Originally written July, 1999
“At 882’5” long, the Titanic dwarfed all other ocean liners. The rivets alone – weighing two million, four hundred thousand pounds – joined together a ship with a net weight of nearly 44 million pounds. Her rudder, like none ever seen, was six stories high!”1 She was made of the finest materials available and built with the finest craftsmanship. The Titanic was known to the world as the “unsinkable” ship. Therefore it held only enough lifeboats for 1,178 passengers out of a total capacity of 3,511. For everyone but the ship designer, the prospect of the Titanic sinking was unthinkable. Historically, however, we know that at 2:20 am on April 14, 1912, the Titanic, the unsinkable ship, sank and 1,522 people lost their lives.
Truth, no matter how much it may be denied, is never any less true. And according to the Holy Bible, eternal life depends upon knowing who it is.
Creation
Recent studies indicate that over 90% of Americans believe in God, a Supreme Being.2 It is no wonder when you think about creation. Take the size of our galaxy for instance – so large that it would take the Space Shuttle traveling at its incredible 18,000 miles per hour approximately 350,500 years to travel from one side of our galaxy to the other. And our galaxy is one of billions in the Universe! Equally impressive is the human body. Each of us contains about 10 million million cells. Just a small patch of skin about the size of a thumb nail contains about 3 million cells and 6 million meters of DNA, our genetic makeup. Additionally, our brains contain from 10 to 100 billion neurons that allow us to walk, talk and function as we do. This doesn’t even begin to explain the mystery of our conscience or our emotions, including our desire to love and to be loved. Perhaps this is why the Bible says: “We simply cannot fathom what God has done”. “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse”.3 For most of us it is obvious that God exists. But if God exists, then who is He?
Who Is God?
With thousands of world religions each attempting to define who God is, this can be a rather challenging question. Some may even believe it is impossible, perhaps even arrogant to consider attempting to answer such a question. It certainly can be confusing with so many religions defining God differently. But the Bible is clear about the answer to this question and it says that Jesus was and is God. Jesus even claimed deity Himself and that is why the Bible says He was crucified: “The high priest said to him, ‘I charge you under oath by the living God: Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.’ ‘Yes, it is as you say,’ Jesus replied. ‘He is worthy of death,’ they answered,” and they crucified Him.4 There are numerous other biblical passages that identify Jesus as God as well. Furthermore, the Bible explains why God became incarnate as Jesus and why it is imperative to Christianity that Jesus be God, which has to do with who we are and the bad news.
The Bad News
According to the Bible, all of us fall short of the glory of God, all of us are depraved and all of us are unable to live up to God’s standards, no matter how good we might think we are. In other words, none of us is “good enough” to please God because we are so focused on pleasing ourselves. Another way of saying this is that we are terribly selfish. That is the bad news! But before you file this edition of Eternal Perspective into the trash bin, consider the standard against which we normally measure our goodness. It’s other people, right? Most of us have lived long enough to know we are better than some of those we hear about in the news or who we experience in life. Unfortunately, comparing ourselves to other people is a moving target, one that doesn’t represent God’s standard which, according to the Bible, is perfection.5 Consider this for clarification. If we were all lined up on a California beach with 8 time Olympic gold medal swimmer Michael Phelps and told we were all to swim to Hawaii, would it matter that Michael Phelps was a good enough swimmer to win 8 gold medals in the Olympics and you and I were not? Of course not. Would it matter how much farther he could swim than we could? No. We would all drown regardless of our experience and regardless of how far off the coast we would get. Michael Phelps may be one of the greatest swimmers of all time but unassisted even he could not swim to Hawaii. So even though we may do good things we still fall short of perfection. That is why the Bible says: “there is no one righteous, not even one” and “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”6 Because, in comparison to the true measurement of God, it doesn’t really matter how much better we stack up with someone else, we still don’t reach God’s standard. Which brings us to an event that happened a long time ago in the Garden of Eden.
Original Sin
Remember the biblical story of Adam & Eve, the first man and woman of creation? The Bible says that God told them not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Yet, at the beckoning of Satan they took a bite of the forbidden fruit, disobeying God’s command. This seemingly innocent act broke their perfect relationship with God and sin (defined as disobedience, selfishness or missing the mark) entered the world right then and there. Their disobedience was an offense against a perfect God and the result was an immediate separation between them. Since then Adam and Eve’s sin has been passed down to all people throughout all generations. Remember, if they are the first man and woman of creation, which the Bible says they are, then all of us are their descendants. As their descendants we are all born into sin and thus born separated from God. Furthermore, because sin is serious business (the Bible says; “the wages of sin is death”)7 without God’s intervention in each of our lives, we are all destined for His judgment which is eternal separation from Him forever.
