Wow, from 2002! I wonder if you have expanded this further.

This to me is like going back to first principles, back to who God is rather than looking at our present reality as we see it.

Yes, God does not need anything. Yes, God carries out his will regardless because He is Lord Almighty. Who are we to think we can twist His arm?

And yet I wonder if God allows it.

What do I mean? Would God modify what He would rather do to cater for a request for someone (transactional) whom He loves if it was still within the overall plan and still bring Him glory. Because of love, would God change His plan?

This blows my mind even more. That a God who is NOT transactional would allow it if it helped a person to the end that it brings Him glory.

Great thoughts, I wonder if I had read it in 2002, would I have understood it. But in 2008, it makes a lot of sense to me.

This post is speaking to my heart. I’ve been reading this post and the application section for hours, and still don’t understand it all. So I think I have to meditate on this a little longer.

Coming from a charismatic evangelic background, this is one of the most gracefull things I have ever written. Thanks!!!

But at this moment I’m thinking about a few things, which I hope you can clarify:
- Do you mean that everyone is saved, but has to say “Yes”? Or is not acknowledging God or specifically denying Him, the reason for going to hell?
- I still don’t understand what you’re saying means for the people that lived before Jesus actually went to the cross. Can you explain that?
- If one prayer doesn’t cause your name to be written in the Book of Life, what does?

Thanks,

David

Thank you.

I’m currently wrestling with this in regards to prayer. Not the worship God kind of prayer. Not the pray without ceasing, direct and submit my thoughts and feelings to God all day long (not that I actually do it without ceasing, just that it’s not hard to understand how to do it). But the kind of prayer where I’m supposed to ask in faith, believing.

Because rarely do I know what to ask, since God is God and even (or especially) in the depths of my despair, it feels presumptuous and even scary to ask God to do what I want or think best. And asking for spiritual things, the “easy” things that I can pretty much know are God’s will, well that feels like a cop out. And adding, “If it’s your will” feels manipulative like I’m trying to convince God that I’m really submitting to Him even though I’m giving Him this great suggestion in the form of a prayer.

So even though I don’t understand everything you wrote, my heart resonates with the questions and challenges you are raising. I tried to hash out my uncertainties about prayer on my own blog today. In a much less profound way, I am struggling with this issue of transactionalism and how/if my words or prayers are supposed to be important in the big scheme of God’s work on this earth.

Thanks for asking good questions and sharing good thoughts on your understanding of the answers.

If God is outside of time (John 8:58 – Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.”), then He already knows all of the choices we will make in the “future” (as we, locked in time, perceive it to flow). Like a mural, God can simply look at the whole completed ‘thing’ of creation (including the future) and smile, even as we perceive ourselves to still be painting it with our actions.

That takes nothing away from the reality of our free will in making choices, or our responsibility for making them wisely, recognizing their consequences. But it does put the our relationship with God in a different light, very much in line with what you are saying here.

I.e., what *transaction* can there possibly be with a God who made you, knows all the hairs on your head, knows everything you have done (and will do) and whose amazing gesture of love on the cross is timeless–both “forward” and “backward” and oh by the way, owns the entire universe?

Your messenger analogy is tremendous. There is no “transaction” any more than there can be in any totally selfless act of charity from one of utter abundance to one utterly destitute and hopeless. The recipient doesn’t “transact”. The recipient only chooses to accept, recognize and reflect given love–or not.

“Transaction” just doesn’t make any sense when all there is is our awakening to the eternal reality of a love that always was there–only we were too dense (many of us) to figure it out as quickly as we should have until God made it plain to us on the cross what the highest form of love really looks like.

“Accepting” him as Lord isn’t a transaction; it’s an embracing of reality.

I agree that sacraments indicate ever-present and available reality, but I would say that the sacraments are the most complete (Johnny Cash said that flesh and blood needs flesh and blood) and thus most accessible form of embracing reality.

And wow!
2) I believe the Gospel doesn’t proclaim a transactional “contract,” but a new order where the sovereignty of God expressed through the Lordship of Christ is the ultimate reality of the universe.