EXPLORE
GOD'S LOVE
Does
God change? Is God of the book of Genesis the same God of today?
Scripture
describes God as being in a dynamic relationship with creation,
especially with humankind. In the course of that relationship, as
with any parent and child, God has changed direction, rethought
certain matters, tried successive ways to draw humankind closer,
allowed Israel to fail and then redeemed Israel from the consequences
of failure, spoken tenderly one moment and harshly the next. Some
of that changing, no doubt, reflects changes in Israel 's own history.
The need for a prophetic voice, for example, grew out of the injustice
and apostasy into which Israel fell. Was that prophetic voice part
of God all along, or did God develop the prophetic voice in response
to Israel 's descent?
My
way of understanding it is that God's fundamental nature is described
in words like love, mercy, compassion, justice, and forgiveness.
Like the love of a parent, changing circumstances evoke different
expressions of that love. Thus, the parent who simply held and fed
the baby eventually walks beside the child, guides the teenager,
gives wings to the young adult, and supports the older adult as
needed. Every step of that journey seems different, and the child
certainly develops in response to it, and yet it's fair to say that
the original orientation to love the child has remained in force.
I don't
see any sign that God has gone from love to hate, or from mercy
to cruelty. In that sense, God seems constant. I do see signs that
God's foundation for humankind, expressed perhaps as law, has changed
over time. Certainly our understanding of it has changed. Thus,
a social covenant that enabled Israel to cross the wilderness was
changed later to a more inclusive, less tribal covenant under Jesus.
God's
relationship to the global reach of humanity seems to have changed,
too, as far as we can know that reach. In the early days, God worked
through Israel as a “beacon to the nations.” Later,
when Israel seemed unable to fulfill that role, God worked through
Jesus of Nazareth and, in his followers, set in motion a new and
farther-reaching community of faith. As time went on, God seemed
to work beyond Christianity, by adding other expressions to humanity's
journey, such as Islam.
Finally,
throughout this journey, God
has shown a willingness to suffer along with, and on behalf of,
humanity. From betrayal in the Garden to death on
the cross, and surely beyond, God has felt the pain that comes from
loving another. I believe that suffering has changed God.
--Tom
Ehrich
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