Why Believe In Jesus NOW?

            This question was posed to me recently:

Why is it that this earthly state of being is the point where so much is at stake for being with God? If you don't believe when you’re alive now, then you're eternally separated from God.

What about this 'earthly state of being' makes it so vital for us to believe in God? Why was so much importance placed on it?

Alternatively, why can't people die and see that there's a God and then believe? Why is the not-seeing-God-but-still-believing-in-Him bit the way it has to be?

            Faith and the timing of that faith are at the heart of this question. There are two parts to this question: (1) Why should I believe in God now? (2) Why am I not given a chance to see God (in the afterlife) and then believe?

            If this question were posed to me in a live Q&A forum, I would have asked the questioner this question, “Do you think that a man would easily believe in God if he sees HIM in person or has a direct and a personal encounter with God?”

            The questioner should respond in the affirmative because the second part of the question presupposes that man will believe in God if he sees HIM in person.

            However, the Bible teaches us that a man has the disposition to not believe God even if he sees HIM in person.

            First, man is very capable of rejecting God’s Word. The Bible teaches us that Adam & Eve disobeyed God even though they had a personal and a direct encounter with HIM. They did not believe in the commandment of God (God’s Word). This unbelief led to their disobedience.

            Second, man is capable of rejecting God even if God were to provide man with a tangible knowledge of HIMSELF. Consider the Lord Jesus Christ.

            When God incarnated in the form of the Lord Jesus Christ, man (a good majority) continued in his state of unbelief citing various reasons (those who were living in the time and age of Christ’s incarnation and later). Hence, a man could choose to disbelieve in God, even if God was to present HIMSELF in the form of a man.

            Therefore, the second part of the question suffers from the logical fallacy of Petitio Principii or Begging the Question (assuming the truth of an argument or proposition to be proved, without arguing it). The second part of the question presupposes man’s belief in God upon sighting/encountering God. This premise could be invalidated.

            If a man would still not believe in God upon seeing HIM, then the second part of the question self-destructs.

            Now let me address the first part of the question. The Bible defines faith as, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen… And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.” (Hebrews 11:1,6; ESV).

            God is Spirit. So man cannot see God.

            Although man cannot see God, man is expected to believe in an unseen God. If God has not revealed HIMSELF adequately to man, then man cannot be expected to believe in God. But God has provided man with revelations of HIMSELF. (These revelations of God offers the man a very pertinent knowledge of God.)

            God has revealed HIMSELF through general revelation. The Bible teaches us that since what may be known about God through nature is plain to man, man is without an excuse, “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.” (Romans 1: 18-23, NIV).

            Outside of God’s general revelation, there is God’s special revelation. God’s Word (the Bible), the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ, the physical appearances of God, dreams, and visions etc. are the various forms of special revelation.

            Therefore, God has revealed HIMSELF adequately to man. These revelations are the knowledge that man requires to believe in God.

            But God can only be known through faith. The type of faith necessary for salvation involves both believing that and believing in, or assenting to facts and trusting in a person. We believe in God and we believe that HE loves us and hence sent HIS Son, the Lord Jesus, to save us.

            Faith, then, has a twofold nature: giving credence to affirmations and trusting in God. This is wonderfully revealed in Christ’s interaction with the disciples of John the Baptist.

            John the Baptist sent two of his disciples to ask Jesus whether HE was the Messiah or should they expect someone else (Luke 7:19). Jesus responded to them by saying that there's enough evidence for anyone to believe in HIM, “And when the men had come to him, they said, “John the Baptist has sent us to you, saying, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?’” In that hour he healed many people of diseases and plagues and evil spirits, and on many who were blind he bestowed sight. And he answered them, “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”” (Luke 7:20-23, ESV).

            Therefore, God has adequately revealed HIMSELF to man, so that man does not have plausible reasons to reject God. Only a hardened heart continues to reject God. This hardened heart is impervious to reason and evidence.

            If God has adequately revealed HIMSELF to us, in this time and age, then we are asked to believe in HIM, now. The timing of our faith in Christ is NOW (in this time and age), not in the future, and most certainly not in the afterlife.

            We are offered time until our death to either believe or reject God. This is so because we sin against God in this time and age. Hence it is in this time and age that we should repent and believe in God.

