There's only 3 more sleeps 'till Christmas!!
Christmas is getting closer. And as it does, I find myself increasingly tempted to forget why I celebrate and be overwhelmed by all the 'stuff' I've got to do. So I need a reminder: I celebrate because my savior, Jesus, was born on Christmas. Oh man, Jesus again. What's so special about him? Why is he getting so much attention? I'd love to tell you.
There are a few other things you have to understand before you can understand why Jesus is so special. The first is you have to understand God.
God is holy. All those 'rules' in the Bible are merely a description of God's character. When he calls us to be patient, he's already been perfectly consistent in patients. When he calls us to be loving, he's already been perfectly consistent in love. "Holy", (very) simply put, means never having broken any of these rules - never violated the standard.
God is also just. Since he created the universe, he's got the right to also create 'the rules'. God is the earth's authority, and his rules are to be obeyed. When we disobey, it's called 'sin'. When we break the rules, we aren't just misbehaving. We're violating the holy standard - we're rebelling against a holy God. As John Piper puts it in his book The Passion of the Christ, "Sin isn't trivial - it's treason." When there's rebellion in an earthly kingdom, the King must address the rebels and administer justice. God can let no sin go unpunished or he wouldn't be perfectly just. He has to bring the sinners to justice.
God is also loving. He created us and he loves us - without condition.
We also have to understand who we are. We are sinners. The bible doesn't mince words about this:
"...For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." -Romans 3:23
Pretty clear. All. No one is without sin. So what's so bad about this? Well, we've already seen that sin is breaking the rules and rebelling against God. When we break the rules, we violate God's holiness. God can't allow sin into his presence because he would be tainted. One sin - breaking the rules only once - is enough to make us unholy - to make us sinners - and thus estrange us from God. This is the human condition - we are separated from God by our sin.
This leaves us in a very precarious place. If we aren't near God, we're far away. And after we die, we'll still be far away. This is the true gravity of our situation. After death, 'with God' is heaven - 'far away from God' is hell. Because of our sin, we're all hell bound.
You may have caught a contradiction by this point. But how can God allow that? Didn't I say earlier that God is perfectly loving and loves us unconditionally? This doesn't jive.
Another thing about God is that he will not fudge on any part of his character to satisfy another part. He can't fudge on his justice to be all loving, and he can't fudge on his love to administer justice. So now it seems to us like God kinda has a problem. How can he punish us for our sin - for our rebellion - and still love us regardless of our sinfulness?
This is the exciting part! God came up with the most ingenious plan. He created a substitute for us. Guess who? Right - Jesus. We stood before God as rebels stand before a king - worthy of the kings wrath and punishment. But God sent his son, Jesus, born on Christmas, to live a perfectly sinless life. Because he did that, he didn't have any of his own sin to be punished for, and he could be our substitutionary 'whipping boy'. God punished him for our sins - that's what happened on the Cross. Did you see The Passion of the Christ movie? Pretty nasty, huh? Well, when you consider that Jesus was enduring the punishment for every sin committed by every person in every generation in every nation in the whole world for all time - well, that's a lot of punishment. But Jesus did it willingly out of love. God did it willingly out of love.
So now all parts of God's character are satisfied: His justice was satisfied because our sins were punished - but the punishment was dealt to Christ instead of us. His love is satisfied because now, if we've accepted Christ's sacrifice on our behalf, God doesn't see us as sinners and rebels - he sees us as perfectly obedient, just like Jesus was, and there's no need to punish us. His holiness is satisfied because since we've been credited with Jesus' obedience, we aren't bringing sin into his presence. He remains perfectly holy.
See what happened? God, in his love, provided a way out! There's now the potential for a swap! Jesus took on all our sin. That part's done. We can now take this 'escape hatch' from hell by taking on all his obedience. This is where we have a choice to make: are we going to accept Jesus substitution for us? It's not as easy as just saying "sure, I accept." We've got to honestly and humbly admit that yes, we are rebels. We don't want to submit to God's rules. We want to make our own rules, and because of that, we need someone to be perfectly obedient on our behalf - we need a savior. Once we admit that, we've got to be willing to lay down all the rules we were living by and submit to God's rules - which are ultimately better for us because God loves us so much and wants the best for us.
And what's all this? This is the Good News - that's what "Gospel" means. And it is the best news we could ever have recieved! When Christians talk about the Gospel, this is what they mean.
I hope this explains why I was so excited by "being reconciled to God", like I wrote in yesterday's post. As a person who was on her way to hell, being close to God again with the hope of heaven is better than anything else!
If you're reading this and have already put your faith in Christ, be encouraged afresh! If you're reading this and haven't, I'd encourage you to explore it more. Thumbs up or down on this is the most important choice you'll ever make. I'd encourage you to find a church this Christmas eve and check this all out more. Of course, I'm partial to my family of churches (called sovereign Grace), so I'll link to the locator on their web site. I'd really encourage you to check one out if it's near you.
Whatever happens, have a great Christmas, and thanks for sticking it out through a long post!
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