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Many seem to imagine that 'mystery' is the last word in the disposition of the Gospel.
Why God loves some enough to save them, and does not follow this plan with others, they profess to find incomprehensible. They may even add some starry set-up about irresolvable, or apparent contradiction and the like.

However such an approach as this is not biblical. Indeed, GREAT IS THE MYSTERY OF GODLINESS (I Timothy 3:16); but it is not about His love that the mystery operates, relative to salvation. On that score He is so explicit, that it is really quite a testimony to the obscurantist phenomenon of man, instilling philosophy beside the Bible and adding it, that anyone could even pronounce such a proposition.

GOD IS LOVE (I John 4:7). GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD THAT HE GAVE (John 3:16). God would have ALL MEN TO BE SAVED AND TO COME TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE TRUTH I Timothy 2:4 - not 'a knowledge' of it, but 'the knowledge'. He is to know the truth as true, because it is true. And this ? It pleased the Father than in Christ should all fulness dwell, and by Him to reconcile ALL THINGS in HEAVEN OR ON EARTH TO HIMSELF (Colossians 1:19ff.). The statements are not too  hard. They are neither abstruse nor recondite. They are intensely clear. Any talk about mystery^*1 in God's not being willing to save, is false, unbiblical, confused, at best.

Love is not demeaned: for LOVE, it is what the Bible says GOD IS.

God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance (II Peter 3:9). How wisely did that faithful old Church, the Presbyterian Church of Australia, when it was founded, echo this, insisting that this fact MUST be added to the Westminster Confession's teaching, in order to protect tender consciences; and what a heavy maul has an Assembly late in the 20th century, pierced this protection, asserting that this adds nothing to the Confession, which in fact has nothing to say on that precise topic at all^*2.

How readily do men turn to men instead of to God, to Calvin, or Wesley or Luther - and what vast good each of these did, instead of being thankful for services rendered, rendering the heart to God and finding direct from His word, with whatever stimulus or help from any, WHAT HE HAS SAID.

One thing that He has said, as noted above, concerns His love, wholly undemeaned, vast and in scope like the starry heaven.

On the other hand, many seem to delight in making love a mushy thing (the word is detestable, but so is the concept), like English-designated 'mushy peas'. It is so omnipresent without anything else to indicate the nature of its operations, that it comes to mean quite simply, massive, unrestrained, incredible, spoiling indulgence. This is not love: it ruins its object.

Such laxity at once impinges on and truncates justice. Whatever anyone among the sinners of this world does (and all have sinned, Christ alone the exception, being God incarnate - I Peter 2:22ff., Hebrews 2), this is irrelevant: not only to salvation, which is the case since the standard of being heavenly is one none can reach among sinners; but also for absolute perfection on this earth, in work or being as a child of God. Justice in Christ is satisfied (as in *4 below), and not aborted. It is fulfilled, and not discounted. It is operative and not discarded. It remains in its clean force and loveliness, like some delicate snow-drop as much as like steel!

Thus in this sort of error, the words of Christ about talents are disregarded, the rewards of His servants are annulled - though reward (other than God Himself cf. Genesis 15:1, and the fulfilment of His desires because they are His) can NEVER to the pure in heart which is God's desire, be the incentive, which He designates: yes these savours of righteousness likewise find the garbage truck.

This brings and breeds less than justice. It has nothing of the savoury beauty of righteousness, as distinct from self-righteousness.

Let us instead of such extremes, learn of God, humble ourselves and find what HE says.
 

As to justice: it is utterly juridically fulfilled in terms of salvation (Ephesians 2:1-12, Romans 3:23ff., Romans 5:1ff.). for no law is mere caprice, and the Law of the Lord is clean; yet its demands are beyond the imperfections, lusts and licence of man, operative without the very heart re-made by God within him; and even then, he is not perfected yet. Hence Christ has met the law, the Lord in the flesh lording it over the law, by His own perfections, like a teacher doing a child's examination, yet not so easily, for (as it were) He took a child's form to do it. Christ is indeed the end of the law FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS, to everyone who believes (Romans 10:4). Accordingly, "going about to establish their own righteousness" is one of the keynotes of Judaism's failure, as Paul points out in Romans 10.

This righteousness of God is TOWARDS all men (Romans 3:22).

