"Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming
down from the father of heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting
shadows" James 1:17.
Recently a friend described a commonly held church view
concerning Jesus, God the Father and their dealings with humanity as "Good
Cop, Bad Cop."
Jesus is the "Good Cop". He runs
interference between us and the mercurial Father ("Bad Cop")
Who loves us... but is prone to angry outbursts of rage and wrath. Without
Jesus as the buffer we'd all be toast. Is that how it really is?
Jesus made some theologically shaking statements while He
was here. First, He called God his Father. No Jew ever made that claim before.
Next, while teaching His disciples how to pray, He instructed them to address
God as "Abba" (our equivalent of Dada). So much for rigid formality.
Jesus unashamedly confessed the truth that "I and
the father are one" John 14:9. He claimed to be the exact
representation of the Father (John 14:9) so, where is "Bad Cop
Jesus"?
One might quickly point to Christ's encounter with the
money-changers in the temple.
"Of all the places in the
world that should have stood witness to grace and truth, the temple was that
place; but the world had infected it, and there is nothing to be done with such
a ship of fools but to pronounce upon it the judgment it deserves."[1]
It was after all His Father's house, and they had camped out
there turning in to a commercial venue. At the most He interrupted business for
part of a day. Jesus didn't call down fire from Heaven or have the earth
swallow the vendors and bankers up. That would have really sent a clear
message. He probably no sooner left the area that the crew righted their
tables, rearranged their stock, conducted business as usual while grumbling about the audacity
of that young man. If that's the extent of God's wrath, it's pretty tame.
To define God as a fickle, capricious figure with a short
fuse invalidates James 1:17 and as
the Lord's half-brother, James knew Jesus better than most. For his assessment
of the character and nature of God, and Jesus' pronouncement of being the
Father's mirror image to be true (and it is) there can only be: "Good
Cop, Good Cop," or "Bad Cop, Bad Cop" but never "Good
Cop, Bad Cop." They have to be identical.
The model of "Good Cop, Bad Cop" when
applied to Jesus and God the Father is flat out wrong. God is good all the
time. I do believe that God and Jesus do get angry at the things that destroy
our lives or that distort our image of Who He really is. Those I believe He goes
after with a vengeance, and I welcome His wrath in that respect. He
looks to eliminate anything that's incongruent with His destiny for us as
mature sons of God.
How about you? How would you describe God? Is He more Mr. Hyde than Dr. Jekyll or some combination of the two? Is He so unstable and
unpredictable that you never know Whom you'll encounter, so staying away is
safer? If the Father doesn't look just like Jesus to you, where did you get
your image of Him? Can you live with a Father who is always in a good mood?
[1] Robert Farrar Capon,
Kingdom, Grace, Judgment: Paradox, Outrage and Vindication in the Parables of
Jesus, pg.436
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