To stake out a claim in territory of Godness is the ultimate trespass. The territory of, and which is, Godness, permits no squatters.
Venturing a claim there to even the tiniest plot is verboten---nay; no way; nix that; nyet! Yet to attempt such infamy is encouraged by conventional Christian teaching. Not only is it encouraged, it is considered an absolute necessity for setting forth, and traveling successfully, on the Way.
It's not any old plot within Godness territory we're talking about. It's a place of vastly strategic importance. It is situated on Deity high ground. Allow me to explain:
With whatever else it is that characterizes God, be it known that one characteristic stands out as clearly as any other, i.e., GOD ALWAYS HAS HIS WAY IN ALL THINGS...ABSOLUTELY!
There is no place for compromise on that point; there's no, "Well, golly gee, My little creatures, I'll cede over to y'all that particularly strategic stronghold of sovereignty. After all, I want my kingdom to include a democratic principle. Y'all deserve a vote on how We do things around here. If y'all don't like what I propose, speak up, I'll listen and make whatever adjustments are necessary to not infringe on your 'free will,' on your claim to a portion of My sovereignty. Share and share alike, is what I say."
This nonsense must be cleared up in advance of the consummation of all things, and it will be, for it is "...that every knee will bow, of those in heaven and on the earth and under the earth, and that every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." (Phil. 2: 10, 11 NASB) Jesus is not the One who bends His knee to us, except, in His self-emptying, to figuratively wash our feet, as He who came not to be served, but to serve, and give His life a ransom for many. (Mark 10:45) Nothing can stand in the way of His Lordship. Being Lord means that all authority has been given to Him in heaven and earth, with the power to enforce His authority. (Matt. 28:18; Rev. 7:12)
There is among most Christians the idea that though the Father desires great and good things for all mankind, yet they insist that things will not actually turn out that way. They imagine that the Lordship of Christ simply amounts to Him having the authority and power to punish us for not letting Him have His Way, i.e., since they've staked out that strategic plot within the territory of sovereignty. They think it simply means He's bigger and stronger than us, and if He can't have His way, then according to the authority vested in Him by God, with the corresponding power, He'll show us who's boss vindictively.
We need to consider how determined Father and Son are.
It's the cross of Christ that reveals God's determination to have His Way. He was of a mind and will to BE, in action, what He IS by nature: perfect Love. It meant the Way of the Cross; The Via Dolorosa. With the Father, and our Lord Jesus, it was, "so be it," and it was. Do you dare imagine that God will allow even one drop of the precious shed blood of Christ to turn out to be wasted, of having no final application to some souls? Do you dare imagine that God is a God who will settle for cutting His losses as best He can? Or do you imagine that They never planned on a universally grand and good conclusion, as is shamefully insisted by our Calvinist brethren.
Don't think I'm only getting in the face of our Calvinist brethren. While they insist that God, from eternity, has elected some to salvation, and all the rest to damnation, and it's in that sense that God has His Way, Arminianism perceives God to have chosen to be subject to the will of man. Dare we imagine that God will be denied the holy desire of His heart? How utterly pathetic it is that Christians have settled on it having to be one or the other of the above. The intellectual contortions involved in trying to prove one or the other would be laughable if it were not actually a matter of bearing false witness against God.
Grand and glorious is the Divine plan: God will settle for nothing less than sharing Himself in all His glory with all mankind in a new heaven and new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.
(Isa. 40:5; Hab. 2:14; 2Pet. 3:13) Through Isaiah, the Lord testified that the knowledge of the glory of the Lord will fill all the earth as the waters cover the sea. The sense of that glorious statement is that, when compared with the New Testament's teaching on knowing God, it conveys that all that is earthen will be filled with the experiential and intimate knowledge of the Lord. God Himself will be what we in divine fellowship KNOW. Reality and perception shall finally meet as one. That is, we shall know God, as God knows Himself. I'm raising an issue here that is at the heart of the refreshed reformation that is presently making itself known in pulpit and pew, among the formally trained in theology, and among those who, though not formally trained in such things, know simply that their God is a good God, good always, and good to all. -John Gavazzoni-
