Our bodies bear evidence of sin. Disease, affliction, decay. If our bodies carried no sin in them, they would cease to decay and no disease or affliction would be manifest. This is how we were created--in the image of God. Adam and Eve, and the human race, were created to live forever in perfect harmony with God, each other, and all creation. That is, until they sinned in the Garden. At that moment, the human body took on sin, by choice, and began to decay. From this point forward, there is an irreparable rift between God and man, the perfect from imperfect, eternal from dying. But just as through one man (Adam) sin entered the world, so through one Man (Jesus), sin is conquered and we can be reconciled (Rom 5:12-21).
Show me one man who has defied the decay of the human condition. Show me one man that has lived even 2 generations, let alone eternally. You cannot. But I will show you Christ, who lived, has lived and forever will live. Jesus is the only God-man to have ever lived and therefore lives forever, being fully God, and gives opportunity for all flesh to be saved--being fully man Himself--the only bridge of this gap between dying man and eternally living God.
Our bodies testify that we are born into sin. For all flesh is grass and perishes (Isaiah 40:6, 1 Pet 1:24), i.e. all flesh contains sin and is therefore decaying. If all flesh was not with sin, then not all flesh would be decaying...but the scripture, as well as our experience, testifies that all flesh is dying. Therefore, there is no difference in circumstance, moral code, in perception or reality--all men have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23). All flesh is grass. All flesh is dying. All flesh has sin. All men are dying as a result of being covered in their sins.
Make no mistake--God is incorruptible. He is too consistent to allow sin to survive. Therefore, as He has decreed, all sin will die. And therefore, all men will die. And though He loves us, He cannot deny Himself. He has too great of character...perfect character...He will not "change the rules," so that we might live. We cannot offer any goodness or action such that He says, "I love this one too much to let him burn eternally in Hell. I will let Him live." No, God's desire for us to live does not give rise to Him compromising! He would cease to be God if He could be compromised. No, God is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Heb 13:8).
How then will we be reconciled to a perfect God? How will we who are dying ever hope to live more than our short 100 years, if we are so lucky to live even that long? If we are born into sin, what chance do we have, and how is it fair that God would allow us to be created and born into sin such that we have no chance of avoiding Hell? God would certainly cease to be good, infallible, and sovereign if the truth was anything short of this: Jesus is the "Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" (Rev 13:8, 1 Pet 1:20, Matt 25:34). Let's look at this closer.
First of all, God created us knowing our ability to sin. Not the unavoidable affinity to sin...no, just the possibility and our ability to choose. Jesus Himself knew what was in man and did not entrust Himself to them (John 2:24). In the same way, God has never, from the foundation of the world, entrusted His perfect care for the human race to man alone. No, He is too good, too sovereign, too infallible. Instead, reconciliation was conceived from the very beginning. Let's examine free-will, God's foresight, and the means of reconciliation to Him.
Free-will. This is the capacity to love. Think about it: can you force someone to love you? You can force another person to do many of the outward showings of "loving" behaviors in its various forms, but you have no ability to force a person to love from their heart. This is by design. Love, it turns out, requires a voluntary choosing of another. And with any voluntary choice, there are two possibilities: the choosing of someone or something, or the rejection of that same someone or something. This is free-will. This is the gift of God to the human race to have the capacity to love! Anything short of this and we become robots; and we ourselves, as well as God Himself, are deprived of the richness of love, as characterized by freely choosing Him. And so any question of God's goodness in that He has "allowed" sin (inherently also death and decay, and even Hell that comes with it) to persist is easily answered in the beautiful gift of love made possible by having the choice. The real question then isn't of God's goodness--the question is of our obedience or rebellion.
However, since God is perfect in foresight and sovereignty, he would have known that all men would sin--all men would choose sin and not Him, and therefore all men would inherit death, both physical and eternal. "What a flawed system!" you might say. And you would be correct if not for this truth: God prepared a way for atonement--a way to be reconciled to Him even after experiencing sin and the curse of decay. This is His Son Jesus Christ, the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world. This is critical because we might otherwise think God had a moment like this: "Oh no, they are all sinning. Oh no, through Adam all men have inherited sin and death. What have I done? How can I save this? How can I rectify this? Oh, I know...I've got it, I'll send my Son to die." Nonsense. This is not what God did, as it would fall well short of His uncompromising character and power. Instead, He, from the foundation of the world, made provision for reconciliation through Christ. Let's examine that at last.
