“Far From the Lord”
If you have ever heard anyone say that a person or a group of people were “far from the Lord” then you have heard theology that is not Christian.
Karl Barth uses the term “the Son of God in the far country” to describe Jesus becoming human as something like Jesus being the prodigal son. Barth argues that even in the Old Testament, God is “on his way to the far country”. That is, God is not about division and separation, but about redemption and salvation. With the incarnation we see the fullness of what it means that “God exists in solidarity with humanity”.
Here is why this piece of theology matters:
Picture a conversation in a church foyer: someone refers to someone else as being “far from the Lord”. This is a demonstration of faulty Christian theology. What it fails to see is that only One has truly been “far from the Lord”. Jesus himself did not remain fixed in God, but showed how God exists WITH humanity and yet remains God. It might be hard to do, but a good Christian response to hearing someone describe anyone else as “far from the Lord” would be to cut them off and say “ONLY JESUS! Only Jesus has been far from the Lord God. Never ever speak about anyone else being far from God. You perpetuate the worst possible lie in doing so!”
Christians supposedly believe that the center of all history is Jesus on the cross (and His resurrection). For Barth, the way of the Son of God into the far country is fulfilled on the cross. This shows the extent to which God expressed solidarity with humanity. What happened on the cross made clear that God has chosen that no one would be “far from the Lord”. The love of God, in Jesus, matters, and we ought not to talk as if it does not matter. If you say that someone is “far from the Lord” then you diminish the reality of God’s love and the “it is finished” of the cross. No one, no more. No one is “far from the Lord”. The church is called not to tell the world that God is far off, but instead that God, in love, is entirely close. We are not abandoned.
Barth’s description of this key theological point includes a latin phrase. Hearing it and saying it might make you feel smart or like you are a character in a Harry Potter book. Barth says that in Jesus taking on flesh and going to the cross, God entered the circulus vitiosus (repeat that three times) of human existence. The term means, the “vicious circle” of the human plight. God’s glory is not fully seen in powerful supernatural displays or even in moral perfection. God’s glory is seen fully in the freedom to love like this, to come close, to enter in, to ensure that no one is “far from the Lord”.
Anything less is simply unchristian.
So erase it from your past, that phrase “far from the Lord”.
Dear God;
I know that some of the people who used terms like that meant well. Not all, to be sure, but some. Some were simply morally arrogant and ignorant, seeing themselves as better than others. We really can be assholes, but it’s even worse when we are religious assholes. I digress. I pray that the term “far from the Lord” would, by the power of the Holy Spirit, lose its energy and any ability to cause pain. I pray that if we remember it or hear it, we would have only two responses:
1. That it would remind us that the only One who was ever “far from the Lord” chose to go to the far country expressly to show us that You abandon no one.
2. That the term would make us laugh, as it is such a ridiculous distortion of truly Christian theology.
Free us from those things that have held us back from seeing the reality of Your love for all people. I pray that we would see that no one is far from You because of who You are and because of what You have done. Let us even take up a game, let us think of people, let us name names in our mind and then say, “not far from the Lord”. Let us do the same with every person we see and meet. I’m doing that right now with a couple of people who I really can’t stand.
In Jesus’ name,
Amen.
What I would say is the truth.
God is not far from us.
in our anger He is not far….
in our despair He is not far….
in our confusion He is not far….
He is with us always.
Let us not be trapped by those who might say otherwise…