For our Lord is a consuming fire. (Hebrews 12:9)

The lovingkindness of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting. (Psalm 103:17)

Introduction

We may call them tensions of existence, those seemingly contradictions that upon deeper reflection or examination form the paradoxes that make up our lives. How we navigate those paradoxes goes a long way in showing how we go about living our lives. And the way we live our lives speaks to the worldview we hold, regardless of the extent to which we are aware of our worldview. I have written before about what I call tensions of existence, [here] [here], but I want to restructure that discussion in light of worldview analysis from a Christian perspective. The paradoxes that fill out our experiences I believe are grounded in the character of God. Rather than being contradictions, they are tensions that give meaning to life when we come to understand that such experiences are grounded in the reality of who God is, thereby shedding light on how we can navigate such experiences in our day-to-day living.

I want to open a door to four areas in which we might experience living as comprising contradictions or tensions, exploring God’s word as to how we might settle into navigating those paradoxes that confront us: diligence/ceasing to strive; obedience/resting in God; human responsibility/God’s sovereignty in our lives; and finally what has been errantly considered as Pauline theology in contrast with theology attributed to James.

Diligence/Cease Striving

They will seek me diligently but they will not find me . . . (Proverbs 1:28)

Cease striving and know that I am God . . . (Psalm 46:10)

Throughout the book of Proverbs, diligence is contrasted with indolence. Want and poverty come upon the idle and lazy like night falling over the day. In contrast, the diligent provide for their means and the means of their family and loved ones. One of the major themes in Proverbs is its declaration to seek wisdom above all else, to pursue wisdom diligently. Other synonyms for diligence include assiduity (skillful living), persistence, and hard work. The warning of Proverbs 1:28 entails the frightening consequences of idleness, wherein one realizes the results of slothfulness in not pursuing wisdom, but cannot find wisdom although one seeks for it diligently. This provides a harrowing portrait of a wasted life.

Given that diligence comprises skills that are amassed across life via persistence and hard work, it is easy for us as fallen creatures to turn diligence into a harried lifestyle, full of anxiety and fear. We may come to believe that we must know everything, exercise perfection in all that we do, and build up a way of life that proves something to ourselves and others. (Many of the verses in Proverbs pertaining to diligence and hard work have been absconded in the false teaching of the prosperity gospel). To counter such a harried lifestyle, we must take to heart Psalm 46:10 – Cease striving . . . How do we on the one hand, diligently work out our lives, while on the other hand, cease striving before God? To understand striving, we must acknowledge those times we are trying to work according to our own strength, not being led by the Spirit of God (Galatians 5:16-18). Developing diligence does not entail a work-harried life, nor does ceasing to strive equate to an idle or passive way of living. Both exhortations from Scripture are true. We are to pursue wisdom diligently, building diligence into our lives, while simultaneously resting in God for the outcome and care He provides. Some people may want to call such an approach to life balance. But I think the notion of balance can be misconstrued. We work at life diligently, accruing the wisdom that Scripture calls us to build, while resting in God’s sovereignty that He will make our paths straight (Proverbs 3:6).

Obedience/Enter God’s Rest

But he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him. (John 3:36)

For the one who has entered God’s rest has ceased from his works as God did from His. (Hebrews 4:10)

