Information or Transformation & Divine Repentance?
John Mark Comer & Genesis 6:6
Quote: John Mark Comer
If you want to experience the life of Jesus, you have to adopt the lifestyle of Jesus.
I have been thinking about this concept for quite a while but it was not until this week that I heard someone put such succinct words to the idea. John Mark per usual has a way with words that resonates deeply with me. John Mark is the author of Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, God Has a Name, Garden City, and his most recent book, Practicing the Way. He is also the founder of Practicing the Way, a non-profit that has richly blessed both myself and my life group.
Over the last couple of years he, among others, has exposed me to the Theory of Change: namely, how do we change? What makes us change. For a long time, I thought that change happened from information. If we learn something we just change. It’s kind of ridiculous to put that in writing but it was what I believed and I actually think that it is how a lot of education systems function and a lot of churches too. The problem is that information rarely changes us. Information does not change our doubts. Information does not change our insecurities. Information does not change our habits. Information as powerful as it is, is limited by what we do with that information. For example, I love chocolate. If the doctor told me that chocolate was not good for me and I needed to eat less of it to be more healthy, that information on its own would do absolutely nothing to my love of chocolate. Without motivation, desire, action steps, etc. I would not change a thing about my relationship to chocolate.
So when we approach scripture, what attitude are we coming with? Are we coming, expecting to hear a sermon, verse, concept, or connection, and immediately change? To hear a verse about forgiveness and immediately feel warm fuzzies and want to forgive that person who wronged us? If so, that’s pretty ridiculous. Luckily, there is more than information.
John Mark is in this quote referring to the Sermon on the Mount. The Sermon on the Mount is something that I have been pondering for over a year now. But it was not until last week that I began truly pondering it with purpose. Growing up, I have little to no memory of hearing teaching on the Sermon on the Mount or considering the implications of what is said in these three chapters of Matthew's gospel. For some reason, I thought of Jesus as my savior and my Lord, but due to my unfamiliarity, with first-century Judaism, I did not thoughtfully consider what it meant that Jesus was my rabbi or teacher. The problem with this is that Jesus is referred to as a rabbi and a teacher throughout the gospels. He gathers a group of followers to learn under him as the rabbi. He teaches them how to faithfully interpret scripture, live out its teaching, and how to live the good life. Unfortunately, these things were not so much on my radar. However, over the last year, I have grown increasingly convinced of the importance of the sermon on the mount.
Tim Mackie says of the sermon on the mount “There's no better place to go if you want to get the heartbeat of Jesus for how he saw reality and envisioned that his followers would live and treat other people. And that's putting it lightly”.
There are several wonderful resources that I have been digging into as I have begun to intentionally immerse myself in the sermon on the mount. Just this past week, I listened to sermons from Van City Church, read sermon transcripts from Dr. Martyn Lloyd Jones, and listened to sermons by Reality SF, and Door of Hope. Among all of these resources though my favorite is for sure Bible Project. This year, on January 1st, they began a year of Sermon on the Mount Meditation. They are releasing 10 main videos in addition to visual commentaries, podcasts, and articles. But the cherry on top is that it is all being organized into weekly “playlists” that are 30 minutes long for everyone to read and meditate together throughout the week. I have been so excited about this, I think I have shared it at least once a day all week. I’ve spent the last week listening to the passage of scripture daily and today shared my first weekly reflection in a group chat with two of my dear friends. (If I’ve sold you on it by now, let me know). All that to say, I will be sharing some Sermon on the Mount reflections in the near future but for this post, I wanted to think about the lifestyle of Jesus. The lifestyle he taught and advocated for, which is the same life he exemplified and lived out. The lifestyle of retreating for silence and solitude. The lifestyle of prolonged and persistent prayer. The lifestyle of generosity and sacrifice. The lifestyle of enemy love and forgiveness. The lifestyle of meditation and memorization of scripture. These are ancient practices of Christians that have slipped into the background in recent years but the practices of sabbath, prayer, fasting, solitude, scripture, community, service, generosity, and witness are tried and true methods of transformation and change. As I read the Sermon on the Mount, I read these large and encompassing ideas and then I think of a specific instance where it becomes real and practical. These are the things that I want to emulate and these are the things that I want to be known for and live into in 2024.
Scripture: Genesis 6:6 ESV
And the LORD (YAHWEH) regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.
The following is a question and response between myself and a very dear friend of mine. She was a huge inspiration for the birth of this blog and one of the first to subscribe for future updates. She is a thoughtful Bible reader, faithful servant, and Spirit-filled Christian and I am delighted to pass on the exchange.
Zack, I have a question for you if you have time. Why does the LORD regret creating mankind in Genesis 6? How can he regret something that he chose to do and could know the outcomes of how it would turn out? Creating mankind is part of his divine plan, it seems so counterintuitive that a perfect God could regret his perfect plan. - Grace Schouten
I think “regretted” is not a very helpful translation there. I’m gonna quote from some people and then give some thoughts.
