When the M40 motorway comes to the Chiltern Hills, it doesn’t really climb them. It slices straight through. And when it comes to the valley of High Wycombe, it doesn’t go down to it. It strides across on stilts. It never turns any sharp corners. It goes on in a more or less straight line. And its surface is kept smooth, with no bumps on it to speak of. When they built it they must (cf. Isaiah 40:4) have said to themselves:
Every valley shall be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill shall be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
and the rough places a plain.
Think how very different all this is from the old-fashioned kind of road, the winding lane, Chesterton’s rolling English road that the English drunkards made….
Now this old-fashioned sort of road is an image of the way we deal with each other, how we have to deal with people. With people we don’t like very much, it is often an uphill struggle… With our friends it is all so much easier: a downhill run that carries us along…. We have to assess people all the time…. Are they going to be helpful? Or will they just make things worse? All this is a bit like the old kind of road, cautiously picking its way through the terrain….
The way of God’s love is more like the motorway. It doesn’t care whether it meets easy or difficuly, uphill or downhill, good or bad. It doesn’t care how important or unimportant we are. All those careful judgements we have to make … - none of this counts with God’s love. He cuts straight through all the mountains and the valleys, the heights of sanctity and the depths of depravity. He does not turn aside from anyone. His way is smooth and easy and swift. And it reaches to sinners as well as saints.
God does not respond to his world. He does not adjust his reaction to suit good people or bad. You do not have to be good before God will love you; you do not have to try to be good before God will forgive you; you do not have to repent before you will be absolved by God. It is all the other way round. If you are good, it is because God’s love has already made you so; if you want to try to be good, that is because God is loving you; if you want to be forgiven, that is because God is forgiving you. You do not have to do anything, or pay anything, in exchange for God’s love. God does not demand anything of you. Nothing whatever.
There is just one thing you need: you have to be ready to take a risk… You have to be prepared to let go of that faith in yourself that you have so lovingly built up…. You have to have faith in his love; for you face the dreadful danger of becoming good, of becoming yourself as loving as God is loving. And this is a frightful prospect. The motorway can do terrible things to the countryside as it spears its way through. And God’s love can do terrible things to you. It may make you kind and considerate and loving….
The crucifix shows us that God … was ready himself to take the risks that we take in being loved by God. The Word of God was made flesh so that he could suffer, suffer at our hands because he was a servant of love…. This is part of the meaning of the season of Advent culminating in Christmas: that God became flesh so that he could suffer… With the insane unthinking directness of love, he blundered into our lives, crashing through like a motorway … so that we could share his life of love and joy in eternity.
Herbert McCabe, “Motorways and God”, in God, Christ and Us (London: Continuum, 2003), pp. 25-28.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
dh 12.15.10 at 6:30 pm
How does this post relate to “If YOU confess with our mouth the Lord Jesus and Believe in your heart that God has risen from the dead you shall be saved.” How about John the Baptist and even Jesus’s call for us as people to “repent”? God’s love is an unwrapped present. Everything is contained in that present all that we really need to do to enjoy that present is to unwrap it. God doesn’t demand us to unwrap the gift given to us but if we are to enjoy it and if one wants eternal life one must unwrap it and God will also help us unwrap it if only we ask as well in addition.
dh 12.15.10 at 6:32 pm
“Without Faith it is impossible to please God.”
Kim 12.15.10 at 7:08 pm
So God’s love is an unwrapped present that one must unwrap. That’s coherent. Or is it only the “ites” (whoever they are) that have to unwrap it, otherwise they get slaughtered?
dh 12.15.10 at 7:20 pm
Kim, are you denying the fact that Scripture states that Israel was to destory the Kingdom of the “ites” (aka Ammonites, Amalakites, etc.) and some of the many times of failing to be obedient to do that and the subsequent pain in future generations for that disobedience?
With regard to “slaughter” it isn’t God who does that but people themselves that choose that (aka condemned already, like Scripture says). “If you deny Me I will deny you before My Father in heaven.” Even Jesus refers to the “unpardonable sin” as “blasphening the Holy Spirit” aka the heart attitude of rebellion to reject to the point of ones physical death a personal relationship with the one true God (aka Pharoah and the hardening of heart therein).
Paul F. 12.16.10 at 1:42 am
It is a FACT that the Bible says “it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.” (Romans 9:16) Opening a present involves exertion (the only exercise anyone’s really going to get on the 25th!)
DH, are you in denial of what Scripture clearly teaches?
Tony Buglass 12.16.10 at 9:45 am
DH - “Even Jesus refers to the “unpardonable sin” as “blasphening the Holy Spirit” aka the heart attitude of rebellion to reject to the point of ones physical death a personal relationship with the one true God (aka Pharoah and the hardening of heart therein).”
Woah. Rewind a few steps. Jesus refers to the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit as the one unforgiveable sin. He doesn’t tell us what that means. He never defines it. It is generally assumed to be total apostasy, so hardening the heart as to turn your back on God. If that is true, then your Pharaoh illustration makes sense (although Jesus never used it). But the problem with identifying the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is that you can only know it has been committed when someone dies apostate. And that assumes that you CAN know what was in their hearts at that moment, which I suspect is seldom the case.
In other words, what you have just offered as the plain teaching of scripture is one part scripture and several parts interpretation. Forgive me for being less than enthusiastic.
dh 12.16.10 at 3:26 pm
Paul, are you in denial that where it says “If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and Believe in your heart that God has risen from the dead you shall be saved.”? Isn’t that (using your same logic) the very thing you are rebuking me for?
Tony, the fact that Jesus mentions it then one must undersatand that one cannot have that attitude. Whether or not one knows a person has this attitude or not doesn’t deny the point of what I said. You projected your “know at the time of death part” onto my statement when in fact that doesn’t change or deny the fact of what I said.
We all should feel somber for those who have hardening of hearts toward God for there is the potential that the hardening could continue for the person to the point of blaspheming the Holy Spirit. Will we know at the time of death? Sometimes sometimes not but that truly isn’t the point the point is more in a broader sense of the responsibility to be obedient to God and the call therein. So you see nothing I said denyed your point or contradicted my point or even Scripture and the understanding therein.
Paul, you are taking the passage out of context. If 0ne reads Romans 9:32 it shows what I’m talking about: “Behold I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and a rock of offence; AND WHOEVER BELIEVES ON HIM SHALL NOT BE ASHAMED.”
“The just shall live by Faith.” “Without Faith it is impossible to please God.” “For with the heart man believeth and with the mouth confession is made unto Salvation.” Isn’t confession and believing exertion? When Scripture says Romans 9:16 it is in the context of the understanding we all deserve death before Christs death and resurrection and that God did all it all for us to have the opportunity to have eternal life. However, God doesn’t force us to do anything for true love is one that is a choice otherwise we are just robots which God clearly didn’t call us or created us to be. So your understanding of the passage is out of context Patrick.