Our 4G God
By Dr. Chris Seiple on 04 January 2011
As fourth generation (4G) wireless technologies comes on line, the concept of "ubiquitous computing" steps closer to reality. One example of this vision comes from Carnegie-Mellon University's Project Aura. "Aura's goal is to provide each user with an invisible halo of computing and information services that persists regardless of location... Project Aura will design, implement, deploy, and evaluate a large-scale system demonstrating the concept of a "personal information aura" that spans wearable, handheld, desktop and infrastructure computers.[1]
Of course, according to Moore's Law, 4G will soon give way to 5G, and so on, as the "invisible halo" becomes a permanent and persistent part of each individual's "personal aura." Seemingly, we are approaching a day where the only thing greater than our dependence on technology will be the individual freedom that this technological dependence enables.
I am obviously not against technology; it is a neutral power that can be used for good or ill. Yet, as a Christian, I am also mindful that "iphone" and "idolatry" both begin with "I"— the danger of self-worship will only become more pervasive the more we embrace, consciously or subconsciously, our man-made "invisible halos" of "independence" that denies our dependence upon anything else.
And so, as a new year begins, I think it useful to re-consider who made us and where our dependence belongs, appreciating anew the freedom granted to reject or accept our Maker.
In other words, I want to discuss our once and forever 4G God, He who made the mind of man. To this man's mind, He has four timeless dimensions that will never need upgrading.
Glory. God made humanity for one reason: to glorify Him. During the Hebrews' exodus from Egypt, God gives His people some simple guidelines for how to glorify Him. These Ten Commandments given on Mt. Sinai[2] make clear that humans are to worship God alone, honoring those people God uses to raise us (our parents)[3] while also respecting other humans, especially neighbors, whom He has also made "in His own image."[4]
Should these laws not be clear, God later emphasizes the point: "I am the Lord. Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly... [D]o not do anything that endangers your neighbor's life. I am the Lord... [L]ove your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord."[5]
And just in case there was any lingering doubt, God states that because He is the Lord: "[T]he alien [someone not of Israel, not of the majority culture] living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt" [where Israel had been an ethnic minority in the Egyptian majority culture].[6]
Put differently, "the One of Sinai"[7] receives glory when we love our neighbor. If we don't love our neighbor, who bears the image of God, we are putting something else between us and God. And that something else—no matter what it is—can only be called an idol.
C.S. Lewis certainly understood. "The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbor's glory should be laid daily on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it... There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat... Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses."[8]
The choice is clear: idolatry or obedience. But will we listen to and obey the commands of God?
The answer is as simple and difficult as David forewarned in the Psalms: "I will listen to what God the Lord will say; He promises peace to his people, his saints—but let them not return to folly."[9]
Grace. The story of the Old Testament is the story of the return to folly. No matter God's clear and consistent commands, Israel just could not put God first. "They followed worthless idols and became worthless themselves,"[10] for he who makes an idol "trusts in his own creation."[11]
They even found a way to make this sin worse, daring to turn the faithful means of worship prescribed by God into a religious ends of self-worship. God's reaction was harsh:
"I hate, I despise your religious feasts; I cannot stand your assemblies... Away with the noise of your songs!"[12] "These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men... Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, ‘He did not make me?' Can the pot say of the potter, ‘He knows nothing'?"[13]
And so God's people experienced the negative consequences proscribed by their covenant relationship with God (Deuteronomy 8). It got so bad that God allowed them to be exiled to Babylon (modern day Iraq). Throughout this time, however, God's people did try to return to God, according to the covenant. This process involved humble repentance and animal sacrifice at God's altar.[14]
Indeed, the "God of the Old Testament"—as if He were different than the God of the New Testament who revealed Himself in Jesus—is too often understood as one of aloof justice, of punishment meted out in the absence of mercy. But time and again, God forgives the sins of His creation, offering Israel yet another chance to follow His commands. God, in His mercy, has always been foremost a God of grace.[15]
Nevertheless, because Israel repeatedly "returned to folly," God would grant a greater grace, for all those made in His image, while still honoring the freedom He had given His creation to reject Him.
