How many of you, as a child, had a preferred parent to go to when you wanted something? Many of us have asked our mother for something, hoping she would convince our father, or we have asked our father, hoping he could get our mother to agree to it. And now, as parents, many of us know the other side of that game as our own children pull similar stunts. We might even use this to our advantage, like in a lecture scenario, as one parent prefers to be the “good guy”, while the other settles for the “bad guy” role. As an adult, I have witnessed good cop, bad cop interactions outside the home as well. In order to manipulate others, those in authority can use this approach to convince you to behave a certain way. After you get reprimanded and perhaps even threatened, the other guy swoops in and calms the storm. At that point, you are ready to give in just to get the bad cop to shut up.
Manipulation is never a good thing.
While these approaches might seem to produce results that we want, they are not healthy. Manipulation, while it might serve as a road to changing someone else’s behaviors temporarily, is never a road to love and trust. Therefore, it never helps to develop healthy relationships.
There is a tendency amongst Believers to view Jesus and God as if they are playing the good cop, bad cop game with us.
Unfortunately, since we are prone to using and experiencing this good cop, bad cop mentality with each other, we tend to view God as using it as well. Since, in the Bible, Jesus seems so “nice” and loving, we assume He must be the “good cop”. Then, since we know the stories from the Old Testament (cities being destroyed, plagues, etc.), we assume God the Father to be the “bad cop”. Of course, we probably wouldn’t say this out loud, because it sounds just plain wrong to call God a “bad” anything. I think part of this may be due to misunderstanding the relationship between Christ and God when it comes to us and our sin issues. Scriptures say we have an advocate in Jesus. Due to our trust in Christ our sins no longer define us. However, certain passages are often misused to depict Jesus as having to go to God to convince Him to not destroy us each and every time we sin…as if God is saying, “Well, Jesus, since you are taking up for him, then I won’t fry him this time”. This is not what is happening. God does not play manipulative games with us.
God and Jesus are on the same side. They both love us…eternally and unconditionally.
Read this passage from John:
25 “I have said these things to you in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures of speech but will tell you plainly about the Father. 26 In that day you will ask in my name, and I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf; 27 for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God.28 I came from the Father and have come into the world, and now I am leaving the world and going to the Father.” – John 16:25-28, ESV, emphasis added
Jesus is telling us something important here. According to Verse 26-27, we do not have to beg Jesus to turn to our Heavenly Father and convince Him to be okay with us every time we mess up. In fact, Jesus is telling us that God already loves us because we trusted in Him. This trust has led to us having a new identity. We are loved! Yes, Jesus is our advocate, and the job is already done. It’s not an ongoing task that Jesus has to keep up with in order for God to continuously be convinced not to give up on us. The truth is this: God, Himself, by His grace sent Jesus to make a way for us to be in a relationship with Him. It was His plan, along with Christ, all along. God is not the bad cop, ready to yell at us, while Jesus plays the good cop and coerces Him to calm down. They’re in this together, as One. God excitedly and eagerly granted us righteousness when we trusted in His grace made available through Christ.
God has given us a new identity and has no need for us to convince Him of anything.
Although we still need confession and repentance (these are gifts from God) as a means to free us up from the guilt of doing wrong, we do not need Jesus to convince God to save us over and over again from our Father’s wrath. That’s already a done deal. Even when we do not behave according to our new identity, nothing changes what He has done in us. We are who He says we are now: saints, loved, forgiven, righteous, accepted, significant, able to love others, and secure just to name a few descriptions He has for us in Scripture. A tremendous part of trusting Him is trusting who He now says we are, so that He does the work in us rather than us striving to do it ourselves. And miraculously, when we trust Him we discover that we are not sinless, but we do sin less.
-Neil
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