The history of Christianity is full of controversy. Athanasius vs. the Arians. Chalcedon vs. the Monophysites and Nestorians. Augustine vs. Pelagius. Luther vs. Erasmus. Calvinists vs. Arminians.
Most of these controversies deal with the tension between seemingly contradictory doctrines. Is God one or three? Is Christ God or man? Is God sovereign or is man responsible? Is the will enslaved or free?
Likewise, the Christian life is filled with these paradoxes. Does God choose us or do we choose him? Does God preserve us or must we persevere? Can we fall away or are we eternally secure? Do I just need to trust God or must I obey him also?
When dealing with such controversies, most people try to place their position in the middle. “You have this bad extreme on the one hand, and you have that bad extreme on the other. Then you have my position, perfectly in between, properly balanced, just like Paul.”
In itself, I think this is the right approach. But there are two ways to wind up in the middle. One is through compromise, smoothing out the rough edges until both sides have a group hug in the middle. Such an approach is attractive to a certain type of person.
I myself view the practice of staying in the middle a bit differently. To me, the Christian life is more like being drawn and quartered. Rather than camping out in the mushy middle in a kind of lowest-common-denominator approach, I prefer to run to both extremes at once. I take the rope of God’s absolute sovereignty and hold it in one hand. I take the rope of man’s complete responsibility and hold it in the other. Then I say “Giddy-up!”
I tie the rope of God’s one-ness around the left leg and the rope of God’s three-ness around the right leg. I hitch God’s preserving grace to one side and my need to persevere to the other. Christ’s humanity pulls in one direction while his deity pulls in the other.
The goal is simple: Don’t let go of either rope. If I do, I wind up as a hyper-Calvinist or an Arminian, a legalist or an antinomian, a Muslim or a polytheist.
The stretching is painful, and sometimes I wonder if I can hold it together. But fidelity to God and His Word means that letting go is not an option. After all, He’s not letting go of me.
