To be Fair: Agreeing with what is thought to be right or acceptable. :Treating people in a way that does not favor some over others. :Not to harsh or critical.
This is the third in a series exploring the fairness of God. If you missed the first two parts of this series I recommend your read them before continuing. You can find them at: Is God Not Fair? Part 1: Why Me? Why Them? Why This? and Is God Not Fair? Part 2: The Holiness of God
He was grieved to His infinite core.
Tragedy had struck.
Death had fallen.
He was separated from that which He loved.
He could, by His very nature, have nothing to do with death. Death was His opposite. He was Life and Love. Now Death had taken that which He Loved.
Was there any way to bridge this gap? He couldn’t look upon Death. And now if those He loved looked upon Him they would die. Because Death can also have nothing to do with Life.
But He loved them.
He was Love, Infinite Love. And He Loved Them.
So He made a Way.
That which was not limited to oneness took part of Himself and folded it down into a created. He took Himself which was infinite and folded Himself down into such a tiny limited space. He walked with them. He talked with them. He loved them. And then? That which could have no part in death and wrong and sin and darkness, became death and wrong and sin and darkness. The Father in Himself could no longer even look at this part of Himself, the Son, because it took on all that He could not be part of.
He made a way, through the impossible, to find His Beloved.
But His Beloved had to take it. Had to reach back. Had to choose.
Just as before in the garden He could not force the choice, because that would not be fair.
Now before them was death and life, and they had to choose.
~
As a whole we like to make things complex that are really very simple. Just look at our government. It started out with rather simple guidelines really. The Constitution is actually a rather quick read. But we’ve added and added and added till the weight of dogma and rhetoric has become so great that sometimes I wonder if it’s about to collapse on itself. It seems like we’ve added so much detail that even those who should know how it works are inept in figuring it out anymore.
We are the same when we look at God’s Justice.
It’s really very simple. Only two choices. Grace or Justice. Death or Life.
And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. 1 John 5:11-12
But we like to scream over the injustice of hell, or any manner of other things. After all, are we really that bad?
In this portion of looking at the definition of fairness we are looking at if God shows favoritism.
In a word, He doesn’t.
Two choices. Death or Life. No one gets favoritism. Whoever chooses life gets life. Whoever chooses death…
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 6:23
And this is the thing I don’t think we really understand. We feel like it’s unfair for God to condemn us to eternal death when our only “crime” is not choosing life.
We don’t get it.
We are Lost.
God offers Hope to be Found.
It’s not that He condemns us to an existence with death.
We already stand in that existence.
Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. John 3:18
He isn’t placing us in an existence of death. He’s offering a way out.
Jesus is called a Savior for a reason. It’s the ultimate rescue plan.
In the Garden the first of us condemned ourselves. And with every generation we renew that condemnation.
But He made a way out. And here is where He doesn’t show favoritism, because any one of us can take it.
Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:14-16
Honestly I don’t think we get upset over this offer because God is unfair. I think we do so because we are unfair.
Like in the last post, we think God’s standards of right unfair because we want our own, even though really our own is what is unfair.
We want our own standards of justice. And we actually WANT God to show favoritism.
Think it through.
We’ve all done it. We’ve all been the vehicle of someone else’s pain. We’ve all said words that killed dreams and shattered hopes. We’ve all born the trigger of shattered friendship. We’ve hurt and been hurt. Injured and been injured. We have spoken out of pain, bitter over the injustice of a wrong that seemingly bore no consequence. But at the same time we demand that our own injustice be exempted from consequence because of the pain we’ve born. We justify inflicting pain because we bore pain, but we demand the pain inflicted upon us be rectified.
We demand unequal treatment.
And even in that we keep missing the point.
The point isn’t who is going to be condemned to hell.
The point is who has been rescued and is going to Heaven.
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. John 3:17
God actually doesn’t want anyone to stand condemned at the last day. That is why Christ came. This might be a radicle idea for those of you who think of God like the GREAT PUNISHER. And it is true that the Justice of God is an integral part of Him. He cannot be unjust. Same as He cannot be unfair. But that isn’t the point. The point is that He wants us reconciled, not condemned!
Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. 2 Peter 3:9b
We’re all living under the same penalty, the same curse, and it is brought on us by sin and death. Sin and Death separate us from God because He IS Good and Life. Without Him we are joined to Sin and Death because we don’t have Him. It is His absence. It’s why we can’t serve two masters in this. It’s why we can’t have it both ways.
And so I guess I end this reflection the same way I ended the last one. Because we are left with the choice: Do we choose Death or Life? Do we choose to trust in His innate Goodness and Love? Or reject Him? The whole point of the fairness of God keeps coming down to the fact that He is fair and we are not. So will we allow ourselves to be rescued from our own unfairness and frailty? Will we believe?
Be sure to catch the conclusion of this series: Is God Not Fair? Part 4: The Grace of God
~Joy Aletheia Stevens
Photo Credit: by Brisbane Falling (CC BY 2.0)
Photo Credit: A by Transformer18 (CC BY 2.0)
Photo Credit: by Diganta Talukdar (CC BY 2.0)
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