderful and capable of
transformation.
What, then, is the deepest human need?
Is it not unconditional love, unlimited grace, full acceptance and free forgiveness?
What we most need God provides, for He is the God Who forgives
If the rather long path we have taken to diagnose the human condition is accurate
- the biblical picture, the insight of psychoanalysis, of Schuller and Berkhof, then
what is it that can effect human transformation? How can human nature be
changed? Simply stated: An encounter with unconditional love and grace.
If it is true that at our core we are lacking in trust, fearful and anxious and if all
forms of negative behavior are the consequence, then it is precisely in the
experience of being encountered by an all-embracing grace and a nonthreatening love that we will find our anger dissolved, the shell of our hostility
shed and our defenses fall away.
The Gospel is the good news about God whose nature is love and Whose love in
action toward us is grace. And God encounters us in Jesus Christ. It is when we
encounter God in Jesus Christ that we know what it is to be unconditionally
accepted and embraced by grace. We meet God when we meet Jesus and we meet
Jesus when we meet a brother or sister in whom he lives and through whom he
loves.
© Grand Valley State University
�The God Who Forgives Us
Richard A. Rhem
Page 7
Then we may well exclaim with Micah,
Who is a God like thee? Thou takest away guilt... casting our sins into the
depths of the sea.
Is it that simple? Yes, it is. But it is not cheap. The story of Jesus reveals the
costliness of that forgiveness. His life, his death. He lived a fully human life in
total harmony with the Father. He bore our sin in his body on the tree. God made
him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in him. We are forgiven through Jesus Christ our Lord. We are accepted in
Jesus. When we can receive that, "hear" that, really appropriate that, we are
changed, transformed, inside out.
The Gospel announces forgiveness through the grace of God; He the God Who
forgives us.
No wonder Micah exclaimed in wonder,
Who is a God like thee?
Paul was awestruck, too, at the forgiving grace of God offered in Jesus Christ. In
Romans 9-11 he struggles with Israel's failure to believe in Jesus as their Messiah.
He finally concludes that in the mystery of God's ways Israel's disobedience has
resulted in the salvation of the Gentile world but he never gives up on Israel
either. Quoting from Isaiah 27:9,
From Zion shall come the Deliverer; he shall remove wickedness from
Jacob, And this is the covenant I will grant them, when I take away their
sins…
He contends that God will one day remove Israel's sin as well because he is
certain of the faithfulness of God and the unconditional nature of his promise.
"... God's choice stands, and they are his friends for the sake of the
Patriarchs. For the gracious gifts of God and his calling are irrevocable."
(11:28-29)
He can only conclude - even though he cannot fully fathom For in making all mankind prisoners to disobedience, God's purpose was
to show mercy to all mankind. (11:32)
This leaves him breathless. In a mood similar to Micah's, he breaks out in grand
doxology:
O depth of wealth, wisdom and knowledge in God! How unsearchable his
judgments, how untraceable his ways! ... Source, Guide and Goal of all
that is - to him be glory for ever! Amen." (11:33-36)
© Grand Valley State University
�The God Who Forgives Us
Richard A. Rhem
Page 8
What a doxology! What a God! And what calls forth that irrepressible praise of
the whole human being? The marvel of a grace that forgives! God is a God Who
forgives us! Now if only we could believe it; if only we could receive it.
Let me speak of God's forgiveness lifting up some aspects of it that may cause us
to sense more deeply its wonder and to appropriate more fully its blessing.
The first thing 1 would point out is that God's forgiveness has already been
provided - it is a reality now offered unconditionally to all who will receive it. God
does not hold us at arm's length, seeing first if we measure up, if we are worthy, if
we will do it all right now and not abuse His free grace. We do not deserve it.
It was while we were yet enemies that we were reconciled - while we
were yet sinners that Christ died for us. (Romans 5:6-8)
Forgiveness is not conditional on good behaviour; there is no parole system with
God - just a declaration of undeserved mercy and freedom from the guilt of our
sin. Forgiveness is not a future possibility if in the meantime we keep our nose
clean. Forgiveness has already been procured through the one offering of Jesus
and is ours now.
There is now therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
(Romans 8:1)
The Gospel is not a religion. A religion has a teaching, a ritual, a way of life.
Christianity is a religion, but the Gospel is the announcement of what is true now
because God has acted: Forgiveness is provided already - secured, forgiveness is
freely offered, forgiveness can be now received - received only as gift.
A second reflection I would share is that it is those who need it most who find it
the most difficult to receive it and personally to appropriate it.
Certainly there are those who bulldoze their way through life with seemingly little
sensitivity to the havoc they produce and the hurt they inflict. But I am more
concerned about the one of sensitive conscience, the one who longs to be right
but senses her failings and perhaps even despairs, feeling simply a failure. That
one tends to withdraw from the grace of God and from the fellowship where that
grace is extended. Such a one feels unworthy which is true enough; yet it is
precisely there that the misconception of forgiveness manifests itself. For if I do
not allow myself the luxury of grace, being unworthy, then I must be saying that
those who do receive it are worthy and then, of course, grace is no longer grace.
When I feel wrong, then I feel I do not belong. Withdrawal, isolation, alienation the bitter fruits of failure and despair not dispensed by God's unconditional grace
that will never be defeated, will not give up or let go.
© Grand Valley State University
�The God Who Forgives Us
Richard A. Rhem
Page 9
I wonder if in this state we do not take ourselves too seriously. Are we so allimportant and our sin of such cosmic dimension that even God can not forgive us
and create for us a new beginning? Is not such withdrawal really the last holdout
of pride that says, "I will do it on my own or I will not do it"?
This leads me to a third observation which follows as a matter of course:
Forgiveness is only for the helpless, the hopeless, the one who cannot help
himself. We know that; it is a truism of the Gospel. But we find it difficult to keep
that truth before our minds. That is inevitable in the Church, I suppose. In the
Church you hear about the "oughtness" of life. Certainly there is an "oughtness"
in Christian existence:
We ought to love God.
We ought to love our neighbor.
We ought to live truthfully, honestly, nobly, purely, faithfully, etc.
Thus the Church becomes the society of oughtness, the place where duty and
obligation are set forth, the place where discipline and censure are applied and
where failure is not easily tolerated. It is the last place one would dare be honest
about his life. Thus develops the paradoxical situation that the place of grace
becomes a place of judgmental spirit and the place of Good News becomes the
place of bad news.
And what kind of people do we form? People grim-faced, tightly wound, anxious,
masking their real life full of conflict and ambiguity behind a facade of
community respectability, lacking real spontaneity and joy.
Are you a hopeless case? You are very near the Kingdom; you are forgiven;
breathe easy and begin to enjoy the journey.
Finally, I can hear a chorus of dissent: You make the Gospel too easy; you make a
mockery of the Christian life. To that I can only say I will take that risk if only I
can help one suffering, sensitive struggler to hear and receive the Gospel of
forgiveness. And further, religion doesn't work anyway; it only binds another
burden on people and places one more monkey on their back. Religion never
transformed anyone. It controls, manipulates, keeps one in line (in public,) but it
can never free and heal and make whole.
If I am accused of announcing a grace that might put in jeopardy duty and
obligation and law, then I am in good company; St. Paul was likewise objected to.
He spoke glowingly of the triumph of grace in his Roman letter:
But where sin was thus multiplied, grace immeasurably exceeded it, in
order that, as sin established its reign by way of death, so God's grace
might establish its reign in righteousness, and issue in eternal life
through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 5:21)
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
Page10
That "immeasurably exceeded" follows an earlier "vastly exceeded by the grace of
God" in verse 15 and an "in far greater measure" -verse 17. Thus Paul knows what
will be countered.
What are we to say, then? Shall we persist in sin, so that there may be ail
the more grace? (6:1)
He answers sharply, "No, no!"
And his answer contains the key to mystery of human transformation; it is
precisely the reality of an unconditional love and gracious acceptance that
triggers inward change; this is the reality that by the Spirit effects new birth.
Law can point the way, Law can indicate duty, Law can carry with it threat, Law
can hem us in, bind us up, keep us in tow, effecting an external conformity to
righteousness, But Law cannot change us. Law will never make us dizzy with
wonder, speechless in awe finally to exclaim, “What a God!”
Who is a God like Thee?
God is our Ally; He is the God Who forgives us.
References:
Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death. First published in 1973.
Hendrikus Berkhof, Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Study of the Faith.
Wm Eerdmans & Co., 1979.
Robert H. Schuller. Self-Esteem: The New Reformation. Word Books, 1983.
© Grand Valley State University
�
Dublin Core
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Richard A. Rhem Collection
Description
An account of the resource
Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
Subject
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
Sound Recordings
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Rhem, Richard A.
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
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English
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KII-01
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1981-2014
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Event
Pentecost IX
Series
God Our Ally
Scripture Text
Micah 7:18-19, Romans 11:33-36
Location
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Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
References
Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death, 1973
Hendrikus Berkhof, Christian Faith, 1979
Robert H. Schuller, Self-Esteem: The New Reformation, 1983.
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KII-01_RA-0-19850728
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1985-07-28
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The God Who Forgives Us
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Richard A. Rhem
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
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Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
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eng
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A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on July 28, 1985 entitled "The God Who Forgives Us", as part of the series "God Our Ally", on the occasion of Pentecost IX, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Micah 7:18-19, Romans 11:33-36.
Forgiveness
Grace
Hebrew Scriptures
Judgment
Micah
Nature of God
Prophets
Sin
Transformation
Trust
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/464b1eb62053df6c35ed462ef8342aa9.mp3
cf9d4b8d96760f9368f21d4cf4eaff11
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/c74e44ab7a3365f9c7fad18100cc5c86.pdf
e134ceba68982673df8ef23e77c70d87
PDF Text
Text
The God Who Never Gives Up On Us
From the sermon series: God, Our Ally
Text: Hosea 11: 8-9, 32; Hosea 14: 4
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
August 25, 1985
Transcription of the spoken sermon
God is our Ally.
He will never give up on us - not because finally we will come round and deserve
His love, but rather because His love, flowing out of His own depths, will never
let us go. That is the theme of this message: He will never give up on us; He will
never let us go.
This is a message about the unconditional love of God. It is a message about what
is translated from the Hebrew word hesed as God's "steadfast love." This is a
message about God our Ally Who has called us into a covenant relationship to
which He remains faithful even when we prove unfaithful. This message is a love
story, the story of a love beyond compare, a love beyond human conception. This
is the story of a love that will never give up, never let us go; a love that will finally
heal us and bind us to the bosom of God.
The message comes from Hosea, a great Eighth Century B.C. prophet who
experienced deep pain in his own marriage and therein discovered the pain of
God at the unfaithfulness of His people Israel, but discovered something more
amazing - that God's love is unquenchable.
The first three chapters of Hosea deal with biographical material from the
prophet's own life. There has been much debate about the interpretation of these
chapters. I cannot give you the whole discussion, but will summarize what I
believe is the most adequate understanding of Hosea’s experience. In Chapter 1:2,
we read,
…The Lord said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of harlotry, for the
land commits great harlotry by forsaking the Lord.”
This was probably a reflection after the fact. Hosea married Gomer and she
proved unfaithful. The verse above summarizes what happened rather than
indicating that Gomer was a harlot before Hosea married her. The first chapter
© Grand Valley State University
�The God Who Never Gives Up On Us
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
records Goner's unfaithfulness. Although it is not clearly stated, it would appear
that Hosea divorced Gomer because of her wantonness. (cf. Hosea 2:2a, 4-5a).
Then in chapter 3:1, we read,
And the Lord said to me, "Go again, love a woman who is beloved of a
paramour and is an adulteress; even as the Lord loves the people 0f
Israel, though they turn to other gods..."
So, Hosea redeems Gomer - buys her back out of the bondage of her harlotry and restores her as his wife. In his own experience, thus, he found a "lived
parable" that pointed to the unquenchable love of God.
He was tormented by his separation from Gomer, he felt maimed and
incomplete, and he realized that however little Gomer might deserve his
love… yet she retained it to an undiminished degree, and he was
constrained even against his own judgment to attempt to restore the old
marriage relationship.
The mystery of the compulsive power of his own love for Gomer made
Hosea reflect upon the love of God for erring Israel. It was thereon that
he founded his message of hope for his people… (Interpreter Bible, Vol. VI,
p. 562)
Martin Buber writes,
That a particular person should be bound to love another particular person
in utter concreteness, is there such a thing as this? The word can only be
spoken to one who already loves. He loves, he still loves the faithless one,
he cannot suppress this love, but he does not want it, for he feels himself
degraded by it. ...Into this state of soul God's word descends, "Continue
loving, thou art allowed to love her, thou must love her; even so do I love
Israel." (The Prophetic Faith, p. 113)
Hosea loved Gomer still. He redeemed her and brought her back. She did not
deserve such love and grace.
But if Gomer did not deserve such merciful treatment as Hosea felt
constrained to give her, no more did Israel merit the mercy and love of
God. Her redemption from sin and shame was an act of God’s grace and
of his love that would not let her go. (Interpreter Bible, p. 562)
The statement of God's unconditional, unquenchable love is beautifully stated in
the first verse of the eleventh chapter. Now the figure is not the marriage
relationship, but that of God the Father and Israel the son.
When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.
© Grand Valley State University
�The God Who Never Gives Up On Us
Richard A. Rhem
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But Israel was unfaithful; she worshipped the Canaanite gods. Tenderly, God
nurtured her.
I led them with cords of compassion, with the bands of love… (11:4)
But still they failed to live faithfully in that covenant love. They succeeded only in
eliciting God's anger. Judgment was surely coming; Hosea could feel it.
Hosea prophesied around 745 B.C. Jeroboam II had brought the Northern
Kingdom to prosperity, but Hosea could see the dry rot in the soul of the nation.
Judgment would come and judgment did come. In 721, the Assyrian Empire
came in and overthrew Israel, dispersing the ten northern tribes.
But judgment was not the final word. Judgment was only a means to the end of
finally bringing His people to their senses and causing them to return to Him.
Listen to the "last word:"
How can I give you up, O Ephraim!
How can I hand you over, O Israel!
How can I make you like Admah!
How can I treat you like Zeboiim!
My heart recoils within me, my compassion grows warm and tender.
I will not execute my fierce anger.
I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and not man,
the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come, to destroy. (11: 8-9)
There you have the text, a text to ponder. There you have a statement of God's
unconditional, unquenchable love, a love that will never give up on us, a love that
will never let us go.
In God's relationship to Israel, we see mirrored His relationship to all nations.
God created the nation Israel in the event of the Exodus. Israel was a chosen
nation. God elected Israel to be a representative people for all peoples. We cannot
fathom the mystery of that choice, that election. It was not an election of one
nation cutting off the rest of the nations, but the choosing of one on behalf of the
rest. It was a particular choice with a universal purpose. Remember the call to
Abraham:
…by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves. Genesis 12: 3
The basis of God's choice of Israel was simply love:
It was not because you were more in number than any other people that
the Lord set his love upon you and chose you…but it is because the Lord
loves you… Deuteronomy 7: 7-8
© Grand Valley State University
�The God Who Never Gives Up On Us
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
Israel was the representative of us all. Berkhof calls Israel God's "Experimental
Garden." In her concrete history – thus in the arena of our history – it has been
demonstrated that the human covenant partner will never prove faithful.