As believers in Christ, we know that we are to obey and keep God’s commandments. Scripture is replete with commandments to be obedient before God (Exodus 19:5; Deuteronomy, 11:1; Psalm 103:14; Isaiah 1:19; Luke 6:46; John 14:21-24, 15:23; 1 John 5:3, etc., etc.). Equally true is the warning against legalism, seeking to obtain righteousness through fulfilling God’s Law by our own merit. Paul’s entire epistle to the Galatians speaks to this human failing along with many of his other epistles as well as writings penned by other apostolic authors. How do we on the one hand, obey God, while on the other hand rest from our works as God did from His (Hebrews 4:10)? Just as we can turn diligence into a harried life, we can do the same with our pursuit of obedience to God. Hebrews 4:10 speaks to the truth that upon entering God’s rest, we have ceased from our works, i.e. seeking to earn our salvation through works. As believers in Christ, we can do the exact same thing with our sanctification whereby we strive to grow in the knowledge of God by becoming obedient to Him through our own efforts. God’s word tells us that His will for us is our sanctification (1 Thessalonians 4:3). Likewise, salvation and sanctification are gifts bestowed upon us through the power of the Holy Spirit. Christ dwells in our hearts through faith (Ephesians 3:14-19). Entering God’s rest means we embrace His grace to work out our salvation in fear and trembling, knowing that it is God who works in us to do His will (Philippians 2:12-13). As fallen creatures, we come up short every day in working out our salvation, many times per day. We have the solace, however, from 1 John 1:9 that when we do fall short, as children of God we can confess our moral failings, thereby restoring our relationship with God. Faith is the overarching power that allows us to pursue our sanctification but to enter God’s rest and cease striving.

Human Responsibility/God’s Sovereignty

I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. (Exodus 33:19)

Just as you do not know the path of the wind and how bones are formed in the womb of the pregnant woman, so you do not know the activity of God who makes all things. (Ecclesiastes 11:5)

Much of the discussion above can be consumed under the heading of human responsibility juxtaposed to God’s sovereignty over all things. The question that this apparent contradiction brings up is how, on the one hand, are human beings morally responsible for their actions, while on the other hand, God is understood as being totally sovereign over the universe and all that transpires there? While the Apostle Paul gets at this knotty problem through his epistles, he primarily addresses this paradox in Romans, chapters 8 and 9. From a reading of those two sections of his epistle to the believers in Rome, we obtain Paul’s teaching that God is totally sovereign, can do as He pleases, when He pleases, and however He pleases. Additionally, Paul tells us in Romans and other epistles that God is totally just, perfectly holy, and supremely righteous in all that He decrees. God is not the author of sin, nor does He tempt or cause anyone to sin (James 1:13). Although God is completely sovereign, human beings are morally responsible before Him. Given that He owes humanity nothing, anything good coming from God is a gift through grace from Him. At this juncture, we must look at the line where space-time meets with eternity. Human logic is a gift from God for our use to navigate the world in which we live. What finite logic cannot do, however, is totally comprehend God, whose ways are higher than our ways (Ecclesiastes 11:5). Both God’s sovereignty and human responsibility are Biblical truths that we embrace although not totally understanding how they work together. While human responsibility signifies to us our culpability before God, God’s sovereignty is our comfort that no matter what occurs, He is in control. As stated above, we can enter His rest and cease striving, knowing He is God.

Justification: Faith and Works

You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone. (James 2:24).

For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the Law. (Romans 3:28).

These two statements, both by apostles of Christ, have caused much consternation for believers who make up the Body of Christ, the church. Early on, after his conversion, Paul made contact with Peter and James, sharing with them what he understood the gospel to comprise. They readily responded to Paul with a handshake of acceptance. (Galatians 1:18-19). Paul delineates these facts in his letter to the Galatians. In his epistle to the Galatians, Paul painstakingly lays out that individuals are not justified by their fulfillment of the Law of God. The Law, in fact, is a roadmap to the need for grace from God. The Law declares to us the fact of our sin nature, that we do in fact commit sin, constantly falling short of the requirements of the Law. Hence, the Old Testament sacrificial system is a type that pointed to the antitype fulfilled in the atoning work of Jesus, the Christ. Paul declares to the Galatians that one is justified, declared innocent before God, by faith alone in Christ’s atonement on the cross. To seek to live by the Law, therefore, is to add human merit to the work of Christ.

