Opposition to who God is results in exile from His presence. This is the primordial wound from which flows the entire deluge of sorrow, suffering, and death that plagues humanity.
However, on the cross, this entire mass of opposition to God pierces to–and is borne in–the heart of God Himself. This is the eschatological wound from which flows a deluge of joy, restoration, and life. And this life-giving deluge (who is the Holy Spirit) gives joy, restores, and imparts life precisely by causing God-opposing humanity to come repentantly alive to the Beauty of who God is (Zechariah 12:10, 2 Cor.3:18, 4:6), a Beauty revealed precisely in the moment that He is pierced by our sin and its effects (John 13:31-32, 17:5).
When the sin of the world pierces to the heart of God, it reveals the heart of God to the world, and so becomes the unwilling agent of everlasting joy, divine fellowship, and eternal life for all who will receive the Crucified Jesus who is Risen as Lord and God (John 17:3). This revelation of the “King in His beauty” IS the sight that transfigures sorrow–even the sorrow of the Fall–into joy.
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