The Elephant

"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:35-39

I stumbled across a video entitled, "Sin Separates Us From God, #35 The Elephant." The story illustrated in the video is as follows. "The Kingdom of God is like a boy who went to the zoo with his mother. The boy had a bag of peanuts with him, which he ate from as they went from one animal exhibit to another. Soon, they came to an outdoor elephant enclosure that was surrounded by a large trench. There was a bridge across that trench. The bridge was too narrow for an elephant to cross, but it was wide enough for a man. As the boy stared at the elephant, a man in a zookeeper's uniform came with a large bucket of peanuts with which to feed the elephant. He came to a gate. The gate had a large sign which read, "Zookeepers Only!!!" The zookeeper opened that gate, crossed the narrow bridge and went to the elephant. The boy marveled as the elephant ate peanuts from that bucket while the zookeeper hosed down its huge body with water. When the zookeeper was finished, he came back out of the gate and the boy stopped him and said, "Mr. Zookeeper, sir. I have some peanuts, too. Can I go in and feed the elephant like you did?" "Absolutely, not!" said the man. Do not even think about it!" As the zookeeper walked away, the boy began to think to himself that it was just not fair that this man could feed the elephant, but he could not. So, when his mother was not looking, the boy began climbing up the gate with the sign on it and had his bag of peanuts hanging from his mouth. "Hey, get down from there!" shouted the zookeeper as he ran back to the gate and pulled the boy down. The boy's mother was shocked as the zookeeper marched over to her with her son in his arms. He was very angry. "Madam, is this your son?" said the zookeeper. "Yes," she replied. "Please tell your son," said the man, "that the sign on the gate that says, 'Zookeepers Only,' is there for his protection. Please also explain to him that I also explained to him not to even think about going in because I care about him. That elephant does not know him. If he had gotten in there and if he had startled that elephant, your son might have been killed!" The conclusion to all of this was given by the narrator of the story. "The Bible teaches us that sin is any thought, word or action that is any violation of God's rules." He continues that God gives us rules, "kind of like the sign on the gate." We are warned that "sin separates us from God" and that He sent His Holy Spirit "to help us obey his rules." Therefore, we no longer have to be "afraid of the elephant ... of God's judgment." Does this sound like the loving God of the Bible we are told loves us? Is He the caged elephant that we want to know, but are prohibited from doing so because we don't obey His rules? Furthermore, is He just waiting to stomp people into the ground who desire to know Him, while only the privileged few get to enter His presence? There may be some truth to this if you look at it from the standpoint of salvation when it comes to the lost and the saved, but that point isn't emphasized.

The problem with this illustration is that it inadvertently paints a picture of a God whose presence nobody will be able to enter into; not even the proverbial "zookeepers" of the faith. If the criteria for doing so are obeying God's rules then God will definitely be behind a closed gate where we are prohibited from entering. How can sin separate us from God when the Bible says, "God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people's sins against them (2 Corinthians 5:19)"? Sin cannot separate you from God when God isn't even counting your sins against you! If the Holy Spirit was sent to "help us obey [God's] rules," then why did Jesus say, "when the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth (John 16;13)." The Holy Spirit came to guide us into all truth not to teach us how to obey God's rules. Besides, "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes (Romans 10:4)." This might as well say, "Christ is the end of the rules," etc. You cannot have rules apart from the Law especially when the rules were put in place to lead you to Jesus Christ. And Christians are no longer under the law.  "Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the law (Galatians 3:25)." Most importantly is the truth about what God has done. The Bible says that God, "lives in unapproachable light (1 Timothy 6:16)." This means that there is more than a "gate" between us. If God lives in unapproachable light He can't come near to us nor can we approach Him. Therefore, we are told that God "emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men (Philippians 2:7)." Dare I say, to use the elephant illustration, that this is like saying the elephant "emptied himself" taking on the form of a human being (i.e. the boy). God, in His love for us, came out from behind the "gate" and became one us. It gets even better. God not only became one of us, but He also obeyed His own rules for us. This is why we read, "And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death-- even death on a cross (Philippians 2:8)!" God became a man, in Christ, obeyed the rules we could not, and took the penalty of death we deserved. And, the most incredible thing of all, He rose from the dead to offer us the Holy Spirit; the very life of God restored to us. The indwelling Holy Spirit that all born again Christians possess will never leave us because there is no sin which will cause God to remove Himself from us. He loves us that much. That is why we are reminded that nothing in all creation, including our sins, will separate us from God and His love. God did all of this for us and didn't even ask for a bag of peanuts in return.