It's totally not fair

In my last post, I talked about how we can know, using the power of logic, that Jesus is the only way to God. In this post, I'd like to talk a bit about the huge imbalance in our relationship with God. First, I should point out another logical premise that I'm working with.

God and I are not equals.

It took me a REALLY long time, and a great deal of soul searching to accept that one. It took years of being angry at God. Years of saying things like, "How dare you?" and "You have no right." But, honestly, it's true, God and I are not equals. Here are a few of the differences between us.


God is righteous, holy and pure. I am not.

 ¹⁷  ‘Can a mortal be more righteous than God?
      Can a man be more pure than his Maker? (Job 4:17, New King James Version)

 ⁵ Gracious is the LORD, and righteous;
         Yes, our God is merciful. (Psalm 116:5, New King James Version)

 ¹⁰ As it is written: 

     “ There is none righteous, no, not one;
   ¹¹ There is none who understands;
      There is none who seeks after God.
       (Romans 3:10-11, New King James Version)

God Knows everything.

¹³ Nothing in all the world can be hidden from God. Everything is clear and lies open before him, and to him we must explain the way we have lived. (Hebrews 4:13, New Century Version)

God is all powerful. (Omnipotent means all powerful. Omni=All, Potent=Powerful)

 ⁶ And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude, as the sound of many waters and as the sound of mighty thunderings, saying, “Alleluia! For the Lord God Omnipotent reigns! (Revelation 19:6, New King James Version)

Let's get something out of the way, I doubt anyone would argue this, but for the sake of clarity, I am not all-powerful. Though I am very smart, I do not know everything, and though I think of myself as a decent guy, I come nowhere near righteous or holy.

God and I are not equals, and on every measure imaginable, God is far above/more/better than me. So, in relating to one another, I have a serious problem. The God of the universe doesn't have to listen to me. God doesn't have to do what I want, and doesn't have to care what's best for me. But God does listen, and God does care. Here's how we can know.


1. God sent his Son Jesus, who died for me. (For more on this, please see my previous post, or go to the source, and read the Bible).

It's pretty incredible that the God of the Universe cared enough to send Jesus, it's very hard to believe that He did so because He doesn't care. If Jesus really came and died for us, that is undeniable proof that God cares.

2. God's provision didn't end at Jesus.

As if Jesus wasn't enough, God has allowed us to come to him directly in prayer. Though, that brings up a bit of a problem. Not being all knowing, I don't always know what to pray. Not being all powerful, I don't have the ability to make my own prayers come true. God, however, has foreseen and solved this problem. Before we go on though, think about how incredible that is for a moment. Before Jesus, we humans were essentially in an un-winnable war against God. Sin is, at its heart, a rebellion against God, and we humans are amazingly determined rebels. God set up the system of sacrifice, so there could be some peace between God and Man, but it wasn't enough, since we kept breaking the truce. God sent his Son, and set up a truce that couldn't be broken. Then he said that even though I am such a rebel, I'm allowed to come to Him and ask for things. And He'll answer. Because He loves me. (I'll be writing more on this later, of that you can be sure).

God has set up two helps for me. As mentioned above, I don't always know what to pray, and I'm sure that I frequently pray for the wrong thing entirely. With a limited view, and a selfish nature, I'm not always interested in what's good for me, and rarely interested in what's best for me. I do however have a firm handle on what might be fun for me. Bad for me, but fun. With that in mind, my prayers, the specific things I ask for, might be somewhat suspect. So God, knowing that I would have this problem, has provided me with some help. First, the bible says that we have Jesus, who intercedes for us with God. Jesus speaks to God on our behalf.

 ¹⁹ People may be corrected while in bed in great pain;
       they may have continual pain in their very bones.
 ²⁰ They may be in such pain that they even hate food,
       even the very best meal.
 ²¹ Their body becomes so thin there is almost nothing left of it,
       and their bones that were hidden now stick out.
 ²² They are near death,
       and their life is almost over.
 ²³ "But there may be an angel to speak for him,
       one out of a thousand, who will tell him what to do.
 ²⁴ The angel will beg for mercy and say:
       'Save him from death.
       I have found a way to pay for his life.'
 ²⁵ Then his body is made new like a child's.
       It will return to the way it was when he was young.
 ²⁶ That person will pray to God, and God will listen to him.
       He will see God's face and will shout with happiness.
       And God will set things right for him again.
 ²⁷ Then he will say to others,
       'I sinned and twisted what was right,
       but I did not receive the punishment I should have received. (Job 33:19-27, New Century Version)

  ⁵ For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, (1 Timothy 2:5, New King James Version)

 ⁵ For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, (1 Timothy 2:5, New King James Version)

Not only do I have God's son speaking to God on my behalf, but Jesus also provided the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity. The Holy Spirit prays for me.

 ²⁶ Also, the Spirit helps us with our weakness. We do not know how to pray as we should. But the Spirit himself speaks to God for us, even begs God for us with deep feelings that words cannot explain. (Romans 8:26, New Century Version)

To recap, God the Father loves me so much that he sent His Son to die in my place. That same Son, resurrected from the dead, now stands as a mediator between me and God. God himself, in the person of the Holy Spirit acts as an advocate for me. This system isn't fair, it's skewed wildly in my favor.

This brings us to a bit of a puzzle. If God loves me so much, if Jesus stands between me and God, mediating between us, and if the Holy Spirit advocates before God on my behalf, why do I need this system at all? It's all in my favor, what's the point of such a system, when everything is for my benefit. Since it's all in my favor, why do I need a mediator and an advocate? Who is against me here? Looking around, I think we can see that there's only one party not working on my behalf.

Me.

