Take heed, beloved, lest His many kindnesses lead to the condemnation of us all. [For thus it must be] unless we walk worthy of Him, and with one mind do those things which are good and well-pleasing in His sight.

The essential meaning is perhaps straightforward.  Concentrate however on how the text says “His many kindnesses”.  Can kindness lead to our condemnation?  This leads to various traditions among the Church, mostly in two ways of looking at it.  One way to look at this is to describe God as a seemingly motionless or static Love who burns people who are unable to love Him back.  This has been a belief among those who hope for the salvation of all.  It is an enticing belief.  However, it also seems like we need to consider another tradition, a more dynamic understanding of God, where God does indeed get angry or joyful, rather than describe them as relative human experiences of a static divinity.  In this case, “His many kindnesses” can allude to the fact that we are abusing His kindness for not being diligent in doing His will.

So the question becomes how can an infinite God sound so human?  Well, it has a lot to do with our assumptions.  In some instances, the argument is made that many descriptions of God in the Old Testament is man’s limitations in describing God, and therefore, these are “anthropomorphisms”.  However, other people tend to frown upon this idea and say that a true Semitic principle is that man is made in the image of God.  Therefore, these are real divine descriptions where we emulate in our “theomorphic” realities.  That does not mean they believe God is flesh and bones like us, but they tend to look at it from a spiritual perspective and try to show that it would be unfair to describe such emotions as “anthropomorphisms” as if these are “fake” or “relative”.

Sistine Chapel, Source

(more…)