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

Back to Top