Comment from a BCW Reader…

Why would an all-knowing and loving God need his servant to be willing to sacrifice his son to prove his faith? The entity in the Old Testament is NOT all-loving and all-knowing but a narcissistic, disregulated, vengeful, jealous wannabe with the emotional maturity of a toddler.

What “sin” have you committed that is so bad that a man had to die to pay for it? I’ve told a few white lies, and I stole a lip balm once when I had very sore, chapped lips. You know what? I am prepared to own up to those sins and be accountable for them.

Wake up and know that you aren’t that bad; you weren’t born with the stain of someone else’s sin because someone ate forbidden fruit. All that has been taught to instill a sense of guilt, shame, and false gratitude.

Jesus came to teach us to love one another and not be victims of bureaucracy, and they killed him for it and said it was all for us.

So, own up to your transgressions, make amends, try to be the best version of yourself every day, love one another, and love yourself.

My Response

Prior to my early 30s, my view of the Bible was that it was a fairy tale for people who needed a crutch to get through life in the ridiculous hope of gaining something after death (i.e., Heaven). So, I totally understand your position, which is actually much more Christian than mine was at the time.

All this to say, I became a believer (in my mind) when I could not explain the resurrection of Christ in any other way than as a miracle. And, believe me, I tried … reading books on both sides of the issue, asking challenging questions, and struggling for years, refusing to accept by far the most logical answer … it really happened the way the Bible said it happened.

Finally, accepting the reality that Christ died and rose from the dead … I began to look at the rest of the Bible … the fulfilled prophecies, the archeological evidence, etc. Again, I read books and challenged many so-called born-again believers on many levels, including those you have brought out. Some questions had reasonable answers, but many were, in my view, a forced fit in order to meld with the Bible narrative.

Why did God allow Lucifer to become Satan? Why does God allow pain and suffering? Why is there a broad road to Hell and a narrow path to Heaven? How can God say He is love, given these obvious realities coming from an omnipotent Creator of the universe as documented in the Bible?

I was forced to make a choice. If there is clear evidence that parts of the Bible are true, can I … should I … pick and choose those parts (i.e., love thy neighbor and be a good person) and reject the rest as fiction written by men … men who were eyewitnesses to Christ and His three-year ministry and then martyred for their unwavering theology? In the end, my answer was no. For me, logic demanded a belief in the Book, the entire Book, regardless of my inability to explain God’s actions, even those that ran counter to my morals and ethics. A humble recognition that I am not omniscient, but He is, took over my skepticism and resistance. That realization made verses such as those below become the center of my thought process …

Romans 3:23 - For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

John 14:6 - Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Romans 6:23 - For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

However, this newfound logic was head knowledge, not heart submission. Over a few-month period in 1989, I believed with my head but remained unwilling to turn over control of my life to God. My sin nature held on tenaciously, as I was unwilling to change my behavior toward a sincere attempt to model the teachings of Christ. I firmly believe if I had died during this period in my life, I would have suffered the eternal pain of separation from God. My view comes from verses such as James 2:19, which acknowledges that even the demons know what God expects, yet still reject Him.

At a specific point in time, April 15, 1989, reason and logic (head knowledge) finally gave way to faith (heart knowledge). I set aside a lifetime of rejecting God’s advances (1 Corinthians 3:7) and asked the Lord, in prayer, to move from my head to my heart and save my soul.

Romans 10:9 - If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

To believe in the second half of Luke 10:27 (“love your neighbor as yourself”), as you have expressed, and not to view the rest of Scripture, such as Romans 10:9, in the context of the first half of Luke 10:27, is to reject what Christ did for each of us who choose to accept Him as both Savior and Lord. One can decide (as so many do) to reject all the 750k words of Scripture and simply focus on being a good person, but that is not God’s plan as presented in His Word.

He is the Father, and we are the children in the equation of eternity. An acceptance of that reality requires faith, which is the foundation of salvation … God’s grace coupled with our faith in offering His Son as the only sacrifice for our sins.

Ephesians 2:8-9 - For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.