... in an experimental garden the soil and what can be done with it are tried
out, so that other fields, to which these experiments are applicable, may
benefit from it. ... in the Old Testament, Israel, in distinction from other
nations, is more than once pictured as a specially cultivated and tended
vineyard, from which might thus be expected a greater yield, but whose
unproductivity arouses the greater anger of God. (Christian Faith, p. 245)
Pointing to Israel's election, Berkhof shows that as a People she had a special
privilege and a special task; the outcome of the Old Testament is the
demonstration in our history of the faithlessness of the human covenant partner
and the faithfulness of the Divine covenant partner. Berkhof writes,
And we who are witnesses of this way know that Israel is no better or
worse than the other nations, but that her guilt and fate disclose the way of
the whole human race. The abiding relevance of the Old Testament is that
the experimental garden Israel has shown once and for all how unfruitful
we humans are in our faithfulness to God and our neighbor; and then, too,
how unimaginably faithful God remains to mankind which ever and again
seeks life apart from him. (p. 245f)
What is the solution? Certainly there is no hope from our side; there is no
solution possible from the human covenant partner. When God moved to effect a
solution through the gift of Jesus in whom He dwelt in fullness, we crucified him.
This is the New Testament history that corresponds to Israel's failure. Thus we
have in both Old and New Testaments the concrete history of radical human
guilt.
What is the solution? The solution is the radical grace of God, which flows from
the unconditional love of God. It was this insight that gripped Hosea, written
indelibly in his own soul through his personal experience. God says, in effect,
“You deserve to be given up; I should give you up. But how can I give you up? I
will not give you up.”
In his book Unconditional Love, John Powell writes,
In the Old Testament God reveals himself to the People of Israel as a God
of unconditional love. His gift of himself in the choice and creation of "My
People" is totally unsolicited, undeserved and unmerited. ... God decides,
God chooses, God offers his gift of love. He is by his own free act forever
committed to his People. The prophet Hosea uses the image of God taking
a bride: "And I will betroth you to me forever." (2:19-20) Through the
prophet Isaiah, God says, "Even if a mother should forget the child of her
womb, I will never forget you." (49:15).
© Grand Valley State University
�The God Who Never Gives Up On Us
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
The unconditionality of God's love for his People is a constant refrain in
the Old Testament. God has promised and God will always be faithful to
his promise. Jeremiah writes of God's constant willingness to forgive:
"With an eternal love I have loved you. Therefore, in loving-kindness I
draw you to myself." (31:3) (Unconditional Love, p. 97F)
Hosea understood the faithfulness of God to his covenant which was rooted in a
love that would never give up. As Bernard Anderson writes,
Just as Gomer played the harlot, so Israel had broken the covenant.
According to Hosea, this was the real historical tragedy, and all the
contemporary troubles of Israel were only symptoms of it. The "wife"
whom Yahweh had chosen and betrothed to himself had become a whore.
A "spirit of hostility" had inflamed the people, and they had become
estranged from their God. (4:12) Hosea's critique of Israel's society went
far deeper than a mere condemnation of social immorality, political
confusion, or religious formation. He was concerned with men's motives,
with the devotion of the heart, with the things in which men place their
trust. (Understanding The Old Testament, p. 247)
Sounding the keynote of Hosea's message, Anderson writes,
The deepest note struck in the book of Hosea is the proclamation that
God's "wrath" or judgment is redemptive. God's purpose is not to destroy,
but to heal. Through historical crises that shake the very foundations of
human self-sufficiency, Yahweh acts to free his people from their
enslavement to false allegiance and to restore them to freedom in the
covenant loyalty. Just as Hosea's love was greater and deeper than
Gomer's infidelity, so Yahweh's love for Israel is truly steadfast. It is a
divine love that will not let his people go, despite their fickleness and
harlotry. His "wrath" is not capricious, vindictive, and destructive; it is the
expression of a holy love which seeks to break the chains of Israel's
bondage and to emancipate her for a new life, a new covenant. (Ibid., p.
251)
... divine judgment is not the last word ... (verses 8-9). For even in the
hour of catastrophe Yahweh does not abandon his people, nor does his
love for them cease. It is not his will that Israel be destroyed as Admah and
Zeborm were leveled during the holocaust of Sodom and Gomorrah, (cf.
Gen. 19:24-25; Deuteronomy 29:23). Rather, the purpose behind
Yahweh's judgment is love, like that of a parent who lovingly disciplines a
wayward child. These verses passionately describe a struggle, as it were,
within the heart of God - a struggle that doubtless reflects the agony of
Hosea's experience with Gomer. But the triumph is on the side of the love
that will not let Israel go. (Ibid., p. 252)
Thus Hosea ends his prophecy with words of healing,
© Grand Valley State University
�The God Who Never Gives Up On Us
Richard A. Rhem
Page 6
I will heal their apostasy; of my own bounty will I love them. (14:4)
The secret of such love lies in God. We cannot fathom it; we can only bow before
its majesty. It is beyond human comprehension. God points to His own
"Godness" as it were, differentiating Himself from us.
... for I am God and not man.
Such is the amazing story of the love of God.
It is interesting to relate Hosea's sense of God's love that never gives up on us to
Paul's struggle with Israel's rejection of Jesus. Romans chapters 9-11 relate that
struggle. Paul cannot understand how to put together God's faithfulness to his
covenant promise with Israel's disobedience. His final conclusion is that, through
Israel's rejection, the Gospel is being brought to the Gentiles. He concludes that
section of struggle with these words:
For in making all mankind prisoners to disobedience, God’s purpose was
to show mercy to all mankind. (11:32)
Then he breaks out in a great doxology, praising the God of so great salvation.
What are we to make of this amazing love story, this tale of unconditional,
unquenchable love? Must it not seem too good to be true? If it seems too good to
be true, it is because we are not accustomed to hearing this message stated simply
and straightforwardly. As the message has come to us filtered through centuries
of Church tradition - our own Church tradition included - the message has been
garbled and the unconditional love of God has been hedged in with numerous
qualifications and conditions. I think it accurate to say that for the most part the
message that has come through is that of a conditional love of God, conditional
on our response, conditional on our good behavior. We speak much of grace, but
we operate on the basis of good works and self-righteousness.
Is it not perhaps that we are afraid to let the truth of the radical grace and
unconditional love of God out because people might really believe it and presume
upon it, take advantage of it? Do we dare tell people that the love of God will
finally overcome their disobedience, their unfaithfulness, their unworthiness,
their fickleness, in a word - their sinful rebellion and self assertion?
Do we not rather make God's gift of salvation conditional on saying the right
words, confessing the right beliefs, conforming to accepted morality?
Have we not transformed the Gospel of God's radical grace and unconditional
love into a morality game? Has not the message of the Church been strongly
flavored with "Santa Claus theology" - that is – not "You better be good 'cause
Santa's coming to town," but "You better be good 'cause Jesus is coming again?"
© Grand Valley State University
�The God Who Never Gives Up On Us
Richard A. Rhem
Page 7
That is so very human, just like us. We use reward and punishment on our
children; good behaviour gets a reward; bad behaviour gets punishment. That
seems only reasonable; that seems like a just mode of operation.
Is that not also the way God operates? The answer is simply, "No."
Is that not why when He makes His amazing declaration about not being able to
give up on Israel, He explains,
... for I am God and not man.
Similarly in Isaiah 55 we read after the gracious invitation to return to Him Who
freely forgives,
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not my
ways… For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways
higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts; and as the
rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return until they
have watered the earth, making it blossom and bear fruit, and give seed
for sowing and bread to eat, so shall the word which comes from my
mouth prevail; it shall not return to me fruitless without accomplishing
my purpose or succeeding in the task I gave it. (Isaiah 55:8-11)
God is God. God is other than we are. In His dealings, Love always triumphs. God
will never give up on His People. His anger burns. His judgment falls. But His
love wins out and the last word is grace.
We hardly dare let this good news be known for we fear then we will lose our hold
on persons, we will lose our control factor. A good dose of threat and a pinch of
fear, the reinforcement of the guilt that is present and well deserved tends to keep
the Church in the driver's seat and the people subservient and docile. What would
happen if we really let it out that God's love is the final reality, the last word?
A great Christian leader and spiritual giant of an earlier day, A.W. Tozer, wrote a
beautiful essay entitled, "God Is Easy To Live With." He writes,
Satan's first attack upon the human race was his sly effort to destroy Eve's
confidence in the kindness of God. Unfortunately for her and for us he
succeeded too well. From that day, men have had a false conception of
God, and it is exactly this that has cut out from under them the ground of
righteousness and driven them to reckless and destructive living. (These
Times, 1-74, p. 10)
He points out how our notion of God must always determine the quality of our
religion. Instinctively we try to be like our God and if He is conceived to be stern
and exacting, so will we ourselves be. We can speak of salvation by grace, but we
reduce the glory of the Gospel to the drudgery of legalism. Tozer goes on:
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
Page 8
From a failure properly to understand God comes a world of unhappiness
among good Christians even today. The Christian life is thought to be a
glum, unrelieved cross-carrying under the eye of a stern Father who
expects much and excuses nothing.
If we think of Him as cold and exacting we shall find it impossible to love
Him, and our lives will be ridden with servile fear. ... The truth is that God
is the most winsome of all beings and His service one of unspeakable
pleasure. He is all love, and those who trust Him never know anything but
that love.
Unfortunately, many Christians cannot get free from their perverted
notions of God, and these notions poison their hearts and destroy their
inward freedom. These friends serve God grimly, as the elder brother did,
doing what is right without enthusiasm and without joy, and seem
altogether unable to understand the buoyant, spirited celebration when
the prodigal comes home. Their idea of God rules out the possibility of His
being happy in His people, ... Unhappy souls, these, doomed to go heavily
on their melancholy way, grimly determined to do right if the heavens fall
and to be on the winning side in the day of judgment.
We please Him most, not by frantically trying to make ourselves good, but
by throwing ourselves into His arms with all our imperfections and
believing that He understands everything and loves us still.
Tozer had read Hosea. He makes such an important point. It is precisely the
knowledge of God's unconditional love that has the power to change us inside
out.
What have we produced in so much of the history of the Church? Not happy,
grace-full persons, but fearful, guilt-ridden persons whose external conformity to
the Law is a mask over seething hostility and rebellious resentment.
James Sandeishas written a book with the interesting title, God Has a Story Too.
He points out that the Bible is a story about God's action first of all, not about
human reaction. He argues that we moralize the Bible when we should theologize
the life. By this he means that the biblical narratives are stories not about human
achievements, human obedience, human goodness. We are not given a series of
models to emulate in the Bible. Abraham lied about Sarah being his wife and
laughed when God said they would have a child. Moses murdered and was a
fugitive from justice. David was guilty of murder and adultery. Paul persecuted
the Church. Peter denied Jesus.
The Bible is the story of what God can do through the likes of such people - in
spite of them. The story is God's story - a love story, a story of a love that never
quits, a love that never gives up on us, a love that will never let us go.
© Grand Valley State University
�The God Who Never Gives Up On Us
Richard A. Rhem
Page 9
Thus when we become wiser than God, feel we must guard the morality of
persons and keep their religious practice in line by qualifying the burning passion
of His unquenchable love, we not only distort the amazing wonder of that love,
we also miss the greatest single catalyst for transforming human personality and
the greatest motivation for a life of trust and devotion lived in the light of His
grace.
Moralism produces self-righteous, proud and judgmental persons. Legalism
produces tense, guilty persons lacking joy and assurance in the freedom of grace.
Stressing a conditional acceptance produces fear and finally despair. In a word,
the shading of the truth of God's love that knows no limits simply backfires; it
does not accomplish the purpose. It does not work.
In a quarter century of pastoral ministry, I must say that it is grace that is most
difficult to receive and God's unconditional love that is most difficult to believe.
We do not deserve it.
We know we do not deserve it.
We are guilty people and we know it.
We despair of ourselves; why wouldn't God despair?
We condemn ourselves; why wouldn't God condemn?
We are faithless and fickle;
we resolve, we perform, we fall away again,
we have done it a thousand times;
will the pattern ever be broken?
And here is the greatest peril of spiritual existence: We despair and give up.
Rather than responding to the call of the higher, we give up and yield to the
lower.
We write ourselves off: "Hopeless Case."
The old Baptismal liturgy contains great insight and wisdom. Explaining the
meaning of the sacrament, it teaches that Baptism is a sign and seal of our ingrafting into the body of Christ... By
this assurance we are called to new obedience: to hold fast to this one God,
... to trust and love him with all our heart and soul and mind and strength;
and to forsake the world, crucify our old nature, and walk in a new and
holy life.
Fine. That is what we are committed to. But who can realize that high calling?
The Saints, right? Abraham, Moses, David, Peter and Paul? Maybe the Elders.
Maybe even the Deacons.
But that holy life is hardly within the range of ordinary mortals, is it? Maybe for
some. Some folks seem full of goodness and steadiness and from all outward
© Grand Valley State University
�The God Who Never Gives Up On Us
Richard A. Rhem
Page10
appearance it would seem they are walking the straight and narrow. But as for me
...
Then our liturgy comes with profound spiritual insight:
And if we sometimes, through weakness, fall into sin, we must not
therefore despair of God's mercy, nor continue in sin, since Baptism is the
sign and seal of God's eternal covenant of grace with us.
There you have it! Again, the liturgy does not at the point of our weakness issue a
warning, but reminds us of a promise. It does not focus on what we ought to be,
but on what God has already established. Baptism is a sign and seal of an Eternal
Covenant of Grace.
That Eternal Covenant of Grace flows from the heart of the Eternal God, which is
Love; unquenchable love, unconditional love, love that will not quit, love that will
not give up on us, love that will never let us go. Radical grace. Radical love. That
is mind-boggling. If that is Who God is, then He is easy to live with, easy to love, a
joy to serve, a delight to please.
God is our Ally. He will never give up on us. His love will finally triumph. I do not
know how; sometimes through judgment, sometimes through adversity,
sometimes through death. That is His prerogative; for us the "how" remains a
mystery. But the "that" is clear: Love is the last word. God is love.
He will never give up on you!
References:
Bernhard W. Anderson. Understanding the Old Testament. Prentice-Hall, 2nd
edition, 1966.
Hendrikus Berkhof. Christian Faith: An Introduction to a Study of the Faith.
Wm. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1979.
John Joseph Powell. Unconditional Love: Love Without Limits. Resources for
Christian Living; first printing edition, 1978.
A. W. Tozer, “God Is Easy To Live With,” These Times, 1, 1974, p. 10.
© Grand Valley State University
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
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Richard A. Rhem Collection
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Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
Subject
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
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Rhem, Richard A.
