The Great Divide
Article 10
John 3:16-19
Of all the gifts God has given us as human beings made in His image, none is so noble and so terrifying as the power of choice.
Physical objects simply obey the laws of nature. Other living creatures mostly follow their instincts. But, human beings are able to take experiences from the past, knowledge others have passed on; then use an ability to synthesize those data and envision how doing one thing or another might affect the future. Then, putting all that together, we make choices. Human beings choose. We’re not programmed to run on a track like a streetcar. No, God has created us in his image with an ability to select our paths. We are created in such a way that we know our choices make a difference in this world – we believe our lives matter.
Of course, with this precious gift of choice comes awesome responsibility. With our ability of God-like power to choose comes the other side, i.e., the ability to make bad choices – even evil choices. And, of course, many of the choices we make have a huge impact on the future direction of our lives – and even on all those around us. There are vital turning points in our lives affected by certain choices we are called upon to make.
This point brings us to the conclusion of “The Story of Our Faith”. We have seen so far that the first human beings in Genesis 1-2 were the only creatures given a moral command by God: “You shall not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” And we have seen how a bad moral choice in Genesis 3 destroyed the shalom of paradise. But, God has found a way to make us right with him again. God’s means of making all things new is at the heart of what we have called God’s gospel. After taking 9 weeks to learn about this good news from God – all the way from Genesis to Revelation in 9 weeks – we conclude by seeing that God again calls us to exercise the gift of choice he has given us. We are called to believe his gospel. This choice, according to the Bible, is the most important choice any of us will ever have to make. And, just as human choice always has consequences, this most important choice of all has consequences for our eternal souls. This is how we have put it in Article 9 of our SOF:
We believe that God commands everyone everywhere to believe the gospel by turning to Him in repentance and receiving the Lord Jesus Christ. We believe that God will raise the dead bodily and judge the world, assigning unbelievers to eternal separation from Him, and believers to eternal peace in His presence with restored relationships to God, renewed creation, and one another in the new heaven and the new earth, to the praise of His glorious grace.
Response to God’s gospel determines the eternal destiny of every person
Part 1: The Most Important Decision We Will Ever Make: What do we do with Jesus?
In the very words of Jesus, we have heard this: 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).
Notice the phrases, “whoever believes in him…” and “save the world through him.”
Running through most of North America is a highland that separates the waters flowing east and west. It’s called the Continental Divide and runs through Central America and Mexico, crosses New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, all the way up into Canada through British Columbia and Alberta.
I’ve heard that in the Canadian Rockies someone has erected a little arch with the words “The Great Divide” posted above it. The point is that rain falling from the same shower is divided at that arch. To the human eye, it may seem small and insignificant – but it is not. Rain that falls down one side of that small arch joins river systems that flow out eastward into the Atlantic Ocean. Rain that falls on the other side of the arch flows westward eventually into the Pacific. The same clouds, the same rain – but the destinies are at opposite ends.
This becomes, for us, a picture of peoples’ various encounters with Jesus. According to the New Testament, Jesus is the ultimate “Great Divide”. In John 3:18, Jesus said, Whoever believes in the Son is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. It is quite a claim. Jesus is saying that all who meet him seal their eternal destiny in the way they respond to him. He’s saying we cannot be neutral about him. We all must go one way or the other.
The same sermon, the same circumstances that turn one person from blindness to sight will turn others from little light they do have to utter spiritual darkness. This sort of divide will take place even this weekend’s sermon. Today the gospel will be proclaimed. When that happens, Jesus declares that all of us show which side of the eternal divide we’re on by the way we respond.
The reason for this has already been clear in our story of faith. We have been born into a sinful race and all of us are sinners by nature and by choice. But, God loves us and has made a way for “un-right” people to be made right. God has found a way to punish evil but to declare that those of us who have done evil are right with him. He came in Jesus. He and he alone lived the life God made people to live but none of us has. He alone could die the death we should die for our sins but now do not have to. Jesus took our place. Jesus atoned for our sins. As Paul put it in 2 Cor. 5: God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself not counting our sins against us…. God made him who knew no sin to become sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God. Jesus did this – and Jesus alone. We were all dead to God because of our sins but in Christ we can be made alive. No one else can take our place. As Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father – except through me you come to the Father!
We are called upon to use this powerful and terrifying gift of choice to repent of going our own ways and to entrust our lives to Jesus. God loves us. He doesn't want to us perish. We deserve to perish. But God loves us so much He gave His one and only Son that we might not perish. He is ready and able to forgive us! But this is one thing God will not forgive. That is the foolishness, the ingratitude of rejecting His gift. Jesus says in John 3:19 that God’s Light comes to us in the world but we turn from it. As Jesus says so clearly in John 3:36: Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life but whoever rejects the Son will not see life…The most important decision you will ever make in this world is what you will do with Jesus.
