CONDEMNED? John 3:17-21
John 3:17 reads, “Indeed, God did not send the Son
into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the
world might be saved through him.” That reading is from
the New Revised Standard Version of the Holy Bible. Listen
to this rendition from Today’s English Version: for
God did not send his Son into the world to be its judge, but
to be its Savior.” So is Jesus our Savior or our judge?
As we reflect on
these questions, some of you may conclude that Jesus is our
Savior. What’s the issue? Jesus came
to help put the world right again, didn’t he? Others
of you may decide that he is both, Savior and judge. Does not
the cross of Jesus Christ represent both God’s judgment
and God’s grace? Doesn’t salvation come in the
midst of judgment? A few of you may ascertain that Jesus is
our judge. Jesus in his holiness simply points a condemning
finger at us telling us how bad we really are. Didn’t
Jesus say, “I came into this world for judgment?
So, some of us at
least, agree with our text for this message that Jesus came
into the world to be our Savior, not our judge.
Indeed, the message of Christian salvation is that Jesus came
into the world to show God’s love and to call all to
faith in him. For those who respond in faith to God’s
love in Jesus Christ, life with the Eternal One is their reward.
Most of us believe
that this is the message of our faith. However, how many
of us really believe it? How many of us actually
trust that God loves us and accepts us unconditionally, warts
and all? The truth is that many of us struggle with God’s
love for us. There are at least two reasons for our struggle.
The first struggle
comes from a belief that many of us carry deep within the
psyche. It goes something like this: Everything
must be paid for. For twenty centuries the church has proclaimed
the message of salvation, grace, and God’s forgiveness
to a humanity oppressed with guilt. How then is it that even
among the most fervent believers there are so few whose lives
are filled with joy and freedom? The problem is that deeply
engraved on every human heart is the idea that everything must
be paid for. Salvation must be earned. At some level or another,
we believe that salvation is something we must achieve.
Many of us struggle
with the idea of Jesus taking care of all our sins at the
cross. It seems impossible to us that God
could remove all our guilt without our having to pay something
or do something. Dr. Paul Tournier, a Swiss psychiatrist, has
written in his book Guilt and Grace, “The notion that
everything has to be paid for is very deep-seated and active
within us, as universal as it is unshakable by logical argument.” The
sad truth is that the very people who long so for love and
acceptance have the greatest difficulty affirming God’s
unconditional acceptance in Jesus Christ. To them God’s
love and grace are too simple a solution for a life bogged
down in sin and guilt.
Many of us believe
in the forgiveness of sins. However, deep down in the depths
of being our own sin and guilt gnaw at us.
We fail to appropriate God’s grace and forgiveness to
our whole sinful condition at the very deepest levels of our
being.
Indeed, we believe
and act as if somehow we must earn or achieve our salvation.
We operate as if God’s grace can’t
do it alone. We act as if our works, our achievements are more
important than or just as important as our faith. Faith alone
in the saving grace of God is simply not enough for us. Some
of us try to earn our salvation through becoming famous. Others
of us try to save a fortune and secure our salvation through
wealth. Still others of us seek salvation through power over
others. Some of us believe we can earn God’s grace through
doing good in behalf of others. Still others of us contend
that devotion to family or to nation will earn us our salvation.
Some of us assume striving for holiness will make us good in
the eyes of God and bring us the reward of eternal salvation.
Others of us maintain that our practices of Christian piety
will make us right with God.
The truth of the
gospel is that none of these things matter in terms of our
salvation. They will not remove our feelings
of guilt before God; in fact, they can make matters worse.
What if we fail in what we are seeking to achieve? It only
produces guilt. Our failure acts as a judge of our condition
before God. Nothing can remove our sin and guilt before God
except God’s love as revealed in the death and resurrection
of Jesus Christ. Only Jesus is our Savior. We are totally and
unconditionally indebted to Jesus Christ for our salvation.
No one, literally no one, can win acceptance with God on terms
other than God’s grace given freely through Jesus Christ.
