In my last post "Encouraging The Discouraged" I mentioned that God, throughout the Bible and even today, uses contrast to draw us to Him. So today I started making a list of the contrast He has used throughout the Bible.
Creation: He uses light to contrast and break the darkness.
The Garden of Eden: God warns against the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. From there Man faces the contrasting view between "inside the Garden" and harmony with God and "outside the Garden" and separation.
Israel wanders through a parched desert for 40 years while a generation is trampled into the sand against the backdrop of God's promise of a lush and fertile promised land.
Abraham and Sarah meet contrast dead on when God fulfills His promise of bringing new life to them when Sarah gives birth to a son, Isaac, at the age of 90.
Sodom & Gomorrah discover judgment raining from the sky as God contrast their life of debaucherous pleasure against the pain of His righteous fury.
Noah's life and the Ark again brings God's judicious nature into play as He contrast man's ability to walk this earth unrepentant against man's ability to tread water before he drowns in the depths of his own indignity.
Job. If there ever was a God-Man relationship that defined contrast it would be Job. Never has anyone seem so abandoned, so tested, but yet so loved.
Christ. God reconciles His use of contrast through Christ. In Jesus, He brings about the fulfillment of His desire to offer salvation to man, His prized creation, by placing the punishable burden of that which is corrupt and detestable, man's sin, on that which is pure and holy, Christ. The greatest love suffers as He is sacrificed in the most horrific and most loathsome of deaths known in the Roman Empire. Love in the form of Christ, man's greatest and only hope, was crucified by God's hate for sin.
Darkness fell over the earth. And Life, the light of the world, was buried in the darkness of our sin and the darkness of a borrowed tomb. True to His nature in dealing with man, God again plays the use of contrast as He defeats death with Life. Christ walks out of the cold of a dark tomb and the promise of Life beyond death, man's eternal reconciliation with God, comes to light.
And just as in The Beginning, when God spoke the creation of light into existence, God's radiance again cuts through the darkness and God seemingly says "Let there be Life." And there is life.
"I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." ~ Jesus (John 8:12 ESV)
I'm sure I've overlooked numerous "contrasts" that God uses throughout the Bible to draw man to Himself. I'd be interested to know which ones come to mind for you.
Comments