God with scars

Image courtesy of Tim Challies

Cathedral Newsletter - 20 November 2025

Friends in Christ, “Christianity is the only religion whose God bears the scars of evil” – Os Guinness.

Many religions reject the idea that God could, let alone would, be directly connected to the undoubted suffering we see in this world.

For example, much classic Buddhism sees suffering as an illusion to be escaped.

And Islam does not believe Allah would allow righteous prophets to suffer, let alone be touched by death Himself.

By contrast, Christianity believes that in sending his eternal Son, Jesus, into the world as a man, God somehow enters into human suffering.

So for example, the Bible speaks of the rulers of this age as having “crucified the Lord of glory” (1 Corinthians 2:8).

The Apostle Paul remarkably spoke of the “church of God, which he bought with his own blood” (Acts 20:28).

In thinking through how God could become a man and die for our sins, there are intellectual depths that the greatest human minds have struggled to fathom.

However, here is how the poet and author, Dorothy Sayers (author of the Lord Peter Wimsey detective stories) put it:

"For whatever reason God chose to make man as he is – limited and suffering and subject to sorrows and death – He has the honesty to take His own medicine. Whatever game He is playing with His creation, He has kept His own rules and played fair. He can exact nothing from man that He has not exacted from Himself. He has himself gone through the whole of human experience, from the trivial irritations of family life and the cramping restrictions of hard work and lack of money to the worst horrors of pain and humiliation, defeat, despair, and death… He was born in poverty and died in disgrace and thought it well worthwhile." (Creed or Chaos, p4)

Many religions have gods. But only one has a God who cared enough to become a man and die for us.

Warmly in Christ,
Sandy Grant
Dean of Sydney