The Hebrew word for regretted is sometimes translated as "repent" and sometimes as "feel sorrow" or "be grieved." God is grieved over his creation, which he at first saw as very good (1:31) but which is now filled with sin (see note on 1 Sam. 15:29).
God saw it … repented … grieved—God cannot change (Mal 3:6; Jam 1:17); but, by language suited to our nature and experience, He is described as about to alter His visible procedure towards mankind—from being merciful and long-suffering, He was about to show Himself a God of judgment; and, as that impious race had filled up the measure of their iniquities, He was about to introduce a terrible display of His justice (Ec 8:11).
What is more, human sinfulness provokes a fierce reaction in God, a bitter indignation (his heart was filled with pain) akin to that felt by brothers after their sister's rape (Gn. 34:7), or that of a father after his son's death in battle
(2 Sa. 19:2). God, therefore, made a decision to destroy his creation.
Nevertheless, as with earlier decrees of judgment (3:15; 4:15), there was a glimmer of hope-Noah found favour in the eyes of the LORD (8).
The words here used are remarkable; they are used after the manner of men, and do not mean that God can change, or be unhappy. Does God thus hate our sin? And shall not we be grieved to the heart for it? Oh that we may look on Him whom we have grieved, and mourn! God repented that he had made man, but we never find him repent that he redeemed man. God resolves to destroy man: the original word is very striking, I will wipe off man from the earth, as dirt or filth is wiped off from a place which should be clean, and is thrown to the dunghill, the proper place for it. God speaks of man as his own creature, when he resolves upon his punishment. Those forfeit their lives who do not answer the end of their living.
For the first time in the Bible, the LORD regretted something that he had made. However, his regret did not stem from something he had done wrong, but rather from what humanity was doing wrong. The fact that people had become totally preoccupied with evil grieved him deeply, much as Israel's sin would later grieve him (Ps 78:40-41; Is
63:10).
This brings us to the next point. As far as God’s knowledge is concerned, since He knows all things, He knew the people were going to rebel to the point where He would have to send a flood. This was not something He merely learned when the people reached a certain level of sinful behavior.
From all eternity He had known that this would occur. However, at a certain point in time, the knowledge became experiential. The fact that God personally experiences events in time has nothing to do with His lack of knowledge of the event. He knew how the people were going to behave and at the time of their rebellion He then experienced what He had known would take place.
Also, this verse says nothing about God being ignorant of the future behavior of the people. The verse does not say that God did not know what would happen in the future. This is only an inference that some people draw from this text. But there is nothing in the text itself to suggest this. When we examine other passages in Scripture that state clearly that God knows all things, we must interpret this verse in light of these statements. We should not take this statement in isolation and infer that it means that God was surprised by the events which led up to the flood. In other words, this should not be our “control passage” in understanding what the Bible says about God’s knowledge of things.
God may be capable of looking back on the very act of bringing something about and lamenting that act in one regard while affirming it as best in another regard. If I spank my son for blatant disobedience and he runs away from home because I spanked him, I may feel some remorse over the spanking — not in the sense that I disapprove of what I did, but in the sense that I feel some sorrow that the spanking was necessary and part of a wise way of dealing with my son in this situation, and great sorrow that he ran away. God is able to feel sorrow for an act in view of foreknown evil — foreknown pain and sorrow and misery — and yet go ahead and do it for wise reasons. And so, later when he looks back on the act, he can feel that very sorrow for the act that he knew was leading to the sad conditions,
To your first question, I would say that God is grieved because he chooses to subject himself to human freedom and now sees the way they have screwed to heck the good gift of life and the world.
To your second question, that is a super intuitive and yet ambiguous question. The same question could be asked of why God gave free will if he knew we’d rebel, why he put the tree if he knew Adam and Eve would eat it, why he allowed the snake, why he allowed Saul, etc etc.
We know that he is all-powerful and all-knowing so when he chooses to do something and then let people interact with that perfect plan and quite possibly and almost always mess it up, he is taking a risk that is tension at the heart of the whole biblical story. The Biblical authors (I think for good reason) explain his responses to the failed human interaction with his plan with anthropomorphisms - that is they describe an infinite being with very human and earthly language of emotions because they have no better language or categories to describe Him. Again I do not think regret is a good English translation as much as grieved or repented (that is to turn from or from our perspective change his course of action).
God is consistently coming in to stop humans from devolving into utter chaos and evil. The flood was actually a mercy so that human evil did not spread but instead, God showed profound mercy to Noah and the world by allowing the disorder humanity had introduced to crash back in on them.
I do not know if that is helpful at all.
Here are some links I found helpful if you want to keep reading.
https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/why-does-god-regret-and-repent-in-the-bible
(Photo taken by Zack Gross May 16, 2020)
You did a great job tying all of this together
What intriguing conversation! Thank you both!