Part II: The “Benevolent Impulse”: But what about…?
This rather clear teaching from Jesus has caused all sorts of discomfort and agony of conscience among many of us who read about the Jesus who has come to seek the lost – and to die for the lost. This incredibly loving Jesus welcoming outcasts and dying for sinners also talks about those without faith in him perishing and being condemned -- being eternally separated from him. And Jesus used the most graphic language for that separation – hell with an unquenchable fire or utter darkness. Many people struggle with this fits together – even when it is Jesus’ own teaching. It’s hard for many Westerners to accept that love for sinners and wrath against sin fit together.
Now, I know that some Christians throughout history do not seem to struggle with this at all – saying that when you and I are aware of the depth of own sinfulness and the height of God’s holiness, we know that it’s only mercy that enables any human being to be rescued from our sin. Many of my friends tell me that when we struggle with the issue of people being eternally separated from God, it only shows how weak our idea of our own sin is. I’m sure there is a lot of truth to that.
But, there have been many, many throughout history who believe all that evil must be punished and that we have all engaged in it – and these people are fully committed to God’s Word -- and still have been challenged in our inner beings by what some have called “the benevolent impulse.” Simply stated: this impulse refers to people who accept that whatever Jesus teaches is true but we have a longing that God will find a way to rescue more people than we are aware of. And, I doubt that any of you who has been here during my years as your pastor will be surprised when I admit that your pastor has a strong dose of this “benevolent impulse.” So, I want to walk with you through the two most difficult issues that we who are committed to Jesus and God’s Word and also have this “benevolent impulse” have to come to grips with in our souls: 1) infants who die prematurely and 2) those who have never heard.
Setting the stage: Remember who God is
To set the stage, let’s pull back just a moment to remember what we’ve learned about God. We have learned that he is able to do what none of us are able to do. We’ve learned that he is good – when he completes his works, what he does is very good – and that he’s a God who comes seeking after those who walk away from him. And, we have learned that he is both loving and just. God’s love for us and his wrath against the evil we do are not opposites. They are meaningless apart from one another. Love that isn’t angry about evil isn’t love at all. He is loving and will always prove to love people more than any of us do – indeed, more than any of us can. And, he’s just and will make sure that evil and injustice is dealt with. In fact, it would be unloving if God were not to punish evil. But, what is impossible for us is to figure out how he will eternally prove to be both loving and just. With that in mind, let’s look at the two agonizing issues:
Issue 1: What about our children?
What happens when a child dies who seems to have no ability to turn to or from the light – who cannot decide to receive or reject Jesus? The problem is that the sin in Genesis 3 has resulted in what David calls in Psalm 51 human beings being born in sin. We are sinners not only in our own deeds – as all of us are – but in our natures.
*Some have found ways to say that the faith of others, e.g., believing parents, is applied to the children until they are able to confirm their own faith. This is how infant baptism has often been understood. Some say it is a washing of a child’s original sin and a pledge of faith by the parents until the child can confirm his/her faith personally faith. Many have said that God keeps children safe until they can believe in or reject Jesus.
*Others have looked at Jesus using children in Matthew 18 as the very ones – the examples – who will inhabit the kingdom of heaven. “To get there, you must become like them!” Jesus declared. And there is one little line in 2 Samuel 12:23 some turn to -- when David had lost his son due to David’s sin. David said, “He will not come to me but I will go to him…” May (and I am among them) hold onto these little bits of evidence as indications that God keeps small children safe until they can respond in faith to the “light that has come into the world” that Jesus talks about in John 3:19.
And, I’m not ashamed to tell you, brothers and sisters, that I do hold onto that. And, I’m not alone. Many, many believers who have gone on before me have held onto that hope. You can imagine how I agonized over what I believe about that when our middle child was dying in infancy. I don’t want you to leave here today without that hope too.
Issue 2: What about those who have never heard the name of Jesus?
We hear the stories like of the thousands in Japan who have died due to the earthquake and tsunami, many of whom have never heard a clear testimony about Jesus, and we wonder… Is there any hope for these people? We think of our loved ones who have died and didn’t seem to have ever heard a clear presentation of the gospel; and we worry. There are so many things we will have to talk and pray about related to this issue, but let me say these two things that I hold onto:
#1: Only God knows who is in and who is not. We will probably be surprised at God’s list. In Romans 2:1-4, the Bible speaks of those who judge other people’s standing before God: You have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. Now we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is based on truth… Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance? To me, it is clear that from Romans 1-3 that God will judge sin but that he will show more kindness and patience that we would. And, in Matthew 7:21-23: Many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not (do many things) in your name…” Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you.” Jesus is letting us know that we may be surprised that God’s list is different from our own.
