Before we watch an edited for brevity sake version of Louis Giglio’s video, “How Great is Our God,” let’s review the difference between INFINITE and finite?

• • INFINITE – limitless or endless in space, extent, or size; impossible to measure or calculate
  • finite – having a limited nature or existence; can be measured or calculated

Objective: to compare and contrast

• • the Infinite, Absolute Reality of God to
  • our finite & relative reality/s of man.

Video by Louis Giglio – How Great is Our God

Louis Giglio just took us through an exercise in appreciating the infinite nature of God as best we can perceive it in our relative world. Louis Giglio demonstrated that our finite universe feels infinite. The absolute reality is that the things of this world/universe are finite. The things of the Kingdom of God/Heaven are Infinite. Because of this realization, we discover that in our relative realities as finite beings, we are valued by the Infinite God(F,S,S). As children of the Infinite God we are created, included and invited to participate in the Infinite Relationship of God(F,S,S).

The Infinite God(F,S,S) meets us where we are at in our finite lives in this world; never leaving us nor forsaking us. In our participation, we experience that we are made ONE with the Infinite. (Our finite nature is transformed by God’s infinite presence.) On the other hand, in our rejection of or blindness to God’s invitation, we remain stuck in our finite existence. In other words, we remain blind to the infinite presence of God that indwells us by God’s sovereign will.

Let’s also look at the definition of absolute versus relative.

• • Absolute – Loosed from any limitation or condition; uncontrolled; unrestricted; unconditional. Complete in itself; perfect; consummate; faultless.
    • Therefore, Absolute reality/truth is true regardless of how a person thinks or feels about it. 

• • Relative – estimated by comparison; not absolute or complete
    • Therefore, relative reality/truth varies depending on the individual’s understanding of what is true. A person may hold a relative “truth” that does not agree with what is absolutely true. Being relative doesn’t automatically mean it is wrong (not absolute). Ironically, you may have two people arguing that their reality/truth is absolute and neither is absolute. Both may be caught in the fallacy of a false dilemma. 

Are we leaving something out?  Yes, we are.   

We can’t forget that God exists both in and outside of this world. God is infinite across both worlds/realms! The incarnation of the Infinite fullness of God in human form (Jesus) was a unique invasion of the Kingdom of God/Heaven into the heart of our finite existence in this world. Like in C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narmia, Asland’s sacrificial death was a Trojan horse. Our watchful demons at the gates of hell were asleep and did not see that their perceived relative victory was actually an absolute defeat. They thought they saw Jesus coming, but they really didn’t!

In the Gospel of John (18:36), Jesus explicitly stated, “My kingdom is not of this world.” His words convey a profound spiritual truth—one that transcends earthly boundaries and limitations. The Kingdom of God/Heaven exists outside of this world’s timeline, yet also exists within us. How can this be?

What else do we need to recognize? Jesus has provided dual citizenship to us for both this world and the spiritual world. We have been invited to access both, but God allows us to choose to participate or not to participate in either.

How important is understanding the difference between the Infinite & absolute reality of God and the finite, relative reality/s of man?

We can only understand the gift of Holy Scripture by understanding this difference. 

When we approach Scripture with the perspective and anticipation of seeing both, Scripture comes to life as we allow the Holy Spirit to help us see how our life story is told through both perspectives. Scripture makes more sense!

Using these two filters/perspectives to interpret what we read in Scripture will help explain much of our confusion over what we see in Scripture, as Scripture contains both. Some passages present one or the other, and sometimes, both.

Here are just a few examples:

• Job’s friends and their beliefs about God
• Jephthah’s beliefs about God and human sacrifice – Judges 11
• Abraham’s beliefs about human sacrifice and the sacrifice of Isaac – Gen 22:1-19
• The Apostle’s confusion about Jesus – Gospels

Jesus is a Mercy Seat, NOT a propitiation.

It is harder for us in the West to wrap our minds around the Cross not being a transaction in which God required/needed his pound of flesh (retribution) before God’s “justice” would be satisfied and only thereafter would God be “OK” to save us. We have been given images of God more in the fashion of a benevolent imperial ruler versus what Jesus has revealed to us about God as Abba. This imperial ruler (a pagan image) is part of what Jesus came to undo in revealing the fullness of God in human form. God’s salvation did not require a payment in the sense that God’s Holiness demanded recompense. Most of us have been taught in Church that Romans 3:25 says that Jesus was a propitiation for us. In effect, we were taught that God needed to be appeased by sacrifice. Doesn’t Scripture tell us that God does not desire sacrifice, but instead mercy? How does our understanding change when we learn that the word propitiation shouldn’t be in the Bible? It is a misinterpretation. How does a misinterpreted word like propitiation influence the shaping of such a toxic theological perspective that moves us away from a relationship with God as in Jesus’ prayer of being One with God?

