Recently, during the Q&A period of an event, someone asked how the Holy God can dwell in sinners like us, I confess that for a moment my mind went in several directions, trying to find a clear and satisfying answer, I do not know if I did. I realized that I was facing another of these mysteries that we encounter every time we tried to reconcile biblical texts that apparently teach contradictory things.
Later, alone, I reflected once again on the fact that the reality around us is imbued with this apparent contradiction: nature, the world, people are immersed in a reality where God’s grace, holiness, justice, and mercy are mixed in a way that is not always understandable with imperfection, impurity, darkness, and death , I see it in me. At the same time as I realize God’s grace in my life, I realize my inability to be righteous and just all the time. My words, my sermons, my writings, everything reflects holiness and fall, purity and imperfection, life and death.
- In a way I cannot understand.
- God is present in me.
- Although I remain a corrupt sinner in all my faculties.
- The God who lived in an imperfect temple in the Old Testament also manages to inhabit the imperfect temple that I am.
- The immanence in this world is also mysterious.
- While creation is in a state of fall.
- Decay.
- And death.
- God is present.
- Supporting it and guiding its history to the end He has already determined.
Therefore, salvation and judgment are also present and act in the world; God, in His grace, saves sinners through the gospel, while He already judges and extends his judgment on the wicked and those who do not repent; the kingdom of God is already present, but not yet fully Christ reigns, but he has not yet defeated his last enemy, which is death; Satan has already been defeated, but remains active against the church; I have been justified and sanctified in Christ, but I am still a sinner and will prove death (unless the Lord returns sooner). In the Christian experience, good and evil are inseparably linked to the consumption of history, until the coming of Christ. No good is free from the stain of sin and no evil is beyond redemption. .
In practice, this mystery poses several challenges for the Christian: on the one hand, to live the faith with the confidence that, even in the face of sin and evil, God’s grace and mercy are present; on the other hand, just live in this. Tension not resolved Just and sinful. Calm down for the imperfection of your best actions, prayers, and thoughts, despite your best efforts to live in a holy way; mourn and cry for them, but rejoice in God’s mercy that comes to us through Jesus Christ. And finally, vacuum and desea. la arrival of the eschaton, when this tension is finally resolved. Maranatha!