Anything less amounts to a denial of the completeness and finality
of the saving power of the cross of Christ.
The good news is
that God’s unconditional love has
come through Jesus Christ. He is our Savior, for he gave his
life that we might have life. The angel of the Lord announced
this good news to Joseph, while Mary awaited the birth of a
son: “You are to name him Jesus, for he will save his
people from their sins.” Jesus proclaimed it on the
eve of his crucifixion. He took a cup, gave it to his disciples,
and said, “Drink from it, all of you; for this is my
blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the
forgiveness of sins.”
We can do nothing to wipe away our sin and guilt before God.
Our blessing as Christians is to know that we are forgiven
and that forgiveness reaches us through Jesus Christ, our Savior.
God has paid the price once and for all through the atoning
work of Jesus Christ. We no longer stand guilty before God
because Jesus died on the cross that we might be forgiven and
bound for eternity. Jesus is our Savior, not our judge.
The second reason
for our struggle has to do with feelings we may have about
ourselves. Some of us struggle with self-acceptance.
Our logic with regard to fully accepting Jesus as our Savior
goes like this; “How can God accept me when I cannot
accept myself?” Persons who struggle with self-acceptance
often find it inconsistent and troubling to embrace a theology
based on a loving, accepting God. To them it does not make
good, logical sense to be loved by a perfect being when they
are so unlovable.
It is quite common
for such persons to see Jesus as their judge. To them that
makes more sense given their view of themselves.
They contend, “There is no way Jesus can be my Savior,
for I’m not worth God’s boundless love.”
It is likely that
persons struggling with self-worth feelings may believe that
God loves everybody but them. These persons
may affirm the love of God in a general sense but refuse to
believe it applies to them in any deep and lasting way. Again,
to them that simply does not make good sense. They clearly
cannot accept God’s love because they do not value themselves.
According to research in social psychology and religion, persons
who struggle with self-acceptance tend to see God as unloving,
rejecting, and vindictive. Their self-image seems to require
a God who punishes rather than one who loves the sinner. Despite
the overwhelming message of God’s love in the Bible,
they experience God in Jesus Christ as judge. They believe
that Jesus came into the world for judgment, not salvation.
If this is your
struggle, the revelation of God in Jesus Christ is this:
in Jesus’ suffering, forgiving love upon the
cross, God accepts each person. Each of us has ultimate worth
because the Son of God laid down his life to affirm the value
of the lost coin, the lost sheep, the lost child. In Jesus,
the Savior, God has broken the tyranny of the destructive power
of sin upon life and has liberated the human spirit to a new,
life-affirming relationship with God.
Our Savior not only
became one of us and accepted each person, but also he is
doing a positive work on behalf of each of us
even now. Those who welcome his caring love are the new creation
of God. They are no longer captives to sin and its corrosive
power, for in Jesus Christ, they are accepted and forgiven.
The Holy Spirit is working in them to renew and restore their
human value that has been undercut by the crippling effects
of sin. The Spirit’s empowering makes us all fully human,
fully valued, fully alive in Christ. Jesus is our Savior, not
our judge.
What is Jesus to
us? Is he our Savior or our judge? If we are struggling with
a burden of guilt, we can trust the work
of the Savior. He has paid the price for our guilt. In the
cross God offers us grace. We cannot earn it through good works.
We cannot achieve it through superhuman effort. We can only
accept it. We can only receive God’s love and grace
and experience its transforming power in our life. We are invited
to accept Jesus as our Savior today.
If we are struggling
with accepting ourselves as persons of worth and value, we
can God’s acceptance of us in Jesus
Christ. God loves you. God loves you more than anybody in this
world loves you. God in Jesus Christ loves us more than we
can ever love ourselves.
We can love and
value ourselves because God loved us enough to create us.
God valued us enough to send a Savior to change
our lives into something of ultimate worth to God. I invite
you to embrace God’s accepting love for you. Come to
the Savior, today.
The Rev. Esther
Hargis
March 12, 2000
© 2000, Esther
Hargis
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