We have established that God is perfect. Furthermore, He cannot be compromised and is unchanging. He can accept nothing into His Kingdom except perfection (absolutely zero sin). The problem arises that all men have sin, and are even born into sin. This is sin that resides in our flesh, inherited as we are born, as well as willing sin committed as we ourselves have not chosen to love Him by obeying Him (John 14:15, 21, 23-24). And so every single natural man being born to man is condemned to death. Therefore, there is a naturally irreconcilable rift, for you can show me no man that has ceased to die, not even Jesus Christ Himself. This is critical that even the perfect God-Man, the only God-Man, Jesus Christ had to die; though not a natural death of decay in sin--He Himself being perfect and without sin--but rather at the hands of sinful men, willingly taking on death, i.e. voluntarily taking on the sin of man with such sweeping fullness that He being without the curse of death from sin would die, death being the fruit of sin.
Putting it all together, the paradoxical sacrifice of a perfect God-Man is the only Hope of rectifying the chasm between God eternally perfect and man eternally sinful. There must be a go between--someone or something with a foot on each side, something itself as incorruptible and perfect as the side of God, yet something as perfectly identified with the flesh of Man such that they could exist together and thereby provide a bridge across this great eternal chasm. In this we see that as Christ's body was crucified, the punishment of death, the inherited death of the flesh was fully upheld and satisfied. Now, this is satisified in every individual who dies: the body has perished in sin, and the soul is cast eternally into godless Hell for he cannot be reconciled with God. That is, until through Jesus, something different happened. In His death, He was still perfect...being perfect, He was the first to ever be reconciled to God after death of His own accord. Suddenly the gap between God and man has a link, a bridge, a tie-line. And as Jesus was again raised to life, He secured this passage, this link, this bridge to God--for in His resurrection to life, He did what no natural man could do--He demonstrated the power for perfect God to be greater than the sin of human decay that leads to Hell. In this, He now remains at the right hand of the throne of God and through Him all can now pass from death to eternal life.
But that's just it--through Him alone. Without choosing Jesus Christ as Lord, it is as if He never came for that individual...there is no reconciliation, there is no bridge to perfect God--we still have the free-will to choose or reject Him. But with Jesus--the way, the truth, the life (John 14:6)--we have every fellowship with God the Father and are made perfect in Christ alone, being welcomed into His Kingdom forever.
Questions to consider:
When will you die?
Why will you die?
What will you say to God when you die?
Are you 100% sure that God will accept you?
In Jesus Christ my savior, I can say the previously unthinkable: Yes, I am 100% sure that God will accept me when I die, and I will live eternally with the King. All the glory to Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, God the Father, and the Holy Spirit who preserves us through the final day of judgment. Amen.
Show me one man who has defied the decay of the human condition. Show me one man that has lived even 2 generations, let alone eternally. You cannot. But I will show you Christ, who lived, has lived and forever will live. Jesus is the only God-man to have ever lived and therefore lives forever, being fully God, and gives opportunity for all flesh to be saved--being fully man Himself--the only bridge of this gap between dying man and eternally living God.
Our bodies testify that we are born into sin. For all flesh is grass and perishes (Isaiah 40:6, 1 Pet 1:24), i.e. all flesh contains sin and is therefore decaying. If all flesh was not with sin, then not all flesh would be decaying...but the scripture, as well as our experience, testifies that all flesh is dying. Therefore, there is no difference in circumstance, moral code, in perception or reality--all men have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23). All flesh is grass. All flesh is dying. All flesh has sin. All men are dying as a result of being covered in their sins.
Make no mistake--God is incorruptible. He is too consistent to allow sin to survive. Therefore, as He has decreed, all sin will die. And therefore, all men will die. And though He loves us, He cannot deny Himself. He has too great of character...perfect character...He will not "change the rules," so that we might live. We cannot offer any goodness or action such that He says, "I love this one too much to let him burn eternally in Hell. I will let Him live." No, God's desire for us to live does not give rise to Him compromising! He would cease to be God if He could be compromised. No, God is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Heb 13:8).
How then will we be reconciled to a perfect God? How will we who are dying ever hope to live more than our short 100 years, if we are so lucky to live even that long? If we are born into sin, what chance do we have, and how is it fair that God would allow us to be created and born into sin such that we have no chance of avoiding Hell? God would certainly cease to be good, infallible, and sovereign if the truth was anything short of this: Jesus is the "Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" (Rev 13:8, 1 Pet 1:20, Matt 25:34). Let's look at this closer.