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
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English
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KII-01
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1981-2014
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Event
Pentecost XIII
Series
God Our Ally
Scripture Text
Hosea 11:8-9, 14:4, Romans 11:32
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Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
References
Bernhard W. Anderson, Understanding the Old Testament, 1966
John Joseph Powell, Unconditional Love, 1978
A.W. Tozer, "God Is Easy to Live With," 1974
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KII-01_RA-0-19850825
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1985-08-25
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The God Who Never Gives Up On Us
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Richard A. Rhem
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
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Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
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eng
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A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on August 25, 1985 entitled "The God Who Never Gives Up On Us", as part of the series "God Our Ally", on the occasion of Pentecost XIII, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Hosea 11:8-9, 14:4, Romans 11:32.
Covenant of Grace
God's Unconditional Love
Hebrew Scriptures
Hosea
Judgment
Prophet
Transformation
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/a4ec9202f4bb6074d67bc5961c6a241e.pdf
b9e844b4e59c4ccc56959e4714d795eb
PDF Text
Text
The Habit of God’s Heart
Article by
Richard A. Rhem
Minister of Preaching and Theological Inquiry
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
Published in
Perspectives
A Journal of Reformed Thought
September 1988, pp. 8-11
In 1985, Robert Bellah et al published an in-depth study of individualism and
commitment in American life under the title Habits of the Heart lifting that
phrase from Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. Bellah described the
mores of the American people as he analyzed the relationship between character
and society in the nation. I borrow the phrase to describe the eternal, redemptive
intention of the God revealed in the face of Jesus Christ, witnessed to in the Old
and New Testaments. It is the habit of God’s heart to save. That is the thesis of
this essay.
The whole church will readily embrace such a thesis. The one story of the Bible is
the story of the searching, seeking God whose intention is the salvation of people
and nations and the creation of a new heaven and a new earth. Raising the
question of the scope of God’s redeeming action, however, elicits differing views.
Will God save all persons or will God save only some, the others condemned to
eternal damnation or to simple annihilation?
The Reformed faith has historically held to the ultimate division of the saved and
the lost, the distinction rooted in the mystery of God’s electing grace behind
which it is impossible to inquire. The saving grace of God draws the elect ones
irresistibly, the rest remaining in their lost estate of rebellion. The former
demonstrate the mercy of God; the latter, God’s justice.
Scripture passages can be cited pointing to what appears to be an eternal
distinction between the saved and the lost. The parabolic language of Jesus in
Matthew 25:46 and the straightforward words of John 5:29 clearly make that
distinction. Yet the issue is not easily settled by scriptural citation. There are
equally clear biblical statements that point in the direction of universal salvation,
the conviction that God will finally not only renew the whole created order but
will redeem and reconcile every person. The apostle Paul in the Adam-Christ
discussion of Romans 5 indicates that God’s act of grace was out of proportion to
Adam’s wrongdoing. Paul wrote, “Then as one man’s trespass led to
© Grand Valley State University
�The Habit of God’s Heart
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
condemnation for all men, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to acquittal
and life for all men.” After wrestling with Israel’s rejection of the Messiah in
Romans 9-11, Paul wrote, “For God has consigned all men to disobedience, that
he may have mercy upon all.” He then broke out into a magnificent doxology, an
eruption of praise called forth by the contemplation of the triumph of grace of the
faithful covenant-keeping God (11:33-36).
The universal reconciliation of all things is expressly stated in Colossians 1:19-20,
reconciliation by God through Christ in whom by God’s choice the complete being
of God came to dwell. And the Christ-hymn of Philippians 2:6-11 concludes with
the confident assertion that every knee should bow and every tongue confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God.
These and other passages have been hotly debated and there has been no lack of
wrenching of the plain sense of biblical passages on both sides of the issue.
Exegesis alone will not likely settle the question since both particular and
universal salvation come to expression within the canon of Scripture. This being
the case, how may we come to some resolution of the question?
It should be said, first of all, that we ought not to seek closure on questions that
Scripture leaves open. We often desire a finality that our limited knowledge and
understanding cannot produce. Not infrequently in the history of the Christian
tradition we have claimed to know too much. A proper humility before the
mystery of God and grace, of life and death and beyond, becomes us all.
Nor should the question be settled by an anxious fear. Some Christians worry that
the consequence of even contemplating the possibility of universal salvation
would cut the nerve of evangelism and undercut the proclamation of the gospel.
That simply need not follow; indeed, the very opposite could as well be the case,
and the change in spirit and attitude with which Christ is offered might totally
revolutionize the approach of the church to the world. With what contagious joy
might not the gospel be proclaimed if the church executed its mission in light of a
universal, redemptive intention and a certainty of the ultimate triumph of grace?
Throughout Christian history some have understood God’s redemptive action in
Jesus Christ to be universal in its scope. The early church was far more
universalistic in its understanding of the radical renewal of reality, the radical
alteration of the human situation through God’s action in Jesus Christ, than was
the church of subsequent centuries. Among the fathers of the early church we
find statements pointing to the final conquest of evil and rebellion, if not within
history, then beyond, through some kind of purgation process. Clement of
Alexandria wrote,
Punishment is, in its operation, like medicine; it dissolves the hard heart,
purges away the filth of uncleanness, and reduces the swellings of pride
and haughtiness; thus restoring its subject to a sound and healthful state
(Pedagog, 1.8).
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
Clement’s more famous pupil, Origin, wrote,
...God is a consuming fire, what is it that is to be consumed by him? We
say it is wickedness, and whatever proceeds from it, such as is figuratively
called “wood, hay, and stubble” (1 Cor. iii), which denote the evil works of
man. Our God is a consuming fire in this sense; and he shall come as a
refiner’s fire to purify rational nature from the alloy of wickedness…
(Contra Celsum. Lib. IV. 13).
Gregory, bishop of Nyssa, declared,
All evil, however, must at length be entirely removed from everything, so
that it shall no more exist. For such being the nature of sin, that it cannot
exist without a corrupt motive, it must, of course, be perfectly dissolved
and wholly destroyed, so that nothing can remain a receptacle of it, when
all motive and influence shall spring from God alone (De Anima et
Resurrectione).
Theodore of Mopsuestia held
That sin is an unavoidable part of the development and education of man;
that some carry it to a greater extent than others, but that God will finally
overrule it for their final establishment in good.
Among these early Christian thinkers there is no denial of evil and sin, but they
seem to entertain no doubt that God will finally conquer the last vestige of evil
and restore all things through remedial punishment.
It was not until 544 A.D. at a local council called by Justinian that the teaching of
universal salvation was condemned.
John Murray is considered the father of Universalism in the United States. Born
in England in 1741, he was a fervent Calvinist preacher who came under the
influence of a Universalist preacher named James Relly. Murray became an
ardent preacher of Universalist conviction, not forsaking the high Calvinism of
his early training except to see in Christ’s death an atonement not only universal
in its sufficiency, but also in its application. He rejected the Arminian position
that Christ died for the whole race but that only those who believed on him,
accepting the gospel, would be saved. Salvation was all of God and all of grace.
Following Relly, Murray taught that Christ died for all and therefore all would be
saved. He accepted the orthodox, evangelical premises regarding human sin and
need of redemption available through Christ alone, but he drew from them
universalistic conclusions.
In 1899 Lyman Abbott, editor of The Outlook, representing Congregationalists,
addressed the Universalist General Convention on the subject “Why I Am Not a
Universalist.” Agreeing with the universalist’s position against eternal
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
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punishment, Abbott yet denied that all would be saved, not because Christ’s
death did not provide the possibility of salvation for all. This he believed.
However, he refused to go on to affirm that God would save all, for that would be
to deny the creature’s freedom to refuse the gift.
Abbott states bluntly: “I do not believe that some men are fore-ordained to
everlasting death.” Yet he declares, “I am not a Universalist.” With precision, he
states, “If I were a Calvinist, I should be a Universalist. If I believed that God
could make all men righteous, I should be sure that he would make all men
righteous; otherwise he would not be a righteous God.”
In our century the question of universalism has surfaced in Reformed theology in
the work of Karl Barth. Berkouwer’s early study of Barth was entitled The
Triumph of Grace in the Theology of Karl Barth. Barth’s detractors labeled him a
Universalist and wrote him off as dangerous. Yet the matter is not that simple.
Barth resisted systematizing; he defied neat pigeonholing. In a lecture delivered
to a Swiss Reformed minister’s association in 1956, he reflected on those early,
heady days and the theological ferment he fomented. He entitled his remarks
“The Humanity of God.” One consequence of the humanity of God, Barth
maintains, is that the sense and sound of our word must be fundamentally
positive. He writes:
To open up again the abyss closed in Jesus Christ cannot be our task. Man
is not good: that is indeed true and must once more be asserted. God does
not turn towards him without uttering in inexorable sharpness a “No” to
his transgression. Thus theology has no choice but to put this “No” into
words within the framework of its theme. However, it must be the “No”
which Jesus Christ has taken upon Himself for us men, in order that it
may no longer affect us and that we may no longer place ourselves under
it. What takes place in God’s humanity is, since it includes that “No” in
itself, the affirmation of man (The Humanity of God, p. 58).
After developing that notion, Barth raises the question, “Does this mean
universalism?” He then makes three observations “in which one is to detect no
position for or against that which passes among us under this term” (p. 59).
Barth suggests one ought not surrender to the panic that that term seems to
spread before informing oneself exactly concerning its sense or non-sense. One
should, he contends, at least be stimulated by Colossians 1:19 and parallel
passages to determine whether the concept could not perhaps have a good
meaning. And he suggests finally that the “danger” with which universalism
seems to be attended should be balanced by concern for an even greater danger: a
theology that fosters suspicious questioning because of its own legalistic
perspective and morose spirit.
© Grand Valley State University
�The Habit of God’s Heart
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
Of this Barth is certain: we have no right to set limits to the loving-kindness of
God which has appeared in Jesus Christ. Rather, he argues, it is our duty to see
and to understand it as still greater than we have seen before.
Barth declares that the Christian witness cannot allow people to remain
entrenched in their darkness. Those whose eyes are not yet open to the truth of
the gospel must be questioned, encountered, shaken, by addressing and treating
them as those who are really and directly called already to a knowledge of what
God has done for and to them and who therefore stand in the light of life even if
they resist it or are unaware of it. The towering movement of the saving God in
Jesus Christ effecting reconciliation and fulfilling the covenant with the human
creature determines the outcome.
The practical implication of such a conviction is that one can never view any
person simply in the light of his or her sin, corruption, mode of life, perverted
nature, and evil actions. All this must be taken seriously and will be true perhaps
for a large majority of people, Barth acknowledges. To be indifferent to the
unchristian state of those yet uncalled has always spelled the death of Christian
responsibility in relation to others. But there is something else that has to be
taken more seriously, and indeed infinitely more seriously from the qualitative
standpoint, than their blatant non-Christianity. Their vocation is before them no
less surely than that Jesus Christ has died and risen again for them. This is
something of unconditional significance.
Such a confidence will determine the Christian’s posture toward others, insuring
an openness, an unlimited readiness to see in the aliens of today the brothers and
sisters of tomorrow and to love them as such.
Because every person stands in the light of life through what God accomplished
through Jesus Christ, the called are free and responsible to address every person
and all people in light of that reality; it is our obligation to do so. In being faithful
to the call to witness, the one in whom the work of grace has been effectual
experiences again and again the graciousness of God’s call.
One cannot fail to be impressed with the grandeur of God’s grace, rooted
eternally in the habit of God’s heart, the determination to reconcile all things, or
with God’s gracious election in Jesus Christ, the alteration of reality through
God’s action in history in Christ. One cannot fail to be impressed by the sense of
awe and humility experienced by the one in whose life the miracle occurs, and by
the spirit of openness, sensitivity, and confidence with which the church bears
witness to the world.
The nerve of evangelism is not only not severed, for the impulse to witness is
grounded in and motivated by the magnificence of God’s saving intention and
action. Rather than betraying an adversarial relationship, an over-againstness
from which the witness is given, those consciously in Christ, the light of life, stand
© Grand Valley State University
�The Habit of God’s Heart
Richard A. Rhem
Page 6
in solidarity with all brothers and sisters, witnessing to what is not yet apparent,
but what is nonetheless the real situation—all of God, all of grace.
It ought also to be clear that an openness to the possibility of universal salvation
is posited on the triumph of the good and gracious God and not at all on human
worthiness or human potential. Further, it must be recognized that a conviction
about the universality of God’s saving grace in no way eliminates the wrath of
God against all unrighteousness and the seriousness of the judgment of God. In
reality the conviction of God’s determination to redeem all people is a catalyst to
reckon honestly and freely with the righteous judgment of God before whom no
untruth or injustice can stand.
Hendrikus Berkhof gives a full discussion to the question before us in WellFounded Hope, the chapter entitled “The Double Image of the Future,” reprinted
in Perspectives (January 1988, pp. 8-9). He deals seriously with the biblical
witness but concludes, as was stated above, that Scripture leaves us with a double
track. Countless attempts have been made to subsume one track of texts under
the other by ingenious “exegetical tricks” but, Berkhof concludes, “we cannot
smooth out this contradiction in the New Testament.” All that we read about the
future, texts offering consolation and texts of warning, do not “fit together like a
jigsaw puzzle.” In the case of the passages giving warning, these present the
gospel in its nature as a call to decision; the passages offering consolation give
hope and the promise of eventual salvation of all.
We must hear both witnesses; we must not reduce one to the other. But we
cannot simply allow them to stand with no link between them. Berkhof suggests
we pronounce them “one after the other,” for “only the person who has learned to
tremble at the possibility of rejection may speak about universal salvation.”
It is the believing church, declares Berkhof, that can confess the last secret. In the
end it is the power of God’s “yes” that triumphs over the recalcitrance of the
human “no.” This is our last word but a last word that must be spoken if we
believe God is ultimately not powerless or cruel or arbitrary, but rather infinite in
mercy through Jesus Christ.
Summarizing his conclusion on the issue in Christian Faith, Berkhof writes,
We know that the covenant means that God’s faithfulness ever and again
does battle with man’s unfaithfulness. What ultimately will be forced to
yield: divine faithfulness or human unfaithfulness? Paul raised that
question with respect to Israel, as the trial grounds of God’s relationship to
man; and he ends with the confession: “God has consigned all men to
disobedience, that he may have mercy upon all” (Rom. 11:32). These
considerations compel us, not to detract from the gravity of the human
“No” against God and its consequences, but to think just a little more of
the divine “Yes” to recalcitrant humans. God is serious about the
responsibility of our decision, but he is even more serious about the
© Grand Valley State University
�The Habit of God’s Heart
Richard A. Rhem
Page 7
responsibility of his love. The darkness of rejection and God-forsakenness
cannot and may not be argued away, but no more can and may it be
eternalized. For God’s sake we hope that hell will be a form of purification
(Rev. ed. p. 536).
Gabriel Fackre comes to a similar conclusion. After surveying the various
positions taken in the course of the Christian tradition, he sides with the position
he calls “Light Overcoming Darkness,” which he says, “...is not a disclosure of
what shall be, but a hoping for what might be. All our ruminations here about the
destiny of the faithless and loveless must be put in this context of Christian
hoping” (The Christian Story, p. 237).
