Conversations About God 2:5

Millions of angels and men have broken faith with God. They have shown that they cannot be trusted. But has this changed our God? Can God still be trusted? Specifically, can God be trusted to even want us to come back? Is God still the kind of God who can be trusted to pay any price to win us back? That is the question that stirred the apostle Paul when he wrote Romans 3:3-4: “What if some of them did not have faith? Will their lack of faith nullify God’s faithfulness? Not at all” (NIV)! Some versions say, “By no means” (ESV, NRSV). “God forbid” (KJV). “May it never be” (NASB). And we have the whole biblical record of all God has done to set right what has gone wrong.

God even sent His Son to deal with sin. Look at Romans 8:3: “What the Law could not do, because human nature was weak, God did. He condemned sin in human nature by sending his own Son, who came with a nature like our sinful nature, to do away with sin (GNB).” What the Law could not do, God did by sending his own Son to do away with sin. Or as the Jerusalem Bible puts the same sentence (Rom 8:3): “God dealt with sin by sending his own Son.”

What does it mean to deal with sin? It depends on what sin is. If sin is distrust and its consequences, forgiveness alone will not heal the damage done. Forgiveness does not do away with sin. For there to be lasting peace in God’s universe, trust must somehow be restored. Questions must be answered. Satan’s accusations must be met. God must be seen to be righteous, and infinitely worthy of our trust. And so Christ came to set things right. That is why He died; a subject we’ll spend a whole chapter considering (Chapter 8).

Look at Paul’s explanation in Romans 5:1: “Now that we have been put right with God through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (GNB). Notice the phrase “put right” or “set right.” That’s based on the Greek verb that’s usually translated “justified” or “being justified.” (Greek: dikaioô) I love how the Good News Bible translates it, “put right.” We’ll go into this more deeply in a later chapter.

There are at least three ways of looking at what went wrong in God’s universe as a basis for our continuing discussion. And the crucial point is that God looks different in each of these three ways. The first of these views is very widely held beyond the bounds of Christianity. The statement of the problem goes something like this: Because we have broken God’s rules, we have offended Him. He is very angry with us. The crucial question then becomes: What can human beings do to appease God’s anger so that He can find it in His heart not to destroy us, but rather forgive us and bless us once again?

There is another view that’s widely held, sometimes within the bounds of Christianity. The statement of the problem goes something like this: We have broken God’s rules, and thus we are in serious legal trouble. Law and justice demand that God should destroy us, or (in some versions of this view) even torture us for eternity. The crucial question then becomes: Can anything be done to make it legally possible for God to forgive us, and not destroy us, while still being just in His own eyes and in the eyes of the onlooking universe?

Then there’s a third view that is not so widely held on this planet, but I believe it is the most widely held view throughout the universe. In this view the statement of the problem goes something like this: We have sinned. We have allowed ourselves to be deceived by Satan’s lies. And so we have turned away from the true God to many substitutes. And the results have been disastrous. Left alone we all would die. The crucial question then becomes: Is there any way that Satan’s lies can be corrected? Is there any way that the truth about God and His government can be made crystal clear? Is there any way that unquestionable evidence can be provided, that God is not the kind of person His enemies have made Him out to be? Can some of us rebels be won back to trust, and so be saved and healed?

Could I ask you which one of these three views you prefer? Which one of these gods do you prefer? Which one would you rather live with for eternity? Or does it really make any difference?