            In fact, who knows, we may not even have an opportunity to believe in Christ (because of death), if we do not believe in HIM now.

            If you are struggling to believe in the God of the Bible (the living God), then please plead with HIM to reveal HIMSELF to you. HE will most certainly draw you closer to HIS presence.            

God’s Love is NOT Unconditional!

Jim Palmer said, “God’s Love is not a spigot that turns off and on based on how correct your theology is, how religious you are, or how far you've progressed on your growth journey. God IS Love, which means that at every moment God’s Love is the underlying, unchanging and fundamental reality. It does not fluctuate. It cannot be earned or lost. It is never threatened. God's Love is available to all people, all the time, everywhere, without condition...” (emphasis mine). I agree with Jim, but my understanding from the Bible is that God’s love is perspectively unconditional. In other words, God’s love is not totally unconditional. Let me attempt to submit my understanding here.

In the question, ‘is God’s love totally unconditional?’ the term ‘unconditional’ refers to the absence of limiting conditions. Does God love HIS people without any limiting conditions?

This subject is important to our life. Christian literature, on the subject of God’s love, teaches that God’s love is unconditional; hence man’s love for his fellow beings ought to be unconditional too. This being a fact, we need to understand the scope of God’s love, so to love each other similarly. The Bible mandates us to love each other as Christ loved us (John 15: 12). If Christ’s love for man is unconditional, then our love for each other should strictly follow Christ’s paradigm.

If love is totally unconditional, should we love evil? The Bible teaches that sincere love hates evil (Romans 12: 9, NIV). Because the Bible is replete with situations where God hated evil (Psalm 5:5, 11: 5; Proverbs 6: 16-19; Hosea 9: 15), there is the much needed consistency between Christ’s love and the Bible’s mandate for Christ’s disciple to hate evil. So, we conclude that as Christ hated evil, we ought to hate evil. We should hate Satan - the evil one. In other words, one cannot love evil and still love God, for God and evil are mutually opposing entities. Thus, hating evil / sin is a condition to sincere love.

When a condition to love is mandated, we infer that neither God’s love nor man’s, is totally unconditional. The Bible states that God loves good & evil, and righteous & unrighteous (cf. Matthew 5: 45). But HIS love for the unrighteous and the evil is only to offer their earthly provisions. Thus God’s love for the unrighteous and evil is within the perspective of their earthly living.

The unrepentant and unbelieving unrighteous man will remain in a perpetual state of evil, and so will not taste God’s provision of heaven (cf. John 3: 16 et al.). The Bible states that only the pure can ascend the eternal dwelling place of the Lord (Psalm 24: 3). Since all men are inherently evil (Job 15: 14; Proverbs 20: 9; Romans 3: 10), none can claim purity to gain heaven. To overcome this predicament, the perfect and sinless Christ sacrificed HIMSELF for the sake of the sinful mankind, so only those who BELIEVE in Christ would gain eternal life. Belief in God is mandatory to receiving the eternal benefits of God’s love. Thus, we observe another condition to God’s love, namely belief in HIM.

Although God loves men unconditionally that HE sacrificed HIMSELF to save them of their sins, God requires that man believe HIM, so to receive and enjoy HIS eternal provision of love. Without belief in God, man cannot receive all the benefits of God’s love, he can only receive some.

The Bible applies God’s love for man to the human marriage paradigm. The marriage between a man and a woman is analogous to the relationship between Christ and the church. Christ is analogous to the husband, and the church is analogous to the wife (Ephesians 5: 22-33).

Let’s pause for a moment to think through the starting point for the relationship between Christ and HIS body – the church. The church is a congregation of believers of the Lord - those who believe in Christ. If a man disbelieves in Christ, he is not part of the church. Hence, “belief” is a mandatory condition or the starting point in the relationship between Christ and HIS church.

The theology of God’s love is when man believes in God, he receives the benefits of both temporal (the needs of this world) and eternal provision (eternal coexistence with God in heaven) of God’s love for him. When man refuses to believe in God, he receives only the temporal provision of God’s love for him; he does not receive the eternal provision.

Significantly, when man believes in God, he begins to coexist with HIM (or remain in HIM – John 15). When man refuses to believe in God, he cannot coexist with HIM.