Yet it is not at all upon all men^*3, as when some are covered by RIGHTEOUSNESS' OWN WORK on the Cross, wrought in Christ.

What is it like ? It is clothing in a Department Store, lavish in quantity, amazing in diversity, yet alike in this, that it covers. Not all shop at this store, for one of its conditions is this, that the Management pays. Some scornfully reject this as mere beggary, others as loss of individuality, others again as contrary to pride and self-respect. Excuses are a multitude; reception however is a matter of ardent gratitude, for those who know the Management, know that if ever there was One not manipulative, sensitive in taste, with sensibility of understanding, loyalty in undertaking and greatness of heart, this, the Creator who became man, it is He!

Nevertheless, no clothes, no cover. Merely mental aspirations provide no warmth, and possibilities of imagination do not keep!

Indeed, those so covered have ALL things (Romans 8:32) and are HEALED (Isaiah 53:5). It is these - the "we" in Isaiah 53, who have their iniquities borne by the Christ, and NONE OTHERS. There is no room for games, verbal or other; you come and are clothed, or you don't and you are naked before God, covered with pride and guilt like honey and tar, black with inadequacy, sweet with deception.

It is then for all men (I John 2:2), and towards them (Romans 3:22), wrought on their behalf, activated in a love towards "man" (as in Titus cf. Col. 1:19ff.); yet since NONE can ENTER without mercy ONLY as the ground, in Christ, it is for actual shoppers only, not window shoppers. That being said, we can then note that those within can indeed find the impingement of justice, the tang of truth in their dealings with God. Covered on entry, they are constrained within; for the very air is love, and its object is the source of it.

This love is not indulgence, nor yet fate, but the very aura and perspective in the inter-relationship of THIS redeemed creation, man when he is so - and HIS REDEEMER when His work is applied to your heart. Then ? Does He Himself not speak of 'great is your reward', as a facet of the diamond of His blessings, when people are persecuted for His sake! The constraints of love are more personal than those of duty, and far more discerning. It does not regard BEYOND its object, but within it.

Correlatively: Love does not hesitate to chasten (Hebrews 12, Revelation 3), and indeed WHOM I LOVE I CHASTEN makes this aspect of love universal among sinners.

Justice does not hesitate to launch its edge, even on David, when he committed adultery, nor is its temper reduced out of some sort of compunction, as if it were not right to teach so great a king anything. Far from it!

Love deploys forces to protect; justice employs forces to purify; love desires purification; justice insists on it with such passion, that love has had to intervene, and mercy has achieved the result. Thus once the soul is saved, in a prodigious display of love, mercy and tenderness, justice no more collides with mercy than does mercy evacuate justice from its due judgment on the Cross. All is in harmony.

In God, love is always wedded to justice, since
 

• 1) it is utterly expansive^*3 over mankind in the approach made by God;

 
• 2) it is utterly fulfilled in the atonement (Hebrews 9:12-28), limited in scope only because of the restraint of God, who does not use force, but knows His own, even as He loves;


and justice is wedded to love, since
 

• 1) what is left after the trials of this earth, is as Revelation shows, like Psalm 2, 110, like Isaiah 66, is kept in store for the Day of Judgment (Rev. 20-21);

 
• 2) what is needed in the children of God is released under privilege, for justice being met for their entire lives (Romans 5:1-11), discretion proceeds with its edge softened by grace, and its strength hardened by the needs of vitality and truth.

This mutual wedding (and what wedding is not, but this is ardent from both sides!) is seen in the word of God, now from the angle of justice, now from that of mercy, now in its composite grace and winsome beauty (Romans 3:23ff., Titus 3:5-7, Psalm 85:10-11)^*4.

The mystery of love is HOW IT COULD BE, not logically but magnificently - a love so broad and pure, long and deep (cf. Ephesians 3:18-19); and it is not at all why it is restricted, since the principles noted above from scripture show decisively, repetitively and dramatically, categorically and clearly that it is NOT in fact restricted in its outgoing, but in its income. That, too, is no frustration, since love IS restrained and does not INSIST on its own rights (I Cor. 13), desires and implementations. It neither capitulates to mere desire, nor fails in its loving tasks, though these may induce change in what it loves, as is so fitting in life for the living!
 

