Disconnecting the Results from the Test

"God loves us."

A true statement but insufficient. It presents a result of the test but leaves out the test. When we include the test, we can see how much God loves us. 

We stuffed Jesus into the black hole of death after torturing him. He emerged from the black hole of death still in love with us. Wow!

His love for us was put to the test of adversity. It did not fail the test. It passed the test. It survived. His love for us ought to have faded as we tortured him and ought to have died when we killed him. Surprisingly, it did not. His love for us survived the evil we did to him.

Therefore, always include the test when you state the results.

He continues to love us nonetheless even though we tortured and killed him.

He love us despite the evil we did to him.

The last two sentences state both the test and the result.

The Relationship of Suffering to the Message

God had something to tell us. God had something to say. God had an important message for us. The message was so important that God personally involved themselves in 1) the message 2) its delivery and 3) the guarantee of its genuineness.

What is the message? 

The message is that God loves us dearly. 

How was the message delivered to us? The message was so important that God did not delegate its delivery to a subordinate. God did not put the message into the hands of a flunky. God delivered the message themselves. The most Holy Trinity sent the Son of God to deliver their message to us. He was the messenger and the message. Furthermore, He was the guarantor of its genuineness. 

He was their love note to us.

How did God guarantee the genuineness of the message?  

Suffering.

God allowed us to baptize the love note in the boiling cauldron of suffering.

God allowed us to impale the love note on the sharp hook of salvation while He was human, alive, tender, vulnerable and our guest upon the earth..

Like silver, God allowed us to test the love note in the furnace.

God allowed us to torture and kill the Son of God. 

If the love note were counterfeit, His love for us would have faded as we tortured Him and died when we killed Him. But it did not. His love for us survived.

The survival of His love for us is the guarantee that God gave us that the love note was genuine. The survival of His love for us despite the suffering and death we inflicted upon Him verified the veracity of the love note. Suffering authenticated it. Suffering proved that God's love for us is indestructible. 

Can you even imagine a better, more reliable guarantee? 

God wrote the guarantee of the genuineness of their message of love in the ink of suffering. Why? Because the guarantee was addressed to creatures who suffer. Creatures who suffer understand what it means to survive suffering.

On the canvas of Calvary in the pigments of pain and suffering, God painted a self portrait of the nature of God  Why? Before Calvary and since Calvary, many representation have been created of the nature of God. All of them without exception and regardless of their author are inferior to the self-portrait that God painted with their own hand at Calvary. All of them must yield to the self-portrait.

In the Ten Commandments, God admonished us not to make any representations of them. Why? God knew that any representations of them would be inferior to the representation God would give us at Calvary.

Suffering was not the message.

Suffering was not the messenger.Suffering did not deliver the message.

Suffering guaranteed the message.

Suffering is the seal that God placed on the message of love to guarantee that the message is genuine.

“The only universal language to survive the confounding of languages that took place at Babel was the language of suffering. All creatures who suffer understand it. It is our native tongue. God became a creature who suffers so He could communicate with us in our native tongue”

Why did the Son of God become flesh?

God wanted to tell us something. God had something important to tell the children of Adam and Eve. 

"We want to tell the children of Adam and Eve that God loves them dearly", God announced to the heavenly host. What language shall we use? Shall we communicate with them in Russian? in English? in Mandarin Chinese? in Spanish? in Greek? in Aramaic?

What is the best way to communicate the message? How can we convey the message so that none of its meaning gets lost.

Since the confounding of languages that took place at Babel (Genesis 11:1-9), no universal language exists that they all understand.

Or is there?

Did one universal language survive the confounding of languages that took place at Babel (Genesis 11:1-9)?

Indeed, one did.

The universal language that survived the confounding of languages that took place at Babel (Genesis 11:1-9) is our native tongue. All of the children of Adam and Eve understand it without exception. Its meaning is unmistakable. It is the language of pain and suffering. The language of pain and suffering conveys unambiguous meaning.

The Son of God took flesh so God could communicate with us unambiguously in our native tongue. He did not use the language of angels; he used the language of the mud. 

The God who fashioned us out of the mud with his hands put himself into the hands of the mud to reveal to the mud the sweetness of paradise. The yeast of divinity came to leaven the mud of humanity with the knowledge of God. 

God let us pass him through the gauntlet of pain and suffering so we would see what emerged on the other side. God let us baptize him in evil so we would see what emerged. God let us put him through the test so we would see the results.

We tortured and killed him. He suffered and died. This was the gauntlet. This was the baptism. This was the test.

Yet, he did not stay dead and he did not stop loving us. These are the facts that emerged on the other side. These are the results.

Therefore, to fairly and accurately  represent  the message that God conveyed to us requires two components not one. We tortured and killed him. He suffered and died. This is the first component. This is why the Son of God became flesh. Yet, he did not stay dead and he did not stop loving us. That he did not stay dead is proof that Jesus is God. That he did not stop loving us is proof that divinity is love. 

The first component of the message was necessary in order to give us the proof.  No pain and suffering; no proof. 

On the canvas of Calvary in the pigments of pain and suffering, the Son of God painted a self-portrait of the nature of God. No other representation made by human hands matches the fidelity of the self-portrait.