Most people think the biggest question facing humanity concerns who should be elected, or how we’re going to stop the glaciers melting, or where we can get enough food to feed everyone on earth. These all pale into insignificance compared to the most fundamental problem we humans face…
Here’s the problem: I’m not perfect and you’re not perfect-but God is. God, being perfect in all His ways and in His nature, cannot accept into His presence those who are imperfect. He cannot and will not allow us to live forever or even for a long time in our fallen state. And since this universe was created by him and belongs to him, where else can we go for help, or to escape his power and his justice?
When you die, you face the judgment of the Creator, with no possibility of placating him. Money is of no value to him. You can’t buy him off: all the gold on earth belongs to him-in fact the entire earth belongs to him. We only “borrow” it for a short time. And if you’re one who thinks you’re perfect, you have even greater problems than the rest of us.
At the same time, God loves us. In fact, He loves us so much that he sent his son…. his only son into the world, in order to bridge the gap between him and us. How else could an infinite, perfect being interact with very finite beings, except by becoming like us for a time? His son was born in holiness to a virgin. This is not an optional fact: he had to come into the world in perfection, and not by the corrupted genes and nature of another man.
He grew to manhood and proved himself in many ways to be the first perfect man. He had no flaws as we all do, and when tested by his father and the father’s enemy, he displayed his goodness and obedience to all of humanity, and to all of heaven.
Some of those he lived among were drawn to him and followed him, recognizing that he was no ordinary man, but the Son of the Almighty God, since God had promised, centuries before, to send his son into the world. Who else could walk on water? Who else could heal the blind and raise the dead? Who else had such profound and healing speech, talking of both infinite justice and infinite love? Who else claimed to be the son of God, sent by the Father?
Others hated him. They were envious of his influence and his following, and they rejected his claim to be the Son of God-the Messiah. He was taking their place, and he was so unlike their view of what the Messiah should be like, they concluded that he was blaspheming God-the only way they could legally put him to death. They had him executed by the Romans, showing that they didn’t love God at all as they claimed. If they had, they would have loved his son.
Their actions made them happy-briefly. However, they failed to realize that by killing Jesus Christ, they had in fact fulfilled the will and plan of God. And once the son had given himself in obedience to the will of the Father, God raised him from death.
Jesus, the Son of God, had given himself willingly as a sacrifice. When he gave himself up to death he paid the penalty of sin for us, because only the perfect, as he was, can pay that penalty. Being the perfect man, Christ enabled us to be acceptable to God, so long as we are associated with his son. When you give yourself to Jesus you become pleasing to the Father, and you become His child. You are no longer separated from God’s Spirit. You step over from separation from God and spiritual death, to eternal life and communion with God.
Since the son has been raised to immortality, those associated with him in this world, who choose to believe the good news about him, and who choose to trust in him and who are willing to be changed into his likeness, will also be raised to immortality, and will live with him forever. Jesus will return to claim his own.
Fuel for Faith, Food for Thought 