Thus the corollaries of ‘belief in man’s love for God’ are:

(1) Man cannot coexist with God without believing in HIM – belief in God is mandatory for coexistence with HIM.

(2) Without belief in God, man cannot receive the unmitigated expressions (temporal and eternal) of God’s love.

Applying this theology into the marriage paradigm fetches us similar conclusions to assert the importance of belief in a marriage to open the floodgates of love:

(1) If the partners of christian marriage believe in each other, their coexistence would be abundantly fruitful and peaceful. If one or both the partners of a marriage covenant fail to believe / trust each other, the marriage would crumble – coexistence of the partners will cease at a point in time, unless there is a divine intervention to effect a transformation – to reclaim the lost belief.

(2) If belief is existent in marriage, the partners would enjoy the total love of each other, and the unmitigated expressions of their love. If unbelief is existent in a marriage, then love, at best, would be partial. Half-baked love is a painfully conditional love, so love need not exist in a marriage where one partner does not believe the other.

Finally, I submit that God’s love is unconditional from God’s perspective, for HE has done everything, through the one-time sacrifice of the Lord Jesus, for a man to love, enjoy and live with HIM forever.

What about the condition of love to hate evil? There is no evil in God, so God and Satan are opposing entities. God only proposes good to all, but Satan disposes good to propose evil to all. Hence, God and Satan mutually exclude each other. If we are with God, we cannot be with Satan, and vice versa. Hence, hating evil / sin need not be construed as a condition but as a voluntary abandonment of evil, which is nonexistent in God and detested by HIM.

Is belief in God a condition to love God? Yes, belief in God is a condition to love God totally and to coexist with HIM unto eternity. One cannot escape this fact. Without believing God, man cannot love HIM. A wife cannot love her husband if she does not believe him and vice versa. If belief is mandatory to love, then for man to receive the unmitigated expressions of God’s love, is conditional upon his belief in God. Thus, God’s love is NOT unconditional from man’s perspective. (Man cannot love and eternally coexist with God without belief in HIM.)

In a friendly relationship, love can exist without or with partial existence of belief. But this love, at best, will only be superficial. Deep and long lasting friendships / relationships will only be a reality if there is strong mutual belief. Conversely, if belief in a relationship takes a beating, then the relationship is bound to dilute or crumble.

Thus, love is dependent on belief. Love cannot exist independent of belief. The greater the belief, the greater the love, and vice versa.

I pray that you and I will believe in the one God who gave us life through Jesus Christ to live with HIM unto eternity and love HIM with all our heart, mind, soul and strength. I also pray that in our human relationships, we will do our best, by the power of the blessed Holy Spirit, to believe our spouse /neighbor, so to establish strong and healthy relationships where godly love will reign supreme. Amen. 

Paradigm of God’s Forgiveness and the Reason to Repent

We are creatures of habit. We experience our circumstances and environment, gain knowledge, take decisions, and form our comfort zone. If I travel regularly on a particular road, I seldom ignore it, unless a diversion forces me. When I experience a better alternate, I view it with skepticism, but when I am convinced, the alternate is my comfort. This may be true to all facets of life - roads, relationships, and even theology. We could habitually think of God as if HE were human, and even find comfort in knowing HIM as one. But God isn’t human! Any thought of God as a human is assuredly erroneous. God does not forgive as humans do.

God cannot be contained in time. HIS attributes of infinity and eternality defy time. God has no ‘before’ and ‘after’ (HE is conscious of our past, present and future). We live in time; we are in the ‘present,’ reminisce the ‘past,’ and ignorant of our ‘future.’ At best, our knowledge of future may be based on educated assumptions, which could be incorrect. But God knows everything (omniscience). HE knows our speech even before that word is on our tongue (Psalm 139:4). Hence, God’s forgiveness should be seen in light of HIS attributes.

God is like a person seated on the top floor of a high rise building, observing the action on the ground. Below the high rise, in a narrow lane, the person sees two cars traveling towards each other at a high speed. The drivers cannot sight each other because of a blind curve in the road, but the blind curve does not obstruct the person on the high rise. Although the drivers are unaware of their imminent collision (future), the person on the high rise is.

Being seated high above ground, the person transcends time by observing all events on the ground. At a specific time, he sees events occurring at different places on the ground that the ground dwellers are unaware of. When one transcends time, the knowledge of various points in time is gained.

