Sacred Cows #4- "God needed another angel."
We humans have a need to be able to understand events. We are programmed, I suppose, to want to interpret the events that happen around us. This explains what passes for condolences and explanations at times of great grief or turmoil. Phrases like, "I believe everything happens for a reason," "God needed another angel," "God needed Sally Sue more than we did," or this one to parents who've lost a child born with tragic birth defects, "God doesn't make junk." I will grant that each of these statements are well-intentioned. On the other hand they represent the most horrid theology.
Let me begin with the phrase in the title of this post. It is pure mythology that humans turn into angels when we die. The Bible simply never says that, ever. Look it up. Jesus describes the resurrected as being like the angels in neither marrying or being given in marriage. The great worship scenes of Revelation always describe the myriad of angels separately from the redeemed. This is bad enough, as it is, but the greatest error of this statement is the same great error of the others.
All of these well-intentioned phrases place the blame on God for all of the tragedies of life. When we tell the grieving mother that "God needed another angel" after her child was killed by a reckless driver what are we really saying? We are saying, without so many words, that God caused the driver to kill her child. And that is supposed to bring comfort?? When we tell a family rocked by sudden calamity, everything happens for a reason what are we saying. We are saying 1) that we are controlled by fate that is beyond the help or control of God, or 2) that God made the calamity. What these statements do is ascribe to the Almighty God who loves us so much that he gave his only son for us, all sorts of evil. God caused the abdominal aneurysm. God caused the massive heart attack. God caused the person to drink too much and get behind the wheel of the car that kills the toddler. If we truly believe such things it's no wonder that militant atheism is all the rage in the popular culture. I wouldn't want to believe in such a god myself.
I think that one possible reason why we say things like this comes from misunderstanding Romans 8:28 which says that all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose. This does not say that God causes the evil circumstances we encounter every day. What it does affirm is that the omnipotent hand of God can cause some good to come from the evil we see around us. I once heard a woman say that her breast cancer was the best thing that ever happened to her. This does not mean that God caused it, but miraculously, God had worked all manner of transformations in her life as a result of it. Tragedy and evil are the result of our living in a fallen world, a world dominated by "the prince of the power of the air." It is the power of God to thwart the work of the evil one by making something good come about.
Repeatedly we ask or hear people ask, "where was God when __________ happened?" The answer is that he was right there in the midst of it. God is with us in the midst of our worst suffering and that is the good news of scripture. Scripture doesn't promise that we are always rescued from peril, but that God is present to lead us through the peril, as David put in Psalm 23, even when we're in "the valley of the shadow of death, thou art with me." That is the truth behind other words of Romans 8, "that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Let me begin with the phrase in the title of this post. It is pure mythology that humans turn into angels when we die. The Bible simply never says that, ever. Look it up. Jesus describes the resurrected as being like the angels in neither marrying or being given in marriage. The great worship scenes of Revelation always describe the myriad of angels separately from the redeemed. This is bad enough, as it is, but the greatest error of this statement is the same great error of the others.
All of these well-intentioned phrases place the blame on God for all of the tragedies of life. When we tell the grieving mother that "God needed another angel" after her child was killed by a reckless driver what are we really saying? We are saying, without so many words, that God caused the driver to kill her child. And that is supposed to bring comfort?? When we tell a family rocked by sudden calamity, everything happens for a reason what are we saying. We are saying 1) that we are controlled by fate that is beyond the help or control of God, or 2) that God made the calamity. What these statements do is ascribe to the Almighty God who loves us so much that he gave his only son for us, all sorts of evil. God caused the abdominal aneurysm. God caused the massive heart attack. God caused the person to drink too much and get behind the wheel of the car that kills the toddler. If we truly believe such things it's no wonder that militant atheism is all the rage in the popular culture. I wouldn't want to believe in such a god myself.
I think that one possible reason why we say things like this comes from misunderstanding Romans 8:28 which says that all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose. This does not say that God causes the evil circumstances we encounter every day. What it does affirm is that the omnipotent hand of God can cause some good to come from the evil we see around us. I once heard a woman say that her breast cancer was the best thing that ever happened to her. This does not mean that God caused it, but miraculously, God had worked all manner of transformations in her life as a result of it. Tragedy and evil are the result of our living in a fallen world, a world dominated by "the prince of the power of the air." It is the power of God to thwart the work of the evil one by making something good come about.
Repeatedly we ask or hear people ask, "where was God when __________ happened?" The answer is that he was right there in the midst of it. God is with us in the midst of our worst suffering and that is the good news of scripture. Scripture doesn't promise that we are always rescued from peril, but that God is present to lead us through the peril, as David put in Psalm 23, even when we're in "the valley of the shadow of death, thou art with me." That is the truth behind other words of Romans 8, "that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."
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