Q.
Is God “in control”?
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Crucifi ed, the cross being a “necessary evil” done to the Son for a “greater
good”), I fi nd that more rancid than the horror of the death of God in Christ.
[Selah]
The lament of Psalm 22, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” not just in the
mouth of a great man, or as a means to an atonement plan, but on the parched
lips of a suffering God[!] is a sovereignty too bitter for many to swallow.
Do we really want a God who screams the same gut-wrenching laments
as us? Do we really want a God who shares the dark isolation of doubt with
us? Do we really want a God who suffers excruciatingly with us? Most will
honestly say this is not the salvation we asked for. But this stumbling block
is what we get in the crucifi xion. This is the horror of the Incarnation—a God
whose “control” is the fi erce unrelenting love seen in Christ. It is the vulner-
able victim choosing to expose the system who is victorious.
The resurrection is the assurance that the love Jesus embodied on the
cross, the love that raised Jesus from the grave, will one day be realized
throughout all of reality. Until that day, we are invited into the agony of pray-
ing with God in the garden that not the will of rebellious creation be done, but
God’s “kingdom come,” God’s “will be done” in a world where God does not
will every situation, but wills something in every situation.
There is no event in which God is not actively intervening; the question
is whether we join in that intervention. The importance of prayer is in creat-
ing openings where creation comes into conformity with what is revealed in
Christ. “The God of peace will shortly crush Satan under your feet. The grace
of our Lord Jesus be with you” (Rom. 16:20).Jim L. Robinson
Who is...
?
Jim L. Robinson
I’m a hopeless football addict. I attended the rst
Dallas Cowboys game in the Cotton Bowl in 1960.A.
This question emerges out of a mindset that sees our existence as
the center of the universe. We can’t conceive of the totality of God’s
universe. What we see and perceive is very limited, but we tend to
universalize our own perceptions.
I don’t believe God is in control. I believe God created the universe as a
reality with which God could relate, not as a reality that God could control
and toy around with like a child pulling the strings of a marionette.