at-one-ment, as good old George would put it

I've been thinking a lot about theology lately, atonement and sacraments and systematic theology versus revelation versus whatever else. I should state that I believe the most important thing isn't what set of facts you believe about how God works salvation in us, just that He does and that He is intimately concerned in our lives and helping us become more like Him in our words, thoughts, and actions. That said, here's some food for thought:

Here's an interesting quote from Luther:
"I have often advised and still advise younger theologians today that they must so study the Holy Scriptures that they refrain from investigating the Divine Majesty and His terrible works. God does not want us to learn to know Him in this way. You cannot nakedly associate with His naked Godhead. But Christ is our way to God. Those who speculate about the majesty are crushed and led to despair by Satan. The reason for this is that they are looking for answers of a kind that they cannot know, such as for the question: Why did God condemn Judas but spare Peter? And such a speculator argues with God as if with some potter. To keep us from striving to observe God in Himself in this matter, He came into the flesh, presenting the flesh to us, in which we might behold God dwelling bodily, as He answered Philip when the latter gazed at Him: “He who has seen Me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). From this, then, you see the madness of those who say that the flesh avails them nothing (cf. John 6:63), though on the contrary God is of no avail without the flesh. Indeed no God will avail for you except the God of Him who sucked the virgin’s breasts. On Him fix your eyes. For you cannot grasp God in Himself, unless perchance you want a consuming fire. But in Christ you see nothing but all sweetness, humanity, gentleness, clemency—in short, the forgiveness of sins and every mercy, etc. ... The incarnation of Christ powerfully calls us away from speculating about the divinity."
What I take away from this is that trying to understand God from the outside - that is, trying to use human reason as a primary means of understanding the justice and love of the Father - is a recipe for trouble. Instead we should put our emphasis on learning about God through Christ, and also (I would say) from the personal / relational aspect of God's interactions with man in either testament. I don't like systematic theology because I see it as putting God in a corner. For example, applying rigid terms and ideas from man-made legal systems to an understanding of the nature of grace, redemption, and election. It's almost like divine logic algebra: if Exists(grace) & Not All(saved) -> Not All(receive grace).

Another quote, this time from MacDonald:
"It is the one terrible heresy of the church, that it has always been presenting something else than obedience as faith in Christ."
This makes me think of the Grand Inquisitor story from "Brothers Karamazov." The church in Spain in the story basically admitted to giving people a system and a pat on the back instead of helping them attain to what Christ wanted for us, a life of following where he walked, and doing as he tells us. It's "too much" for people. I assure you, nothing less will do. Some members of my synod, the LCMS, might take offense to the quote, but it is not (in my opinion) against our teaching. If (living) faith is trusting in Christ, what is to trust Him but to do what he asks of us? To the extent we follow where he leads us, we have real faith. Don't misunderstand me; our attempts will always be feeble and imperfect, at least in this life. But I would quote Lewis here: "if only the will to walk is really there He is pleased even with their stumbles."

One more thing I think: Christ died for us in a way we could not die of ourselves. But will we not have to do the same in the end? We must be rid of Self, we must someday be willing to endure all that Jesus did, rather than forsake the will of the Father. If we follow where he walked, will we not follow to the cross, will we not grow into sons and daughters who cry "Abba, Father," even if all sense of His presence is gone? Is this not the definition of the Life we are striving for, the Life Christ has planted in us: to know the Father so well and so lovingly that we would forsake all else, endure all things, rather than be parted from the Father? Hell itself could not contain such a one who knew the Father like that. In fact it has failed before.