By Chris WittsSaturday 15 Apr 2017Morning Devotions with Chris WittsFaithReading Time: 4 minutes
Karl Barth, famous though controversial contemporary Swiss theologian, was a great thinker, a prolific writer, and a professor at Göttingen, Münster and Bonn universities. On one occasion he was confronted by a reporter who wanted a brief summary of his twelve thick volumes on church dogma, wanting to know the greatest truth in all the world. Barth could have given an impressive intellectual reply, but didn’t. Quoting from the popular children’s hymn, he simply said, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”
And there is no greater proof of this love than Jesus Christ’s death at Easter almost 2000 years ago. It was Jesus who said, “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.” But Jesus’ love went much further than this. He laid down his life not only for his friends but for his enemies as well. Imagine the torturous agony Christ must have endured when nailed to the cross. This was the price he paid to die for our sins. Added to his physical suffering was his sense of utter rejection by being forsaken not only by his few remaining friends but also by God.
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”, Jesus cried out in utter despair from the cross. But so great was his love, even for those who caused his excruciating pain—those who nailed him to the cross, thrust a spear into his side, mocked him, spat in his face—that in the midst of this inhumane torture he prayed, “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.”
Human love is often conditional. If we are what others want us to be, and do what others want us to do, we are loved. If not, we are often rejected. Fortunately, God’s love is never conditional. It is never based on what we do—good or bad. He loves us simply because we are his creation.
If God loves us unconditionally, why is he so vehemently opposed to our sin? Because sin is so completely destructive of human personality. It totally destroys what God loves—us. Nevertheless, God still loves the sinner. That’s why he gave his Son, Jesus Christ, to die for us. And now, through Christ’s death, God can save us from our self-destructive sin.
Sometimes we falsely see sin only as specific acts that God happens to oppose. But sin is much more than this. We tend to see only the external acts, but God sees the heart, too. He is just as concerned with sins of the spirit—pride, jealousy, lust, emotional dishonesty, resentment, and other supercharged negative emotions (including the ones we have repressed and consequently denied)—just as much as murder, rape, and stealing.
In his excellent book The Art of Understanding Yourself, Dr Cecil Osborne writes, “It is extremely naïve to think of sin simply as an isolated act—a lie, a theft, immorality, dishonesty, etc.—for sin is all that is less than perfection. It is rejecting God—‘falling short’ of the perfection which God has envisioned for us. It is having impaired relationships and attitudes. It is being less than whole. It is having mixed motives. Sin is the clever rationalisation by which we seek to escape from facing ourselves. It can consist in responding to a set of rigid moralistic ‘oughts’ rather than obeying the Spirit of God which dwells within us.’
Sin is our damaged inner condition and results in our wrong or sinful acts. The disease of sin weakens nations, produces sick societies, and causes physical, mental and spiritual suffering. It causes men and nations to fight, kill and destroy. And as the Bible says, its end result is death.
We need to understand that God is not opposed to nor outraged by our breaking his commandments for his sake, but primarily for our sake. Adultery (or any other sin) is not wrong because it is forbidden in the Ten Commandments; it is forbidden in the Ten Commandments because it is destructive of human personality. God is ‘against’ whatever is destructive to us. His love for us is so great that he cannot see us destroying ourselves without suffering himself. It is the suffering of God, symbolised by the cross, which is involved in sin. We suffer in our sins. Christ suffered because of them. His suffering becomes redemption for us when we are able to confess the right sins with true contrition.
Because Christ himself was sinless, only he could die to pay the penalty for and thereby save us from our sins. We simply cannot save ourselves. No matter how good (or bad) we are, we are all afflicted with the terminal disease of sin for which Jesus Christ is the only cure.
As we confess our sins to him and thank him for dying on the cross for us, he will forgive us and set us free from sin’s chains of eternal death, and in return give us eternal life. Why not pray and ask Christ to do this for you today and let this Easter fulfil its true meaning in you?
By: Dick Innes