What’s wrong with the Father turning his face away?

The issue with the Bethel line, and Stuart Townend’s, ‘The Father turns his face away’ in the somewhat ironically named, ‘How deep the Father’s love for us’ is that it misunderstands the holiness of God, and it does violence to the Trinity.

Satisfied? Or shall I continue? Ok since you insist.

It misunderstands holiness because it takes holiness to mean, ‘separateness’ or ‘otherness’, which is part but not all of the truth. If God is anything, he is NOT separate. While God doesn’t fit into any categories we have, (here ‘one of a kind’ is a better translation of the concept of holiness) God’s holiness is better understood as ‘other-seeking-Otherness’. God is the other who by nature, shares life with others. Initially and eternally thats the Trinity. If we don’t have this more relational grounding for holiness, we end up with an understanding of holiness that puts God’s nature at odds with being in relationship with us – as if his holiness somehow means he can’t share the same room as anyone who is different. He would like to, but he’s holy, so what are you going to do? God is all about sharing the room with otherness, and not always harmonious otherness either (see Jesus and table fellowship in the Gospels). So, once we get that building block in place we can move on – holiness is relational, and it speaks of God’s uniqueness and God’s nature to create community within and around Godself. Sweet?

If we misunderstand this – which Bethel and Townend have, we end up thinking that God’s holiness is at odds with his love. So we give holiness to the Father, and love to Jesus, so that they don’t have to share – because (since we’re in the habit of creating them in our image) we figure they aren’t very good at sharing anyway. So the Father is distant, otherness, unapproachable glory. And Jesus gets to come close and be our companion. The Father gets to be angry, but Jesus gets to be forgiving. So the damage is well and truly done before we even get to the offending lyric in the otherwise wonderful song. Its that damage that has some Christian’s believing that Jesus has saved them from the Father, rather than for the Father. God’s wrath becomes something that is uncreative, something that vanquishes, rather than part of the redemptive, salvific direction of all God’s working and making, reworking and remaking in the cosmos. God’s wrath becomes antithetical to God’s nature. Now I’m not doubting or denying God’s wrath, I’m simply asking that it be understood as God’s wrath, and not in the category of human rage or anger. It is human to get blind with anger and take our rage out on innocent victims. This is not the way of God. God’s wrath is holy. It is of a different kind to ours. God’s wrath is for us – as much as God’s forgiviness is. In fact, without wrath, forgiveness is cruelty. It pronounces us guiltless without dealing with the root of our brokenness. In this way God’s wrath is the painful side of sanctification. The process of dying and rising with Jesus. Every Christian meets the wrath of God, we are not spared it. We must not be spared it. But it is for us – and so we are not destroyed, instead we are remade. Changed from glory into glory.

Nearly got sucked into a tangent there. So, this brings us around to why these lyrics are problematic. St Paul tell us where the Father is when Jesus is dying on the cross.

‘For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation.’ 2 Corinthians 5:19

There is no fracture between Father and Son. If there was, how could Jesus pretend to be the remedy for our own fracture with the Father? Instead he invites us to share in his intimacy with the Father – our participation in Christ, in whom we live and move and have our being.

The notion that Jesus got himself into a state that meant he was too horrible and sin-riddled to even be looked upon by God the Father fails to realise the way this family works. Can you imagine a state your child could get into (particularly when he was the victim of a situation, and not the villain) where you wouldn’t rush to embrace/protect/weep over your boy? I can’t. And if we can…how much more our Father in heaven? How can we trust this Father who turns away from his beloved son, is this the same father Jesus tells us about in the Prodigal – who rushes forward to welcome home the scheming thief? The truth is the Father doesn’t turn away. Its not scriptural. Its not sound theology. Jesus dies, and the Father and Spirit go with him into death. The New Testament is utterly singular on one key point, that Jesus didn’t raise himself from the grave. God did, the Father and the Spirit. How? I guess we have to assume that they were down there with him. ‘All the fullness of God was pleased to dwell with him’ – wherever he was dwelling (Psalm 139). One of the best things about the novel, ‘The Shack’ is that the Father bears the wounds of the cross too. The Father doesn’t do this to Jesus, the Father is the victim as well. The Father is incarnate and present in Jesus (if you have seen me, you have seen the Father).

Of course, many will quote Jesus’ own quoting of Psalm 22 from the cross as proof that the Father looked away, or abandoned him. Wrong again. Jesus quotes the first line, well known Jewish practice for bringing to mind the whole Psalm. The later part of the Psalm states: