God, Grace, and Judgment

By Stephen Terry

 

Sabbath School Lesson Commentary for January 21 - 27, 2012

 

“…people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment,” Hebrews 9:27, NIV

The image of God that many have, both Christians and non-Christians, is similar to our picture, that of a stern old man eager to condemn transgressors and send them to everlasting torment. However, this is often an image created by our own desire for vengeance against those we feel have done things that made our lives miserable.  Whether someone cuts us off in traffic or does something worse, we like to say in our minds, “God is going to get you for that!”

We should be careful with these thoughts. When even Christians portray God as this kind of being, no wonder many want nothing to do with Him. This portrayal is not of the God who gave us Jesus. It is more like the image of Santa Claus who watches all the boys and girls to give the good ones Christmas presents and the bad ones lumps of coal. As the song says, “You better watch out…Santa Claus is coming to town.” Only the way Christians tend to tell the story the lump of coal is replaced with an eternally burning hell.

Jesus showed us a different picture of God. His very life was a witness to a God who loves us. The disciple John, who perhaps wrote more about the concept of a loving God than any of the other disciples, wrote, “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. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” John 3:16-17, NIV  This does not sound like someone eager to shove people into a pit of everlasting fire.

When we look at the life of Jesus we see Someone who healed the sick, fed the hungry, and set people free from the demons within. As a result, people flocked to him. They would hardly do this if He were a stern Judge shoving everyone’s faces in their sins and telling them about all the punishment He planned for them. The people who had something to fear from Jesus were those who believed they had the right to set themselves up in judgment over others. Jesus told these, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.” Matthew 7:1, NIV, and “…in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you…” Matthew 7:12, NIV

When we judge one another, we are not doing God’s work but the Devil’s. The Bible calls the Devil the Accuser, not God. (See Revelation 12:10) He led us into transgression in the beginning (See Genesis 3) and continually places our sins before us and tells us that God can never accept anyone as terrible as us. But this is only a partial truth. It is true that God and sin cannot be together, but God loves us so much that He has made a way that we can be with Him and leave the sins behind. This was the love that sent His Son, Jesus to make it possible. But the Devil does not like that.

Whenever we fail to love, the Devil is there to ask us “How can you act like that and call yourself a Christian?” His purpose is to discourage us to the point where we give up and no longer try to be in a relationship with Jesus. He knows that if he can come between us and our Savior, he can claim us as his. This is why the Devil entices us to sin, not because there is no remedy for sin but because he can use the sin to make us feel unworthy to be saved. That feeling of unworthiness is something he can use to keep us from our Savior. Although he will not reveal it to us, the Devil also knows that if we return to Jesus, He will take care of our failure to love by placing His Spirit of love in our hearts.

Satan will do anything to sever that relationship with Jesus. He will even encourage us to be “good” Christians by telling us that if we only try harder, we will surely do better next time. This is the flip side of the unworthiness tactic. He tells us that we can become worthy if we keep trying. He doesn’t care how he keeps us from coming to Jesus now. He is happy to keep us working on all sorts of activities to cleanse ourselves spiritually if it means we will not have time to come to Jesus. He knows that the answer to our entry to heaven does not come from our efforts to be worthy. But if he can keep us focused on that until it is too late, he will succeed.

As long as we live and breathe we can have hope through Jesus Christ. The only way we can be lost is to believe the Devil and deny the hope that God freely offers (See Romans 6:23). If we lose the belief in that hope, we will not come to Jesus. When we don’t come to Jesus, we effectively shut the doors of heaven on ourselves. The controversy we struggle with in this life is between the Devil who says there is no hope and God who says there is, if we will only believe Him.

Some might laugh at the idea that there is a Devil. He doesn’t mind if we don’t believe in him. In fact it makes his work easier as he leads us to rely solely on our own efforts, knowing that we will fail. He knows this because he knows that there truly is no hope outside of Jesus.  Unlike the Devil, God requires us to believe in Him. Without that belief or faith, there can be no hope. Paul put it like this in his Epistle to the Hebrews, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Hebrews 11:1, NKJV  Faith is the “substance” or foundation of all that God wishes to give us.

Death, alone, removes that possibility for hope. This is why, in addition to accusing us, the Devil encourages us to silence the voice of discontent in our hearts by pursuing self-destructive behaviors. He knows that if he can lead us to destroy ourselves by these behaviors, the time he has to work to keep us from Jesus is shortened. God still offers the same hope to the drug addict, the alcoholic, and those who indulge in other destructive behaviors, but because of the effects on their minds as well as their bodies, they become less and less able to hear His call as time goes on. In fact, their minds may die long before their bodies do. Even then God does not judge them, for as our verse at the top of the page in Hebrews 9:27 discloses, there will be no judgment until the book is closed on life’s record.

Every opportunity is extended to each of us to turn to Jesus, even up to the very last moment of life. The problem is that we do not know when that last moment is. Recently, I sat in a mall parking lot one evening until closing time. After the businesses were closed, I saw many people come to the doors to try to gain entry. From their reactions to the locked doors, some were quite desperate to enter. No matter how hard they tried, the doors remained locked. Eventually, they went on their way with looks of deep disappointment on their faces. The business hours were displayed on the doors for all to see. For whatever reason, they had been unable to come to the store before it closed. Some may have chosen other priorities. Others may honestly have not known when the store closed. In either case, their chance to enter in had passed.

God has told us that the door to His grace is open now. But it won’t always be so. The Bible tells us that a time will come right before Jesus’ return when there can be no change in our spiritual circumstance. It reads, “He who is unjust, let him be unjust still; he who is filthy, let him be filthy still; he who is righteous, let him be righteous still; he who is holy, let him be holy still. And behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give to every one according to his work.” Revelation 22:11-12, NKJV

Those who have died have written their life’s record. We who are living continue moment by moment to write ours. However, we know neither the moment of our death nor the moment of Jesus’ return. Therefore, in spite of what the Devil may say to us, we cannot afford to delay coming to Jesus and trusting in His loving promise. None of us knows the time we have left. “Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” 2 Corinthians 6:2, NKJV

The Bible tells the story of Noah and how he proclaimed the offer of God’s salvation to the world for 120 years. (See Genesis 6-8) Eventually, the day came when the offer was over. Like those who came late to the mall, anyone who came to the ark found the door shut. When the sun is shining and the day is bright, it may be easy to believe that it will never rain. The activities and commitments of each day draw our attention, and the moment of opportunity may pass us by.  “…knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed.” Romans 13:11, NKJV

 

This Commentary is a Service of Still Waters Ministry

www.visitstillwaters.com

 

 

Scripture marked (NIV) taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. Used by permission. NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION® and NIV® are registered trademarks of Biblica, Inc. Use of either trademark for the offering of goods or services requires the prior written consent of Biblica US, Inc.

 

Scripture marked (NKJV) taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

 

 

 

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