Two Questions: Is "reconciliation" about "man to God" or about "God to man?" And, did God walk away from the "sinner," Christ, as he hung on the Cross?
In a discussion I am having with a very fine fellow in the Greek Orthodox tradition, I have written the following. The context for my comments, below, include my challenge to the notion of "original sin," and the reality (in my thinking) that reconciliation (man to God) Began with God's reconciliation to our humanity and "suffering." I include this, today, because this is what "today" (Resurrection Sunday) is all about. The atheists celebrate with colored rabbit eggs and laugh our faith in the Resurrection. Me? I think "eggs" pretty much typifies all that liberal atheism is about - laying one egg after another as they try to improve on God's plan for man. Today is all about this truth: "It is not within man to direct his own steps."
To Arsenious: Serious question: So God humbling himself to become like us in every way, is not God, first, reconciling Himself to our humanity?
I do not deny that he draws us. I am only saying that his act of Reconciliation Began when God approached us in our circumstance, when He, first, reconciled himself to our finiteness, to our humanity, to our weaknesses and sufferings. And why is that important? For the profoundly simple reason that reconciliation works best when it happens within family, amongst brothers, between father and son.
While "Father," in a familia sort of way, is not a pronounced Old Testament teaching, it certainly is in-and-throughout the New Covenant dispensation.
Man's sinful nature was obvious, before the "fall," btw. He challenged the truthfulness of God before the Fall. He lusted for the fruit, before the fall. The thought of being like God was appealing, before the fall. His capability for sin was ever present, before the fall. His willingness to serve or respect Satan was present, before the fall. And Romans 5:12, as I read that passage, tells us that the Adamic sin's consequence has force in our lives, "because we have all sinned."
Because of our own complicity, there is nothing "original" in Adam's sin, except, of course, that his was the first violation of stated law. Babies, for example, are not born in sin and in need of salvation from sin. If you agree that sin, in our personal lives, is a deliberate departure from God's revealed will (which was the reality in the Adamic sin circumstance), then you might agree.
In fact, sin and the sheer weakness of our insoluble, human condition, is that very thing that invited God into our suffering.
Today, Resurrection Sunday, is when we remember that God, the Father, had not forsaken his Son. And when Jesus of Nazareth uttered those words, "Why hast thou forsaken me," he was only declaring the whole truth of the 22nd Psalm. TFTn5280 has something to say about this, but I could not find it, last week, when I went looking. It was a great point and included what I am saying, now . . . . . . . . that those Jews who heard him say, "Why hast thou forsaken me," knew, full well, the reality of Psalm 22, that it is not a declaration of defeat, or a question as to God's desertion of the sinner, but the beginning of the proclamation that is found in Ps 22:24, "For he has not despised or disdained the suffering of the Afflicted One; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help."
Again, this is not my idea, but 5280 is currently in hidding, so you will have to suffer with my wording.
The fact remains, that God's reconciliation began with the humility of Christ as described in Philip 2, extended to his human suffering on the cross and, finally, in the vindication of Christ in the Resurrection. In Christ, it is "God to man" and "Man to God."
