I'm reading Augustine's Confessions--books one and two--for a class right now. He has some amazingly profound and thought-provoking things to say about God.
Book I, Chapter IV proceeds:
What, then, are You, O my God—what, I ask, but the Lord God? For who is Lord but the Lord? Or who is God save our God? Most high, most excellent, most potent, most omnipotent; most piteous and most just; most hidden and most near; most beauteous and most strong, stable, yet contained of none; unchangeable, yet changing all things; never new, never old; making all things new, yet bringing old age upon the proud and they know it not; always working, yet ever at rest; gathering, yet needing nothing; sustaining, pervading, and protecting; creating, nourishing, and developing; seeking, and yet possessing all things. You love, and burn not; You are jealous, yet free from care; You repent, and have no sorrow; You are angry, yet serene; You change Your ways, leaving unchanged Your plans; You recover what You find, having yet never lost; You are never in want, while You rejoice in gain; You are never covetous, though requiring usury. That You may owe, more than enough is given to You; yet who has anything that is not Yours? You pay debts while owing nothing; and when You forgive debts, lose nothing. Yet, O my God, my life, my holy joy, what is this that I have said? And what says any man when He speaks of You? Yet woe to them that keep silence, seeing that even they who say most are as the dumb.
Source: http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/110101.htm
I was thinking about something the other day. I realized that I want to come to the cross just as clean and pure and innocent as Jesus Christ did. I don’t want to come guilty, deserving it’s punishment myself. It really rubs me that I have to come to the cross, not as a perfect martyr, but as a condemned man. It makes me hesitate to come to the cross, because, in light of my sin, it is shameful and just. Jesus experienced public shame, but He had not one spot of it upon His conscience. I, however, am drowning in shame that is all too merited, and I don’t like it. Why? The more I think about it, the more I know it is because of pride.
King Saul in the Old Testament was the same way. He didn’t want to confess his sin, not because he couldn’t admit it before God, but because he didn’t want to be reduced in the eyes of the people (1 Samuel 15). His counterpart, David, was exactly the opposite. David wronged so many people during his affair with Bathsheba, but he repented as if his only sin was towards God (2 Samuel 11-12; Psalm 51). Why don’t I repent like that? Do I ache over wronging a holy God, or because my reputation will be tarnished before people?
It reminds me of reading The Scarlet Letter last semester. In class, we talked about how the minister, Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, could not (or would not) confess his sin of adultery because he was afraid it would cost him his ministry and his ability to do good in the community. So he hid his sin and it destroyed him. He idolized himself--his position and his reputation--just as the people around him did, failing to recognize that God alone is perfect and worthy of such exaltation in mens' hearts.
So, the cross rubs me because it is right. Were I to be punished upon it, I would be rightly judged and justly condemned. I can never come before it with a clear conscience. To that cross I must come humbly, accepting the pardon made possible there by the only One who approached it unjustly--conscience clear.
