Sinners in the Hands of God
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Heather: [00:00:00] Hi, this is Heather from the Rebuilding Faith Online Community. I joined the community because I was drawn to a space where I could continue to grow in my faith, but in a different way. I felt like I no longer belonged in my church home because I didn't adhere to the typical beliefs I had been raised with.
I no longer could fit in the pew at my church while knowing my vay son was not accepted by the Christians with whom I worshiped. The best part about my experience in the community has been feeling that I'm not alone in my faith rebuilding journey. I'm learning so much through amazing podcast, belonged book studies and lesson.
I love the community and the content and comments shared. I'm thankful.
jeremy_1_09-04-2025_122149: Welcome to another episode of Rebuilding Faith.
These are 10 minute Bible messages for people with questions and doubts. And I wanna begin today by referencing one of the most famous sermons ever given in American history given by a guy named [00:01:00] Jonathan Edwards.
It was called Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God. You've likely heard of this sermon. Maybe you're aware of it. If not, let me just refresh us for a moment and give you the imagery that Jonathan Edwards paints for us when it comes to what does God think about us? This is what Jonathan Edwards had to say. The God that holds you over the pit of hell.
Much as one holds a spider or some loathsome insect over the fire, a bores you and is dreadfully provoked his wrath toward you, burns like fire. He looks upon you as worthy of nothing else but to be cast into the fire. He is a pure eyes than to bear to have you in his sight. You are 10,000 times so abominable in his eyes as the most hateful, venomous serpent is [00:02:00] in ours.
Now let's close in prayer today. I mean, that is some potent stuff, and this was a big deal. Now, if you read the history of this, this didn't play out well. There was a ton of suicides in Jonathan Edwards congregation that he seemed confused by. When you perpetually paint this picture for people, it doesn't provide much hope.
It doesn't provide much to go off of. And eventually Edwards would be removed by his own, parishioners because he was so rigid in the way that he presented. God. Nonetheless, this has caught on for a lot of people. Now, today we're gonna look at John chapter eight. We're gonna see a very different way of understanding.
Who Jesus is. John eight, verse 12 says, Jesus spoke to the people once more and he said, I am the light of the world. If you follow me, you won't have to walk [00:03:00] in darkness because you will have the light that leads to life. Now in chapter seven, Jesus had said for all of them to come to him if they were thirsty.
Now he's saying he's the light of the entire world. Jesus is not being subtle here. I if we're confused, like, did he really think he was God? John's version of Jesus is so clear about this, that Jesus is repeatedly inviting people to experience God through him and saying, you're the light of the world is a pretty clear.
Indicator of this. Verse 13, the Pharisees replied, you are making those claims about yourself. Such testimony is not valid. And Jesus told them those, these claims are valid, even though I make them about myself, for I know where I came from and where I'm going, but you don't know this about me. You judge me by human standards, but I do not judge [00:04:00] anyone.
And if I did, my judgment would be correct in every respect. Because I'm not alone. The father who sent me is with me. And your own law says that if two people agree about anything, their witness is accepted as fact. I am one witness and my father who sent me is the other. Where is your father? They asked.
Jesus answered. Since you don't know who I am, you don't know who my father is. If you knew me, you would also know my father. Now this is a bombshell idea that I would suggest many Christians today have missed. As well. And now a lot of people when they look at the scriptures, they see in the Old Testament, God seems to be this grumpy old man.
And in the New Testament, God suddenly looks very different and God looks like Jesus and Jesus comes along and he's much cooler than the God of the Old Testament. I love the way that John Mark Comer has said it. It says, the Father is the grumpy old [00:05:00] war monger in the Old Testament. And Jesus is the son who went off to Berkeley and came home with all sorts of radical ideas about grace and love and tolerance.
But if you think God, the Father, you know, this idea like God in the Old Testament is fundamentally different than Jesus, then you are missing the point of Christianity. And friends. My time in ministry has shown me that many people do in fact, miss this gigantically huge essential part of Christianity.
Then verse 20 says, Jesus made these statements while he was teaching in the section of the temple, known as the Treasury, but he was not arrested because his time had not yet come. John continues to tease out this idea that we have seen throughout this series already we are building on this tension of Jesus'.
Time is [00:06:00] coming, but not yet, but not yet, but not yet. John just keeps teasing this out time and time again. Now, earlier this week, we began a new book study in our online community, and we're going through the book, freeing Jesus by Diana Butler Bass. And she talks about all the different ways that she has experienced Jesus.
And each of the chapters are different ways . So she has, and Jesus as a friend, Jesus as a teacher, a savior. Et cetera throughout the book. And, it's got me thinking about the different ways that we can experience Jesus today. It's not just one very rigid way that, that you can experience God.
And I would suggest at a minimum, there should be at least three ways that you wanna understand Jesus in order to understand not only what Jesus is saying here, but to help you read the entirety of the Bible and make sense of it. Right, and so how do we read the entire Bible and not get so confused by this God that seems to be changing [00:07:00] all the time?
Well, there's three different Jesuses that I would encourage you to try to reconcile together. You have Jesus of the Old Testament, Jesus of the New Testament and the resurrected Jesus today. Now lemme explain. Jesus of the Old Testament, meaning Jesus existed before the incarnation, before Jesus took on flesh.
Jesus was already around so we can find Jesus. In the Old Testament as well. Obviously the New Testament is where everybody expects to see Jesus. But then the third one is the resurrected Jesus today. Because what a lot of Christians do is they think, okay, all the Jesus stuff's done, Jesus said and did all He's ever gonna say and do, and, and that's all we have to go off of.
And we completely miss the fact that if Jesus is still alive today, there is a resurrected Jesus who we can experience today. So our insights from [00:08:00] Jesus don't end in the New Testament 'cause that's just where we see that version of Jesus. Now we experience the resurrected Jesus himself in our midst.
Today, and so I would suggest that a healthy view of God reconciles all three versions of this Jesus. There is Jesus to be found in the Old Testament, Jesus in the New Testament and the resurrected Jesus today. All of them are ways in which. You and I can experience Jesus. And when you have this holistic view of Jesus, it saves you from a lot of really bad theology.
Like we find in Jonathan Edwards sermon, a lot of really bad theology that convinces people that they're awful, that they're scum, that they're dirt, and, and we go, well, how do people conclude this? It's from the way that we often imagine God. But if you understand that there is a Jesus of the Old Testament, a Jesus of the New [00:09:00] Testament and the resurrected Jesus, today, you end up with a very different picture.
I wanna close with something that Brian Zahnd has written as an pastor and author, very opposite to what Jonathan Edwards said, but he uses the same Image. Brian writes this, the hands of God are not actually hurling thunderbolts from heaven like Zeus of the Greek pantheon. The hands of God have been stretched out in love where they were nailed to a tree.
The nail pierced hands of God. Now reach out to every doubter and every sufferer revealing the wounds of love. The hands of God are not hands of wrath, but hands of mercy. To be a sinner in these hands is where the healing begins. I'll see you next week on Rebuilding Faith.