Thus NO FATE FORCES MAN to hell. That is an outage from the power of truth which is impermissible. ONLY MAN himself CAN be the cause, in whatever relationship with divine mercy, and however far beyond his own knowledge this may be,  in view of his alienation from God, and its dynamic in misdirecting all his thoughts, distorting or imbuing with foreign glitter, gleams and connotations. God's knowledge is the guarantor that love will have its way (its pure and non-violent way). Indeed, it is the precise opposite of the misconception that it is an alienating in advance -  if you want to conceive it for comprehension, processively - as if God were contradicting Himself. In fact, the only contradiction in this case, is that of man trying to present God as other than He declares.

Not merely is it the case, then, that NO FORCE makes you find hell, but it is worse than this: your own preference is cited as the ground of your condemnation, a preference for darkness even when truth and love and light is shining directly upon you (as perfectly clear in John 15:21-23, John 3:19). It is not the absence of light that condemns, not the absence of the love that sent the Son, not the absence of the love of the Son that brings blight; it is the preference in the very face of this light for darkness (John 3:17-19, 15:21-23). LIGHT has come into the world; and what that light has achieved is heralded in the first three chapters of John's Gospel. It then goes on to announce and indeed denounce those in whom such LIGHT having come, DARKNESS is preferred: a lesson Christ individually applied in John 15 as noted above.

Thus the foreknowledge of God is the certainty that nothing goes wrong, that what is to come, comes, that He finds His own and He does not through a technical deficiency, lose what He has loved. Through a technical deficiency, God who can do whatever He pleases, loses NOTHING. His attitude is as stated, His perspective as pronounced, His power as revealed, and His own as chosen in love, taken in power (John 3:1-6).

Thus Christian assurance is NOT an emblem of complacency, but the assurance of a place at a table, where the Head of the House permits no illusions on false sanctity. It is an assurance of the LOVE which God attests toward ALL MANKIND, that they might be saved; it is an assurance in the light of Christ's assurance, and the simple reception of what He has offered, this being by His grace made sure. It is likewise an illustration of the profundity of His passion for justice, and the mercy that it is His everlasting beauty.

Being a Christian, then, is not some prestigious position of inscrutable wonder, a sort of elite exhibition of your saveability; it is the common-as-man attestation of the love of God toward you as toward all men, and in this love, you have by grace received what GOD assures us He would indeed have ALL receive.

You do not need to JUSTIFY your election; you have only to CITE CHRIST, for His is your cover. If you want to find some mystery outside the word of God, small wonder if you drift. Some say: But not all among Christians have assurance. True, and not all are Christians among those who say they are, or loosely imagine themselves to be. But despite that, read Psalm 51. David does have some tender moments as well he might after such a fall! Pangs of horror begin to appal him. Yet he is moved by the grace of God to receive the mercy, the pardon, and thus this teaches us something... If you are sick with pneumonia, do not expect to breathe normally. If you do not breathe normally, do not set yourself up as some example of another sort of life. You are sick, that is all. Get well soon.

How ? Look how quickly David's heart is healed, as seen in the Psalm. To be sure, this may illustrate what took some hours, or even days; yet the end is sure for the word of God is either believed or not. If you are TRUSTING Him, then you trust His word. If you do not trust Him, what has this to do at all with Christian things! (Jeremiah 17, Proverbs 3:4-6).

In the life in God, if sickness comes in, you should seek to root it out, using the antibiotic of faith, wrought by the injection of grace, as was so needed  in Revelation 3's church, the one that was neither hot nor cold. You should remove the lukewarm plumbing and use rain-water or some other method of getting the right temperature. Indeed, chastening, training, rebuke at times is one of the testimonies of love, as some of us may be able to realise on reflection on the intense value of parental rebuke on occasion! It helped. It is the care, not the complacency, which goes with actual Christian living, as distinct from a caricature either of the love of God or of His justice.

Thus no 'love' sanctions your self-indulgence when you are  in and for Christ. There in your heart (Colossians 1:27) IS Christ, and this is no verbal matter: it happens. It is like football: you are not left to wonder if there is the opposite number next to you. You FIND OUT!

If you reject Him, trussed up with your theologies of words, without the word of God ruling, what do you expect ? IF HE is not present IN your life (as in Colossians 1:27, John 6:50-54), then all sorts of imaginary complaints and actual fears are sure to surface; like the parts of some submarine dealt a fatal blow with a depth charge...