So, our responsibility is to repent of our sin and our self-centeredness and receive Jesus. We then are to give witness to others so they may believe. But, our job is not to declare, “I know who is in and who is not.” Do you remember Peter’s question to Jesus in John 21:20-22 after Jesus’ resurrection. Asking about John, Peter said, “What about him?” Jesus said, “Peter, what is that to you? You follow me?”
There is an insightful comment made on this in CS Lewis’ children’s book, The Horse and His Boy. Aslan was telling the boy Shasta that he had guided and protected him even when Shasta did not know it. “There was only one lion with you in your journeys … I was the lion … who forced you to join Aravis. I was the cat who comforted you among the houses of the dead. I was the lion who drove the jackals from you while you slept. I was the lion who gave the horses the new strength for the last mile so that you should reach King Lune in time. And I was the lion you do not remember who pushed the boat in which you lay, a child near death, so that it came to shore where a man sat, wakeful at midnight, to receive you.”
But Shasta questions Aslan about what Shasta thought was injustice toward his friend Aravis: “Child,” he said, “I am telling you your story, not hers. I tell no one any story but his own.” So, as almost always, we must decide whether we will trust God in how he deals with others.
#2: Throughout eternity we will know that God is exactly who he says he is – both loving and just.
You see, we are not yet like God. When I get angry, afterward I’m embarrassed. I say, “Oh, that wasn’t really me. I was just tired – or sick.” But, I know that’s not true. I’m embarrassed that what I really still am has come out so others can see it. I’m embarrassed by what I still am like. I know that for a moment the façade has come down and my image-consciousness and others have seen self-centeredness. When we get angry, our anger is unleashed against anything that’s gotten in the way of our comfort, image, reputation or ego. Our anger is so full of self that we can hardly conceive of a God whose anger flows from his love. He loves people. He loves justice. He loves what is good. And he is angry about anything that destroys goodness. He is lovingly angry about evil.
If you think God is a “loving” God who only says “yes” then you don’t understand true love. That would only lead to a spoiled child – a self centered child. If you only see a God who says no, you don’t understand true love. That would lead to an abused child – a broken child. But God’s love to seek after sinners to rescue us and to be angry about sin are two parts of one beautiful quality. And it’s seen on the cross. On the cross, we see how much God loves us. He satisfies the wrath necessary for justice and declares that all who trust him are made right. So, when a person dies, we entrust that person to God knowing that God loves that person more than we ever could. And, if we think something is unjust, we must know God hates injustice more than we ever could. And we go out and tell people about the beautiful person of Jesus whenever we have opportunity so that they might believe.
Again, what is impossible for us is to figure out how he will eternally prove to be both loving and just. But he will. And, I am convinced; he will surprise us in how he does it. Throughout eternity, we will sing the praise of the one who has shown his love – not weep because he has been unloving. We will sing the praise of the one who has punished evil — not complain that he is unjust. As our SOF ends, we will sing “to the praise of his glorious grace.” We really will.
Part III: Making the Decision: What will you do with Jesus?
Of all the gifts God has given us as human beings made in His image, none is so noble and so terrifying as the power of choice.
Life is filled with decisions. Every moment of every day involves decision. What will I think about? How will I sit? How fast will I walk? What will I wear? Some decisions, of course, are momentous: the decision to marry, to go to college, to begin a new occupation...
Often we're overwhelmed by the decisions of life and try to withdraw altogether. Unfortunately, even that's impossible because most "no‑decisions" are decisions too. I had a friend in college who couldn't decide whether to marry a certain girl. After years of dating she told him to make a decision but he couldn't. About a year later she was married to someone else. Was that a no‑decision?
It is also impossible to make a "no‑decision" about God. It's not enough to just hope that things will "work out in the end somehow." In John 3, Jesus says that making a no‑decision is the same as rejecting God. Neutrality is impossible. We have sinned. Let’s admit it. And, we know about Jesus as the only one who can save. He loves you. He is ready and able to save you. First question:
#1: Will you receive Jesus or reject him? Light comes to you today: John 3:36 -- Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them. I cannot be clearer than Jesus was. You have been given this awesome power of choice. Will you receive Jesus?
#2: Will you choose to trust Jesus? Will you trust him to be loving and just with others? He will be who he is. He seeks sinners out of love to save us – but he punishes sin. Heaven will be heaven. Sin will be dealt with and ended. We will know God is powerful, wise, good, loving and just. Will you trust him?
#3: Will you choose to tell others about Jesus? We know the gospel and know others need to know. They need this Jesus who loves us and is ready to recreate us. We know God’s gospel – his good news. Good news for whom?
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 – to the praise of his glorious grace. Amen.
To His glory alone,
Dr. Greg Waybright
Senior Pastor
Greg Waybright • Copyright 2011, Lake Avenue Church