Fackre expresses his hope in these words:
The judgment on that Day in which the sun of Shalom rises over all is one
in which the fires of liberation and reconciliation refine and its light so
burns away the shadows that the last darkness is overcome. The God
whose “will it is that all men should find salvation and come to know the
truth” (1 Timothy 2:4) has the power of the Holy Spirit to keep that
promise and accomplish that Dream. The agony of this final contest of
light and darkness cannot be understated.... There is hell and judgment.
But the last word in the Christian Story is not that of a half-accomplished
purpose, but of a promise kept and a Vision that becomes Reality (p. 240).
One would look far to find Calvinistic universalism set forth more clearly and
winsomely than was described by Cornelius Plantinga, Jr. in a Banner editorial
entitled “Who Is Saved?” (Aug. 24, 1987). Plantinga acknowledges it is “a glorious
picture.” Yet he settles finally for the traditional, orthodox position which he calls
“a painful scheme.” He writes:
In Calvinist orthodoxy God wants to save everybody (1 Timothy 2:4). And
God can save everybody: God arranges for the death of Christ to radiate
sufficient power for the salvation of all. God also orders the gospel
preached to all. But, at the end of the day, God abandons some. God wants
everybody saved but never intends to save all. God wants everybody saved
but doesn’t plan on it. The reprobates are heartbreakingly, finally,
disastrously lost. God could save them, but he doesn’t. And nobody knows
why.
The practical, existential fallout of such a system is brought home poignantly by
Plantinga as he goes on. “Probably none of us needs reminding that this is a
painful scheme. The awfulness of it comes home to us when we look at the
spiritual rebellion of a son or daughter. Could it possibly be that God has never
intended to save this precious person?”
At the risk of presumption, I, as parent and theologian, must respond: No! That
could not possibly be!
© Grand Valley State University
�The Habit of God’s Heart
Richard A. Rhem
Page 8
William Barclay, whose New Testament studies have opened the Scripture to so
many, wrote near his life’s end a Testament of Faith. After confessing his belief in
life after death, he writes, “But in one thing I would go beyond strict orthodoxy—I
am a convinced universalist. I believe that in the end all men will be gathered into
the love of God.” Barclay gives a fourfold basis for his conviction, the first being
that there is enough evidence in the New Testament itself to justify it. He cites
John 12:32, Romans 11:32, 1 Corinthians 15:22, 28, and 1 Timothy 2:4-6.
Secondly, he argues against the eternalizing of punishment on the basis of the
Greek word aionios. Thirdly, he denies the possibility of setting limits to the
grace of God—in this world or any other world there may be. “I believe,” he
declares, “that the grace of God is as wide as the universe.” Finally, Barclay
believed “implicitly in the ultimate and complete triumph of God, the time when
God will be everything to everyone” (1 Cor. 15:24-28). He contended,
If God was no more than a King or judge, then it would be possible to
speak of his triumph, if his enemies were agonizing in hell or were totally
and completely obliterated and wiped out. But God is not only King and
Judge, God is Father—he is indeed Father more than anything else...The
only triumph a Father can know is to have all his family back home. The
only victory love can enjoy is the day when its offer of love is answered by
the return of love. The only possible final triumph is a universe loved by
and in love with God (p. 60f.).
In light of God’s gracious election in Jesus Christ, of God’s steadfast love and
covenant faithfulness, of God’s infinite power and patience, we have good reason
to trust and confidently hope that the habit of God’s heart will finally heal every
wound, overcome all opposition, and gather all God’s children safely home.
References:
William Barclay. Testament of Faith. Mowbray, First edition, 1975.
Karl Barth. The Humanity of God. Westminster John Knox Press, 1996.
Hendrikus Berkhof. Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Study of the Faith.
Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1979.
Gabriel Fackre. The Christian Story: A Narrative Interpretation of Basic
Christian Doctrine. Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1978, 1984.
Cornelius Plantinga, Jr., “Who Is Saved?”, The Banner, August 24, 1987.
© Grand Valley State University
�
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Title
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Richard A. Rhem Collection
Description
An account of the resource
Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
Sound Recordings
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Rhem, Richard A.
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
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English
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Sound
Text
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KII-01
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1981-2014
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audio/mp3
text/pdf
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References
William Barclay, Testament of Faith, 1975, Karl Barth, The Humanity of God, 1996, Hendrikus Berkhof, Christian Faith, 1979, Gabriel Fackre, The Christian Story, 1984, Cornelius Plantinga, "Who Is Saved?", 1987.
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RA-4-19880901
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1988-09-01
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Text
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The Habit of God's Heart
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Perspectives: A Journal of Reformed Thought
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Richard A. Rhem
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eng
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Editorial created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on September 1, 1988 entitled "The Habit of God's Heart", it appeared in Perspectives, September 1988, p. 3. Tags: Nature of God, Universal Grace, Mystery of God, Judgment. Scripture references: William Barclay, Testament of Faith, 1975, Karl Barth, The Humanity of God, 1996, Hendrikus Berkhof, Christian Faith, 1979, Gabriel Fackre, The Christian Story, 1984, Cornelius Plantinga, "Who Is Saved?", 1987..
Format
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application/pdf
Judgment
Mystery of God
Nature of God
Universal Grace
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/83ea86d6e8f8eccfc4cb66938f5247b4.mp3
dde03e324bff6c56add29cc9d3888530
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/ac774425ba1616e8a5e0b61f743dd599.pdf
ee4ad2c16c4745e3534df8837730d4ba
PDF Text
Text
The Judgment That Aims At Salvation
From the sermon series: This Is Our Father’s World
Text: Genesis 6: 5-6; Genesis 8: 21; Isaiah 54: 8
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
November 17, 1985
Transcription of the spoken sermon
…The Lord saw that man had done much evil…his thoughts and inclinations
were always evil, he was sorry he had made man…he was grieved at heart…
Genesis 6: 5-6
…I will never again kill every living creature… Genesis 8: 21
…I hid my face from you for a moment; but now have I pitied you with a love
which never fails… Isaiah 54:8
The story of the Flood in the early chapters of Genesis is a story of judgment and
grace. That duality is found throughout the Scriptures. Judgment and grace are
not, however, two equally balanced responses of God toward humankind, each
equally ultimate. Rather, God's judgment is a means toward the end of Salvation.
God judges a recalcitrant and resistant creation in order finally to redeem and recreate according to His eternal purpose of love.
Judgment is God's instrument. Salvation is God's ultimate intention.
The story of Noah and the Flood tells us of a resolve in the heart of God never to
abandon His Creation but to stay with it with limitless patience and forebearance
on the basis of a radical grace that will not finally be defeated.
Thus the story of Noah and the Flood is not simply a curious, ancient tale from a
stage of primitive religious development. Rather, it was finally cast in the written
form in which we have it during the dark days of Judah's Exile as a proclamation
of the faithfulness of the God of Israel, Who would yet remember and redeem His
people. In a word, this story is a proclamation of the Gospel of Grace.
Chapters six through nine of Genesis present an exceedingly dismal picture of the
inclinations of the human heart and thus the fractured reality of the Creation © Grand Valley State University
�The Judgment That Aims At Salvation
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
the betrayal of God's purpose of a faithful, harmonious created order in covenant
with Himself. But these chapters present a most hopeful picture of the resolve of
the heart of God to stay with, renew and redeem Creation, which has run afoul of
His purposes. These chapters then are gospel, Good News. We can be assured
that this is our Father's world and we can rest in the deep assurance that nothing
will ever separate us from the love of God that is in Jesus Christ our Lord.
The story is familiar and need not be rehearsed here. Let us rather begin by
recognizing once again that Genesis 1-11 throughout is a preface to the history of
God's redemptive action in our history. These eleven chapters are constituted by
a series of episodes which reveal deep and ultimate convictions about God, the
world and humankind, convictions which are the premise of the whole biblical
story of God's saving action in the midst of the world's resistance and revolt.
We have reflected on God's creative intention for humankind made in His image.
We have examined the failed test in the case of Adam and Eve, the fatal choice to
give way to jealous anger in the story of Cain and Abel. The fourth chapter points
to the development of culture in the descendants of Cain and now we come to the
story of Noah and the Flood.
Yet these chapters are not really about a flood that covered the earth and an ark
that some religious groups are still trying to locate. Much rather, these chapters
relate the truth about the human condition and the response of God to that
situation. The real drama of this story occurs in the heart of the Creator; this is
a story about the grief and faithful love of God.
The story is introduced by God's taking notice of the wickedness that corrupted
His good creation and betrayed His purposes in Creation. Notice the anguish of
God's heart and His decision to destroy what He had made:
... The Lord saw ... (vs. 5)
…he was sorry he had made man ... (vs. 6)
I will wipe them off the face of the earth ... (vs. 7)
I intend to destroy them. (vs. 13)
This sets the stage for the story. God's heart is grieved at the state of affairs He
observes on earth. His first reaction is to destroy what He has made for He sees
that evil has permeated to the core of the human heart and the corruption of
Creation is complete. There is no hope that things might turn around of their own
accord. It is a hopeless situation going from bad to worse. Destruction is God's
determination.
Creation has refused to be God's creation and God's decision is death to the whole
world. The "very good" of Genesis 1:31 has become the "I will blot out" of this
narrative. This story reminds us of the most severe preaching of the later
prophets.
© Grand Valley State University
�The Judgment That Aims At Salvation
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
But, contrary to the human response to such a situation which would be anger,
we find in the heart of God anguish; He is grieved in His heart.
The evil heart of humankind troubles the heart of God. This is indeed
"heart to heart" between humankind and God. How it is between
humankind and God touches both parties. (Brueggemann, Genesis, p. 77)
Thus we are dealing with a God Whose purposes have been betrayed, a God Who
brings a serious charge against His creature and Who resolves to destroy, in light
of the recalcitrance of the world; but we are not dealing with an angry tyrant Who
might use His almighty power to crush in a fit of rage. This is not a hostile God
Whose dignity has been offended. Rather, this is a God of gracious intent, willing
life and harmony and completeness for His Creation, finding to His deep anguish
that such purposes of loving intention are being resisted and betrayed.
The world stands condemned; the sentence is destruction, but the sentence is
rendered from an anguished heart, not from a jealous rage. Could God abandon
His world? Could He bring it to an end?
The answer of this story – a reflection of Israel's faith and understanding – is
obviously, Yes, He could. He could change His mind about His Creation and
bring to nothing that which He created out of nothing. Brueggemann writes:
Can he abandon the world which he has so joyously created? That is a
central question for Israel. Many people hold a view of God as unchanging
and indifferent to anything going on in the world, as though God were a
plastic, fixed entity. But Israel's God is fully a person who hurts and
celebrates, responds and acts in remarkable freedom. God is not captive of
old resolves. God is as fresh and new in relation to creation as he calls us to
be with him. He can change his mind, so that he can abandon what he has
made; and he can rescue that which he has condemned. (Ibid., p. 78)
Thus Brueggemann points out we come to the heart of this narrative which has to
do "not with a flood, but with a heavy, painful crisis in the dealings of God with
creation." The real crisis is the crisis in the heart of God - "because of the resistant
character of the world which evokes hurt and grief in the heart of God."
What is going on here is a parallel of that familiar and moving passage from
Hosea where the same conflict rages in the heart of God. Israel's unfaithfulness is
documented; certain judgment will be the result. Yet that judgment cannot be the
last word.
How can I give you up, Ephraim, how surrender you, Israel? ...
My heart is changed within me, my remorse kindles already. I will not let
loose my fury, I will not turn round and destroy Ephraim; for I am God
and not man, the Holy One in your midst. Hosea 11:8-9
© Grand Valley State University
�The Judgment That Aims At Salvation
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
And then we meet Noah and Noah won favor in the sight of the Lord. You know
the story from that point - the ark, the rescue of some of all kinds of living
creatures, the terrible flood and eventually the return of the dove with a sprig of
olive branch, the dry land and an altar built to offer thanksgiving to God Who had
surely judged but, rather than destroy, had saved Creation. Now Creation can
begin again; this is a point of re-creation and a fresh start.
Thus we find the resolution of the conflict in the heart of God. The sentence of
death is overcome by a gift of new life. Grace prevails. God begins again with a
resolve greater than that which prevailed at the beginning. Note the end of
chapter 8. Noah and his family are restored to dry land and he builds an altar. In
response God says,
Never again will I curse the ground because of man, however evil his
inclination may be from his youth upwards. I will never again kill every
living creature, as I have just done.
While the earth lasts, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and
winter, day and night, shall never cease. (8:21-22)
Here is God's pledge of unwavering faithfulness to Creation; He will never
destroy it. The conflict in His heart has been resolved and resolved in favor of
mercy. A great change has occurred but the change is not in Creation nor in the
heart of the creature; rather the change is in God Who determines to be gracious,
come what may.
It is critical to note that this resolve is not made in the light of the judgment that
has just occurred in the belief that a fresh start will make everything all right.
Notice the words "Never again ... however evil his inclinations may be from his
youth upwards." To put it bluntly, God took the persistent evil of the human heart
as a given and said I will redeem anyway. In this passage we have a statement of
radical grace - a grace that saves because of God’s decision quite apart from
human merit.
Perhaps the wonder of this passage can best be seen by putting in juxtaposition
two statements:
The human situation is hopeless.
God will redeem the human situation anyway.
or
In the creature himself there is no hope;
the hope of the creature is God's grace alone.
or
Humankind is hopeless. Our hope is in God.
© Grand Valley State University
�The Judgment That Aims At Salvation
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
Just as Hosea discovered, so the Genesis writer believed: God will never abandon
the world or the people He has created.
How can I give you up?
By rights I should give you up!
I cannot give you up!
I will not give you up!
He takes as his vocation not judgment but the resilient work of affirmation
on behalf of the death-creature. The flood has effected an irreversible
change in God, who now will approach his Creation with an unlimited
patience and forbearance. To be sure, God has been committed to his
Creation from the beginning. But this narrative traced a new decision on
the part of God. Now the commitment is intensified. For the first time, it is
marked by grief, the hurt of betrayal. It is now clear that such a
commitment on God's part is costly. The God-world relation is not simply
that of strong God and needy world. Now it is a tortured relation between
a grieved God and a resistant world. And of the two, the real changes are in
God. This is a key insight of the gospel against every notion that God
stands outside of the hurt as a judge. (Ibid., p. 81)
This story found written expression at the time of the Exile. A people under
judgment through their own folly and disobedience heard this as a story of their
God Who would never abandon them but finally bring them to salvation. Second
Isaiah reminds the Exiles of the story of Noah and the Covenant pledge of the
faithful God.
For a brief moment I forsook you, but with great compassion I will
gather you. In overflowing wrath for a moment I hid my face from you,
but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you ...
For this is like the days of Noah to me; as I swore that the waters of Noah
should no more go over the earth, so I have sworn that I will not be angry
with you and will not rebuke you. For the mountains may depart and the
hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you ...
(Isaiah 54:7-10)
Within the course of history judgment continues to occur. There is no sense of
indifference to human wrong, no blasé attitude about creation's perversion and
human sin. However, judgment is always embraced within the resolution to
redeem and save. Judgment aims at salvation. This is the message of radical
grace and our hope must rest in the God and grace and in nothing else.
