Take the Money or I'll Blow Your F'ing Head Off!

Imagine this scenario.  

A man points a gun at your face while holding bag of diamonds worth millions - riches beyond belief.  He gives you a choice:  Either take the diamonds free and clear - or - get your head blown off.  It’s your decision.

In a roundabout way, this is how many people present the gospel of Jesus. 

How - you might ask?  Well, if you don’t accept God’s offer of Heaven - you’ll spend eternity burning in hell.  For many innocent people who hear this type of presentation - this is what they’re hearing!  Gun - or diamonds.  wow.

What a wonderful picture of our loving Father, don’t you think? 

Is this what God is like?  Is He there to offer countless riches - and if we refuse - eternal damnation in hell?  

This scenario definitely calls into question God’s justice.  Is this just?  Hmmm...  

Let me attempt to explain...

The scriptures make it pretty clear that we are sinners from birth.  And this led to the historical notion of “original sin.”  Original sin isn’t actually found in the bible, but is a way to describe our common human condition.  We all rebel against God.

And many add to this notion that the penalty of this sin is death.  They’ll often quote the verse from Romans, “The wages of sin is death...” to back it up.  Note - the verse says “wages” - NOT penalty - but the word is often changed to penalty to fit an arbitrary description of justice, with the rest of the verse being almost always ignored.  God's wrath is tied in there too - but rarely in context.

Another verse that’s used quite a bit is “all have fallen short of the glory of God...” again skipping the second half of the verse, but it’s used to make the point that we’re all in the same boat as sinners.  What’s stressed is that no matter what a person does, there’s nothing they can do to escape this penalty.  And ALL of us are guilty!  It's God's justice that we deserve this penalty of death for our sins - and ALL of us deserve it!

The next leap goes even farther.  Sin somehow becomes separation from God.  There’s rarely a scripture to clarify this description of sin, but the argument is made nonetheless.  When one is used, it’s often taken wayyyy out of context and almost always from the Old Testament.  But people eat this explanation like it’s the forbidden fruit itself.  For years - I ate it - but something always seemed a bit off...  And if a person dies in their sin? - they go to hell - which becomes eternal separation from God.

This really is a popular idea of God’s justice...  

The thinking continues, “I am a sinner and the penalty for my sin is death.”  I “deserve” death.  I “deserve” hell.  Justice.  Then Jesus comes along and lives a sinless life.  He’s totally innocent from any wrongdoing and is randomly given the death penalty.  On the cross - He cries out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me” and at that moment - the sins of the entire world were placed on Him.  And when our sin was placed on Jesus - God turned His back on His Son (sin is separation after all).  Then Jesus experienced the penalty of our sin and died.  He took the “penalty” of death on Himself.  

On the third day, Jesus rose from the grave - conquering death.  Later, He ascended to heaven and offers us a choice.  Believe in Him, or go to hell (to be blunt).  He offered Himself up as a substitution for us and if we believe, He covers us with His righteousness.  If we believe...

In a sense:

“I am a sinner and the penalty of my sin is separation from God, and if I die in my sin then I’ll be eternally separated from God - which is hell - unless - I believe in Jesus, in which I’ll live forever in Heaven - and it will be awesome.”

God has a gun to our face and if we don’t like Him - it’s bullet in the face time!  But soooo much worse.  Eternal torment in hell.  Forever.  But, all we need to do is choose Him and we’ll get everything we’ve ever desired in heaven.

Church leaders push their members to share this “good news” to random strangers too.  Sometimes, this is the scenario that’s being presented to innocent people eating their lunch - in malls - at schools.  Amazing.

How are we buying this crap?  More so - how our we selling this crap?  This is a disgusting perversion of the greatest story ever told.  And it’s hardly ever questioned or critiqued. 

So - just for fun, let’s poke some holes in this way of presenting the gospel.  Good news - gospel - what is it?

First off.  Christ.  

Most people that I talk to WITHIN the faith community don’t know what “Christ” actually means.  I’m talking about followers of Jesus - most don’t know.  Don’t you find that odd??  Some think Savior.  Other’s think it’s His last name.  And yet they share the marketing style “evangelism” (you have a need, Jesus can fill your need, you’ll be happy) with people as if “Christ” has nothing to do with the gospel.  His name is directly tied to His gospel!  But it’s not the gospel I described above.  It’s the gospel of Jesus.  I’ll leave you to your own research, but “Christ” is super important - and has very little to do with substitution.

