Jan
17
2012
All our hopes here
No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known. John 1:18
“John, in placing all his hopes on one person as the unique disclosure of a universal answer, sets the stage for an almost chilling anxiety of commitment. If only the Son has made God known, then the hopes of humanity rest upon the Son. This needs to be spoken in a hush, because it evokes a hope that if disappointed will mark the last stage of despair. Hope in the Son is a last resort. If the Son has not made God known, and if we agree with John that no one has ever seen God, then we shall remain in a place of tragic solitude. There is nowhere else to go. . . .
Walker Percy, the novelist, has described humanity as ‘waiting for news.’ Christianity says that the news has come. It brings to the human situation the news that what we most need has been supplied: perfect atonement for guilt. It declares that what we know to be true about ourselves has been responded to decisively and eternally from outside ourselves.
This confidence that there is good news for humanity in the place of our solitude is summed up in the words ‘Christ died for our sins.’”
Paul F. M. Zahl, Who Will Deliver Us? (Eugene, 2008), pages 37-38. Italics original.