Grace Notes

“The Lord of Hosts!” It’s a strong name. And it needs to be, coming as it does out of times of tribal conflict, war, atrocities, and even genocide.

The Lord of Hosts is a popular and even dominant name for God throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, appearing a total of 284 times. The word “Hosts” is a military term designating a very large fighting force or army. “Heavenly hosts” then, refers to God’s army of warrior angels.

Warrior Angel

‘Twas the night before doomsday and all through the land
People just needed someone to lend them a hand.
The pundits all said the other party’s to blame
And church folks said you just have to believe and claim.

What would happen if Jesus walked into a government office and tried to get a business license? I think it might go something like this:

Government official: What is your business? 

Jesus: I’m here to save the world.

Official: Right. Really, what kind of business?

Jesus: People.

(The official finds a regulation book on human resources.) OK, specifically what people?

Jesus: Anyone and everyone.

(The official is already bored and irritated.) Even the homeless, illegals and those who can’t keep a job? You don’t want those working for you. 

“Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.”[1]

This is the first of the famous seven last words of Christ. Words he said as he was dying on the cross.

The death and resurrection of Jesus demonstrates that God’s grace is the solution to evil. This is not controversial. It is the central pillar of Christian belief in the New Testament and in all authentic Christian teaching since. But it is rather incredible when you think about it. In my more insecure moments, I wonder if I can really believe it. Is it really possible that the answer to the whole messy history of good versus evil comes down to one simple binary choice—grace over revenge, love instead of hate, forgiveness rather than destruction? Can it really be so?

The following is an edited version of a sermon I preached on November 17, 2018 at the Azure Hills Seventh-day Adventist Church in Grand Terrace, California. That means, among other things, that this is rather long winded for a blog. You have been warned! – Mike Leno

“So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

That’s the punchline for one of Jesus’ most famous and most difficult stories—the story of the workers in the vineyard in Matthew 20. And the previous chapter, ends with an almost identical saying: “But many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first.” That’s the punchline to the Rich Young Ruler story.

Any time an author includes two stories back to back with identical conclusions, we can safely assume they are dealing with the same type of lesson or subject. But knowing the punchline in this case, is not the same as knowing the moral or point of the story. What does Jesus mean that “the first will be last and the last will be first?” Maybe he means that in entering the kingdom, those who appearto be last, will in the end, actually be first.

Stage 13, 2018 Tour de France, Photo Finish

Stage 13 of the last Tour de France had a very competitive sprint to the finish. Peter Sagan, in his green points leader jersey, looked like he was going to miss out this time since he was behind a number of riders coming down the stretch. If you watch cycling, however, you know that’s a usual tactic for Sagan. He always hangs back until just the right moment. In this case, he covered the last few meters in third place, surged at the last possible moment, threw his bike toward the line, and won the stage. The photo finish revealed that he had won by less than the diameter of his wheel.

In 1820, a Missouri newspaper, The Richmond Enquirer, published a remarkable editorial defending the owning of slaves. What seems remarkable today, however, is not that a southern newspaper in 1820 was defending slavery. Such opinions were, unfortunately, part of the political climate of the time, enmeshed as they were in debates about state’s rights and all the other disagreements that led to the Civil War. What seems remarkable today is that the argument presented in the editorial was through and through a biblical argument!

1 Corinthians 13 LUV (Leno Unauthorized Version)

If I can speak words of profound wisdom, if I can inspire people to greatness, and if I can sing with a power that brings heaven to earth, but do not care about people, then I am simply a waste of oxygen and a source of noise pollution.

In 2002, Christianity Today presented one of the most troubling explanations of hell that I have ever encountered. The April 22 issue bothered me, but not because of a Jonathan Edwards style description of an angry God. That sort of argument would have been troubling enough but at least internally consistent. The CT article was, to my mind, much worse because it presented the tortures of an eternal hell as somehow consistent with the character of Jesus. In other words, hell is the creation of a loving God.

How do we understand the biblical stories involving destruction, terror, and death? Are they, as a literal reading often indicates, examples of divine wrath and retribution? And how can such horror be understood as compatible with the supposed loving character of God?

Retribution and related words, of course, can mean different things. John W. Wenham, for example speaks of “beneficent retribution,” which in The Goodness of God (InterVarsity 1974), he explains as different from revenge. In other writings, such as this article, retribution refers to some sort of pay-back, which is one way to describe revenge.

Wenham got my attention because he was one of the first conservative evangelical writers to publicly call into question the traditional doctrine of hell. Interestingly, however, he believes that God directly causes everything, including the evil things in the world. He supports this by appealing to the way the Bible treats the forces of nature and the devastation from military aggression.