From the shores of fluffy divinity to the depths of truth

Growing up we had a few routines in the family, things no less changeable than if they were written in stone. The first of these was that for our morning breakfast we would always have paw paw - the large tropical fruit loved in colder countries was the first enemy I faced every morning reminding me I could not make my own decisions. The second thing I knew happened everyday was that either of my parents would read the Bible to me. Generally this involved some american children’s devotional book which gave a Bible passage to read and a short text extracting either something to be learned conceptually about God or a practical application. For the past quarter of a century this was what I did every day, with the devotional books evolving as I aged. I often got extra studying from training events in the Brazilian Christian Union that emphasises a lot on training students to lead their own Bible studies and doesn’t run away from even the hard books to study.

However, after three years in Ireland - no training events or camps, only the devotions I did myself, I started to feel something was off. I realised that a lot of the devotional books either were based on nice and friendly passages from the Bible - mostly the gospels or some parts of Paul’s letters. Sometimes, I painfully found that the little short texts by very well intended authors often ignored the actual textual or historical context of the passage in question. I felt like my faith was stagnant, crippled by replays of the same messages.

I thought I might have been the problem - I have been one to often loose sight of faith in light of my daily life and get easily distracted. The truth was, the truth about Jesus is the main point of the whole Bible. The letters Paul wrote are still very relevant, with very practical insights into human behaviour and community. Why did it just feel like something was missing?

Talking to my husband we discussed different ways of reading the Bible, and he reminded me: Did I only trust authors that wrote Bible studies to reveal God’s truth to me? Did I not trust the Holy Spirit to reveal it to me directly?

I decided then to brave out the Prophets - the set of books with a lot of prophecies of pain, punishment, doom and gloom. I had braved Amos and Jeremiah before in some of the times of my life of most growth: maybe it was time for some more growing pains.

As I began reading Isaiah, reading about destruction and punishment coming from the hand of God himself onto his people and onto other kingdoms as well was not easy. Some of the prophecies are quite graphic and involve snapshots of warfare consistent with what we know of the Babylonian and Assyrian empires. Women violated, armies slaughtered, infants bashed. I begun soon to have somewhat of a faith crisis. The God telling the prophets about these things to come did not sound like the same God that I heard about in so many songs and by so many Christians. I have been hearing over and over the record of the God of Grace and of Mercy, of how a good God gives good things to his children, songs about how us humans are wonderful and how God should appreciate our worship - often with quite incredible promises of things we will do for him and how he will forgive us over and over - or even the concept of God being love… this all felt incompatible with the divinity bringing destruction at his hand.

I really struggled with this. Going through a big transition time all I wanted to hear was about how God is good, friendly, forgiving and how he would work everything out - most definitely not about how terribly God could punish those doing things differently from what he instructed!

I realised that I was letting the secular liberal agenda of ‘the right thing is what feels right’ corrupt my view of God. Of course I want God to be fluffy, cuddly, all mercy and grace. The only moments I thought of a God of justice was when I thought about others: murderers, rapists, pedophiliacs, among other things. I want God to exercise justice on them, not on me.

But the thing is: a God who is love cannot have justice cut from his character. The same way I want justice against those that do awful things against others because of empathy and compassion towards the victims of murder, rape and pedophilia, how could God who truly loves those victims far more than I ever could be indifferent to their suffering? How can one that loves not bring justice and punishment against those hurting people he loves?

I had been praying for some time to get to know God better - not just have a wishy washy tailor made God that fit my expectations, but to really understand his nature. I did not expect it would come in this form. I do not claim that I understand many of the things in the old testament, but I found God saying: “I know why I did everything I did. If you believe that I am honest, righteous, loving, just, and still merciful and graceful, do you trust what I did even though you don’t understand it?”. For someone who likes understanding things, asking me to trust something even though I don’t understand it feels a bit rough going. But I assumed it would be presumptuous to assume that I could believe only in something I understand (and a bit impractical, I cannot expect to understand all of the laws of optics to be able to trust what I see, can I?). So I decided to go with it and see where He was taking me.

