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So Loved

                 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 3:16) (James 2:19)

                You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder. (James 2:19)

                Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. (John 17:3)

                Like just about anything popular, I’m not fond of this verse. It’s not what it says, I think, as the sense that so many people seem to treat it so exceptionally. Or maybe part of it is because it’s one of those all-inclusive verses, and generally when everyone is included, I feel excluded – one of the herd at best. Perhaps “Everyone” means extroverts only in my mind. That’s all the more reason why, since my Bible platform suggested it, I feel the need to discuss it.

                So let’s start with the beginning. God loved the world. There’s no rule saying He had to. I don’t think He could have created it and declared it bad, but once sin had entered the world, He could have destroyed it and either not bothered to make another or have created another. The problem with giving up is that it’s not in His nature. And had He created another, He would have had to give the people of that world the same option, and I believe it is inevitable that they would also have fallen. Others don’t think this is the case, but as long as they were not created as His equal, the same temptation would occur. If He created them as His equal, He’d just be creating more of Himself, which really wouldn’t be worthwhile. In addition, if He didn’t create them with the option of rejecting Him, He would be loving Himself and not loving them because they would have no freedom. While some may reject this logic, rejection doesn’t equal refutation.

                So God loved the world, and the world went wrong. He didn’t chuck the whole thing. That would not have been loving. He didn’t decide to pretend nothing happened or pretend that it was OK. That wouldn’t have been loving. Love seeks that the beloved be responsible not in the sense of assigning blame and condemning the beloved, but in the sense of the beloved taking responsibility because that’s what’s good for the beloved and shows love on the part of the beloved.

                But there was nothing that the beloved could possibly do to make up for its sins. All sin is treason against God and is punishable by death. We don’t like to think that way, but that doesn’t make it otherwise. Nothing the world could do could undo what was done. So, God’s creation plan (I shudder to think of the stack of blueprints!) included a means by which God could remain not only a just God, but God at all, and still, at His own expense, provide the means of justice.

                He sent His Son – and no, I don’t comprehend the Trinity as much as I’d like to or enough to explain it to anyone -  to become one of us, so that by punishing Him for our crimes, He could be reconciled to us, and us to Him. The only stipulation regarding the matter is that we accept the reconciliation by accepting the means by which it was accomplished. It does no good to say, “I believe in Jesus Christ.” So do the demons, and they shudder.  The whole point is that belief requires action, and that action involves accepting God as God and the means by which He makes the needed reconciliation possible as the means by which the needed reconciliation can happen, because eternal life is knowing the one true God.

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