A God Who Gets It

I recently finished a very moving novel by Naomi Ragen titled The Sacrifice of Tamar. It was interesting, so intriguing, and so insightful (it’s an old read, but my local library never disappoints with their fiction section). No it is not about any of the Tamar’s we find in the pages of the Bible but of a Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Jewish woman living in America who has the unthinkable happen to her early on in her marriage that later on pops up as a bitter reminder of her hidden past.

As I read it, I recalled a lesson I had back in Dogmatics class (it has nothing to do with dogs, but everything to do with dogma, i.e. doctrine) in college where our lecturer was exploring the different views concerning the relationship between Christianity and Judaism. Others said Christianity was an extension, or continuation, of Judaism, while others said Christianity was something completely different from Judaism. What made me recall this lesson is how I just couldn’t relate with Tamar’s God.

Tamar sacrifices her life because of her understanding of God. He is One who cannot tolerate fault, One who cannot handle imperfection. Late in the story it is pointed out that her understanding wasn’t completely correct, no thanks to the fact that they (women) were excluded from studying the Torah. God is painted to be One who is quick to punish when His laws are broken, One who distances Himself from anything that isn’t quite perfect, One who showers the good with blessings but allows harm to come to those who do bad. I was shocked by this understanding of God. But I then remembered that if all you have is the Old Testament, you only have half the picture. Sure there are pixels of God’s compassion, His grace, His unending love and slow-to-anger nature scattered throughout the psalms, the narratives and the prophets, but we only fully see and understand these characteristics of God in the New Testament through Jesus Christ.

This is why Christianity is not an extension of Judaism, but rather an entirely new faith. A faith in Jesus the Son of God who fulfilled the Law and provided us a new covenant, a covenant of forgiveness through His blood. A covenant of grace. Paul’s ministry makes it clear that Judaism and Christianity are two different entities, calling Jews to put their faith in Jesus, their long-awaited Messiah (see Romans 10:1; 11:26). We love Jews as Christians, salvation comes from them as Jesus said in John 4:22. We pray for them to come to salvation as Paul did (Romans 10:1) but we are not confused about our relation to them.


I therefore struggled to keep up with Tamar’s understanding of God because I cannot relate to a God who cannot understand or tolerate fault. This is probably because of Hebrews 4:14-16 which says
“Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are – yet without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”
Jesus sympathizes with us because He understands human nature, and that is because He had His fair share of struggles on this side of life. He knows exactly what it feels like, even though He did not give into those feelings. He gets it, He is our kinsman redeemer after all. We therefore come to Him in times of struggle and need, we do not run away from Him out of fear, but run to Him because we know in Him we will find mercy, we will find grace. And sometimes, it is only with Him that we have this benefit, because in the eyes of others, our fellow humans, our mistakes make us, they define us, and they mark our end.

I’ll close off with one of my all-time favourite poems. It was written during World War I by Edward Shillito, a minister from England.

If we have never sought, we seek Thee now;
Thine eyes burn through the dark, our only stars;
We must have sight of thorn-pricks on Thy brow,
We must have Thee, O Jesus of the Scars.
The heavens frighten us; they are too calm;
In all the universe we have no place.
Our wounds are hurting us;
Where is the balm?
Lord Jesus, by Thy Scars, we claim Thy grace.
If, when the doors are shut, Thou drawest near,
Only reveal those hands, that side of Thine;
We know to-day what wounds are, have no fear,
Show us Thy Scars, we know the countersign.
The other gods were strong; but Thou wast weak;
They rode, but Thou didst stumble to a throne;
But to our wounds only God’s wounds can speak,
And not a god has wounds, but Thou alone.