The Summit meeting brings the heads of State together. We pray for mutual
understanding and progress with the reduction of world tension. But our hope is
not in the negotiating skill of our leaders; our hope is in God, the Sovereign of the
nations.
© Grand Valley State University
�The Judgment That Aims At Salvation
Richard A. Rhem
Page 6
In our personal lives, too, we encounter difficult experiences; we go through deep
water. We do our best to handle the situation and we find what help and support
we can. But finally our hope is in the God Who through His prophet said,
When you pass through the waters I will be with you; and through the
rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you
shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the
Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. (Isaiah 43:2-3a)
God has resolved in His own heart never to leave us nor forsake us. He will never
abandon Creation. His steadfast love endures forever. Amen.
Reference:
Walter Brueggemann. Genesis: Interpretation: a Bible Commentary for
Teaching and Preaching. John Knox Press, 1982.
© Grand Valley State University
�
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Richard A. Rhem Collection
Description
An account of the resource
Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
Sound Recordings
Creator
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Rhem, Richard A.
Source
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
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English
Type
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Sound
Text
Identifier
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KII-01
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1981-2014
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audio/mp3
text/pdf
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Event
Pentecost XXV
Series
This is Our Father's World
Scripture Text
Genesis 6:5-6, 8:21, Isaiah 54:8
Location
The location of the interview
Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
References
Walter Brueggemann. Genesis: Interpretation: a Bible Commentary_, 1982
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KII-01_RA-0-19851117
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1985-11-17
Title
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The Judgment That Aims at Salvation
Creator
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Richard A. Rhem
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
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Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
Language
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eng
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Sound
Text
Format
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audio/mp3
application/pdf
Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on November 17, 1985 entitled "The Judgment That Aims at Salvation", as part of the series "This is Our Father's World", on the occasion of Pentecost XXV, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Genesis 6:5-6, 8:21, Isaiah 54:8.
Divine Intention
Flood
Genesis
God's Radical Love
Hebrew Scriptures
Judgment
Noah
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PDF Text
Text
Universal Salvation
From the Lenten sermon series: The Servant of the Lord
Text: Isaiah 49:6; John 12:32
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
March 6, 1988
Transcription of the spoken sermon
I will make you a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to earth’s
fatherest bounds. Isaiah 49:6
... and I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.
John 12:32
A misprint of the text from John in the bulletin gives me a beautiful opportunity
to make the point of the message. Jesus does not say, as printed, “I will draw all
my people to myself;” rather, he says, “I will draw all people to myself.” I changed
the word “men” in the original to “people” in order to use inclusive language, but
the point is Jesus is talking about all, not “all my.”
“All my” is what the Church has traditionally taught and it has allowed Christian
people to understand the Gospel in an exclusivistic sense - us and no more. The
text, however, is not exclusive, but inclusive - Jesus says, according to the witness
of the fourth Gospel, “I will draw all to myself.”
What are we to do with such a claim? The Church has for years been saying that
Jesus will draw his own people, and that the others are out of luck. The Church in
its traditional and in its orthodox understanding of the Christian faith, has
claimed that there are some who are saved and there are some who are lost. And
so, the Church in its understanding, its self-understanding, has been very
comfortable with the printed mistake in our bulletin. We’ve always felt rather
cozy about that, but that is not really what Jesus said. He said, “I will draw all
people to myself.”
Now, if he meant every man and woman, young person and child in the whole
world, then he would be speaking about a universal salvation. That is not what
the Church has traditionally taught, but that’s what that text would seem to point
toward. And that’s not the only text that seems to point in that direction. I want
to talk to you about that issue, not because I have the mystery solved, not because
© Grand Valley State University
�Universal Salvation
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
you have to believe it the way I am believing it in my own continual search for
understanding, but simply because I want to open up a facet of the Gospel which
is so amazing and wonderful that maybe it’s better than we ever dreamed.
Wouldn’t it really be wonderful if it were true, if we would finally come to
discover in the presence of God that when Jesus died and rose again, he died and
rose again not for some, but for all? Wouldn’t that be great? You wouldn’t be
disappointed, would you? I mean, you wouldn’t say, “Don’t know why I worked so
hard at it,” even though all the time you profess it is all of grace and not of works.
Let’s think about it, because it’s important for us, in any case, to understand our
mission to bring the story to the nations. There is a very strong biblical strain that
tends toward universal salvation. There is another whole stream, obviously, that
seems to refute it; otherwise the orthodox Church would not have refuted it all
these years. But, what we’ve not done in the orthodox and traditional churches –
and I’m talking about the Augustinian stream of the Roman Catholic Church, and
the Reformation, Luther, Calvin, the Reformed tradition - what we’ve not done in
those traditions is to be honest with the universalistic text, such as our text for
this message. I want you to see this stream; I want you to think about this, raising
the question whether or not the grace of God is not broader and the love of God
not deeper, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ more wonderful and amazing than we
have ever yet dreamed of.
It is a real question which the Church must think about and wrestle with because,
historically, we have stumbled over this problem. We have said in the
Augustinian and the Calvinistic streams of the Church that salvation is of God.
Not that He sets it all out there and you can take it or leave it. We’ve talked about
His electing grace before the foundations of the world. We’ve talked about being
chosen in Christ in eternity. And we have talked about the fact that it is all God’s
initiative, that what we believe, if we respond, is because, first of all, we have been
given the gift of faith.
But then, we have also had to deal with the mystery that someone sitting right
next to us, hearing the same message, doesn’t respond and doesn’t believe. Now,
how do you explain that? Well, the good old Calvinists, the strong Augustinians
say, Election and Reprobation - God chose that one and abandoned that one
(didn’t choose that one or reprobated that one or condemned that one, depending
on how strong one’s stomach is). And so, the mystery was read back into God.
And there was nothing that you could say beyond the fact that God chose one and
didn’t choose another; God chose one, reprobated another. Now, you could say,
well, the ones that were chosen didn’t deserve to be chosen, and the ones that
were lost deserved to be lost. But if I am chosen and I believe and I have the gift
of faith and I know that I’m unworthy and it’s all of God’s gift and my neighbor
next to me really isn’t so different from me, but doesn’t believe, I don’t feel too
comfortable with the fact that I got chosen and obviously he didn’t when I’m no
better than he. And just to say that it’s a mystery, he lost, I’m saved, doesn’t sit
real comfortably with me. But that’s the traditional answer.
© Grand Valley State University
�Universal Salvation
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
Now, there were those that reacted against that strong Calvinist tradition. They
are called Arminians. They are named after Jacobus Arminius (1560-1609) who
was a professor at Leiden in The Netherlands. Arminius didn’t really like that
kind of hard, Calvinistic election/reprobation idea, and so he suggested that God
foresees how one will respond and then elects. Finally, however, when you boil it
down, He puts the choice on the person so that God sets it out and human beings
decide if they will come in or not.
Calvinists say, “No.” Something this big and this important is not a matter of
human will. Human will is dead. We’re all dead. It can’t be the human choice.
Billy Graham preaches the Gospel legitimately - believe and respond and be
saved. But the Calvinist knows when he says, “If you have faith, you’ll be saved,”
that one won’t have faith until God gives faith and if God gives faith, that puts the
problem back with God.
So, we struggle with this matter, some putting the stress here, some there, but the
Church never really comes clean and feels very comfortable about it. That is why I
invite you to consider the possibility, not a dogmatic, absolute assertion, but the
possibility that God’s love is broader and His grace is more amazing, and the
Gospel is more exciting than anything we have yet dreamed of.
Let’s do some biblical study. Abraham was called and God said, “I’ll be your God
and a God to your seed after you and in you all nations of the earth will be
blessed.” A universal intent was already there in that particular choice. And we
know that God chose Abraham not to the exclusion of the rest of the people, but
God chose Abraham and Israel on behalf of the world. God chose them, not
because He was satisfied with only a few and the rest were just out of luck, but He
called a few, to deal with a few, to reveal Himself to a few, to shower His grace on
some, in order that they could be light and bring light to the rest.
In Isaiah, in the servant passages that we have been studying, we also find that
same kind of universal tendency breaking out. The Servant of the Lord in the
forty-ninth chapter that we read, which is the second of the servant songs,
understands himself to be chosen by God, elected by God, and he says, “He made
my tongue his sharp sword.” His was a ministry of the word. As the poem closes,
the servant recognizes that he has not only the commission he understood, first
of all, to gather the tribes of Jacob, but he realizes that God has extended his
mission. We read, “I will make you a light to the nations, to be my salvation to
earth’s fartherest bounds.” The poem opens, “Listen to me, you coasts and
islands, pay heed to me you people far away.” Now, that’s not insignificant,
because this is Israel, Israel thinking of itself as having a special insight into the
knowledge of the true God, and it did! But it is beginning to see, at least in the
voice of Isaiah, that there is a mission beyond Jacob, that there is a mission to
bring salvation to earth’s fartherest bounds.
The servant, of course, was a model for Jesus’ ministry, and we’ve always
understood that with the coming of Jesus, the salvation that God worked in Israel
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was broadened out and became a universal salvation spreading to all nations.
After the resurrection, Jesus gave the great commission, charging the Disciples to
go and preach the gospel to all nations. Thus, there was that kind of universal
tendency, that breaking out of the narrow bounds of Israel into the broader
stream.
But, you say to me, well, that’s all true. We’ve always believed that and that’s why
we send missionaries, but that doesn’t say that every single man, woman, child in
the whole earth comes to salvation. And you’re right.
But, let’s go to the Gospel of John. I begin a little before my text, in the tenth
chapter of John. I want you to see that John is building up to the point at which
he will present the saviour of the world. Remember chapter ten, the beautiful
story, the Parable of Jesus, the Good Shepherd? As he presents himself as the
Good Shepherd, he says,
“I know my own sheep and my sheep know me. My father knows me, and
I know the father, and I lay down my life for the sheep. But there are other
sheep of mine not belonging to this fold whom I must bring in. And they,
too, will listen to my voice. There will be one flock and one Shepherd.”
You say, right, that’s why we do evangelism because we quote that word of Jesus,
“Other sheep have I.” But, now, hear it in these terms. Jesus talking in the context
of Israel saying, “I am the Good Shepherd, and I have other sheep and they will
hear my voice and there will be one shepherd and one fold.”
Then in the eleventh chapter we have the raising of Lazarus and you know what a
stir that caused. John used that at this point in the Gospel as the supreme sign Jesus, the Giver of Life. It caused quite a stir. And the Pharisees got worried.
After the raising of Lazarus, they called a caucus. They were disturbed because
they could see the popular impact of this miracle. They were worried. Their
leader, the old, cynical politician, Caiphus, the High Priest, the very man in all the
world who should have been concerned for the salvation of the world, said, “Use
your heads. You don’t know anything at all.” And then, with his bitter cynicism,
he said, “It is more to your interest that one man should die for the people than
the whole nation should be destroyed.” Caiphus had the solution. Jesus making
waves - rub him out. But then, John, our Evangelist, sneaks in behind Caiphus
and writes something on the blackboard. He says, “He did not say this of his own
accord, but as the High Priest in office that year he was prophesying ...” Cynical,
old Caiphus. God had.the last laugh. Caiphus, you didn’t understand it, but you
were speaking the truth. In truth, one would die for the nation, but now get this.
Jesus would die for the nation, but “would die not for the nation alone, but to
gather together the scattered children of God.”
Then Jesus came riding into Jerusalem and the religious leadership was really
nervous and at the end of the Palm Sunday account we hear the Pharisees again
saying, “You see, we can do no good at all. The whole world’s going after him!”
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The next verse we have Phillip coming up and tapping Jesus on the shoulder and
saying, “Jesus, there are some Greeks here at the Festival and they want to see
you.” We never read anything more about the Greeks; we don’t know if they ever
saw Jesus or not, but John used that little incident as the trigger, because as soon
as Phillip said to Jesus, “There are some Greeks here that want to see you,” Jesus
said, “Now is the hour.” Jesus said, “This is it!” Jesus knew that he was
approaching the climactic moment. The Greeks who sought him were token
representatives of the nations that would come. Throughout the Gospel of John
you will find Jesus saying, “Not yet. My hour is not yet. Hold on.” Suddenly,
something as insignificant as a party of Greeks at festival wanting to see him, and
he says, “This is it! This is the Hour.” Then he begins to speak about how the
grain of wheat must fall into the ground and die if it were to bear fruit, and he
says, “Now is my soul in turmoil. What should I say, ‘Father, save me from this
hour?’ But for this hour came I forth. Father, glorify Your name.”
The Gethsemane experience, which John doesn’t record, he relates in this way.
Here is the struggle of Jesus, the shrinking from the darkness that was now
looming largely for him, knowing that he would pass through all of the depths of
hell, that somehow or other all of the darkness and all of the sin and all of the evil
of the world would be absorbed into his own person and he said, “What do I say?
‘Get me off the hook?’ No, this is why I came. Glorify Your name.”
Then he went on to say, “And I if I be lifted up, will draw all to myself.” There you
have Jesus’ own self-understanding as he stood on the threshold of the cross. And
that still doesn’t demonstrate the fact that every man and woman ever born will
sometime or other, somehow or other, come into the light of the presence of the
grace of God, but it does say that there is a universal stream in the scripture that
in the beautiful words of Isaiah sees salvation as spread to earth’s fartherest
bounds.
Without answering the myriad questions that must come to mind as we begin to
“hear” the universal scope of the salvation of our God accomplished through
Jesus, The Servant of the Lord, let me begin to address at least some of the
questions that must come to mind.
First: If God’s grace finally triumphs in the case of the whole human family,
doesn’t that make light of human rebellion and sin? Certainly there is a powerful
and destructive entanglement of evil with human affairs, personal and corporate.
Doesn’t it matter that there are persons and syndicates of persons involved in
drug trafficking that makes them millions of dollars and threatens to destroy the
fabric of society and bring ruin and tragedy to countless lives?
Doesn’t it matter if Noriega pays off his military officers and thus stands solidly
entrenched in power even though it would seem that he has profited from illegal
trafficking in drugs and guns?
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Is it a matter of indifference to the God of heaven and earth that there exists
terrible suffering, persecution, oppression in the world? Will victim and
victimizer be welcomed alike into the Kingdom?
An important and obvious question, and the answer is unequivocal. Certainly it
matters. Certainly God cares. The whole Scripture cries out for justice, for
righteousness. The whole Scripture testifies to God’s siding with the oppressed
against oppressor, the weak against the strong. Where, then, will evil be
overcome? Where, then, will all the horror and hurt of the human story be
removed?
The answer is the cross.
Why did Jesus shrink from it?
“What shall I say, ‘Father, save me from this hour?’ But for this hour
came I forth. Father, glorify your name!”
I have no gift of description, no capacity for understanding that could possibly
bring to expression the horror of the hell that Jesus endured on the cross as he
absorbed like a sponge the sin of the world.
You ask further: Do we get off scot-free?
I answer, yes and no.
Yes. Jesus took the rap for you and me. God made him to be sin for us ... that we
might be made the righteousness of God in him. He bore our sins in his body on
the tree ... There is now therefore no condemnation ...
