The latest school shooting.

I was talking about the elementary school massacre with my parents tonight, heard my voice rise, felt my anger mounting and sensed my frustration spilling over. So I did what any man will do. I talked about what's wrong with "the system". I broke down, point by point, why the system is inadequate to protect our children.

"Our schools are 'gun free'" the system says! "But that only applies to those who choose to obey it," I reply.

"We have 100% ID check in the front office of the campus," boasts the system! "But what of those who have no intention of revealing their identity?"

"We've developed new 'lock down' procedures to keep the bad people out," we hear. "But doesn't that only go into effect once the bad people are in?"

I remembered my time as a security guard at Escondido Charter High School. Some students and parents would never trust me with a weapon. It was hard enough to carry pepper spray without having to justify myself. The word "security" on my back felt more like a target, at times. Then I would see the Brinks armored car drive up. Two serious looking men with guns strapped to their hips were always present. So I started to question more. Why do we trust security to protect our money that is only worth as much as people believe it to be worth? Why don't we trust guards to be armed around our children who are priceless and have inherent worth? The logical questions from there were, what do we value? Are our priorities mixed up?

These thoughts didn't help me. Well, they certainly "helped" my sense of helplessness. The children in Connecticut are dead. I can't bring them back. Their families are far away. I can't provide them comfort. The murderer is finished. I could not kill him. I could offer no protection against him.

So I found that the real source of my anger was not "the system" but my impotence. My inability to affect change. My incapacity to provide comfort. Where do I go from here? Then I remembered. I recalled why I stayed at the high school for so many years. I was not there to protect. I was not there to comfort. I was not there to exact vengeance. I was not there to save. No, I was there to point those kids to who their protection was. Who the provider of their comfort and hope could be. Who the avenger of those who had visited iniquity upon them was. The man who is the wellspring of salvation and forgiver of sins. The lover of our souls. The living God. Jesus.

I can't destroy the evil that took so many young lives today but I know the God who can. Vengeance is His and He will have it. Most importantly, comfort is in Him and He will give it. We are His children and He loves our souls far more than we could ever love the souls of those children who perished today. We have the proof of His love too. We have so much sin. Someone had to die for it. God came down to earth as a fragile human and died for our sins in our place so that we might turn to Him and love Him and know that, though this life will end, we will live forever with Jesus and all who put their trust in Him. If we believe that then we can know that the evil this man committed himself to today will be used by God, somehow, for good. In the end, love wins.

Can the government be compassionate?

An old friend of mine made the case that, as Christians, we should utilize the government to protect and love one another because "the government is the people". I find this to be a dangerous proposition and one that subverts the proper roles of church and state. I responded (slightly edited here) by describing what I understand the roles of Christianity and government to be. I'd be happy to receive any and all constructive comments!

The "government" is not the people. It is an establishment based upon a social contract that "the people" have negotiated with each other to uphold order. Still, even if the government IS the people it is not "the church". We have established the separation of church and state for a reason. People must live according to their consciences. The problem is that a government that dictates morality is not made to allow people to do that. In fact, a government is made to coerce, whether for good or ill. That's the difference between the roles of church and state! The government coerces by threat of force (i.e. pay your taxes or you're going to jail), and the church coaxes with chords of love (i.e. Jesus telling his disciples to follow His example). The government is not a savior but should be a blind arbiter of justice. Therefore it cannot love people. And if you will posit that justice is love, then my response will be that love is sorely lacking if it is all justice and no mercy. The law would fall apart if it was subject to mercy and it is the provenance of the government to uphold law (justice) blindly!

I have been enjoying an excellent discussion with another brother and thought it would be a shame to not place my thoughts in a place where they can more easily be found. We have been talking about the nature of salvation and he is making the argument that, though salvation is a gift, it is not a final one until we actually make it home. In other words, we can walk away from God's gift and leave Him. Here is my response:

The troubling aspect of your argument is that salvation is not "by grace alone." You make man an agent of his own salvation when "salvation is of the Lord." Covenant theology well reconciles portions of scripture that seem to hold different ideas in tension such as Hebrews 6:4-8 where it seems that man can willingly choose to fall away after having been quickened by the Spirit and Ephesians 2:1-10 where we see that we who were dead have been raised to life by God who is "rich in mercy".

Romans 11:28-32 and Ephesians 1:13-14 show that "the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable" and that "we were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance". As mere mortals, we cannot break the seal of the Holy Spirit. Only God can do that but we see again in 2 Corinthians 1:20-21 that God will not and cannot break His promise to us (which is salvation by the Spirit) and has again "put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee."

As 2 Timothy 1:7 states, "for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control." If salvation has anything to do with us then we will die in fear, never knowing from one moment to the next if we can walk away from our salvation or have actually done so. The work and maintenance of our salvation must then be the Lord's so that we can walk in a spirit of freedom and liberty.

So how do all these scriptures reconcile with Hebrews 6? I think a proper understanding of God's visible covenant explains things well. It speaks of those in it (the visible church) "who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come" and have yet walked away as being irredeemable. Yet, according to the rest of scripture, they can never be restored because they are "crucifying once again the son of God". I don't see within in the context that they were ever redeemed, but I do see that they cannot ever be part of God's true kingdom. They have committed "blasphemy of the Holy Spirit" as it were and proved, when the time came to reveal the truth of their commitments, that they were never "bought at a price" in the first place.

God does not lose that which He has invested in. If He did, the power of Christ's sacrifice would be useless as a means of both salvation and comfort. We find hope in the power of God's grace because it protects us not only from the world, but from our own very flesh. In fact, He has given us a new heart to prove that we are no longer under the power of the old self.

The God of old and the God of new.

Is the Old Testament God the same as the New Testament God? I believe so and thought of some parallels between both periods that reveals a loving God who is steadily revealing Himself on a deeper and more personal level as His redemption story toward us is unfurled:

It was God who chose His people in Egypt because they were the weakest of nations and it was God's will to show His strength in their weakness; it was God who brought them out of the fiery furnace and into the promised land; it was God who gave them the law that they might worship Him in truth; it was God who lived with His people in a tent of meeting so that they would never be without His love and protection; it was God who wrote that law on His childrens' hearts of flesh after taking the stony heart out.

These truths are more personalized in the New Testament because we see that it is Jesus who chose us to be in Him before the foundation of the world was set; it is Jesus who rescues us from our slavery to sin, Satan and the world order and gives to us His inheritance; it is Jesus who breathed into us His Spirit of Truth to dwell in the "tent" of our bodies; it is Jesus who breaks our stony hearts and gives us life.