God’s Gambit: Oliver Twist

Z-Man’s blog did a courteous ode to Western Civilization’s debt to Christianity. All too typically, the comments brought out some trolls who cannot stand to see Christ worshiped… especially on His holiest day.

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Arm?nio Pereira on April 7, 2023 at 12:07 pm said:

Until we are able to wrap our heads around the concept that a perfect entity . God . could have not created imperfect artifacts . e.g., humans . we won’t be able to understand how stuck we are within the loop of our own contradictions.

And with all due respect, dear Christian readers, don’t you ever forget that, according to your mythology, God created Lucifer; have you ever wondered why? (Do you subject your loved ones to perils just to gauge their fealty?)

Ahh, that old chestnut! “If God doesn’t behave the way I say He should then He contradicts His own existence. Checkmate, believers!” Snarky responses whirl through my mind, from…

…to a lowbrow adaptation the South Park episode featuring Alec Baldwin’s cloud of smug.

Since he invoked Lucifer… and today being the day that we Christians celebrate Lucifer’s permanent defeat and humiliation as a poseur loser of a deity… let’s go with the mansplaination!

What does God want?

He’s an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent being with no peer. Anything He wants, He gets.

But… that means that what God creates is not really of value to Him. That legion of perfectly obedient angels over there? God could create a new legion in the time it takes Him to destroy the last one. It’s not valuable to Him. Useful, sure, otherwise why would He have made the first one, but replaceable.

God values most what God cannot create for Himself. That sort of thing would by definition, be of limited supply… to a being not normally limited by such concepts.

Specifically, freewilled worship. Being worshiped by independent creatures not compelled to worship, is something that the Almighty cannot create for Himself. Since every description of God portrays Him as a social creature, this makes sense.

I do not know why worship (definition, ‘to ascribe worth’) is important to God, but unlike Pereira, I understand that my opinion is not the controlling factor here. It is God who decides what is important to God.

So, God wants to be worshiped, and not by robots built for the task.

In fact, worship appears to be the spiritual drug of choice. Lucifer was #3 in the entirety of Creation, arguably #2, and found worship so addicting that he risked all to be #1. Thus did a perfect being that God created to worship and live with Him, turn against Him. And not just him. A third of Heaven, so we’re told, and there are strong indications in Scripture that the Liar was not the only perfect-yet-freewilled rebel; merely their leader.

How did God respond to perfect creatures choosing to rebel? He created rebellious humans and gave us the choice to repent.

That is what Christ did at the Cross. He was NOT a Captain Save-A-Ho. He was buying followers…. purchasing from humanity, with His blood, those of us who choose to worship Him instead of persisting in our rebellion.

It seems backwards, doesn’t it? And yet, that is what Scripture says. Lucifer was made perfect, best of the best, and He turned against God. Adam was created perfect, or at least sinless, and having enjoyed the presence and company of the Almighty Himself, he threw God away to follow Eve’s twat straight outta Compton. Eden, I mean.

One might call it “God’s Oliver Twist Gambit.”

Here we Christians are. Born to be badly flawed rebels trapped in entropic meat sacks, we don’t have the first clue about the spiritual realm. We get the suffering up front instead of the knowledge, power and status. Our beginning is in this gutter of a polluted, corrupted backwater of a reality, not our end. And we are promised by God Himself, that the suffering and misery and sacrifices we make for Him, for no reason than He desires it, is of such great importance to God that He’ll give us the keys to His own kingdom.

After He kills us.

I understand why that is a sticking point for atheists. They reject the existence of the soul along with all other spiritual concepts, so they think death is the end. It is not, and for us Christians, our proof is Resurrection Sunday. Easter.

Christ’s death served a special purpose; it allowed God to forgive our original status as rebels and our inevitable disobediences. He can’t have unpunished rebels in his own home, otherwise why would He have kicked Lucifer out?

But along with that, Christ showed us that physical death is a transition He did that by NOT STAYING DEAD. Being killed by God sucks, but we also have promise of resurrection from death. If Christ had stayed dead then we sure as heck wouldn’t be calling it “Good” Friday.

Why do I believe Christ will raise me from the dead? Because He raised himself from the dead first. If you don’t want to believe that then you don’t have to, but please, don’t make the mistake of only seeing the death of Christ.

Because Christ the man lives as an ordinary man, He ennobled humanity.

Because Christ the innocent died for us, we have the opportunity to be declared innocent.

Because Christ the God returned to life, we know that He will return us to life also. As gods, bee-yatch! As unlikely as that seems.

And when Christ bring us home to God, we will be Lucifer’s replacements. No wonder Old Scratch is forever butthurt at us!

I don’t say all that to convince anybody. I say that to answer Pereira. Why does God subject us and our families to horrific circumstances? Because

1. He can fix it ALL.

2. He did not exempt Himself. And

3. Starting with perfection didn’t work out.

I will forever be loyal to Christ. Not because I’m forced; not because I was born a prince over all realities; but because I am GRATEFUL to God for lifting me out of this muddy-sucky mortal world.

Gratitude. Something that God cannot manufacture for His own enjoyment. Something that the devil, beginning at the top of perfection, never needed.

I am grateful that Christ died for my crimes, and grateful again that He got better. He who saved Himself from the grave, I trust to save me also.

With faith like that, I’ll never betray God for eternity. AND, God can trust me with the wealth and status that ended up corrupting my predecessors.

Everybody gets what everybody wants, except Job’s wife. “Curse God and die!” Haha, no.