When someone repents for offending me, I forgive him in ignorance, for I am ignorant of a repeated offense. My forgiveness is based on a blind belief. But God knows our future. When we repent of our sin against God, we will repeat the same or another sin in the future.

If I truly repent of a sin, God forgives me. If I repeat the same sin after 3 days and repent, I am confident that God has forgiven me. If I repeat the same sin after 30 days and repent, I am still confident of God’s forgiveness. In reality, I am travelling through time – I commit a sin on day 1, and repeat it on day 4 and 34. We travel through time, but God is outside time. We ought to incorporate this fact about God when we comprehend HIS forgiveness.

When God forgives me, HE knows precisely when and where I would repeat that sin in the future. HE also knows what other lesser or greater sins I will commit. God is not only infinite and eternal, HE is omniscient.

When God forgives me, HE forgives me not because of what I do, but because of what HE has done through the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ died and rose again for the sins of our past, present, and future. When man repents of his sins and accepts the Lord Jesus as his savior, he is forgiven once and for all.

The repentance of a person who refuses to believe in Christ would not be forgiven in an absolute sense, for he is bound to sin again.¹ He lacks the protection of Christ’s perfect sacrifice, which is through belief. Since God is omniscient of our future sins, it is impossible for us to receive absolute forgiveness without believing and accepting Christ as savior. We need absolute forgiveness for we are sinful beings.

Examine this situation from the human perspective. A person lies to his friend. After a couple of days, he lies again, repents, and his gracious friend forgives him. If he continually lies to his friend over a span of a month, the friend will refuse to take any repentance seriously, and probably won’t forgive him anymore. Even if he forgives, his forgiveness will be soaked in disbelief. On the contrary, if this individual wasn’t a perpetual liar, the friend would have considered the repentance as genuine. If the friend possesses knowledge of the person’s inability to speak the truth, his repentance will not be considered genuine and worthy of forgiveness. There is no absolute forgiveness for sins, since God knows that man is a chronic sinner. However, God’s love, grace, mercy, and compassion will never cease, hence man exists.

But why repent if God knows we are chronic sinners? For the sake of clarity, we should observe the christian and non-christian dimensions.

God has blessed us with the second person of the blessed trinity, Jesus Christ, (HIS sinless life, death and resurrection) as the only means for forgiveness of sins. Outside of Christ, there is no sacrifice for sins and hence no forgiveness (cf. Hebrews 10: 26-27).Those who believe and accept Christ as their only God and savior are forgiven of all their sins. This is the christian dimension. The non-christian dimension is that there is no forgiveness of sins, because the one who refuses Christ remains a sinner till his last breath; hence God does not forgive him. Thus repentance without believing in Christ is a futile exercise for a non-christian.

Why must a christian repent, when he has been forgiven of all his sins – past, present and future? Repentance, for a christian, is a plea to God and a volitional affirmation of his continuous endeavor, by the power of God, to overcome his sinful nature into a loving obedience to Christ. This is an on-going growth process of holiness in a christian. Both God and the christian know that sin is imminent, but there is an effort on the part of the christian, with God’s help. The effort succeeds through prayer and God’s power. Sin can be overcome, but not to sinless perfection. Moreover, holiness should not be imprisoned in time. Some, by God’s grace, discard their sins sooner, and some later. But we are so full of sins that being sinless is impossible in this time and age.

Sin separates a christian from God (Isaiah 59: 2), but not from an eternal perspective. When a christian sins, he cannot receive God’s blessings to the fullest (cf. John 15: 5). Thus a christian pleads to God for power to discard sins, the desire to love and obey HIM, and to be in constant fellowship with God. Thus repentance enhances his love for God, and the spiritual blessings of God increases in the one who depends on God for his sustenance and this man enjoys God abundantly.

Finally, will God forgive a man who genuinely repents of his sins, but hasn’t forgiven his debtor (cf. Matt 18: 35)? God will judge this man from an earthly perspective and not eternal. If I don’t forgive my debtor, I will not be a resident of hell in eternity, but I will have to face God’s judgment, whatever it may be, in this time and age.

If you disagree, then please do not hesitate to enlighten me. Amen.

Notes:

¹ Man is sinful from birth. No one teaches a child to lie or covet, but the child lies and covets.