I think one of the most damaging trends in our world today is the inability to separate "love" from "approval." For a variety of reasons, we've forgotten that love and approval, though often linked, are not the same thing, and when we believe they are, we create a rather hideous monster. This monster is a set of two extremes, both of which are dangerous.
The first extreme is to believe that God, because He loves us, approves of all of our actions and attitudes. This is simply not true. God is appalled at humanity's sin. The Apostle Peter writes in 2 Peter 2:12, "They are like brute beasts, creatures of instinct, born only to be caught and destroyed and like beasts they too will perish." To be caught and destroyed by God sounds horrible, to me. Oh, but if only it stopped there.
God, using the author of Psalm 50 as His mouthpiece, says:
"You hate my instruction
and cast my words behind you.
When you see a thief, you join with
him.
You throw in you lot with
adulterers.
You use your mouth for evil
and harness your tongue to
deceit.
You speak continually against your
brother
and slander your mother's son.
These things you have done and I kept
silent;
You thought I was altogether like
you.
But I will rebuke you
and accuse you to your face" (17-21).
Maybe the thought of an Almighty God rebuking us is terrifying. Perhaps the idea of the Judge of Mankind accusing us is too uncomfortable. Whatever the reason, we try and convince ourselves that, because God is love, He must accept everything about us. Psalm 5:4 reminds us that "[He] is not a God who takes pleasure in evil; with [Him] the wicked cannot dwell." Love and approval are vastly different ideas in God's universe, and it's a dangerous trap into which many of us too easily fall.
Of course, the other end of the spectrum is just as dangerous: because God doesn't approve, He doesn't love. When so-called Christians bomb abortion clinics, they send a message that says, "God wants sinners to die." Nothing could be further from the truth, as Peter writes in 2 Peter 3:9: "He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish."
When "Christians" protest a man's funeral with signs that read, "God hates gays," they are sending a message that God can't love everyone. But, as with most problems, that idea isn't Biblical, and the Old Testament book of Hosea paints a much different picture.
The book tells of the life of the prophet Hosea, who was commanded by God to marry an adulterous woman (possibly a prostitute, though it's unclear). She bears him several children and there are indications that hint the children may not have even been his. She whores herself out, has a few kids, and Hosea is expected to take them all in.
Not your average fairytale.
Here's the real catch. Repeatedly throughout the book, God equates Hosea's wayward wife with the nation of Israel. In the third chapter, after Hosea's wife has left him again, God says to the prophet, "Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adulteress. Love her as the LORD loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods . . . " (3:1).
Did you catch what God said? "As the LORD loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods." The Israelites turn their backs on Him, but He loves them anyway. We turn our backs on Him, but He loves us anyway.
God does not hate you, even though you deserve it.
We forget this in our churches. We believe we can earn his love, and we believe that he hates those who fail to do so. His love for us is not based on our paltry attempts to impress, or the lofty ideals and philosophies to which we cling. Rather, God loves us simply because He chooses to love us. Though often entwined, love and approval are not the same thing when it comes to God, and to believe otherwise is foolish and sinful.
So if breaking God's Law, whether by attitude or action, demands payment - hell - then what does that mean for us? How do we reconcile the idea that God doesn't want us to go to hell, but we end up there, anyway?
These are tough questions, and many Christians try to avoid them, but it's time we stopped being afraid of tough questions. Either our faith can be defended, or it can't, and frankly, if it can't, we need to find a new faith.
Let's back up to the beginning of things, and I think we'll find the answer to these questions unfold in a surprising manner. In the third chapter of the Book of Genesis, we find that the first humans were not so unlike ourselves, as they attempted to put their desires before God's command:
The Lord God commanded the man, 'You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will surely die . . . When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it (Genesis 2:16-17; 3: 6).
The result of this? Physical and spiritual death - the sin eating through all of us - invaded mankind (interestingly, the sin wasn't eating the fruit, but desiring a wisdom apart from God). Romans 1:18 puts it this way: "The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men."
The point of all of this is that there are only two ways to fulfill God's law, as found in the Books of Moses. The first is to keep it completely and fully in both attitude and action. The second is to face God's wrath. The Law will be fulfilled, and you and I cannot escape that. One way or another, for each and every one of us, the requirements of God's Law will be met.
Here's the bad news: none of us can keep the Law. Consider the following verses:
Psalm 14 tells us that there is "no one who does good."
Romans 3:21 says that "all have sinned."
None of us have kept the Law.
Since none of us have kept it, all of us deserve hell. Atheists, Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, even Christians. All of us. No one on earth is righteous enough to deserve heaven.
So let's beat a dead horse for a second. There are two ways to fulfill, but none of us have managed the first way. Therefore, there is only one option left: wrath. God's wrath is the only way to atone for (pay back) sin, According to the Bible, you and I are headed for hell.
How's that for nihilistic?
But here's where Grace (what you'll often hear called The Gospel) comes into play. Now, "Gospel" is Greek for "good news." Is the fact that we're headed for hell good news? Not even close.
