For All Have Sinned

In an effort to not fail my set goal yet again, I'm posting another blog today. So if you're looking for Part Two, it's just moved down already. :)

To the topic at hand: Here is Threnody's post. I'm going to be using some terms that I've defined in earlier posts, so please, make sure you're caught up first. :) Otherwise, you might get lost.

She starts by asserting that she is not a sinner, which is, of course, a direct contradiction to the Bible. She then says she was damned over something she had no control over. However, everyone damned is damned for their sin - something they not only choose, but something that they love and refuse to give up.

I've gone over why sin was not arbitrarily set up by God, but why does sin deserve such a harsh penalty? Death? Why death? Well, remembering what sin is - a rejection of God's worth by holding something else to a higher level of love and commitment - it becomes clearer. God is life. If you reject God, you reject life. So, why death? 'Cause you looked at life and said, "I like something else better." It's an interesting thing; God gives all the unsaved people EXACTLY what they want. They don't want Him; He puts them in Hell. They don't want His light; He gives them darkness; they don't want His life; He gives them eternal death. In sending them to Hell, God is giving them exactly what they longed for on this earth - complete separation from Him.

So why should we be overwhelmed with what Christ gave up for us? Christ is God. Christ took on death? Christ took on separation from God the Father? Christ took on sin and darkness and all those things that Hell is? Yes, we should be overwhelmed with that. That is beyond incredible. We were stupid enough to WANT Hell, and He said, "I'll take it for them so that they can live." Yep. Overwhelmed is exactly what we should be.

How much sacrifice is it to die? . . . Well, let's see. On one hand - perfect life and happiness forever. On the other hand - death and separation and the equivalent of millions of eternities in Hell. How much sacrifice is it for a prince to switch places with a servant for a day? That's a sacrifice, and that's only for a day and only going from EARTHLY riches to servanthood - not from HEAVENLY status as Lord of all Creation to servant. And it wasn't just dying. Jesus didn't appear as a grown man, spend a few days doing miracles and then go to the cross. First, He was confined to Mary's womb for nine months. He had to go through birth. Then, He had to grow up as a human - didn't we all just LOVE puberty? He lived on this Earth for 33 years, mocked, rejected, without a house, persecuted and hated by the people that He had created and how did His ministry come to an end? They crucified Him - one of the guys that He had spent so much time with betrayed Him. His disciples, His closest friends, ran away and denied Him. His watched His mother watch Him die. Think about that for a minute - watching your mom watch you die. And then there's all the stuff I've blogged about before - the separation between Christ and the Father; the aloneness that He had NEVER felt before and it happened at the Cross! And you know what's more - He's forever Man and God now. He's the second Adam forever. Christ has a body now.

Threnody's second paragraph: Sinners cannot do right in the eyes of God because everything they do is tainted by WHY they do it. If a Christian and a non-Christian do the EXACT same action, the Christian is the only one with a chance of doing it right because they have the Holy Spirit and they are a new creation. Yes, the plowing of the wicked is sin, because the plowing of the wicked does not take God into account. Even the plowing of the wicked - something that would seem like middle ground, like it doesn't count either way - is wrong. How? Because they do it ignoring God. And to ignore God is to sin. Unsaved people do a LOT of socially good things; they do not do anything morally good.

Third paragraph: There's not much to say for this one that hasn't already been said. One point, Jesus came voluntarily; He was not forced to come. For the rest, the natural man cannot understand the things of God. So Threnody sees death and hate and injustice where it doesn't belong, and it's only by God's grace that any of us see it differently.