That was when the hope in the prophecies came. Mixed in with the doom and gloom were entire chapters about heaven, hope, life and salvation. It was like God doing open heart surgery to his people: this is going to hurt, but it hurts to make you better.

I still found myself uncomfortable with some aspects of this God I was reading. He still felt very distant from the one I believed I had prayed to - and who had consistently answered every prayer, cared for every need and has given me such extravagant gifts I hadn’t even any idea how to respond. I said this to Jesus in prayer yesterday in church, that I couldn’t understand why Jesus and God seemed worlds apart.

As I finished the prayer, the song “Before the throne of God above” started playing:

Before the throne of God above
I have a strong and perfect plea
A great high priest whose name is love
Who ever lives and pleads for me
My name is graven on his hands
My name is written on his heart
I know while in Heaven he stands
No tongue can bid me thence depart
No tongue can big me thence depart

When satan tempts me to despair
And tells me of the guilt within
Upward I look to see him there
Who made an end to all my sin
Because my sinless saviour died
My sinful soul is counted free
For God the Just is satisfied
To look on him and pardon me

Behold him there the risen lamb
My perfect spotless righteousness
The great unchangeable I AM
The king of glory and of grace
One with himself I cannot die
My soul is purchased with his blood
My life is hid with Christ on high
With Christ my Saviour and my God



I sat somewhat dumbfounded. I forgot the main point all those devotions were trying to drive home: the meaning of what Jesus did.

With a diluted God of grace and mercy I had entirely missed the significance of Christ dying for me - if God is good and merciful, he would forgive us anyway, right? Wrong! The only way that sacrifice has meaning is knowing the full effects of the justice, wrath and punishment of God. Jesus’ voluntary sacrifice is him taking the blow that was meant for us - and that I don’t think would be very different from the blood bath the prophets describe - while God remains entirely just. It is the ultimate cosmic plot twist after the fall!

The fact is that by trying to tailor the Bible into the comfortable parts we lose sight of many aspects of God’s character and the significance of many events. It is wetting the toes without ever taking the dive: the little you come to contact with may be parts of the truth, but it’s only taking the dive and the risk of drowning that you find yourself immersed into this universe, held up entirely by this truth. I have to say, it is a quite extraordinary experience (and I’d say at this stage I’m maybe only ankle-deep).

If it were merely a matter of personal growth, then perhaps the comfortable shores would be the best place to be. Howbeit, the more I think of it the more it feels like trying to get to know God more to depth is less of a personal choice and more of a Christian responsibility. By only focusing on the mercy and grace of God - which, don’t get me wrong, are amazing things to think about and praise - not only do we hinder ourselves, we hurt others around us. Because, if God is all mercy and grace, surely he will forgive everyone on judgement day and it’ll be a big party - right?

Understanding the justice of God and understanding the significance of what Jesus did are quite fundamental for evangelism. I cannot help but wonder how much evangelistic initiatives in churches seem to be few and far between because of this fluffy God we worship. If our love for his grace and mercy are not enough to motivate us to share about him, would knowing our word about Jesus maybe being what can save someone from God’s wrath motivate us? Can we love others enough to not want their destruction? God is just. His mercy has come through Jesus.

As Hosea showed us, destruction does not come only from not doing what is right: “My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge. ‘Because you have rejected knowledge, I also reject you as my priests; because you have ignored the law of God, I also will ignore your children.” (Hosea 4.6). The priests at the time were the ones who failed at their role. Are we happy enough with our role as Christians in society, or are we withholding critical knowledge because of fear of rejection from people? Or are we rejecting his law because it’s too difficult?

The good part in all this is that it’s not just God and Jesus. We’re not left to our own devices - a sigh of relief! The way this whole story began was with me asking the Holy Spirit to help me to understand God, understand the passages I read when reading Isaiah. He also translates the theory, knowledge and concepts into action. Rather than us being crippled in fear, he is the one praying for us when we don’t know how to pray, comforting us when we need it and helping us to live like this. We are not alone - but we have to be the ones to take the dive into uncharted waters in the first place. I don’t think it’s easy, but I sure think it’s worth it!