God’s Love
At one time in my life I could not understand how God could let anyone be condemned to hell. As a matter of fact I didn’t believe He could or would. I believed God was a loving God and therefore would not allow such a thing. Furthermore, the Bible says that God is love and defines love as “patient, kind, always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres”. The Bible even says that love never fails.8 Therefore, since God is love, this definition must be true of Him as well. Sending someone to eternal judgment certainly does not seem characteristic of a loving God! Furthermore, the fact that we are not perfect should not lead to a death sentence from a loving God, especially the same One who created us, at least so I reasoned. As well intended as my thoughts were, however, I had not considered that perfect love demands a choice and that perhaps it is not God’s choice for anyone to be eternally damned. We might be freely choosing condemnation by refusing the gift He has offered us. Think about it, if love was something that we could command, we would all be mechanical robots. But just as love is a choice among people, according to the Bible it is the same between God and us. God loves us completely and perfectly. Because He is perfect, He gives us a choice as to whether we will love Him back or not. Furthermore, I had not considered that God is also Holy by definition, nor had I considered the implications of His holiness with regard to my sin or to His Justice.
God’s Holiness
The Bible says; “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty”.9 According to Webster’s dictionary the definition of “holy” is “exalted or worthy of complete devotion as one perfect in goodness and righteousness”. Furthermore, “righteous” is defined as “free from guilt or sin”. Therefore God, by definition, is perfect in goodness and is without sin. Sin is actually anti-His nature. The implication is that sin is to God like germs are to our bodies. Consider this – when germs invade our bodies, what is the natural reaction of our immune system? To kill them, right? Do we analyze what kind of germs they are before releasing our immune system? Of course not. It just happens. That is because healthy bodies, by definition, are built with an immune system which functions to keep germs out. Furthermore, the reaction to these germs is hostile, it kills them! Would any of us get mad because our bodies were trying to kill off cancer cells? Of course not! Germs are simply anti-our nature, but they do exist. Therefore, if God is sinless and the wages of sin is death, then His natural reaction to sin may be to destroy it completely and swiftly. God simply cannot be in the presence of sin. If this is true, God had a dilemma of divine proportion. On the one hand God loves each of us. On the other hand, He must deal with our sin because it is an offense against His Holiness. If God denies either His love or His holiness He cannot be God, which brings us to God’s Justice and how He resolved His divine dilemma.
God’s Justice
The definition of justice is “conformity to truth, fact or reason”. Think about our culture with regard to the issue of justice. If our country did not have any justice system then all of us could do whatever we wanted to without regard to punishment. That is called anarchy or lawlessness and it results in total disorder or chaos. We need laws to keep us on track and we need justice to enforce our laws. There must be a consequence for doing wrong things. Let’s apply this to the created universe. If the world had no justice, no conformity to truth, then there would be no standard of measurement against what is true or false, no universal laws, and this same world would spin out of control. If gravity did not exist, for instance, everything we have would be floating in the air. Gravity does exist though and therefore things stay put. Did you know that more than a trillion connections have to be happening perfectly in order for life to exist as we know it today? Our universe requires perfect harmony in order to be sustained. This implies that there have to be absolute standards that measure right and wrong and some consequence for a law being broken or a wrong being done. Therefore God, being God, has to deal justly with our sin because of His nature.
The Cross
So what did God do? According to the Bible God suppressed His wrath (in other words He didn’t wipe us out). He became one of us in Jesus Christ, lived a perfect life, and took the punishment we deserved by dying on the cross.10 The Bible says that Jesus became sin for us and bore our sins in His body on the cross, healing our wounds (otherwise known as our sin) and giving Himself as a ransom for all men.11 It would be like someone who committed a heinous crime such as the murder of a child, who went to court and was found guilty of the crime by the judge whose child had been killed. Upon sentencing the criminal to death, the judge stepped down, took off his robe and said that he, who declared the criminal guilty and who had actually been offended, took his punishment for him. In this example the judge, the offended party, paid the price and the offender was set free. Surprisingly, but clearly stated, the Bible says that the person who committed the heinous crime in this example is you and me. What is remarkable about Biblical Christianity is that it says God paid for your sins and mine by putting all of our sins on His own Son, and then allowing Him to die a terrible death, crucifixion on a cross, in our place.12 That is how God resolved the divine dilemma. The issue is not how God could let someone be eternally damned to hell, rather the fact that God loved us so much that He sent His only Son so that we wouldn’t have to be damned! But the Bible says there is more to Christianity than simply His death.
The “empty” garden tomb in Israel. This is one of two possible tombs where it is believed Jesus’ body was placed after the crucifixtion.
The Good News
Had Jesus remained dead with no resurrection there would be no hope for life after death, and Christianity would be no more than a club of unfounded and ungrounded hope. Furthermore, it would mean Jesus was merely a man and not God. Unfortunately, a man may be able serve as an example of commitment to a specific cause, but certainly not as an atonement for sin. The Bible, however, says Jesus rose from the dead defeating death for all who believe in Him and reconciling believers with God Himself.13 Believers are reborn, mysteriously, and our dead spirits (that we inherited from Adam & Eve) become resurrected into Christ’s resurrected Spirit. The key word however, is believers. Not because of Christian arrogance as I used to think, rather, as just explained, it is because of God’s plan of reconciliation because of the problem of our sin. That is why it is so important to Christianity that Jesus is God, why it is critical that He rose again, and why being “born again” is the essential component of Christianity.