Those known as the Judaizers, Jews who knew James, the brother of Christ, infiltrated the church at Galatia, teaching the Christians there that in addition to faith in Christ, they must fulfill the requirements of the Law. Specifically, the Judaizers told the Gentile Christians in Galatia that they must be circumcised. Upon learning this, Paul writes his epistle to the Galatians, excoriating those who view getting right before God by adding certain requirements of the Law to faith in Jesus’ work of atonement. Because the Judaizers knew James, and because of particular verses in James’ epistles, some theologians have construed that Paul and James preached two different gospels, one by faith alone in Christ (Paul), and one by faith plus work (James). However, as stated above, James was one of the first apostles whom Paul made contact following his conversion. Afterwards he met with Barnabas, submitting his understanding of the gospel to him to make sure he was not running in vain (Galatians 2:2). A closer look at James clarifies the apparent contradiction between Paul and James, thereby clarifying the apparent contradiction we may experience in our understanding of faith and works.

Throughout the epistle of James, he denounces an empty mental assent to a belief in God that in turn produces no evidence in a person that he is a Christian. The foundational teaching of James is that one cannot claim to be a Christian while evidencing no change in one’s life that indicates that he belongs to Christ. He presents the same teaching as Paul of Abraham as an example of faith. While Paul stresses that Abraham was reckoned as righteous some 400 years before the Law was given to Moses (Romans 4), James points to Abraham’s offering of Isaac for sacrifice as evidence of Abraham’s faith (James 2:21-24). As Paul had pointed out, Abraham was reckoned as righteous because He believed God (Genesis 15:6), centuries before God gave the Law to Moses, and many years before God tested Abraham in commanding him to sacrifice his only son Isaac. Paul and James, therefore, are speaking to the same truth. We are justified by faith, but our justification should evidence changes in our lives that demonstrate that we are different individuals due to our faith. Indeed Paul equally emphasizes with James the relationship of faith to works. Paul lays out this truth in Ephesians 2:4-10. While we are indeed saved by God’s mercy, we are also God’s workmanship created for good works which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them (Ephesians 2:10). Are we then saved by faith alone? Yes. Are we to evidence works, or good deeds, in our lives? Yes. But we do not perform works to merit salvation. Our works are in response to the grace that God has bestowed upon us.

Conclusion: The Attributes of God

The verses that form the epigraph at the beginning of this blog, speak to the attributes that make up the character of God. When we explore and meditate upon the various attributes of God, we confront what we may believe to be apparent contradictions. As stated above, how we navigate the paradoxes that life sends our way speaks to the worldview by which we live. It incumbent upon us to comprehend our worldview as fully as we can. We are to live out the truths of God in our lives through faith as a witness to the world. How we understand those truths so as to live them out entails our Christian worldview. God is wrath/God is love. God is eternally sovereign/humans are finite and responsible. God is transcendent/God is immanent. God is beyond our comprehension, yet He has revealed Himself to us so that we can know what He intends for us to know (Deuteronomy 29:29). How are we to understand the apparent contradictions that seem inherent in the attributes of God? First, we must humble ourselves before God, setting aside our sin of pride, becoming open to the truth that because He is infinite and we are His finite creatures, human logic cannot envelop the nature of God. There are paradoxical truths to which we must simply hold. This we can know. Given all His attributes, God is not arbitrary. He is totally just. In terms of God’s wrath and His love, these two attributes are resolved, not in discounting God’s justice, but knowing that the price has been paid by Christ’s atoning work so that love and justice meet. God is both just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus (Romans 3:26). Given the attributes of God who makes all things, and that we are fallen creatures, why shouldn’t we encounter life as a series of apparent contradictions that we are to navigate and understand in light of the character of God? God is the source of all that is good, holy, just, and righteous. And without compromise, God is the source of all that is compassionate, gracious, forgiving, and loving-kind. Without compromise is the key. Both sides of these attributes are grounded and resolved in the lovingkindness of God who satisfied justice through the payment of Jesus’ atoning work on the cross. Our Christian worldview can be lived out before the world by God’s grace. Likewise, given human responsibility, we can fall woefully short of living out what we believe before the eyes of the world. May we prayerfully seek God’s grace to be the kingdom of priests and the light that the the Body of Christ, the church, is called to be.

John V. Jones, Jr., Ph.D./September 14th, 2025

CHRISTIAN THOUGHT/Worldview