We conclude that the antinomies imagined, and the confusion protested or professed by some, in this field, are not warranted. They apply neither in doctrine, nor in practice, in becoming a Christian nor being one. Rather are they the very maps of the blind, the resources of the empty, the computations of the ignorant, uninstructed by the realities to which they erroneously refer.

Simple scriptural premisses are ignored, and philosophical substitutes are erected like so many religious Babels, babbles and baubles alike, without wisdom or scriptural sanction. In type, Kant is a very good example of the error (cf. Predestination and Freewill, Section 4). These erraticisms have no place in Christian apologetics, for this, where the Biblical teaching is the datum, to examine and relish its righteousness, consistency, adequacy and composure,  in contrast with all comers:  this provides the Biblical harmony^*5. Of what value in such a study, is alien study, showing in how many ways it may be contradicted, and in how many errors people may wallow in confusion.

But yet, there IS one advantage in noting it: for the merest departure from what is written, provides, as in any highly specialised and specific matter of great and intense understanding, a liability to error that is profound and most grave. It is so in computer programming where some merest oversight fouls all, and may, once made, be hard to detect.

Here however there is no excuse; for all the words of the 'program' if you will, but better, of the will of the Lord are written out for us, ready for us to inspect at any time. Thus the errors of philosophical generalisations, the normal case alas, where some aspect is withdrawn from its code cover and made generic, when it is constrained to its own pagan dimensions: these are like oil leaks. They soil and lose 'grace' quickly!

Thus is the precision of pronouncement in the Bible indirectly but dynamically exposed, when verbal imputations of some philosophy or other, become the imaginary domains of biblical truth, and masquerading like harlots in a household, act wantonly, as if they had lost all reason as well as righteousness! The word of God however is seven times refined! (Psalm 12:6). You cannot replace it with mere verbiage of man, at all. What, man! a mere creation, spouting his philosophy as if he were God, and instructing others with his vanities! Worse, he is most prone to do it in God's own name ...

It is alas like Israel of old, where the mere complacency of vicious practices reached such heights that the nation reached the depths (as in II Chronicles 36's review of the proceedings)! Serving God AND idols, they did not in fact serve God! (cf. II Kings 17:33-34, where in serving both as in v. 33, they fail to serve God, as in v. 34).

Unbiblical teaching has nothing to do with Biblical harmony. You might as well ask a veterinary surgeon to prescribe for a psychic disturbance in your spiritual life. God's word is as written. It is not as re-written. WHEN it IS re-written then ? why in that case,  it is not the word of God, but that of man!

Man's word then ? It is legion. Its quality in spiritual things is stale. It does not have the life of God when it is beyond, beside or contrary to it in anything. It is then a vain exercise in plagiarism, a sort of doctrinal philandering.

It is time, for the Christian that the days of philosophic philandering, were over. It is time for the non-Christian to realise that the days of speaking of what God says, as if it were what man says, are wasted days, and vice versa. Why ? Oh just this: it is beside the point. It is not the topic. When you speak of God, it is best to know the topic: and not to invent words, thrust them into His mouth, and then assail Him for your own creations (as in II Corinthians 11!). These ? in this realm, they are sure to fail. This too, it is not fate but fatality! Subscribe to death magazine, and what do you expect when it is in due course mailed to your address!

That too, this practical and effectual intolerance of admixture, it is a verification of the word of God. It stands alone. Nothing else so categorically and imperially does so in all truth; and there IS no truth without God, for His omission in itself foils it;  for no one else knows God as God does, nor is there understanding without Him, whose sovereign perspective and word comprises truth, so that  what God says becomes the criterion. On this, indeed, see I Corinthians 2:9-13 with I Cor. 1:19-25. This too is precisely what God is saying through Paul!

Hence if you love God, take Him. His offer is clear, clean and sure. If you do not love Him, you are merely illustrating reprobation, not a defect in the love of God. If you half-heartedly would like to love Him, and do not: then you illustrate the double minded man, who will obtain nothing of the Lord (James 1). If with less than all your heart, you untruly seek Him, this is not the case of seeking with all your heart, when you will statedly find Him (Jeremiah 29:13, Matthew 7:7-8). Notice the "everyone who" in this section of the Sermon of the Mount! The emphasis is not to add, but to ensure no omission!

