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God is perfect. He is perfect in all of His attributes.
His mercy is perfect. His justice is perfect. His love is perfect.
But there's a problem.
How can a perfectly loving God exercise both perfect justice and perfect mercy? How can perfect justice ever forgive anything? It can't. Justice, in order to be just, must be impartial at all times and in every situation. It cannot show any mercy. To do so would be to be unjust.
But love delights in showing mercy. How, then, can a God be perfect in love, perfect in mercy and perfect in justice?
There is only one way. God, in perfect justice, must demand that there be a full and complete punishment for every act of wrong doing. Then God, in perfect love and mercy, must decide to take all the punishment He demands upon Himself and pay the price for sin by Himself.
When God chooses to do this act of atonement, His complete justice is met and His complete love and mercy are extended - and none of these aspects of who He is violates the perfection of the others.
In the cross of Christ all of God’s attributes are both summarized and displayed in their perfection – even those attributes that don’t seem like they could exist together.
No other religion can have a perfect God because no other religion has a cross.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
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Beautiful!
ReplyDeleteUm, actually, a LOT of other religions contemporary and older had a suffering God as redeember for sins. Even Mithras said "whoever does not eat of my flesh and drink of my blood, the same shall not see salvation."
ReplyDeleteGod-men born of virgins and dying for sins or some other form of renewal were a dime (drachma?) a dozen back then. And one major cult center of Mithras just happened to be at Tarsus, which should ring a bell...
Anonymous: Thank you for your comments.
ReplyDeleteI want to remind us, though, that the presence of other religious saviors or similar currents of thought between religions really says very little about Jesus. For example, if ten men were to claim to be Napoleon, the fact that nine of them were imposters would not prove or disprove that the tenth was Napoleon. He might be Napoleon, or he might be another imposter.
All that to say that regardless of the religious mileau Jesus (or Paul) grew up in, we must take what they taught on their own merits and judge them that way.
Too often, we attempt to discredit other religions with arguments that really have little bearing on the issue at hand. For example, even if Jospeh Smith was a highly disreputable character (and I am not saying that he was), that does not invalidate Mormonism any more then Paul being an accessory to murder invalidates his writings. This is not to say that I agree with the LDS beliefs (I do not), but it is to say that we need to be intellectually honest in our analysis and respectful of others. I know, that has little to do with your comment, but it was in my brain. :-)
Thank you for your comments. They are thought-provoking and that is almost always very helpful.