Recently I have been intrigued and somewhat concerned by comments some atheists and Muslims have made regarding what they see as an offensive doctrine of Christianity, but which I think actually displays the magnificence of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Most people have heard the Christian teaching that Jesus died on the cross for our sins. Many atheists and Muslims view this idea that someone other than the guilty perpetrator pays for their sins as unjust and immoral. “Where’s the justice in that!”, they might ask. I do understand their concern, but there is some significant confusion here. Do you really want to be judged on everything you do, including what is done in secret?

What I find so striking is what is overlooked in the accusation “Jesus dying for your sins is unjust and immoral.” God’s love for us is extraordinarily wonderful — that Jesus is freely willing to be our substitute to pay the penalty that we each deserve so that we can still come into a relationship with him now and forever!

Think about what the alternative is — that a perfectly holy God would judge us according to our behavior! Is there any one of us who would be able to stand before him and say “I’m good enough?” Of course not — there is not one of us who has not been immoral at least some of the time. There is not one of us who, through our own self-centeredness, has not contributed our own measure of evil into this world.

“Not me,” you might say. Really? Let’s say we could make a movie about your life. Now it wouldn’t be just any movie, but it would contain everything you have ever done, said, or even thought. It would also include every judgment you’ve ever made, out loud or just in your head, about anyone else’s behavior. “He’s such a liar.” “She’s a real slut.” “What you did to me wasn’t fair.” On opening night, as you are surrounded by all the world dignitaries, the complete movie of your life goes up on that screen. Is there any one of us who would not be just a little bit embarrassed as some of the scenes go across that screen? We all fall short of our own moral standards, let alone God’s! And we all prove that we believe in these standards by using them to judge others.

Now, I know that many of us, including myself, have thought “I haven’t done anything that bad — God won’t mind.” But God is a perfectly holy being — like a pristine, pure bottle of water. Each of us, however, is like a polluted bottle of water, some more polluted than others to be sure, but what happens when you mix any polluted water with pure water? Obviously, the mixture becomes polluted. Well, God cannot allow his being to become polluted! The polluted water in each of us must be purified first.

If God were to judge us as we deserve, none of us would be pure enough to come into a relationship with him. We would be separated from his presence forever — which means separated from his nature, the very paradigm of goodness forever.

My atheist and Muslim friends are right that there needs to be justice. God’s holiness and justice demand that evil be punished. A God who just winked at Hitler and said, “Don’t worry about it Adolph — you were a bad little boy, but just come and spend eternity with me anyway,” would not be a just God. You and I may not have done as much evil as a Hitler, but a holy and just God cannot merely wink at our evil either. The problem is we all want justice, but nobody wants justice applied to them. As Bruce Cockburn puts it in his haunting song Justice

:

“Everbody
Loves to see
Justice done
On somebody else.”

Yet God isn’t only a just and holy God that requires a just penalty to be paid. God’s overwhelming love for each of us also drives him to do something, and that something is what Jesus Christ willingly did. His justice demands that a just penalty be paid, but his love doesn’t want us to pay that penalty. So he pays it himself — for us!

The message of Christianity is called the Good News (which is what the word “gospel” means) because the message is that God himself, in the person of Jesus Christ, on the cross, loved us so much that he willingly took upon himself all the evil that I have brought into this universe, and you have brought into this universe and all human beings have or ever will bring into this universe and paid the just penalty for it. Somebody had to — if not Jesus then you and me. Jesus Christ dying on the cross for the sins of the world was the perfect and only solution to this tension between God’s justice and his love. Otherwise, by our own doing — our rebellious attitude, and behaviour — we would be separated from God forever.

God desires a love relationship with each of us that will last for eternity, not for his benefit — he doesn’t need us — but for our benefit. We were made in such a way that we fully flourish only when we are in a right relationship with God. Think about what a loving relationship is. It has to be entered into freely or it is not love. God is not a spiritual rapist. He will not force himself on us. He woos us like a lover, but he leaves it up to our free choice to personally receive his free gift of mercy, forgiveness, and restoration to perfection in eternity. He leaves us free to choose whether or not we want to live in an eternal love relationship with him. We have to consent to freely accept what he has purchased by Christ’s suffering and resurrection and offers to us.

So think about it — isn’t it fantastic news that a holy and just God, who by his very nature cannot merely wink at evil or sin, loves us enough that he has provided a way out of being eternally separated from him? Aren’t you glad that if you are sincerely sorry for the evil that you have done and genuinely repent (which means choose to make a 180-degree turn and start heading in the other direction by returning wholeheartedly to God), that God will allow you to come into his open arms, even on your deathbed? I think and hope and pray that my atheist and Muslim friends would recognize what wonderful news this truly is!

I share my own faith journey about this topic in my second article.

Do you think what is called ‘the gospel’ is good news? What is stopping you from receiving Jesus and his free payment for your sins right now? Why not write in to one of our online mentors by filling out the form below to continue the conversation?


Photo Credit: Josh Applegate