Drawing Nigh or Drawing Away

Though God’s love, forgiveness, and truth are always present to us, it is only as we respond to Him by drawing nigh that we can receive these things into our lives. It is this reciprocation that makes a relationship. Drawing nigh cannot happen without two. God can’t draw nigh while we are drawing away. Our only danger—the only way death can come to us—is in drawing away from God.

Unwavering Love and Presence

Since God has granted men the freedom to participate with Him in determining their circumstances and their future, then He must respect their choice to depart from Him into the soul-munching jaws of sin. Yet though He cannot draw nigh to us in relationship, He never leaves us. His love and forgiveness are as available to us in our far country as they would be if we were drawing nigh to Him.

“Christ will never abandon the soul for whom He has died. The soul may leave Him, and be overwhelmed with temptation, but Christ can never turn from one for whom He has paid the ransom of His own life.” – Ellen White, The Signs of the Times, July 27, 1904

Fleeing Toward Death

It is we who leave Him and, though He is a gentleman and takes responsibility for withdrawing (in the multitude of statements in the Bible to that effect), the comprehensive truth is that we are ones who ultimately flee from Him into the Abaddon of sin. Thus, it is sin—not God—that kills, for God’s stance (His love, His forgiveness, His truth) never changes.

Yet God Is Always There

God is very present to all of His creation, but there are limits to what even He can do to prevent the hellish consequences of rebellion. Thus souls die. Yet even when men withdraw from Him, to their destruction, He is still there. In the end, He is left holding the corpses of unrepentant in His arms and mourning their loss as in the classic tragedies in literature.