I have a God who loves me and works to my benefit, a mediator who gave his life to save mine, and an advocate who knows what to ask for when I can't even figure out what's going on. I need all this help because I'm incredibly self-destructive. The only one in the room not working for my benefit is me.

 ²³ For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:23, New King James Version)

The wages of sin is death, the gift of God is life. I'm busily working on death, while God is desperately trying to offer me life.

I'm not alone in this, it's the same for you too. God wants very badly to give you life. God has gone to great lengths, and to incredible trouble to offer you life, all you have to do is accept it. God has set up a system deeply weighted in your favor, because everything we do is working against our own interests.

God and I are totally not equals, and this system is totally not fair.

All roads lead to Rome. Only Jesus leads to God.

Recently, in my Bible study, we came upon the following verse.

 ⁶ Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. (John 14:6, New King James Version)

If you've never come across it before, this is a verse that bothers a lot of people. The exclusivity of it "gets" folk. It's bothersome that Jesus says he is the only way to God. It's problematic especially if you're not a christian, because Jesus has not left any room for you to say, "Well, what works for you may not work for me."

Jesus doesn't leave any wiggle room here, and although that can be uncomfortable to think about, it does make logical sense. Christianity is unlike any other religion, in that rather than requiring some entrance fee from us, God has made atonement for our sins Himself. Let's look fore closely at Jesus claim here.

"No one comes to the Father except through me."

Now, to have this talk, I'm working off three distinct logical premises.
1. Jesus was a real man who lived.
2. Jesus actually said this.
3. Jesus was God's son, who willingly, and at God's behest, served as an atoning sacrifice for our sin on our behalf.
We can talk about proving those premises later (read: in different posts), but what comes next will be based on them.

God exchanged His son's life for mine. Now, I don't have kids, but I know several parents. I used to volunteer for a support group for grieving children. I've know several families who have had children die. It's painful for the brothers and sisters, but that's nothing compared to the pain of the parents. It's the kind of pain that tears apart a marriage, that wounds relationships, and leaves an empty look in a parent's eyes, like a part of their heart is missing.

God, being God, knows everything. God knew beforehand what he was doing when he asked Jesus to die for our sins. Jesus knew what was coming (torture, pain, death, separation from God). We know this because of what he prayed in the garden the night he was arrested.

 ³⁹Going a little ahead, he fell on his face, praying, "My Father, if there is any way, get me out of this. But please, not what I want. You, what do you want?"  (Matthew 26:39, The Message)

and

 ⁴²He then left them a second time. Again he prayed, "My Father, if there is no other way than this, drinking this cup to the dregs, I'm ready. Do it your way."  (Matthew 26:42, The Message)

 Note: In this context, the cup is full of God's wrath about our sin, it's what must be consumed in order for us to have a relationship with God.

Even knowing what was coming, Jesus went forward with the plan. God's pain was doubled, not only would Jesus die, not only would God not intervene to stop it, God himself would be the one to kill his own son. A few minutes later a crowd of people showed up in the Garden to arrest Jesus. Peter tried to defend his master, drawing his sword, and managing to sever the ear of the high priests's servant. Jesus response:

 ^52-54Jesus said, "Put your sword back where it belongs. All who use swords are destroyed by swords. Don't you realize that I am able right now to call to my Father, and twelve companies—more, if I want them—of fighting angels would be here, battle-ready? But if I did that, how would the Scriptures come true that say this is the way it has to be?"  (Matthew 26:52-54, The Message)

Note: Company here is translated Legion elsewhere. A legion at the time was 5,120 soldiers. 12 Legions=61,440 Angels (we'll round it off to 60,000)

Can't you just picture it? God has assembled the armies of Heaven, ready to send in to the rescue, Angelic special forces commandos, ready to shock & awe the crowd. Ready to extract Jesus and slaughter everyone who deserves it.

You and I deserve it. God knew that. Jesus knew that, and so, rather than call on 60,000 angels, rather than summon the army standing at the ready, He told Peter to put away his sword. He healed the high priest's servant, and went quietly with the mob.

Now we come back to our central point, Jesus says there is no way to the Father except through Him. Jesus gave his life for us. The Father killed his own son in our place, had there been some other way, we can be confident that these things would have been unnecessary, that Jesus would have prayed in the garden, "But Father, couldn't we just direct them to [alternate path here]." If Jesus is the only way to heaven, his sacrifice is noble, a great gift from a loving God to an undeserving people. If Jesus is not the only way, his sacrifice is the cruel act of a brutal God.

Jesus is the only way to God. No other explanation makes sense.

 

More Budgetary Shenanigans

Now, another year, I had some money left over in the budget, and I decided that what we ought to get was a new tractor for the yard. See, we had all these cars to move around, and we really needed a tractor with air brakes.

The Company had this department, that handled moving equipment around, so if you needed something, instead of buying it from outside the company, first you checked if they had an extra one somewhere else. Now this guy I called, he really wanted to get rid of this tractor, but it wasn't what we wanted. He told me that if I didn't take it, then he'd make sure that I never got the right thing. Well, I figured that it was better not to let him push me around, and frankly, whether I took it or not, it was the wrong kind of tractor, and it wouldn't work for what we needed, so I told him that we weren't going to take it. Well, that made him real mad.

This fool threatened to call the plant manager, and I told him to just go ahead and call. The plant manager called me a little while later, and asked me what was going on, I explained that the guy was trying to push something on us that we didn't want, and that he was being a real jackass to boot. So, I ended up winning, we got the right kind of tractor, one with the power and brakes that we needed, and that guy got chewed out by his boss. Turns out that he was trying to make his end of the year quota, and just wanted to move whatever he could, he didn't care a whit about what people really needed.