If you say, I am a sinner, how then could I seek Him with all my heart! then repent of being a sinner, and seek in fervour of soul to have your sin covered, since the offer is to ALL MEN and it is FREE (Romans 3:23, 5:1, Titus 2-3, I Timothy 2, Isaiah 55 remonstrating and expatiating on this gratis aspect!). If you do not want a free gift, then what do you have to do with the grace of God, ignoring the topic which is as a flare of His love, as if blind! If you say, I cannot manage fervour, but I WANT GOD, then ASK (that too is in the above verses from the Sermon on the Mount), and you will have it given. If you say, But how could I have faith with which to ask, being an unregenerate sinner, then confess your sins in repentance, and accept the gift of life. Yet if you continue in fussing, saying, But how could I be sorry for my sins! then it is clear that you ARE not sorry for them, and just want to continue in them.

Your choice. You CAN choose to prefer darkness; it is only coming to the light which is the challenge.

If you are not sorry for your sin, what then are we discussing ? How a sinner who wants sin may exploit the grace of God ? The end of that road is death, doubly deserved. It does not work, for you see, God is not dupable.

A little girl recently asked my wife, Do you think Jesus wants me ? Be sure of His loving grace. The question there was, it seemed, rather whether HE was to be received, to be accepted, whether she would kneel at His feet, not merely talking (like the rich young ruler), but talking more like Zacchaeus, of accepting the free gift freely, through the grace of God, because it is to be desired more than rubies. If however rubies seem to you but cut glass, why talk of jewellery ? That GOD would have all men come to a knowledge of the truth, to repent, is clear enough from His own words (I Timothy 2, Colossians 1), so that you need not act as if you had to penetrate a jungle or destroy an enemy air force.

The 'air force' is on your side. Capitulate, repent and come.

Not 'fate' but folly is the requirement for your own destruction, as in Proverbs 1:20-33. Wisdom calls ... "Because I have called, and you refused, I have stretched out my hand and no one regarded, because you disdained all my counsel, and would have none of my rebuke  ... Therefore they shall eat the fruit of their own way" (from Proverbs 1:24-31). The fruit of folly is particularly tasteless, rather dry and stringy.

A word to the Christian: Some sin has taken you like a Palestinian body bomber, amazing you with its sheer callow callousness ? Then do not be elaborate. Repent as David did with speed, decisiveness and clarity (II Samuel 12), knowing this, that there is nothing automatic about your discipline, which rests in divine discretion; but there is certainty about the love which will give it (Hebrews 12)! God ? He is to be trusted at all times. Without trust, even a dog is horrible.
 
 

*1
See Cascade of Truth ... Ch. 9, News 112, Tender Times for Timely Truths 2,  *1

*2
See The Biblical Workman Ch. 8, and Biblical Blessings Ch. 11.
 

*3
As Paul puts it in Romans 3:22: "Even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe." Offered to all (I John 2:2) in lovingkindness and gracious thrust, it is yet received only by some, who "would not", so that it is upon only some, those who receive it, foreknown indeed to God, and selected of course by Him, but in a scene and scenario when it is His gracious desire to all men (Titus 2:11, 3:4). The Lord has His own principles to satisfy, which are His desire, and these are of Him, by Him, for Him and operate through Him; and in practice as in all love, of which He is both source and sovereign, there is a limit beyond which it does not go, lest then not being love, it become tyranny (I Corinthians 13, Ezekiel 33:11, Matthew 23:37, Luke 19:42ff., Colossians 1:19ff.). Love will not metamorphose. As to Christ, He did  not even run after the rich young ruler, though He statedly loved him.

This righteousness is TO all men, toward them, but it is UPON those who believe, as it is written in Isaiah 61:10-11:

"I will greatly rejoice in the Lord,
My soul shall be joyful in my God;
For He has clothed me with the garments of salvation,
He has covered me with the robe of righteousness,
As a bridegroom decks himself with ornaments,
And as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
For as the earth brings forth its bud,
As the garden causes the things that are sown in it to spring forth,
So the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations."

Like light, it can reach out towards a man, but unless it is in his eye, so that he does not 'see' it, it remains a mere blur, and not an operational reality. Again, it is like a cheque, uncashed, never therefore accomplishing anything more than this that it attests the grace of the bountiful eye that would have provided, but does not, since there is no reception.
 

*4
THE LOVE AFFAIR THAT IS LOVELY

1) The ZEAL of righteousness.

