Childlike, Not Childish

My wife and I are staying in the Salt Lake City area this winter. We normally go someplace a bit warmer, but there are two things in particular that are making the cold bearable: we get to spend lots of time with our new granddaughter, and we can attend Capital Church every Sunday. This is one of those churches that makes you excited to get up on Sunday morning. You never know what you’re going to hear, but it is always timely and drawn directly from the Word of God.

The sermon series we’re hearing now is called “Christmas at the Movies.” My first reaction when Pastor Troy Champs announced the series was doubtful. I wondered if we were going to move away from Bible preaching and get into some warm, fuzzy Christmas culture stuff. I needn’t have worried, although I was really curious when I saw that the first movie we would look at was Elf.

If you haven’t seen Elf, I’ll just say it always struck me as a cross between really sappy and really dopey. In spite of that, the speaker not only drew a solid biblical message from it, but it made me think deeply about what it means to come to Jesus “as a little child.” First let me distinguish between childish and childlike. If the adjective childish is applied to an adult, it is most often derogatory, and this is how I originally saw the message of Elf; it is silly. Most of the humor in the movie is drawn from the main character, Buddy’s, childish behavior. It is funny to see an adult doing ridiculous, childish things, but there is not much material for a biblical application.

However, Buddy was also unswervingly trusting and totally uninhibited like a child. There is the biblical message. Our speaker Sunday pointed out just how relevant this is to Jesus’ words in Matthew 18. In 1^st century Jewish culture, children were considered of no value until they could contribute to the family’s support. They were on the lowest step of the socio-economic ladder. In this context Jesus said, “Unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 18:3) Kingdom entrance requires complete trust, total absence of an agenda, and an admission of our complete worthlessness outside of God’s grace, in other words, a childlike attitude.

It struck me as I was reading about the visions of God in the first few chapters of Ezekiel this morning that a childlike view of the indescribable things the prophet saw is necessary. An adult artist’s concept of perspective and spatial relationships makes drawing what Ezekiel saw virtually impossible. Many have tried. Just Google “Ezekiel’s vision image” and see them, all 405,000 of them. Yet I suspect a child would have no trouble putting crayon to paper and representing the vision. Cast aside all the grownup ideas of what can and cannot be “real,” and the Bible becomes more “real” than ever. I’m thinking of things like The Garden of Eden, Jacob’s ladder, crossing the Red Sea, David and Goliath, the visions of the prophets and so on endlessly.

The other thing that really struck me after thinking about a childlike attitude is all the places where Scripture refers to believers as children of God. The Israelites were repeatedly called the Children of God. According to New Testament teaching, believers today are children of our Heavenly Abba, adopted into His family through the work of Christ on the cross. Even secular writers sometimes say we are all children of God, which is true, but only a select few enjoy the benefits of inheritance. Disobedient children will not fare so well in the next life.

I still think Elf is pretty dopey, but I also think that my attitude toward God and His Word might look “dopey” to the unbelieving world. I have often heard the intellectual elite of the world talk about how ridiculous it is for thinking adults to buy into all the myths or fairy tales of the Bible. If we were believing in Zeus or the evil stepmother, that would be childish. However, I believe Ezekiel saw a wheel-in-a-wheel, even though I will never be able to draw it. I also believe the Messiah rose from the dead and reigns over all the earth today. That is childlike faith, and it is far from childish.

The Goodness of Wrath

If you follow my blog regularly, you know that recently I confessed to some waywardness in my daily Bible reading due to an overwhelming sense of the wrath of God as expressed in the Old Testament. (See “Daily BibleReading” and “Not Our Fathers’ God.”) I came to the somewhat snarky conclusion at one point saying, “He’s a God of wrath; get over it.” In my procession through the Old Testament, I am now at Jeremiah, the weeping prophet as he is sometimes called. I note that the God of Israel is also said to weep over the condition of His wayward children. This opened my eyes to something I had forgotten.

Jeremiah 9:24 says, “Let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.” While it is true that “justice” which can be translated “judgment” is prominent, and I note that it is executed in “righteousness,” both words are preceded by another, softer phrase.

The phrase “steadfast love” as in the ESV or “lovingkindness” in the KJV is where I want to focus. Neither translation fully captures the essence of the Hebrew word “hesed.” The King James Bible Word Book has this to say about it: “Hesed is a covenant word. Its original use was to denote that attitude of loyalty and faithfulness which both parties to a covenant should maintain toward each other…. When the word came to be used predominantly of the Covenant between Jehovah and Israel, it was realized by the prophets that such a covenant could be maintained only by that persistent, determined, steadfast love of God, which transcends every other love by its nature and depth.… The most important of all the distinctive ideas of the Old Testament is God’s steady and extraordinary persistence in continuing to love wayward Israel in spite of Israel’s insistent waywardness.”

God chose to love His children in spite of their “insistent waywardness.” The Hebrew word, hesed, is frequently translated “mercy” in recognition of the fact that because of His love, God does not give Israel everything she deserves, but chooses mercy over complete annihilation. The theme of a remnant to be saved appears throughout the prophets. So while the God of Israel does exercise righteous judgment, He also commends His merciful love to His people.

This is a comfort to me also. God does not give me what I deserve, but shows mercy in the gift of righteousness purchased by the precious blood of His only-begotten Son. I deserve wrath; I receive mercy. Someone has said that we only appreciate light because we know darkness. If God did not pour out His wrath against sin, His merciful love would be meaningless. Because He does judge the wicked, His love of the redeemed is more significant.

I am going to retract my snarky comment; I don’t think we should “get over” the wrath of God. I think we should revel in its significance. There but for the grace of God go I. God emptied His wrath on Calvary’s Savior so that I could enjoy eternity basking in His merciful love. The Old Testament is still bloody awful, but I am prepared to make the defense that it was bloody necessary.