What Christians usually call "The Good News" has been downplayed as of late. We tend to think of it as some form of doctrine or belief system, which it (sort of) is, but that dulls the impact of what it actually is.
The Gospel is, in fact, a person. Jesus Christ - who should be the center of Christianity - claimed to be "good news." In John 14:6, he said, "I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (emphasis mine). What does that mean? Somehow this Jesus guy claimed to be able to get us past the hell we deserve, and into a brand new life of truth.
How is that accomplished? Through Grace.
The very essence of Christianity is not the Ten Commandments or obedience to the Levitical Law, because you and have already broken most of them. The heartbeat of the Christian faith is grace, which is God viewing man's inability to measure up, and doing it for us. Christianity is not a religion where we cross every "t" and dot ever "i"; it is a relationship where God does it for us. Grace, simply put, is God's love. We deserve hell, but God, in his love, offers a way out.
True Love Isn't Blind
"God is not Mr. Magoo."
The pastor paused and the church chuckled. As amusing as it was, the comment is an important one: grace does not cause God to become blind to sin.
Grace does not mean that God simply looks the other way and ignores sin, either. Remember, our sin must be atoned for by God's wrath.
We must never forget this: grace is not the forgiveness of sins, but the substitution of sins. Grace is God, displaying himself through the person of Jesus Christ, fulfilling the Law by keeping it completely and then taking the wrath for it. Christ took God's wrath in your place.
Consider Colossians 2:13-14: "When you were dead in your sins and in . . . your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having cancelled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross." In Titus 2:14, Paul writes that Jesus "gave himself up for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own." You didn't keep the Law, but He took the wrath.
The Great Escape
The imposing figure stoops down, inhaling deeply from his pipe, his multi-tentacled face writhing and squirming. "Do you fear death?" His question hangs in the air. "Do you fear that dark abyss? All your deeds laid bare, all your sins punished? I can offer you an escape . . . Join my crew and postpone judgment: one hundred years before the mast!" He stoops to look into the eyes of a dying man. "Will ye serve?" The man decidedly says yes (Bill Nighy, Pirates of the Carribbean: Dead Man's Chest).
Davy Jones may be one of the greatest characters ever created. He's poetic in his creepiness; every word hangs in the air, giving him a presence not easily captured in an animated character. Of course, as poetic as his words are, the offer still has a problem: it only delays the inevitable. In the end, judgment for sin still takes place, and the guilty verdict still read.
Jesus says something similar to us, but his promise is not a delay. The judgment is not postponed, but fulfilled; the guilty verdict is read and the sentence served by someone else. "Follow me," Jesus says, "and your sentence will have been served for eternity."
Sounds good, right? Perhaps too good. So much so, that you don't buy it. That's fine, you don't have to; it's certainly your choice, but the Law will be fulfilled. You can either let him do it for you, or you can attempt to do it yourself. If you want to do it yourself, though, remember that you've already lost the opportunity, because sin is just as much a part of you as breathing. You and I cannot save ourselves.
This is the great claim of Christianity. For Christ to claim that he is the "living water" (John 4:10), the "light of the world" (John 8:12), and the only means to God (John 14:6) is astonishing by itself, but those are not his only claims. His greatest claim is that he is God. His greatest promise is that he will abide in us. He calls his disciples "children," speaking to them with an intimacy that breaks down any imagined barriers put into place by mankind and its rules. His claim is the most startling claim to ever be uttered by human lips, and it is - to paraphrase C.S. Lewis - either completely absurd or completely true, but it is not - cannot be - something else. We cannot reinterpret what he said to make it more tasteful: either Jesus is God, or he isn't.
Now, if he isn't, then we still have the problem of sin. If he is, though, then our sins have been atoned for and none of us, no matter what we've done, need to go to hell, and all of us, no matter what we've done, can walk in a relationship with God right now, today. We still deserve a life apart from God, but the sentence has been served on our behalf. Let's suppose you murdered someone close to me, and at your trial you received the death penalty. Now let's suppose I'm in the courtroom at your sentencing, and, though your crime was against me, I volunteered to take your place and receive the lethal injection. You deserve it, but I serve it.
This is no fairytale with giants climbing beanstalks or mischievous spirits granting wishes. This isn't even a pie-in-the-sky ideal where the good are rewarded and the bad punished. Either it is real, or it isn't. If it isn't, then our world is stuck in a selfishness from which it cannot escape. If it is true, however, then we find that the God of the universe has done the unthinkable: loved us, come down here amongst us, and died for us.
We can accept or we can reject, but we cannot dwell in half-hearted, lukewarm ignorance. Paul writes in his second letter to the church at Corinth:
So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (5:16-21).
God does not approve of our sin, but because of His enormous love and grace, He reconciles us to Him, doesn't count our sins against us, and declares us righteous. This should change our lives, altering our thoughts, our actions, and our relationships. It gives us a purpose and a value not found in the temporary things of this world.
It gives us life.
So the question that will now haunt you until you either answer it or die is this: what do you believe?
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