God of the Grave

Our God is a God of resurrection. We celebrate this every Easter in the empty tomb (and every other day of the year, as well, for if He lives, He lives every day). We have read in the Gospels the stories of the dead brought back to life. We have even seen it in the Old Testament, generations before Jesus, when the prophet raised the gracious woman's son back to life. 

Yes, our God is the God of resurrection and the empty tomb. 

But He is also the God of the grave. 

Our God is the God who executes justice, who determines what is good and right and does something about what is wicked and wrong. When evil people were after David, when he was running for his life, when he couldn't fathom a way out of the caves he was hiding in, when he nothing but Goliath's sword and a little bit of bread his men took from the altar, he confidently proclaimed: 

But You, O God, You will drive them into the lowest pit - violent, lying people won't live beyond their middle years. (Psalm 55:23)

David knew that God is a God of life, and he knew that the Lord could restore him fully to the calling that He had placed on the young shepherd boy, the fledgling king. But in the very same breath that David knows that God is a God of life for the faithful, he also knows that God is a God of death for the unrighteous. For the unrepentant. For the wicked. 

Again, this is a theology that we don't particularly like; it's one we wrestle with. How can we say that God is a God of love if He is also a God who brings humans down to the grave, to the lowest pit? Those two things don't seem to gel. 

But let's take an example from our current culture. I see a lot of posts from friends on social media about how if someone wants to be in your life, they'll make the effort to be in your life. Even if they are family by blood, you don't owe them anything if they aren't interested in the investment. And indeed, I know many who have cut ties with family for one reason or another and who have kept their kids from knowing someone who is related by blood. 

The perspective behind this is simple: you love yourself and your child so much that you'll do anything to protect them from someone who is toxic and dangerous to them, even if that means there can be no relationship at all. 

The same is true with God. There are children of His who have chosen not to be involved, not to be invested, not to be part of the family, not to make the effort. They sow discord and destruction; they spread lies and wreak havoc. So God has simply said, for the sake of His children who do love Him and have chosen to be part of His family, He's okay cutting these others off. He's okay making sure His wayward children do not get to be toxic and dangerous to His faithful ones. He's willing to let those who have said they don't want to make the effort not reap the rewards that the effort would have given them...because it's toxic and dangerous to everyone else. 

They're still His children. Always will be. But they've chosen to cut themselves off, so God is content to let them go. This God of life is willing to let them die if that's what they so choose because to do anything else would be to contaminate the very good thing He's got going in love. So He will bring them down to the grave, the way a Father lays down an over-tired, feisty young child - tenderly, but firmly, fighting all the way. But He'll do it. 

He is the God of resurrection and the empty tomb. But He's also the God of the grave, if that's what you so choose.