“For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ: Though He was rich, for your sake He became poor, so that by His poverty you might become rich.” – 2 Corinthians 8:9
Rich…Poor. Transcendent God…Incarnate God. Divine Sovereignty…Human Responsibility. God is One…God is Three. God is Spirit…Jesus is God. I am a sinner…I am justified.
Much of Christian theology means holding two seemingly contradictory things in tension. I’ve been helped in thinking about this by something I call “Grayson’s Analogy.” I call it that because my friend Grayson was the first person I heard share it. Thank you, Grayson!
Imagine you are hanging by two ropes with one rope in each hand. The ropes go up into the ceiling, so you can’t see where they end. You think that it would be easier to hold on to one rope with two hands, so you let go with one hand and use both hands to hold onto one of the ropes. Immediately, you come crashing to the ground. What happened?
The solution to the analogy is that the two ropes you were holding were actually the same rope! The rope went up in the ceiling over a pulley, and as long as you held on to both ends of the rope, you remained in the air. When you let go of one end, the tension was removed and down you came!
So it is in Christian theology. It seems easier only to talk about God as transcendent or only to speak about human responsibility. But doing so ignores part of what the Bible teaches, and our Christian theology begins to come crashing down. Hold on to the tensions. They are what hold us up!
Think These Things 