Romans 3, in verses 21-26 is a grand exposure of the zeal of divine righteousness, its utter satisfaction. Its case is met, its desire is sated, its glory is fulfilled. How ?

"But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed..." It is "through faith in Jesus Christ", it is "to all and upon those who believe".

Its need ? It is that "all have sinned."

Its result accruing, "being justified freely".

Its way - Christ "set forth as a propitiation"; its method ? "by His blood, through faith".

Its impact juridically ? "to demonstrate His righteousness", the righteousness of God.

Its enablement ? "that He might be just". The result of that, when it is applied, "and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus."

What follows ? This, that the place of human works in the entire affair here is ZERO ? How is this known ? Paul asks this, Where is boasting ? Works lead to differentials and the scope for boasting of course; but the answer of the apostle ? Boasting ? "It is EXCLUDED." (Caps. added.) It is not bad taste, for it is EXCLUDED. Its presence is nullity, its access is void. It is boat people without even Woomera.

What law is operative then ? Is it one of works ? asks the apostle. No, for the negative is simple. What law then ? "the law of faith". Does this annul the law ? Of course not: it MEETS it (Romans 3:31, 4:25). The result ? The person so covered is newly accoutred in divine clothing, "having been justified by faith" (cf. Isaiah 61:10).

Here is the paean of justice, the stage of righteousness, with the intervening mercy which liberates, activates and enables.

2) The ZEST OF MERCY.

In Titus 3, on the other hand, it is the KINDNESS and LOVE OF GOD our Saviour which is revealed. Here is the perspective entry in this instance. For "we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived..." and then ? "But when the kindness and the love of God our Saviour toward man appeared" ... what then ?

What followed from this divine initiative ? This: "according to His mercy He saved us" (past tense cf. Romans 5:9ff.).

What did not operate in the interests of this mercy ? One thing is excluded at once: it is "not by works of righteousness that we have done". It IS by a work of righteousness, but this, it is one that HE HAS DONE (Hebrews 9:12), eternal redemption; but it is not by any which we have done.

How then did He save us who are saved ? It is statedly "according to His mercy". What method is in this extraordinary grace here depicted ? It is "through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit."

Is this liberal or sparing ? Liberal: "whom He poured out on us abundantly." Through what name, and in the interests of whom does He do this ? It is "through Jesus Christ our Lord." What further intent and portent is found in this ? This: "that having been justified by His grace, we should become heirs according o the hope of eternal life."

What does Paul say elsewhere of this ? He speaks in this way: "For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the the working by which He is able even to subdue all thigns to Himself".

Where is this found ? It is in Philippians 3:20-21. Why would you eagerly await Him ? It is because it is the gift of eternity, made manifest, the power of God, no less clear in Christ's crucifixion, but now far more glorious as a spectacle.

3) The WONDERFUL NUPTIALS,
Mercy AND Righteousness! Psalm 85.

"Mercy and truth are met together." They are not aliens. They commune.

From another facet, "Righteousness and peace have kissed." The 'romance' grows.

"Truth shall spring out of the earth." Thus the union allows an incarnation, and He who said to man, "I am the ... truth" is given human clothing. Does this meet with the Father's approval ? But of course: for "righteousness shall look down from heaven." In fact, we recall that both at the transfiguration and the baptism, the Father spoke audibly of His beloved Son in whom He was well pleased (Matthew 17:5, 3:17).

"Righteousness will go before Him, and shall make His footsteps our pathway" - for this is no divine pageant, but a practical excursion for righteousness' sake, in mercy governed, in love constrained, for God being who He is, is moved to continue as He would be. He is not what He is by some fiat of another; He is what He would be by His own will, and being it, is it! Man  ? He being so suffused with this graciousness, and surrounded by this righteousness, who may be saved by the One who is filled both with truth and love, when he finds Him, is made more and more like Him, for the affair ? it is one of love (Matthew 22:37-39). It flows like a river, where the bed is made clean.

*5
As shown elsewhere , the case is yet more extreme. Christian teaching, from the Bible, is not merely the only way available to meet the 'problems' in the arena of philosophy here, but it is in principle, by its very nature the only WAY that COULD meet it. For this, see for example:  Tender Times for Timely Truths Ch.  11, esp. pp. 172ff.; Sparkling Life in Jesus Christ Ch.   7.