The Sin of Omission

July 11, 2021

Acts 9.31 has this interesting complexity to it: “Living in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit…” On the one hand, fear. On the other, comfort. Too much of one and you have harsh legalism and a mean God. Too much of the other and you have anything-goes-ism and a meaningless God. So, Ananias and Sapphira—one small mistake and they’re dead. So, also, Saul of Tarsus—many big mistakes, but still God calls him.

Behold, our God! It shouldn’t surprise us. After all, God’s creation is complex, so why shouldn’t God be? And if our God is complex, shouldn’t our response to him be as well? Sometimes it’s fear, sometimes it’s comfort.

Growing up I enjoyed looking out my bedroom window at lightning. I slept upstairs over the garage, with my bed right against a westward facing window looking out over most of our farm. We lived on top of a hill, and storms usually rolled in from the west. I could lay in bed and watch the flashing, marveling at the beauty of it. Last night/early this morning I was laying in bed actually stressing about the lightning, a little scared at how bright and loud it was. It’s the same phenomenon, the same lightning, but a different context elicits a different response.

To say lightning is always fear-inducing, or always amazing, would be untrue and overly simplistic. It’s not one or the other, it’s both. It’s complicated, yes, but not needlessly. To say it was one or the other would be to rob lightning of part of its meaning, part of its essence. It would be only terrible, ignoring the beauty of a landscape going from black to bathed in a blue glow to black once more, all in the manner of a fraction of a second, or it would be only good, ignoring the very real danger that comes with so much electricity trying to find an instantaneous route back to the earth. 

So too with God. God is not all fear or all comfort, nor is God all fear-inducing or all comfort-inducing. He is both, and we live in light of both, lest we reduce God to something he is not. Sure, he would be simpler that way, easier for us to grasp, but he would also cease to be him.

The early church understood that they were a part of the holy people of God. That means you need to fear God. That means you need to attend to the sin problems in your life. Ananias and Sapphira did not, but their example was enough to fill everyone else with fear. 

The early church also understood that they were filled with the Holy Spirit. That means you are filled with comfort and peace. God is at work within you and around you, even if you should be Saul, bound and determined to stamp out the followers of Jesus. Our God is both, and we cannot omit either without omitting part of God, himself.

—John Coffey

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