First of all, God created us knowing our ability to sin. Not the unavoidable affinity to sin...no, just the possibility and our ability to choose. Jesus Himself knew what was in man and did not entrust Himself to them (John 2:24). In the same way, God has never, from the foundation of the world, entrusted His perfect care for the human race to man alone. No, He is too good, too sovereign, too infallible. Instead, reconciliation was conceived from the very beginning. Let's examine free-will, God's foresight, and the means of reconciliation to Him.
Free-will. This is the capacity to love. Think about it: can you force someone to love you? You can force another person to do many of the outward showings of "loving" behaviors in its various forms, but you have no ability to force a person to love from their heart. This is by design. Love, it turns out, requires a voluntary choosing of another. And with any voluntary choice, there are two possibilities: the choosing of someone or something, or the rejection of that same someone or something. This is free-will. This is the gift of God to the human race to have the capacity to love! Anything short of this and we become robots; and we ourselves, as well as God Himself, are deprived of the richness of love, as characterized by freely choosing Him. And so any question of God's goodness in that He has "allowed" sin (inherently also death and decay, and even Hell that comes with it) to persist is easily answered in the beautiful gift of love made possible by having the choice. The real question then isn't of God's goodness--the question is of our obedience or rebellion.
However, since God is perfect in foresight and sovereignty, he would have known that all men would sin--all men would choose sin and not Him, and therefore all men would inherit death, both physical and eternal. "What a flawed system!" you might say. And you would be correct if not for this truth: God prepared a way for atonement--a way to be reconciled to Him even after experiencing sin and the curse of decay. This is His Son Jesus Christ, the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world. This is critical because we might otherwise think God had a moment like this: "Oh no, they are all sinning. Oh no, through Adam all men have inherited sin and death. What have I done? How can I save this? How can I rectify this? Oh, I know...I've got it, I'll send my Son to die." Nonsense. This is not what God did, as it would fall well short of His uncompromising character and power. Instead, He, from the foundation of the world, made provision for reconciliation through Christ. Let's examine that at last.
We have established that God is perfect. Furthermore, He cannot be compromised and is unchanging. He can accept nothing into His Kingdom except perfection (absolutely zero sin). The problem arises that all men have sin, and are even born into sin. This is sin that resides in our flesh, inherited as we are born, as well as willing sin committed as we ourselves have not chosen to love Him by obeying Him (John 14:15, 21, 23-24). And so every single natural man being born to man is condemned to death. Therefore, there is a naturally irreconcilable rift, for you can show me no man that has ceased to die, not even Jesus Christ Himself. This is critical that even the perfect God-Man, the only God-Man, Jesus Christ had to die; though not a natural death of decay in sin--He Himself being perfect and without sin--but rather at the hands of sinful men, willingly taking on death, i.e. voluntarily taking on the sin of man with such sweeping fullness that He being without the curse of death from sin would die, death being the fruit of sin.
Putting it all together, the paradoxical sacrifice of a perfect God-Man is the only Hope of rectifying the chasm between God eternally perfect and man eternally sinful. There must be a go between--someone or something with a foot on each side, something itself as incorruptible and perfect as the side of God, yet something as perfectly identified with the flesh of Man such that they could exist together and thereby provide a bridge across this great eternal chasm. In this we see that as Christ's body was crucified, the punishment of death, the inherited death of the flesh was fully upheld and satisfied. Now, this is satisified in every individual who dies: the body has perished in sin, and the soul is cast eternally into godless Hell for he cannot be reconciled with God. That is, until through Jesus, something different happened. In His death, He was still perfect...being perfect, He was the first to ever be reconciled to God after death of His own accord. Suddenly the gap between God and man has a link, a bridge, a tie-line. And as Jesus was again raised to life, He secured this passage, this link, this bridge to God--for in His resurrection to life, He did what no natural man could do--He demonstrated the power for perfect God to be greater than the sin of human decay that leads to Hell. In this, He now remains at the right hand of the throne of God and through Him all can now pass from death to eternal life.
But that's just it--through Him alone. Without choosing Jesus Christ as Lord, it is as if He never came for that individual...there is no reconciliation, there is no bridge to perfect God--we still have the free-will to choose or reject Him. But with Jesus--the way, the truth, the life (John 14:6)--we have every fellowship with God the Father and are made perfect in Christ alone, being welcomed into His Kingdom forever.
Questions to consider:
When will you die?
Why will you die?
What will you say to God when you die?
Are you 100% sure that God will accept you?
In Jesus Christ my savior, I can say the previously unthinkable: Yes, I am 100% sure that God will accept me when I die, and I will live eternally with the King. All the glory to Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, God the Father, and the Holy Spirit who preserves us through the final day of judgment. Amen.
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