God Without Religion_ Can It Really Be This Simple_ - Andrew Farley [68]
Within seconds, I was pulled from my car and handcuffed. “Why’d you run, son?” the officer asked. “You weren’t even going that fast when I turned on my lights. I probably would’ve just given you a warning and let you off.”
My seventeen-year-old mind froze up in disbelief at my own stupidity. “Uh, I don’t know, sir!”
Just then, my friends pulled up in their own car only to watch me get escorted to the squad car and hauled away. From there, I spent a night in jail and faced other sobering consequences—a major fine and suspension of my license. Oh, and the girl? Her parents encouraged her to pick another college.
This happened only a few days before fall break, so I had to go home to Virginia and face my parents right after. I was petrified at the thought of telling them what I’d done, but I knew I had to. All the way home I rehearsed what I’d say.
When I got home, it was already getting late. And there were lots of reasons I could’ve waited until morning. But I had to get it over with. I walked right into their bedroom, sat down at the foot of their bed, and let it fly.
“Mom, Dad, I did something really stupid. I ran from a police officer when he tried to pull me over. Not only did I run, but I was going really fast, and I put someone else’s life at risk. The officer caught up to me, and I spent a night in jail.” After getting it all out, I broke down crying because of the shame. I was only seventeen, and I’d never been to jail before. Nothing even close. What would my parents say? How would they react?
After my dad recovered from a moment of shock, he asked, “Are you all right, son? Did you get hurt?” My mother sat listening, tears of concern streaming down her cheeks. I sat there in disbelief as my parents overwhelmed me with their heartfelt concern. Never in any of my rehearsals did it go like this. Where was the yelling? The lecture? There was no sermon, not even a hint of anger. I guess they thought I’d already been through enough and that adding to my consequences wouldn’t really help.
I’m no expert on parenting, but I will say the approach my parents took in those circumstances was life changing for me. It’s been over twenty years since that conversation, and I won’t forget it for the rest of my life. God used it to imprint on my mind a snapshot of the true meaning of grace. I was able to see how a parent might choose concern over anger, even when a very serious sin had been committed. No, I’m not recommending we get our view of God from our parents. But if, in that moment, my parents could choose concern over anger, I thought, how much more could God do so, all the time?
Saints in the Arms of a Loving God
It’s not that God didn’t get angry at sin. He got very angry. And it’s not as if there was no punishment for sin. There was, and it was the ultimate punishment: death and separation from God. So this isn’t just cheap grace talk. The loving, grace-filled attitude that God has for us all the time, even when we sin, is due to one very expensive reason: Jesus became sin for us and absorbed all the punishment we deserved:
God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Cor. 5:21)
He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. (1 Pet. 2:24)
But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed. (Isa. 53:5)
Every ounce of God’s anger and every gram of the punishment for those sins was put on his Son. The result of Jesus’s death and resurrection is that we became the righteousness of God! None of God’s anger remains for us. After all, how angry is God with his own righteousness? As Paul tells us in Romans, we are saved from the wrath of God (Rom. 5:9). John also tells us that “perfect love