New Life
Many believe that being “born again” is an option available to those deeply devoted Christians. As a matter of fact, it seems to be more closely associated with “fanatical” Christians than traditional Christianity. At least that is what I once believed. But according to the Bible it is Christianity. Jesus says, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.”14 Therefore, simply acknowledging Jesus as God, without accepting God’s Holy Spirit, leaves us right back to the issue of sin and how God must, because of who He is, judge us. Remember, without Christ’s Spirit living in us, our spirits are dead and separated from God. Therefore, by accepting Christ into our hearts, our old sin nature is crucified and believers are said to have a new nature in Christ, through His Spirit. That means Jesus lives inside of those of us who have accepted Him. That is how we are forgiven of our sins and how we get control of our own sin nature. In fact, sin then becomes contrary to the Spirit of God who lives inside of us. We actually feel uncomfortable doing anything contrary to God’s Spirit. Furthermore, because God loves us so much, we choose to follow and obey Him. Not because we have to, because we want to. Incredibly, we are also offered a personal relationship with God through Christ, that comes by accepting Jesus into our hearts. We become God’s sons and daughters and have the privilege of depending on Him, through prayer, as our Abba Father, our heavenly Dad, for all of our needs. Additionally, as we follow Him, He promises a life more fulfilling than any life we could have without Him.
Christianity
As I understand it, Christianity is not about Christians, the church, or religion, although each of these is important and meaningful. Some of you may have even been hurt by Christians or the church in the past. If so, please forgive us. Sometimes our own misunderstandings, insecurities or excitement may offend those who truly are seeking God. Although religions battle each other and people kill one another in the name of God, I don’t think Christianity is about that either. As a matter of fact, from what I read in the Bible, Jesus was more adamantly opposed to the highly religious people of His day than anyone else, because they missed the point of God’s mercy and their sin. Rather, biblical Christianity is about God’s solution to our sin problem because of how much He loves each one of us, no matter what we have done in our past. And, according to the Bible, His solution is Jesus. Obviously this implies that the Bible which delivers the message I have just outlined is true. Personally, I find extraordinary proof that the Bible is the inspired word of God and therefore all true, just as we read it today. I don’t find the discrepancies, contradictions or difficulties interpreting God’s word that others say challenge the fundamental message of the Bible that I have just outlined. And if it is true, it isn’t going to change because of man’s discoveries or because man chooses not to believe it. Truth doesn’t change because of our “feelings” or lack of belief, just as the absolute truths that keep our universe running aren’t going to stop because a recent poll discovered that 66% of Americans deny that absolute truth exists. Nor does it change because we might be uncomfortable with the message or even find it strange. I have yet to find an explanation for love or the miraculousness of life that is completely comprehensible to my finite mind. Think about these facts as well. Christianity has become the largest religion in the world with 1.5 billion followers, despite all odds. Of all of the other religions, Christianity’s founder, Jesus Christ, is the only one who split our reckoning of time to what was before Him and what was after Him. Furthermore, Jesus is the only credible man to have claimed that He was God Himself and the key to eternal life. Jesus said; “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me”.15 It’s hard to deny Jesus was more than a great man. Yet each one of us is given a choice, to believe the Bible or to believe something else. Some of us choose to believe what we believe based on our experiences, the scholars we read, our culture or our parents. All of which can be important. Still, we are asked by the Bible to individually decide who we believe Jesus Christ is and whether or not we will accept Him into our hearts.16 Because, according to the same Bible, our answer will impact us far longer than our short life on earth or the lives of those whose opinions we trusted. The Titanic is but one reminder of just how fragile and uncertain life is to all of us on this earth. Jesus offers us certainty of life eternally, if we truly believe He is God and accept His offer.
So, what about you? Jesus asks,
Who do say that I am?
End Notes
- Casey Sabella, Titanic Warning (New Leaf Press, 1994) pg. 30-32.
- Science Finds God (Newsweek Magazine, July 20, 1998), pg. 50.
- Romans 1:20 & Ecclesiastes 3:11 (All Scripture used is from the New International Version (NIV) unless otherwise specified).
- Matthew 26:63-66.
- Matthew 5:48.
- Romans 3:10, 3:23, Psalm 53:1&3.
- Romans 6:23.
- “God is love” 1 John 3:16 & definition of love, 1 Corinthians 13, Romans 12:9ff.
- Isaiah 6:3. See also 1 Peter 1: 15-16.
- Sinless – Hebrews 4:15, Just – John 5:30.
- 1 Timothy 2:5-6, Romans 5, Acts 5:30, Acts 10:39ff.
- Romans 5:7-8.
- Matthew 16:21, 2 Corinthians 5:19, 1 Corinthians 15:4-8, Matthew 28.
- John 3:3.
- John 14:6.
- Romans 10:9.
“Hardcopy’s available upon request at tawheeler@truevine.net“
Thanks, this is awesome. God bless…