No, if you mean can I raise hell all my life and waltz blithely into heaven.This is
where I increasingly see the necessity of a serious encounter with God at our
death.
As C. S. Lewis writes,
Our souls demand purgatory, don’t they? Would it not break the heart if
God said to us, “It is true, my son, that your breath smells and your eyes
drip with mud and slime, but we are charitable here and no one will
upbraid you with these things, nor draw away from you. Enter into the
joy.”? Should we not reply, “With submission, Sir, and if there is no
objection, I’d rather be cleaned first.” “It may hurt, you know,” “Even so,
Sir.” (Letter to Malcomb)
Judgment is real. Nobody gets away with anything. God is not mocked. Either
now or at my death, I will see, I will know, I will recognize, I will own who I am,
what I have done. And sooner or later I will see and comprehend and be
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overwhelmed by what Jesus has done for me, what the grace of God has
accomplished on my behalf.
Every knee will bow. Every tongue will confess.
And then I will sing,
O, to grace how great a debtor ...
love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.
One further question: Why the urgent call to discipleship, the call to follow
Jesus, to take up the cross, to die to self and bear fruit?
Why not just relax and let the process develop? Nobody will finally burn anyway.
The answer: We share the good news not so that persons will not be damned
eternally; rather, we share good news so persons will not be damned as they live
in the hell of their guilt and fear and entanglement in evil.
Further: How can we be still when the news is so good? How can we remain
silent before the amazement of God’s grace? How can we be blasé in the presence
of such love?
We’ve not done the job very well in the Church. The news we’ve shared has not
been all that good. We’ve been smug and self-righteous ... Think of the Sunday
School chorus,
One door and only one
and yet the sides are true,
I’m on the inside,
on which side are you?
We’ve drawn a line. We’ve been certain we were on the right side. We’ve invited
others to come over and join us and be like us. Our message to the world has been
a moralizing message filled with oughts and shoulds - the tyranny of the ought
has wiped out the sound of good news. Our message has been characterized more
by condemnation and threat with a liberal dose of fear than the sheer joy of a
grace beyond our fondest dreams.
But it doesn’t really work.
It still works some places with some people, but it usually backfires and finally
will never bring the world to God.
Why get so excited about our mission to bring salvation to earth’s fartherest
bounds?
Because the news is so good, so amazing, so unbelievably wonderful! God saves!
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God saves - God does not simply set it out and make it possible, waiting to see if
there are any takers. No, God saves. And God saves. The grace of God in Jesus
Christ will triumph - to earth’s fartherest bounds. All God’s children will finally
come home.
Why us?
Because - we’ve been given the wonderful news, we’ve been let in on the secret.
And all around us are people hurting, broken, hopeless, knowing no light or joy
or peace.
It is ours to share the joy, spread the news, love the world. Jesus has been lifted
up - on the cross where he took our judgment, into heaven where he reigns, and
is drawing the whole world home to the Father - and he invites us into that
highest of all vocations: to bring salvation to earth’s fartherest bounds until all
God’s scattered children join hands in the presence of Jesus, singing,
Beautiful Savior, Lord of the nations,
Son of God and Son of Man!
Glory and honor, praise, adoration,
Now and forevermore be Thine!
Amen
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem Collection
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Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
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Interfaith worship
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Rhem, Richard A.
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
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Lent III
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The Servant of the Lord
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Isaiah 49:6, John 12:32
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Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
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1988-03-06
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Universal Salvation
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Richard A. Rhem
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Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
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Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
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eng
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A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on March 6, 1988 entitled "Universal Salvation", as part of the series "The Servant of the Lord", on the occasion of Lent III, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Isaiah 49:6, John 12:32.
Forgiveness
Inclusive Grace
Judgment
Lent
Universal Grace
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/2f61cf151f6752fb9db1eb01b736d70d.mp3
a1b65eb3db5e1f0fcaa935263d3561ef
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/7147b2d0da366895a0c04cf4e789749b.pdf
f9987aec993f794a81fd7f3958c1724b
PDF Text
Text
What Are You Afraid Of?
Text: John 4:18; Luke 1:30
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
Advent IV, December 20, 1992
Transcription of the spoken sermon
There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with
punishment and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. I John 4:18
Do not be afraid, Mary... Luke 1:30
In Advent, 1992, we’re asking significant questions that have to do with our
human existence and our relationship to God: Do you really think that he will
come - this one who came? Will he come again? Do you expect that? Is there life
after life? Hell? In these weeks, although we have answered those questions in
less than traditional ways, we have affirmed again our Christian faith. We have
affirmed that the God of our beginning is the God of our end, and the God of our
meantime, that God is with us and that the last word is Grace. And if that is the
case, then, “What Are You Afraid of?” What are the fears that dog your steps?
What are the fears that haunt the inner sanctum of your heart? Fear, Henri
Nouwen says, is so characteristic of our lives today that one could speak of our
living in “a house of fear.” Fears that are very personal. Fears that are connected
with those we love. Fears connected with the situation of the world and the
destiny of the cosmos. Category after category of fearful thoughts that often take
possession of us. We live in “a house of fear.” Nouwen, in his little book Lifesigns,
invites us to move from “a house of fear” into a house of love - the house
constituted by Jesus Christ, our Lord, the one who came at Christmas and whose
Advent we celebrate again, and whose birth we will remember this week. To move
from the house of fear to the house of love is the invitation of the Christmas
Gospel.
Easier said than done perhaps, but let’s for just a bit of time think about the
perspective of the writer of this first letter of John, for he tells us that fear and
love cannot coexist. Oh well, I suppose that’s too strong a statement. As a matter
of fact they do coexist in the hearts of us all. But to the extent that there is love,
there will be an absence of fear. And to the extent that there is fear, there will be
an absence of love.
If we did a little word association, if I gave you a word and you were to come up
with the opposite… if I said, “high,” I suppose you would say, “low.” And if I said,
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“black” you would say, “white.” If I said, “hot” you would say, “cold.” If I said,
“love,” what would you say? Hate? I think there was a time when I would have
said that hate is the opposite of love, but I don’t think so any more. I think,
according to John in this letter, the opposite of love is fear. Perfect love, he says,
“casts out fear.” Love and fear are at enmity with one another. It’s like light and
darkness. To the extent that the light is there, the darkness is absent. To extent
that it is dark, the light is absent. To the extent that the heart is filled with love,
fear is absent. To the extent that fear controls the heart, love is absent. The
opposite of love is fear. Fear is the root of all that destructive behavior, of evil and
darkness. Destructive behavior, born of fear, impinges upon our selves and
reaches out to all of those whose lives we touch. When we are afraid we are
destructive. When we are afraid we cannot love, and we cannot live lovingly. So
John in a very interesting association suggests that love casts out fear. He says,
“God is love. And those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.”
Love has been perfected among us in this that we may have boldness in the Day
of Judgment, because as He is so are we in this world. There is no fear in love.
Perfect love casts out fear.
In this Advent season when we have been talking about the last things - the last
events - that final encounter - judgment - Hell? -I find it rather interesting that
John associates love as the absence of fear, fear particularly related to the Day of
Judgment. Now you say to me, “Well, fear of the day of judgment. There isn’t a
lot of that around today. Most people have kicked that habit. We don’t have to
fear eternal punishment or damnation or hell - we talked about that last week!”
Most moderns, our neighbors, have put that idea to rest. It isn’t that terrifying
threat that it once was, and yet John says that fear has to do with the experience
of punishment and the fear of punishment. He says that love comes in in order
that we might have confidence and boldness in the Day of Judgment. John seems
to relate our present possibility of living in love without fear in relationship to the
end event.
I just wonder - I wonder if he might be right. I wonder if there is something about
us as human beings that would on a willed, conscious level rid ourselves of the
idea of punishment and judgment, but that fear of it simply goes underground
and in a kind of gorilla warfare disables us, so that much of our action that we
would not directly relate to a fear of judgment and punishment is nonetheless
precisely that. Whether consciously or unconsciously, we know that we are people
who will be held accountable, that there will be a time of reckoning, that there
will be that final encounter. Maybe down in the depths of our being we know that,
so that it doesn’t matter to what extent we may pooh-pooh that final encounter,
that day of judgment; nonetheless, there is something perhaps in the very fact
that we are human that causes us consciously or unconsciously to feel a bit of disease and thus produce in us fear – fear, whose root we don’t understand, but
whose consequences are felt in all of our relationships and all of our doings.
Could that be? John says, “God is love. The one who abides in love, abides in God,
and this love is what gives us confidence in the Day of Judgment because there is
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no fear in love.” Hm-m-m. Rather interesting association of ideas isn’t it? I
wonder if there could be something to that?
Harold Ellens, the psychiatrist, theologian and pastor, has spoken about the
human condition as a condition of anxiety. I mentioned this a few weeks ago, I
forget in what connection, but that human anxiety is not the consequence of our
sin, it is the consequence of our being human. He speaks of a kind of generic
anxiety which is the consequence of spending nine months all safe and secure in
the darkness and warmth of the womb, only to come splashing and bouncing
down the birth canal into the bright lights of the delivery room to respond to a
whap on the bottom side with a wail! We come into this world wailing. Scared to
death. Fragile. That’s anxiety producing. And then he goes to the Genesis stories
and shows that even in that setting, the human couple there is anxious - there is
an anxiety producing set of circumstances, so that to be human is to be anxious.
Then he goes on to say, and I think quite rightly, that the greatest anxiety
reducing mechanism in the world is religion. Religion is a universal
phenomenon. Stamp it out here and it will pop up there. You can’t seem to get rid
of it. Any place you go in any age, any people, there is some kind of religious
ritual, some form of religious practice. We who are simply a little farther along on
the human story and a little more sophisticated in our religious experience,
nonetheless, crave the basics - a kind of cultic practice. That is, a ritual. The
prayers we offer. The gestures we make, and a certain mode or code of behavior
that we follow, certain creeds that we assent to. They all constitute cult for
worship. A creed to lead, a moral code to follow - those are the ingredients of
religion, whatever the religion may be. And religion, by and large, is a universal
phenomenon which has been a great anxiety reducing mechanism. It is how we
anxious people try to come to terms with our anxiety. It is a way we come to curry
favor with God, to appease God.
There is something endemic in us that knows that we write with crooked lines.
And, accountable people that we are, because we are human, we feel a need for
some kind of buffer against that final moment, that examination, that judgment
day, when God might hold us accountable. So our life is fraught with anxiety. And
Ellens says that we try to devise means by which we can buffer ourselves against
that anxiety, a way by which we may find ourselves acceptable to that all
examining eye of the Eternal God - and so we turn to religion.
That is the story of most religion. That is very much what most religion has been
about. But the problem with most religion is that it becomes the tyranny of the
should and the ought and the must. It becomes a prescription to follow. It
becomes a matter of performance - of doing things, of gaining favor through
ritual acts, creedal belief, and moral behavior. And any time you are in the
business of gaining peace through performance you never make it. We can never
satisfy the demands, the infinite demands. We will always fall short. We will
always come up wanting. We will always be weighed in the balance and found
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wanting and we know it. There is no peace! Rather, that anxiety reducing
mechanism that we call religion becomes an exacerbation of the anxiety with
which we came into this world, and our religion all too often binds us and makes
us seven-fold more the child of hell than when we began. Religion is too often
binding, controlling, coercive, manipulative. It is not too often good news, but
bad news. And the threat of hell and of judgment, and of damnation and of
condemnation broadly used in the religions of the world, do not reduce anxiety,
but increase it. But, of course, the people cowering in fear are manageable at
least.
John has quite a different thing to say. What he says isn’t the Bible’s only
message, but if we could only hear this. Do you hear it with me? “God is love.” He
has said it before. He doesn’t say “God loves,” he said, “God is love.” That is
whatever God is, whatever God does, God does it in a loving fashion because God
is love, and, “Those who abide in love, abide in God and God abides in them. Love
has been perfected among us in this that we may have boldness in the day of
judgment.” It would seem that what John is trying to say is that if you could get a
glimpse of the love of God, if you could get a grasp of the love of God, then that
intrinsic human guilt and cowering before that final moment of judgment would
dissolve. Because John says that, “there is no fear in love. God is love.” And, love
has been perfected among us in this, that we may have boldness in the day of
judgment because as he is so are we in the world.”
As Christ is. How is Christ? Christ is one with God. Christ is in the presence of
God - crucified, resurrected, received in the presence of God. “As he is so are we
in this world.” Earlier he has said, “Beloved, behold what manner of love the
Father has bestowed upon us that we should be called the children of God, and
such we are now. And it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but when He
appears we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is. Beloved, what matter of
love, we are now, children of God.” If we could only believe it. If we could only lay
hold of it. If we could only know that there is no record that stands against us. If
we could only know that the love of God somehow or other has embraced us so
that the record has been expunged and we are embraced in an everlasting love, so
that there is no need for fear in judgment. I think that’s what John is talking
about. Do you sense that’s about one hundred eighty degrees from where most
religion would take you? From the place of the tyranny of the ought and the
should and the must.
People have challenged me about my promiscuous offer of grace, about the
prodigality of God’s love, about the unconditional love of God that embraces us.
Is that not dangerous? they ask. Will not people exploit that? Will not people take
advantage of that? If that is true - if we are loved already, if we are embraced
already, if judgment is passed already - then why worship? Then why live in
praise and wonder?
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Why? Precisely because of that! Precisely because of a love so amazing, so divine
that it demands my life, my soul, my all! There is no fear in love. Most of the time
the Church has not dared preach it. Too radical. The people cannot handle it.
They will take advantage of it. Nonsense! Preach fear to the people and you bind
them in fear. Preach fear and you increase resentment. Preach fear and you
exacerbate anger - hostility. Dare to preach love - and you transform. God is love.
And love is perfected in this - that we have boldness before the thought of
judgment. There is no fear in love. Perfect love casts out fear. The one who fears
is not perfected in love. Most of the time the Church would keep you afraid. It’s
safer that way - for the masses. Nonsense. Dear, serious, sincere, religious people
have been forced to cower before the demands of an angry God rather than
hearing the word of the Christmas Gospel. The covenant of grace instituted with
Abraham began when God came to Abraham and said, “Do not be afraid.” Old
Zacharias was in the temple doing his thing and the angel came and said, “Do not
be afraid.” Mary, a young Hebrew maiden doing her cross-stitching was
encountered by an angel who began, “Don’t be afraid.” And Joseph, concerned
about this situation that confronted him, heard from the angel saying, “Fear not.”
The Christmas Gospel is Good News pure and simple. You don’t have to be afraid.
God is love. And love casts out fear and so that endemic human sense of
accountability that causes you to cower has been dissolved by the chemistry of
God’s eternal love.