Gospel. Amidst the repeated betrayals of His chosen people, God used Jeremiah to prophesy a "better covenant."[16] This covenant[17] would be unconditional and available to all because this covenant would be based on the sacrifice of an "indestructible life"[18] (and not the temporary sacrifice of an animal). As such, this covenant would also fulfill the prophesy that God's people would be a light unto all nations,[19] as was promised to Abraham and Jacob.[20]
The "Son of David"[21] was born in the place where David was born, and anointed as King.[22] As such, He recovered a priestly line "in the order of Melchizedek"[23] that not only fulfilled the Old Testament covenant but, as a result, enabled a New Testament covenant that still holds today.[24]
The fourth chapter of Matthew, for example, reveals Satan's temptations of Jesus in exactly the same manner that the Hebrews were tested on their journey from Egypt to the Promised Land (please see Exodus 16, 17, and 32). Unlike Israel, however, Jesus kept the commandments, demonstrating loyalty to God alone. Throughout the Gospels, the writers portray Jesus as being and doing what Israel failed to be and do. Hence he is the true Israel, divinely qualified to serve as a sinless sacrifice for humanity's sin.
On the cross, He forgave when no one asked, offering a pure grace not deserved by a single human being. In His resurrection, He defeated death itself, confirming the new covenant and life now available to all who transfer their trust to Him.
In short, Jesus has extended an inclusive invitation based on a most exclusive claim: the son of God, who died and lives again as the Lord of all—the world's true King—invites Jews and Gentiles alike to experience a restored relationship with their Creator, as He originally intended. This is the Gospel. This is good news!
In making such an incredible claim, Jesus was every bit His Father's Son. He affirmed the old covenant, summarizing God's law as just two commands: love God with your heart, soul, and mind; and, love your neighbor as yourself.[25]
To illustrate both His claim and His commands, Jesus announced who He was to a shunned prostitute of a despised ethnic minority (the Samaritans) whom the Jews hated. In engaging this doubly-despised woman in mid-day amidst a patriarchal society—a cultural, religious, and gender no-no if ever there was one—Jesus could not have been more clear to His followers, then and since: I am that I am, so do as I do.[26]
Jesus also possessed His Father's distaste for religion that worshipped itself. He told His own religious leaders: "You nullify the word of God for the sake of your traditions."[27] As such, they were "sons of hell" who had forgotten "the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy, and faithfulness."[28] Woe to any of us who worships religion instead of God.
And so for those of us who have freely chosen to experience God's grace through the Gospel, we cannot help but want to practice the "most excellent way"[29] and glorify Him by loving Him and our neighbor ... especially the doubly despised among us.
Global. Jesus tells His disciples that "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me."[30] This simple point—that He is already there, at home or abroad, and in charge—is imperative to understanding how best to love our neighbor, and thus glorify God.
He's God and He's at work in His world. He doesn't need us, but He longs for us to come alongside the work that He is already doing—work whose substance matters much less in comparison to the opportunity that work offers to demonstrate the love of Christ.
Put differently, there is no single global challenge that can be handled by any single entity, governmental or non-governmental. If this is so, then it is not a question of if but when one partners with a different individual/organization/state to address our common global challenges. Every decision of global engagement therefore requires a threefold understanding of those who follow Christ.
First, whatever issue it is that we care about most, God has authority over it and is already at work. Don't ask "What Would Jesus Do?" Instead, ask "What is He Doing?"
Second, in choosing to engage the issues we are passionate about, by definition, we have chosen to engage our neighbor. We will need that neighbor—whether next door, or in some partnering organization, or a representative of some government somewhere—to effect change. And there's a good chance that that neighbor will not look or vote like us. In fact, that neighbor may not want to work with us.
In this context, Christians should take a step back, before engaging. No matter how important we think a particular issue is—or how important we think our contribution is—we must always keep in mind this simple question: How will this neighbor receive and remember my example? If God is in charge, then we are liberated from defining success and focusing on this more important question.
In other words, every global issue is a chance to be the "fragrance of Christ"[31] among our neighbors. If we merely focus on the issue, we will depend on ourselves, turning the issue into an idol. More fearsome, we will not be received as Christ's love but as a "clanging cymbal."[32]
Third, the issues our world faces are complex. We need to be excellent in our engagement of them. "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for me... It is the Lord Christ you are serving."[33] Excellence earns His followers a seat at the table, a respected voice that is relevant.