Although there is much merit to humans interacting with each other through a “fairness/justice” filter of meritocracy, God in Jesus demonstrated that is not what we have been created for but instead have been created for a relationship in Oneness with God. In the context of the parable of the vineyard workers, ask yourself this question, was it fair/just for the people who worked all day to only be paid $20 and the people who only worked 1 hour at the end of the day to also be paid $20? Jesus clearly demonstrates that God’s sense of fairness/justice is not the same as man’s. God is after (desires) something else. Jesus revealed what God desires. 

Take a look at this article by my friend Jack Hellein on why the word propitiation shouldn’t be in Scripture. It is amazing to me how a single misinterpreted word can make such a big difference in how we understand God and ourselves. 

Man has turned Holy Scripture into an idol.

Holy Scripture, often referred to as “the word of God,” is inspired & sacred, not divine. The Logos (Living Word of God = Jesus) indwelling Us (temple of God) is inspired, sacred & divine. Beware of turning scripture into an idol that needs to be “inerrant” for your human version of God to exist.

See Pillar #1 (INFINITE vs. finite) of our foundations in Jesus first.

How important is understanding the difference between the Infinite & absolute reality of God and the finite, relative reality/s of man?

We can only appropriately understand the gift of Holy Scripture by understanding this difference. 

When we approach Scripture with the perspective and anticipation of seeing both, Scripture comes to life as we allow the Holy Spirit to help us see how our life story is told through both perspectives; Scripture makes more sense!

Using these two filters/perspectives to interpret what we read in Scripture will help explain much of our confusion over what we see in Scripture, as Scripture contains both. Some passages present one or the other, and sometimes, both at the same time.

Here are just a few examples:

• • Job’s friends and their beliefs about God
  • Jephthah’s beliefs about God and human sacrifice – Judges 11
  • Abraham’s beliefs about human sacrifice and the sacrifice of Isaac – Gen 22:1-19
  • The Apostle’s confusion about Jesus – Gospels

Holy Scripture has been used as a tool by earthly kingdoms and “church” leaders to control and manipulate. 

Holy Scripture

Is:

• • Inspired to reveal both the nature of man and God… both good and evil.
  • Man’s religion tries to claim the evil to be the good. Religion tries to convince us that the evil in the scriptures is attributable to God instead of man.
  • Scripture is a collection of inspired, ancient writings of different authors and literary types that reveal the errancy of man about God and man’s misinterpretation of Love’s long-suffering with man in man’s errancy.

Is Not:

Inerrant: Both the “infallibility of the Pope” and the “inerrancy of Scripture” are cut from the same cloth. They are also modern.

• • Catholicism – the First Ecumenical Council of the Vatican of 1869–1870
  • Protestantism – the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy and held in Chicago in October 1978

Both proclamations serve as tools of authority for the same purpose: They were created to prop up dogma for the protection of institutions of man’s creation, not God’s.

Both were made as idols under whose authority you are expected to submit.

Both will deny this to be true. Both are presented as the authoritative word of God. Supporters of both will profess them to be essential in the worship of God, and will even go as far as to say that the correct worship of God cannot exist without them. This is the nature of an idol in our lives.

As Christians, let’s agree that Jesus is the only WORD of God—the Logos of God. Those who claim that the pope is infallible or that the inspiration of Scripture is somehow dependent on it being void of marks of human “error” are missing the mark. There are various types of “errors” that can be found in Holy Scripture, either in the relative thoughts of man, transcription, or interpretation of the literary context. Holy Scripture is not in error; only man’s handling of it.

The letter of the law kills, but the Spirit gives life – 2 Corinthians 3:6

The inspiration of Scripture is that it reveals both Jesus as the Word of God (our identity in relationship with God) and us in the midst of our blindness of this truth. If we miss all the passages/stories demonstrating our blindness (our misinterpretations of God & resulting sin) we miss half of the inspiration.

What Separation?

The Father didn’t turn His face away from Jesus and neither will God abandon you! This perspective of our salvation makes some people feel uncomfortable because they feel it somehow means that their experience with God’s love for them is being questioned. God/Love is not in question. How our religion understands God’s love is in question. Why? Because Jesus came to reveal who God really is… because our religion has taught us versions of God that do not represent God. Our religion is what is in question, not God’s love for us. Jesus did not come to create more confusion about God, but to show us God(F,S,S)’s identity, and in so doing to reveal to us who we are.