Preaching on this text one day, Martin Luther King Jr. spoke about the time of
the Montgomery, Alabama bus protest. After one particularly horrendous week in
which he had been arrested and he had received phone calls threatening his life,
and everything seemed impossible, he had to speak to a mass rally. When he was
done speaking he came down from the podium and old Mother Pollard came
forward. She was an old, black woman, uneducated and wise, who marched and
marched, and marched in many protests. She came up to him after he had
finished speaking and said, “Son, come here.” He went to her and gave her a hug
and she said, “What’s wrong with you tonight?” He said, “Nothing, I’m fine.” She
said, “You don’t talk strong tonight. Something’s wrong. Is it that we ain’t
followin’ you enough? Or is it them white folk?” And then she looked at him and
said, “Son, whether we follow you or not, God’s gonna take care of you.” And
Martin Luther King said that from that day, because of the words of old Mother
Pollard, he was able to live without fear. You say, “Well, that’s just fine. He said it
that way at 8:30 but if you remember he died by an assassin’s bullet.” He was
killed after all. Yes, that’s true. The Christmas Gospel does not say that life is not
perilous, that human existence is not fragile, that there is not tragedy and
suffering. Bullets cut us down. Cancer cuts us down. There is brokenness and
pain enough to go around. But Martin Luther King lived the rest of his days
without fear. That is to say, he lived until he died. But when fear enwraps our
hearts we never live before we die.
We will all die one way or another. And we will meet the Lord face to face. The
question is whether we will have truly lived before we die - lived without fear.
© Grand Valley State University
�What Are You Afraid Of?
Richard A. Rhem
Page 6
So what are you afraid of? What are you afraid of? Name it. Speak it before the
face of God - and let it go. Just let it go.
© Grand Valley State University
�
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Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
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Advent IV
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I John 4:18, Luke 1:30
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Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
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What Are You Afraid Of?
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Richard A. Rhem
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Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
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Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
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A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on December 20, 1992 entitled "What Are You Afraid Of?", on the occasion of Advent IV, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: I John 4:18, Luke 1:30.
Fear
Judgment
Trust
Way of Love
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/264d5834425cc69103038c7a2e5d1e16.mp3
bad34bd955aceaba073d8e7b27b782fc
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/ae91d9c2f20a64a447bc4cd0b6195a3a.pdf
79f5f7b94edba797fa64a6e412e07d31
PDF Text
Text
Why I Believe in Purgatory
Text: I Corinthians 3: 14-15; Luke 12: 47-48
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
Advent, December 15, 1985
Transcription of the spoken sermon
Purgatory is a foreign word in a Protestant pulpit. It is even a greater surprise to
find it in a title such as I have given to this message: "Why I Believe In
Purgatory."
Perhaps it is just a teaser: baiting you a bit to get you to return - an attention
catcher. You will have to judge that for yourself when we are finished. In the
meantime, I must declare the seriousness with which I am treating the subject.
Purgatory conjures up all sorts of ghosts in our minds and certainly there is much
in the history of the tradition of the Roman Catholic Church with which I cannot
agree. Yet there is a reality, a truth to which that teaching pointed, and we may
well have missed that truth because our forefathers in the Reformation threw out
the idea of Purgatory with all of the many abuses that went along with it.
Before we get into the idea itself, let me remind you of our deliberations this
Advent Season. We are considering the great questions of the End. The drama of
history will have its End. That is Advent's theme: the King is coming. God will
bring Creation to its consummation. We personally will have our End; we will die.
And then what?
We have affirmed that there is life after life. Death remains the last enemy but its
sting has been removed; it is a conquered foe. The grave has been robbed of its
fearsome power.
For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again; even so, through
Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. (I
Thessalonians 4:14)
Therefore we do not grieve as those who have no hope; we have a basis for
comforting one another.
We have seen, too, that the New Testament sets forth a double image of the End:
Heaven and Hell, Glorification and Condemnation, Union with God and
© Grand Valley State University
�Why I Believe in Purgatory
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
Separation from God. We quoted the pithy statement of C.S. Lewis in The Great
Divorce:
There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy
will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done."
(p. 66F)
The traditional teaching of the Church and the conventional understanding of
most of the Church is simply that those who receive Christ will be saved and
those who reject him will be damned.
But a little sober reflection - and reflection on this subject ought to be sober shows us that the matter is not quite that simple. Even if those who are exposed
to the Gospel are judged on their acceptance or rejection of Christ - what about
those who never heard? What about those who die in infancy? What about the
mentally impaired?
A further serious question: What about those who have been terribly wounded by
the Church itself? What about those who have been abused as children and are
never able to trust? What about those who have received only a perversion and
distortion of the Gospel?
It would seem that we must begin to make some exception, some qualification.
Then, too, we have noted that the witness of the New Testament is not consistent.
Several texts in Matthew and Revelation especially speak of eternal torment but
several statements in Paul's letters seem to point in the direction of universal
salvation.
Therefore I raised the question whether or not it might be possible that God's
grace might finally triumph in the case of all persons; whether God would finally
be "all in all" with every remnant of opposition to His Rule of Grace wiped out. I
suggested that perhaps God's "Yes" to us in Jesus might be stronger than our
"No."
God respects our response. He will never coerce. His is always a gracious
invitation. Therefore, just as our "no" turned to "yes" by His grace must be
authentically our own, just so our "no" maintained is always a possibility. It
remains a possibility and witnesses to the seriousness of our decision.
But what if in His infinite patience He never gives up? (I asked you whether you
hoped Hell might be finally empty.) I suspect you have thought about that. I
suspect, too, I would receive a variety of responses. Let us admit at the outset we
cannot know the answer to the question as to whether Hell will finally consume
some eternally or whether Grace will finally triumph completely.
In either case, the reality of judgment is a reality through which we all must pass.
There is a double judgment for each of us. First, the judgment regarding eternal
© Grand Valley State University
�Why I Believe in Purgatory
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
salvation. Second, the judgment regarding the character of our lives - the story we
write with our lives.
The first is determined by our relationship with Jesus Christ. He is the Saviour of
the world.
God sent His Son into the world, not to condemn the world but that the
world through Him might be saved. John 3:17
And Paul declared,
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ
Jesus. Romans 8:1
Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God
through our Lord Jesus Christ. Romans 5:1
In John's Gospel we read:
Truly, truly I say to you, he who hears my word and believes him who
sent me, has eternal life; he does not come into judgment, but has passed
from death to life. John 5:24
Thus judgment is passed. The verdict is not still out. The acquittal has been
granted. We possess new eternal life.
But there is a second aspect to judgment that remains to be experienced by every
person, that is the judgment of our work or our lives. This judgment has nothing
to do with whether a person is saved or lost. This judgment has to do with seeing
our lives in God's light, seeing our lives played out before us in His presence.
The main contention of this message is that God is not done with us at the
moment of our death.
I can base that contention on Scripture in regard to those who die trusting in God
through Jesus Christ. I will suggest that the possibility of an "empty hell" can be
based only on the possibility of a continuing process of encounter between God
and the person who dies without an experience of His grace.
Let us first look at the Scripture. To begin with, we must recognize that there is
not much to go on because the whole thrust of Scripture is the imperative to
repentance and faith and the whole stress is on the urgency of decision. Yet there
are indications that there is something more.
Our first Scripture investigation is Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, Chapter 3.
Let me acknowledge immediately that this passage can be used only indirectly for
the purposes of establishing the main contention of this message - namely that
God is not done with us at the moment of our death. Paul is talking to a particular
© Grand Valley State University
�Why I Believe in Purgatory
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
congregation about a specific problem - divisions in the Church. Dealing with
that issue he decries the choosing up of sides, identifying with one leader rather
than another and thus forming factions in the Church. He points to the one
foundation of the Church, Jesus Christ, and says all who build on that
foundation, which he had himself laid in Corinth, must take care how they build.
But all are co-laborers.
Whether they plant or water, they work as a team. I Corinthians 3:8
That refers to the image of the garden. One plants, one waters, but God makes it
grow. The image of the building picks up the idea of foundation and
superstructures. Christ is the foundation. He, Paul, Apollos and the other
apostles build the superstructure. If they build well the building will stand; if they
build of faulty materials the building will not meet the test.
This is where we touch our interest - the idea of judgment: This is not a judgment
regarding one's eternal salvation; this is a judgment of one's works or a judgment
of one's life. This is a judgment through which all God's children will pass. The
question is not whether one will be finally redeemed and enter the presence of
God - enter "heaven." The question is how will one fare as one's life comes under
the scrutiny of the Eternal God.
The text speaks specifically about ministers of the Gospel and the building of the
Church. I do not think we err, however, in seeing what here has a specific focus as
being generally true of all persons regarding their life's issue whether that be in
building churches or building houses or laboring in business or industry or living
in community, nation, family.
Will the things to which we devote our lives, our time, our energy stand God's
refining process or will they go up in smoke?
Notice: The one who builds with precious stones, gold and silver, will see his
creation stand the test. He enters life beyond life with something good and
positive going with him.
The one who builds with wood, hay, straw - one who cuts corners and just gets by
will see his life's devotion consumed before his eyes.
But now note carefully:
He will bear the loss but he himself will escape with his life, as one might
from a fire.
Such a person will enter life beyond life having lost everything, secure in God's
eternal presence, yet with nothing to show for his life.
© Grand Valley State University
�Why I Believe in Purgatory
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
From this text I conclude that there is beyond death or through death an
encounter with God in which one's life will be tested. The issue will not be
salvation or condemnation. The issue is whether we bring into God's presence
something, or nothing.
Now I am going beyond the text's specific teaching but drawing, I believe, a
legitimate inference from the text:
Through death, beyond death, at death, there is something more.
Does this text not indicate that Paul thought in terms of encounter with God and
perhaps continuing the process beyond death? If it is a matter simply of being
saved or lost as we enter the moment of death - if there is a status called
"Salvation" and a status called "Condemnation," and that is all there is, then why
be concerned about what one brings to death's moment: a fruitful life, or a barren
life?
I see in our text Paul's conviction that there is not only the discontinuity between
our time and God's eternity, death being the break, but also continuity between
this life and the life beyond death's passage. We bring something (or nothing)
with us and whatever lies beyond is influenced and determined by what we bring
(or fail to bring.)
Let us look at one more text: Luke 12:47-48. These verses are in a context of the
teachings of Jesus. The immediate context is a call to be watchful and ready for
the End - the coming of the Son of Man. Jesus is encouraging loyal, faithful
stewardship of life.
Happy that servant who is found at his task when his master comes!
(Verse 43)
But then Jesus speaks of two kinds of servants. One knew the master's
instructions and failed to comply with them. The other did not comply either, but
he was unaware of the demands. The first was flogged severely; the second was
flogged less severely. This vivid, picturesque language of Jesus must not be
pushed too far. We certainly could not build a whole system of judgment on the
basis of these words. Yet, perhaps it is legitimate to draw at least this teaching:
the sentence will vary in light of individual circumstances. Again, we have here
not a judgment to eternal salvation or eternal condemnation; we have here a
gradation of judgment on the basis of the individual life being examined.
The moment of death, the moment of encounter with God will be very personal,
individual and discriminating. The sentences will vary. Does this point to a
process beyond death's moment? If this were the only text it would be risky to
claim so. But again, this seems to point in the direction of Paul's teaching
explained above. To be sure, the Luke passage speaks of a gradation of severity of
judgment depending on knowledge or opportunity while the Pauline passage
© Grand Valley State University
�Why I Believe in Purgatory
Richard A. Rhem
Page 6
speaks of entering God's presence beyond the testing of judgment – with positive
fruit of one's life, or denuded of whatever constituted one's life. Yet in both cases
there is judgment in terms of one's life being put to the test and then the entering
into the consequences of what that judgment revealed.
The traditional understanding of our texts is that, in the case of the Luke passage,
there are gradations of punishment - yet to be lost, eternally condemned is to
remain in a state spoken of as hell - separation from God. In the case of the
passage from Paul, the understanding has been that the "saved" enter into
heaven, or union with God, but some with greater, some with less capacity to
experience the joy of salvation.
But let us push those conventional interpretations. Let me repeat what I said
earlier: we cannot finally know answers which remain for us veiled in mystery.
Yet it is important to come to some place where we can live with faith, conviction
and peace. Think with me then; let your imagination loose. Think about the God
of grace, His creation purpose, His covenant faithfulness, His final triumph over
all. Think about the whole impact of the Scriptural revelation beyond individual
texts.
I entitled this message, "Why I Believe in Purgatory," because I did want to grasp
your attention. Surely you know that in a day when Catholic theology itself is very
self-critical and is engaged in serious encounter with Scripture, I am not about to
suggest we reinstitute a teaching that has been a means of distortion of the
Gospel and open to great abuse. We cannot forget that it was precisely at the
point of the teaching of indulgences, the exploitation of the faithful for purposes
of raising money and manipulating people, holding them in spiritual bondage,
that the Reformers rose up in protest.
But my title is more than a ploy. It expresses a conviction to which I have come
through study and reflection, which is as much a surprise to me as it may be to
you. I am convinced that, behind all indefensible practice and abuse of the
Church, there is yet a true intuition. There has been over the centuries a sense
that God was not through with us at the moment of our last breath.
Now the traditional Reformed faith never said He was through with us; there
remains the judgment with its double issue - to salvation or condemnation. But
the traditional teaching has been that with the last breath the issue is irreversible.
It is this claim that I am calling in question. I do recognize that the strong call to
decision, the seriousness of choices in this life is stressed. I would not deny that
or even downplay the urgency of that call. However, is it not possible that in the
experience of death itself, understood as an encounter with God, there is the
possibility of something of eternal significance occurring? I raise the question for
reflection.
Let me share with you some of the best thinking available on the subject. My first
serious consideration of the idea of purgatory or the reality toward which that
© Grand Valley State University
�Why I Believe in Purgatory
Richard A. Rhem
Page 7
teaching points was in Berkhof’s Christian Faith. Because of my high regard for
the thoroughness of his scholarship, depth of biblical and theological
understanding, and deep personal faith in Christ, I had to take seriously his
suggestion that there was really something here to be taken seriously. In his
discussion of the judgment of the works done by believers, which we discussed
above, Berkhof writes:
In protestant theology, this viewpoint is almost completely pushed aside
by the accent on grace. In Roman Catholic piety it is (or used to be) very
prominent in connection with the veneration of saints and purgatory. The
Roman Catholic Church assumes correctly that believers differ greatly in
regard to their progress and fruitfulness...
So the idea of a judgment according to one's deeds leads of itself to the
consideration of a process of purification, called purgatory in Roman
Catholic tradition. ... The Reformation broke with that doctrine because of
its moralistic conception of salvation and its detrimental effect on the
practice of piety (indulgences; intercessory prayers and masses for the
dead.) It imagined a sudden, radical transformation after the judgment,
usually without giving it further theological reflection and without
connecting it with the struggle for sanctification on earth. Meanwhile
Roman Catholic thinking, too, has become much more reserved. Typical of
the modern R.C. conceptions is the idea of "ripening" ... which K. Rahner
develops in "The Life of the Dead."
