“How great are your works O LORD! How unfathomable your thoughts!” Psalm 92:5
Good theology is multi-faceted, comprehensive, and accumulative, ever-building upon itself line upon line, precept upon precept. If the poured foundation at the beginning is skewed, everything built upon that foundation will be off kilter. However, if the plumb-bob of God’s Word is carefully used for the foundation and all of the theological framework that follows, then the building will be true and right and a blessing for its owner and his tenants (1st Timothy 4:16).
For example, before we can understand the immensity of the grace, mercy, and love that God shows to His elect through the sacrifice of His Son Jesus, we must first understand God’s holiness and man’s depravity. How can we ever begin to measure the bridge between the two until we have first defined the poles in which the bridge spans? The chasm that lies between heaven and earth is an eternal one, un-measurable, and requiring an eternal bridge to span it. Let me briefly explain myself.
First, how can we define the holiness of God? Just how holy is He? What English words will we use to capture and communicate in full accuracy, this non-communicative attribute that belongs only to God? There is no sounding device that we can employ that can reach these depths and give us an accurate measurement of this attribute. Scripture saves us from the folly of trying when it says…“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!” (Romans 11:33) This knowledge is simply too deep…it is simply too lofty for us to attain understanding (Ps 139:6).
Now, what of the depravity of man? Just how depraved are we? If there was ever a polar opposite to God’s holiness, it is found in the sinfulness of man’s heart. The Scriptures tells us in Jeremiah 17:9 that “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” The answer to this hypothetical question is “no one”. The heart is simply too wicked, too deceptive, too corrupted, and too manipulative for us to be able to understand it. And it is this very vessel that lies within us! “What a wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:24-25)
When we consider these two unfathomable attributes, God’s holiness on one side and our depravity on the other, we begin to scratch the surface of the eternal sacrifice that was paid for us on Calvary. Minimize one attribute or the other and the foundation of the house will be unalterably skewed until corrected. The literal, physical cross of Christ had dimension that day on Golgotha. It had height and breadth and width. However, the eternal gulf that God spanned was indeed an infinite one.
-Pastor Craig