If Christ's followers can keep these simple but difficult principles in mind, they will be "ministers of a new covenant" being "transformed into His likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord."[34]
Conclusion. Now, if all of this seems too hard, consider the example of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Just months after the 1933 election of Adolph Hitler, Bonhoeffer wrote that Christians have "an unconditional obligation to the victims of any ordering of society, even if they do not belong to the Christian community."[35] Acutely aware of the local and global threat of Nazism, Bonhoeffer would take on his own religion and country on behalf of the Jews and his God.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was obedient, refusing all idols, religious and political. He would pay with his earthy life, something that ends for each of us anyway. As he went to the gallows, just days before the defeat of Nazi Germany, Bonhoeffer told a fellow prisoner: "For me this is the beginning of life."[36] It was the last "station"—after discipline, action, and suffering—on the "road to freedom."[37]
Love is an action verb that betrays itself if it is not practically and unconditionally applied, especially outside of one's faith. It is made possible by our choice to daily acknowledge our total dependence on Him and His love for us.
As we enter the New Year, let us reflect on our 4G God and His timeless intentionality.[38] Above all else, let us strive to glorify Him, this day, by loving a neighbor that we need, a neighbor made by God, a neighbor granted the same freedom to accept or reject Him.
My prayer for all of us this year is that we constantly seek His face.[39] And, with each step we take, that we not be worried about the previous nor the next step, comforted by a Sovereignty as simple and sacred as the lilies of the field.[40]
"May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us; establish the work of our hands for us—yes, establish the work of our hands."[41]
[1] Project Aura, http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~aura/, accessed 29 December 2010.
[2] Exodus 20: 3-17.
[3] Jeremiah 1:5
[4] Genesis 1:27.
[5] Leviticus 19: 14-18, 33-34.
[6] Leviticus 19: 33-34; God uses this same language in Ezekiel 47: 22-23:"You are to consider them [the aliens "who have settled among you and who have children"] as native-born Israelites; along with you they are to be allotted an inheritance among the tribes of Israel. In whatever tribe the alien settles, there you are to give him his inheritance," declares the sovereign Lord.
[7] Psalm 68:8; Judges 5:5.
[8] C.S. Lewis, "The Weight of Glory" (originally preached as a sermon on 8 June 1941), as found in The Essential C.S. Lewis, ed. Lyle W. Dorsett (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1988), 369-370.
[9] Psalm 85:8.
[10] Jeremiah 2:5
[11] Habakkuk 2:18.
[12] Amos 5:21, 23
[13] Isaiah 29:13, 16.
[14] See the example of Hezekiah in 2nd Chronicles 29. Even in the sacrifice of animals, however, the Israelis would sometimes try to "cheat" the redemptive process, offering blemished animals, contrary to God's command (see Deuteronomy 15:21)...which only insulted God further. "When you bring blind animals for sacrifice, is that not wrong? When you sacrifice cripple or diseased animals, is that not wrong? Try offering them to your governor! Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you?" says the Lord Almighty (Malachi 1:8).
[15] See, for example, the book of Hosea, especially Hosea 11-14.
[16] Hebrews 7:22.
[17] Jeremiah 31:31-34.
[18] Hebrews 7:16.
[19] Isaiah 42:6; 49:6.
[20] Genesis 17:6-7; 35:11.
[21] Matthew 1:1.
[22] 1st Samuel 16.
[23] Psalm 110:4.
[24] See Hebrews 7-10.
[25] Matthew 22: 36-40.
[26] John 4: 4-42.
[27] Matthew 15:6
[28] Matthew 23: 15, 23.
[29] 1st Corinthians 12:31.
[30] Matthew 28:18.
[31] 2nd Corinthians 2:15.
[32] 1st Corinthians 13:1.
[33] Colossians 3:23.
[34] 2nd Corinthians 3:6, 18.
[35] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, "The Church and the Jewish Question" (1933), as quoted by Eric Metaxas in his book, Bonhoeffer (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishing, 2010), 154.
[36] Ibid, 528.
[37] Ibid, 485-6. Bonhoeffer wrote a poem from prison by the same name, shortly after learning of the failed plot to kill Hitler, and thus his own imminent death.
[38] Luke 24:27.
[39] Psalm 105:4.
[40] Matthew 6:25-34.
[41] Psalm 90: 17.
Last updated 04 January 2011