The big picture

It is against these parameters then that human history unfolds:

God is Love.

He allows man the choice of whether to live within that Love and become part of it, or not.

He allows man the consequences of his choices, because essentially he wants a relationship with man based on love, not on response to stimulus or on fear.

Choosing to turn away from God, living away from his life-giving Love brings with it dire consequences – death.

Because man chose to turn away from God on the back of listening to Satan, the one who is opposed to God and the enemy of our souls, man conceded his God-given authority over the world he lives in to the enemy.

Or, seen from a different angle, the enemy deceived man into handing over his God-given authority and usurped man’s place of authority over the world, at the same time usurping God’s place as master in man’s life.

Living turned away from God, refusing to receive His Love, empowers the enemy of our souls, enabling him to remain in the place of authority over the world and allowing him to continue his deceiving influence in our lives, keeping us away from God and his Love.

And so when we sin, when we live turned away from God, we empower the enemy against us and something dies.

God has not given up on man however. He continues to love, he continues to seek to be involved in man’s life, he continues to invite man back into meaningful and liberating relationship with him.

Man, however, is unable to turn to God by his own efforts.

The enemy of our souls imprisons man by continuing to deceive man, making him believe that God no longer cares. He makes it his business to make sure man does not turn back to God. Not only is it man’s tendency to keep listening to the deceiver. Not only has man’s tendency become to seek power and self-centredness (Satan’s values) more than love. Satan makes a claim on man’s life, claiming that because man had enthroned him in God’s place, man is now under his dominion and rule.

Yet throughout history, there are those who by faith, by choosing to ponder on the things of God, by choosing to think about what is revealed about God in Scripture (and through any other evidence) about God, are able to enjoy a meaningful relationship with God and are able to experience and taste his Love, at least to an extent. The Bible is full of stories of people like this. Yet these people are still caught up, still trapped in the matrix of a world dominated by the enemy who calls himself the Prince of this World. Man is essentially a prisoner - separated from God and powerless to change the matrix he finds himself in.

Because God is Love, he does not leave things as they are. He does all in his power to free man from his prison, from the dictator who rules, from the cancer of sin that wreaks havoc in his life.

Because God is Love, he breaks into the matrix man finds himself in. God cannot change the rules, he cannot go against his character, he cannot go against the ‘law’ of Love. He will not force man into relationship. Connection with God will always have to be as a result of man’s acceptance of an invitation into relationship. Nor will He overrule the consequences of man’s choices and simply oust the enemy whom man has allowed to rule. He has to allow consequences to choices that are made, including man’s choice of empowering and enthroning the enemy.

But break into the matrix he does. 

In a wonderful act of sabotage, God breaks into humanity and becomes a man.