Second.  Justice.  

I’m not sure we’re capable of understanding true justice because we ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil - and with that - we de-throned God.  Objective justice became subjective justice - justice that is a subject to our limited experience.  So there should be red flag warning signs when the cross gets tied too much to justice.  As eaters of the fruit - we have no idea what that really looks like.  We just think we do.

Just with the scenario above:

How do I deserve the penalty of sin when I was born with this condition?

I know I choose individual “sins”, but I didn’t choose to be a sinner.  I was born into it.  Why am I paying for my ancestor’s mess up?  This doesn’t make logical sense.  This doesn’t look like justice.  I’m not trying to be argumentative - just look at the facts.

How is God just if I receive a penalty for existing in this condition that I was born into?  Sounds kinda mean.  Definitely doesn’t sound loving.  It’d be like God sending me to hell for having skin.  I didn’t choose to have skin, but I have it.  So now I have to go to hell because of it?  huh?

Third.  Substitution.  It’s a word that theologians use, but is not found in the bible.  It’s a simplistic and formulaic way of talking about the cross.  It’s the “fire insurance” word that really dumbs down what God was actually doing.  While I won’t deny that God took on the curse of death - became sin even! - He wasn’t just a substitute for me either.  Nowhere in the scriptures does it say that at the moment of Jesus’ cry - all of sin was placed upon Him.  It’s simply not there.  He took on the “sinful” nature of humanity the moment He was born onto this planet.  Sin was conquered at his death - for sure!  But that "crying out" moment from Jesus on the cross was entirely different than the sins of the world landing on Him while He cried out.  It was more a declaration of Jesus’ gospel than a moment of pure sin.  Read Psalm 22 - God never abandoned Jesus!  God was there.  God was actually ON the cross!  Don’t take my word for it - critically look at the scriptures.  Use context in your search.  Seek!  God’s gospel is so better than the marketing gospel that our modern church has bought into.  

And there’s more.  God didn’t just cover me with His righteous life.  He birthed a new life inside of me.  When people believe God just became a substitute - often that person’s frame of mind is that the “old” person that we were (or are) is covered by His sacrifice.  The problem with this way of thinking is that the old remains!  That’s not good news.  We need to be remade - not covered up.  The scriptures point to a new life burgeoning inside of us.  Read 2 Corinthians, chapter 5 for a clear description on what I’m talking about.  Read John 3 - the story of Nicodemus - and not just the famous John 3:16 verse - the whole chapter.  It’s a different way of seeing the gospel than this “justice” type evangelism.

What’s my point?  I have quite a few - but two I want to throw out there to consider.  

One - don’t just take what people say as gospel truth!  Not even if it’s from a preacher.  It’s your responsibility to test and make sure you’re not being deceived.  Even with my ramblings - test those.  Don’t just believe me!  Discover for yourself.  Pray for God to guide you and give you seeing eyes.

And Two.  The gospel is sooooo much better than a gun to the head and an offer of tons of riches.  Jesus is so much better too.  God really is good.  And by good - I mean - GOOD!  The cross is so much more than "God's Justice".  Why do we try to make Him so small?  I wonder??

I don’t always want to give answers - I want to prompt discovery.  Go discover what I’m talking about.  Go discover God's gospel - what it really is.  Jesus isn’t a quiz show answer - talk to Him about all this.  Lay your doubts and fears at His feet.  He can take it - He is good.  He’s not scared of confusion.  And He’s always faithful even when we're not.  

The scenario described above about God’s justice (gun analogy) is the sin riddle - that’s what my poem was about in an earlier blog.   The answer to the riddle is - there is no God like that.  That god is an illusion.  The riddle starts off with the wrong premise - yet so many of us buy it!    

Yet - God loves His bride through it all.  He loves us while we spit our idea of justice into His goodness.  We are the adulterous whore without even knowing it.  And we often choose a lesser love instead of unconditional love.  We listen to the voice of the deceiver and think it’s God.  Our love turns into argument, rules, control, and manipulation.  And God loves on...

I’m throwing out bombs here.  haha.  I get that.  Maybe this is all a bit muddy.  But that's ok  - Jesus has been known to give sight to the blind from mud - cursed mud at that!  May He apply that mud on all of our eyes.  Me too!  I’m still so blind to so much.  May we see God's goodness together - as we walk this life.

Have a great day!

Jer