An Unsafe God

by Pastor Dan Miller

^{Editor’s Note: This article was reprinted with permission from Dan Miller’s book Spiritual Reflections.}

“Who said anything about safe?”

Have you ever been reading and had a line jump off the page, grab you by the nose hairs, and refuse to let go until your body fairly tingles and your eyes nearly water with its meaning? That was my experience when I first read Mr. Beaver’s classic retort to Susan in C. S. Lewis’ fictional series, The Chronicles of Narnia (Book 2: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, p. 86).

In this classic tale—verbally shallow enough for children to wade in, philosophically deep enough for adults to drown in—Lewis creates the make-believe world of Narnia. In this mythical land, people and animals converse with one another, and Lewis chooses to cast a great lion named Aslan as the Christ-figure.

A group of English children find themselves in Narnia, seated at a kitchen table, talking with Mr. and Mrs. Beaver. Word has it that Aslan has recently arrived on a rare visit to Narnia and that arrangements have been made for the children to meet the “Lord of all the wood” (Mr. Beaver’s description). Young Susan, in particular, is hesitant about meeting a lion. She queries:

“Is he quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”

“That you will, dearie, and no mistake,” said Mrs. Beaver; “if there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking they’re either braver than most or else just silly.”

“Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.

“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.” (p. 86)

Not safe, but good! In this elementary dialogue Lewis crystallizes (in the mouth of Mr. Beaver) the essential balance of a biblical conception of God and of his Son, Jesus Christ.

I say “biblical” purposefully. As a pastor, I talk to people about God for a living. In order to know what I’m talking about I read the Bible diligently—cover to cover—because in this book we find God’s revelation. By “revelation” I do not mean that the Bible merely gives unique insight into life, which it certainly does. What I mean is that the Bible reveals truths about God and life that we could never discover on our own, but which we absolutely must know nonetheless. And as I read the Bible the reality that is impossible to ignore is that God is, in fact, not safe.

There are pages upon pages of the Bible which reveal that God is a God of judgment, punishment and discipline. He is quite capable of intense, holy anger and he means for us to be frightened by his severity (read for instance, Genesis 6:5-7; Numbers 25:1-9; Acts 5:1-11; Revelation 19:11-21; 21:8). Further, the Bible reveals that following Christ means to let go of life as we know it and to embrace death to self-orientation and to self-love (Luke 9:23-24; Colossians 3:5-10). That doesn’t sound very safe!

That God is not safe is a truth few seem willing to consider, however. This is sad and not a little dangerous. None of us fancies a case of the knocking knees, as Mrs. Beaver put it, but we miss something very valuable when we twist our image of God into one that is innocuously safe. As the Bible makes so plain it is this dread fear of God that provides the necessary balance for us to perceive just how wonderful the counterbalancing idea of God’s goodness really is.

The fearful part is that God is a holy God who judges sinners. The counter-balance to the equation is that this holy God, this unsafe One, is singularly good. Indeed, the very reason Christ came to earth was not that he might judge us, venting his holy anger, but that he might forgive and rescue us from our sin, demonstrating his immense love. As the apostle John put it: “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:17).

Jesus even took the just judgment of God against our sin upon himself, and personally paid the penalty for that sin which was physical death in separation from the Father (1 Peter 2:24-25). Because he is perfectly just and entirely sinless, God could either damn us all, or die himself. He chose to die, in the person of the Son (Colossians 2:9-15).

Through personal abandonment of self-dependence, into a relationship of trust in this divine work of love in our behalf, we can (through divine enabling) escape the wrath of God and enjoy the splendors of his goodness in heaven (Romans 8:1-4, 18). For a holy God of absolute purity and perfection to make such a rescue available to sinners is not only good of him, it is good in him, flowing from him!

Make no mistake, it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of an angry God (Hebrews 10:31). But it is a glorious thing to fall before this same God in abject spiritual poverty and to be met by his gracious goodness.

Dan Miller has served as senior pastor of Eden Baptist Church (Savage, MN) since 1989. He graduated from Pillsbury Baptist Bible College (Owatonna, MN) with a B.S. degree in 1984. His graduate degrees include an M.A. in History from Minnesota State University, Mankato, and M.Div. and Th.M. degrees from Central Baptist Theological Seminary (Plymouth, MN). He is nearing completion of D.Min. studies at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (Deerfield, IL). Dan is married to Beth, and the Lord has blessed them with four children.