Referring to our text, I Corinthians 3:15, Berkhof asserts,
... that statement does suggest that Paul thought of more than an abrupt
re-creation of man; salvation is accompanied by a painful becoming aware
of one's own failures on earth. The difficulties here are more an open
question for theological reflection than a subject for back and forth
theological denouncement. (p. 489)
In the previous message I cited Berkhof s statement about the question of
whether "Hell" was forever. He writes:
God is serious about the responsibility of our decision, but he is even more
serious about the responsibility of his love. The darkness of rejection and
God's forsakenness cannot and may not be argued away, but no more can
and may it be eternalized. For God's sake we hope that hell will be a form
of purification. (p. 532)
That word "purification" is one used by the Catholic theologian Hans Küng. It
was Küng who stimulated me to pursue these matters. His forthright handling of
them at the University of Michigan convinced me that these questions do not go
away; they are deeply written on the human heart. In the published lectures
© Grand Valley State University
�Why I Believe in Purgatory
Richard A. Rhem
Page 8
Eternal Life? Küng treats the idea of purgatory in his discussion of the question
whether hell is eternal.
Some theologians argue that it is not God who damns man by a verdict
imposed from outside. They are human beings themselves, by sins
committed with inward freedom, who damn themselves. The
responsibility lies not with God but with man, and by death this selfdamnation and distance from God (not a place, but a human condition)
becomes definitive. Definitive? Do not the psalms say that God rules over
the realm of the dead? What is supposed to become definitive here,
contrary to the will of an all-merciful and almighty God? Why should God,
who is infinitely good, want to perpetuate enmity instead of removing it
and in practice to share his rule forever with some kind of anti-God? Why
should he have nothing more to say at this point and consequently render
forever impossible a purification, cleansing, liberation, enlightenment, of
guilt-laden man? (p. 137)
Then he refers specifically to purgatory.
Purification, cleansing, liberation, enlightenment: Here perhaps may be I want merely to prompt a few reflections - the particle of truth, the real
care, of the problematic idea of purgatory, which has been translated in
German from the Middle Ages onward with the unfortunate designation of
Fegefeuer ("winnowing fire") -This may be the true core, but it remains
only if the idea is not reified. ... as no human being is entirely bad, neither
is anyone entirely good. Any human being, even the best, falls short of
what he might be, fails to meet his own demands and norms and thus
never wholly realizes himself. For if he is to be fully himself, even the
"saint" needs completion, not after death, but in death itself. And, in view
of so much unpunished guilt in the world, a number of people wonder not entirely wrongly - if dying unto God, the absolutely final reality, can be
one and the same for us: The same for criminals and their victims, for
mass murderers and the mass of the murdered; for those who have
struggled a whole life long to fulfill God's will, true helpers of their fellow
human beings, and for those who for a whole life long have only carried
out their own will and at the same time shut out others? ...how this ...
purification, cleansing, follows is not left to the speculation or calculation
of human curiosity but remains a matter for God as merciful judge, in
God's all-embracing final act of grace.
The key idea Küng would stress is the shattering effect of the encounter with God.
We die not into nothingness; we die into God. Küng cites Karl Barth:
Man as such therefore has no beyond. Nor does he need one, for God is his
beyond. Man's beyond is that God is his Creator, Covenant-partner, Judge
and Saviour, was and is and will be his true Counterpart in life, and finally
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
Page 9
and exclusively and totally in death. (Church Dogmatics Vol. Ill, 2, pp.
632-33)
Küng also cites a Catholic theologian, Greshake:
From this standpoint we can understand what was pointed out earlier, that
God himself, the encounter with him, is purgatory. But this means that we
need not fall back on a special place or still less on a special time or special
event to grasp the meaning of purgatory. Still less do we need to work out
crude ideas about the 'poor' souls. Instead we can understand what the
Church teaches and has taught from the earliest times as an element in the
encounter with God in death. ... we should avoid any talk of fire and speak
instead of purifying and cleansing as an element of the encounter with
God. At the same time what should be particularly clear is that purgatory
is not - as it often seems to be in popular piety - a "demihell" which God
has erected in order to punish the person who is not entirely bad, but also
not entirely good. Purgatory is not a demihell but an element of the
encounter with God: that is, the encounter of the unfinished person, still
immature in his love, with the holy, infinite, loving God; an encounter
which is profoundly humiliating, painful and therefore purifying. (Cited on
p. 139)
Küng concludes,
That is to say that, since it is a question of dying into the dimensions of
God, where space and time are dissolved into eternity, nothing can be
discovered, either about place and time or about the character of this
purifying, sanctifying consummation. (p.139)
A Lutheran theologian, Hans Schwarz, discusses the views of Tadislaus Boros
who suggests something similar, the significance of the final decision at the
moment of death.
... decisively modifies the traditional concepts of purgatory and death.
Boros agrees that the Church has only gradually developed the doctrine of
purgatory. Though the Scriptural basis of purgatory may be obscure, the
fact and the essential nature of purgatory are of such quality that it must
be called a "truth of revelation." However, through his hypothesis of a final
decision, Boros seems to view purgatory as the "point" of intersection
between life and death. Purgatory is no longer conceived of as a process of
purification which can be measured similar to the days and years we live
here on earth. According to Boros, "purgatory would be the passage, which
we effect in our final decision through the purifying fire of divine love. The
encounter with Christ would be our purgatory. ... Boros replaces an
untenable concept of purgatory with the idea of a confrontation with
Christ in death. ... he calls death "man's first completely personal act;"
and, "therefore, by reason of its very being, the place above all others for
© Grand Valley State University
�Why I Believe in Purgatory
Richard A. Rhem
Page10
the awakening of consciousness, for freedom, for the encounter with God,
for the final decision about eternal destiny." (On The Way To The Future,
pp. 142F)
It has been obvious to me as I have pursued this subject that those who have
reflected on the biblical material, the whole context of Scripture, the revelation of
God as He has shown Himself in Jesus Christ and the human person are very
restrained in their conclusions and very cautious in their statement. There is in
all serious inquirers into this question a recognition of the serious nature of
human decisions, an acknowledgement of the urgent need for repentance and
faith, the reality of evil and human wickedness that demands response if there is
any justice, the judgment as the exposure of our lives to the scrutiny of the God of
truth.
All serious biblical thinkers recognize that God takes us seriously and that our
wrong and guilt are not simply soft-pedaled and our exposure to God's light and
truth will be painful even while we are conscious of being embraced within a
larger grace. Judgment will be experienced: No one will "get away" with anything.
If an eternal hell is questioned, it is not because passing through God's final
examination is not a serious matter and neither is it because there is no sense of
the need for change and renewal of the person who through the earthly
pilgrimage has become scarred and tainted and twisted.
Recognizing that we cannot simply move from the ambiguity, partial insight,
fickleness and unfaithfulness of one's human experience into the presence of the
God of light and truth, there is the belief on the part of some that a purifying
process will be necessary.
What have we believed traditionally? Simply that God sees us in Jesus; his
righteousness is our righteousness now and when we pass through death to life
we will be made like him - instant perfection.
What I am questioning in this message is the instant perfection.
Certainly the question is not whether God is able in a moment to totally
transform us. But does He ever work as far as we can trace His work in Creation
apart from process? How often we wish He would work by a "snap of the finger;"
but God takes time and allows the process to work.
Further, we must recognize that we can only think in terms of time but when we
speak of moving through "the moment of death," what do we mean? At that
"moment" we move beyond "moments in succession" - we move into the
dimension of Eternity. It is far beyond our purpose or capacity to enter into the
discussion of time relative to eternity here, but we must not naively project our
time-conditioned thinking beyond death.
© Grand Valley State University
�Why I Believe in Purgatory
Richard A. Rhem
Page11
C. S. Lewis has dealt as creatively and profoundly as anyone of whom I am aware
with the question of heaven, hell and purgatory. He points to the relation of time
and eternity in a fascinating imaginary discussion with the Christian writer,
George MacDonald:
'In your own books, Sir,' said I, 'you were a Universalist. You talked as if all
men would be saved. And St. Paul too.'
'Ye can know nothing of the end of all things, or nothing expressible in
those terras. It may be, as the Lord said to the Lady Julian, that all will be
well, and all will be well, and all manner of thing will be well. But it's ill
talking of such questions.'
‘Because they are too terrible, Sir?’
'No. Because all answers deceive. If ye put the question from within Time
and are asking about possibilities, the answer is certain. The choice of
ways is before you. Neither is closed. Any man may choose eternal death.
Those who choose it will have it. But if ye are trying to leap on into
eternity, if ye are trying to see the final state of all things as it will be (for
so ye must speak) when there are no more possibilities left but only the
Real, then ye ask what cannot be answered to mortal ears. Time is the very
lens through which ye see - small and clear, as men see through the wrong
end of a telescope - something that would otherwise be too big for ye to see
at all. That thing is Freedom: the gift whereby ye most resemble your
Maker and are yourselves parts of eternal reality. But ye can see it only
through the lens of Time, in a little clear picture, through the inverted
telescope. It is a picture of moments following one another and yourself in
each moment making some choice that might have been otherwise.
Neither the temporal succession nor the phantom of what ye might have
chosen and didn't is itself Freedom. They are a lens. The picture is a
symbol: but it's truer than any philosophical theorem (or, perhaps, than
any mystic's vision) that claims to go behind it. For every attempt to see
the shape of eternity except through the lens of Time destroys your
knowledge of Freedom. Witness the doctrine of Predestination which
shows (truly enough) that eternal reality is not waiting for a future in
which to be real, but at the price of removing Freedom which is the deeper
truth of the two. And wouldn't Universalism do the same? Ye cannot know
eternal reality by a definition. Time itself, and all acts and events that fill
Time, are the definition, and it must be lived. The Lord said we were gods.
How long could ye bear to look (without Time's lens) on the greatness of
your own soul and the eternal reality of her choice?' (The Great Divorce,
p. 114 F.)
In his imaginary conversation with MacDonald, Lewis is told that it is possible for
people in hell to take holiday excursions to the boundaries of the heavenly
country, Lewis exclaims,
© Grand Valley State University
�Why I Believe in Purgatory
Richard A. Rhem
Page12
'But I don't understand. Is" judgement not final? Is there really a way out
of Hell into Heaven?'
'It depends on the way ye're using the words. If they leave that grey town
behind it will not have been Hell. To any that leaves it, it is Purgatory. And
perhaps ye had better not call this country Heaven. Not Deep Heaven, ye
understand.' (Here he smiled at me). Ye can call it the Valley of the
Shadow of Life. And yet to those who stay here it will have been Heaven
from the first. And ye can call those sad streets in the town yonder the
Valley of the Shadow of Death: but to those who remain there they will
have been Hell even from the beginning.'
I suppose he saw that I looked puzzled, for presently he spoke again.
'Son,' he said, 'ye cannot in your present state understand eternity: when
Anodos looked through the door of the Timeless he brought no message
back. But ye can get some likeness of it if ye say that both good and evil,
when they are full grown, become retrospective. Not only this valley but all
their earthly past will have been Heaven to those who are saved. Not only
the twilight in that town, but all their life on earth too, will then be seen by
the damned to have been Hell. That is what mortals misunderstand. They
say of some temporal suffering, "No future bliss can make up for it," not
knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even
that agony into a glory. And of some sinful pleasure they say "Let me but
have this and I'll take the consequences": little dreaming how damnation
will spread back and back into their past and contaminate the pleasure of
the sin. Both processes begin even before death. The good man's past
begins to change so that his forgiven sins and remembered sorrows take
on the quality of Heaven; the bad man's past already conforms to his
badness and is filled only with dreariness. And that is why, at the end of all
things, when the sun rises here and the twilight turns to blackness down
there, the Blessed will say "We have never lived anywhere except in
Heaven", and the Lost, "we were always in Hell." And both will speak
truly.'
'Is not that very hard, Sir?'
'I mean, that is the real sense of what they will say. In the actual language
of the Lost, the words will be different, no doubt. One will say he has
always served his country right or wrong; and another that he has
sacrificed everything to his Art; and some that they've never been taken in,
and some that, thank God, they've always looked after Number One, and
nearly all, that, at least they've been true to themselves.'
'And the Saved?'
© Grand Valley State University
�Why I Believe in Purgatory
Richard A. Rhem
Page13
'Ah, the Saved ... what happens to them is best described as the opposite of
a mirage. What seemed, when they entered it, to be the vale of misery
turns out, when they look back, to have been a well; and where present
experience saw only salt deserts, memory truthfully records that the pools
were full of water.'
'Then those people are right who say that Heaven and Hell are only states
of mind?'
'Hush,' said he sternly. 'Do not blaspheme. Hell is a state of mind - ye
never said a truer word. And every state of mind, left to itself, every
shutting up of the creature within the dungeon of its own mind - is, in the
end, Hell. But Heaven is not a state of mind. Heaven is reality itself. All
that is fully real is Heavenly. For all that can be shaken will be shaken and
only the unshakable remains.'
'But there is a real choice after death? My Roman Catholic friends would
be surprised, for to them souls in Purgatory are already saved. And my
Protestant friends would like it no better, for they'd say that the tree lies as
it falls.'
"They're both right, maybe. Do not fash yourself with such questions. Ye
cannot fully understand the relations of choice and Time till you are
beyond both. And ye were not brought here to study such curiosities. What
concerns you is the nature of the choice itself: and that ye can watch them
making.' (The Great Divorce, pp. 61F.)
Lewis' fertile imagination is thought provoking. Great caution is there; our
curiosity will not be satisfied this side of death's portal. Yet it is clear that Hell, he
seems to be saying, is porous. If one spends Eternity there or, conversely, if one
never comes to the light, it will not be so much God's verdict as one's own fatal
choice.
Much lies veiled in mystery. Yet all that is needful is clear and how can it be more
clearly set forth than simply,
Now is the day of salvation;
Now is the day to choose the things that matter, things of ultimate concern; now
is the day to live faithfully - covenant with the Good and Gracious God. Then
already we possess Eternal life and death will move us "from splendour to
splendour 'til we see Him face to face." Amen.
© Grand Valley State University
�Why I Believe in Purgatory
Richard A. Rhem
Page14
References:
Hendrikus Berkhof. Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Study of the Faith.
Wm. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1979.
Hans Küng. Eternal Life? Life After Death as a Medical, Philosophical and
Theological Problem. Doubleday, 1984.
C. S. Lewis. The Great Divorce. First published by HarperCollins, 1946.
© Grand Valley State University
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Richard A. Rhem Collection
Description
An account of the resource
Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
Sound Recordings
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Rhem, Richard A.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
Contributor
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
Rights
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Language
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English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Text
Identifier
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KII-01
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1981-2014
Format
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audio/mp3
text/pdf
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Event
Advent III
Scripture Text
I Corinthians 3:14-15, Luke 12:47-48
Location
The location of the interview
Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
References
Hendrikus Berkhof, Christian Faith, 1979
Hans K
C. S. Lewis, The Great Divorce, 1946
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
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KII-01_RA-0-19851215
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1985-12-15
Title
A name given to the resource
Why I Believe in Purgatory
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard A. Rhem
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
Relation
A related resource
Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Text
Format
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audio/mp3
application/pdf
Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on December 15, 1985 entitled "Why I Believe in Purgatory", on the occasion of Advent III, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: I Corinthians 3:14-15, Luke 12:47-48.
Advent
Death
Eternity
Forgiveness
God of Grace
Judgment
Nature of God
Purgatory
Salvation