Monday, March 12, 2012

God is perfect. We are not.

God is perfect. We are not. We are on the opposite end of the infinity spectrum of perfection. It's like a light switch - on/off. A binary switch - 0/1. Colour - inside-a-cave black vs. blinding white light. Therefore if God is infinitely good, then by definition we are infinitely bad. That means, on the scale of "good vs. bad", we really aren't that far apart from Hitler or Dahmer or any other "bad" person you want to be compared to, because the only comparison that matters is how we compare to God. If you draw a line on a piece of paper and put Satan on one end and God on the other, then put the worst person you can think of somewhere down the "bad" end, then put yourself somewhere on that line, you might be thinking you're pretty much okay, right? Well, guess what? You didn't draw the line long enough. Get someone to hold the piece of paper and then start backing away from it, imagining that you're drawing the line that goes toward God. Can you still see "your" dot? Does it seem like it's a bit closer to Hitler than you'd like to think? Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. Can you still see your dot? Can you even see the piece of paper? Keep going. Are you starting to get the idea? God's perspective is that when he looks at your sin from HIS standard of perfection, he really doesn't see any difference between "your" dot on that piece of paper and anyone else's.

So, because he is so perfect, he simply cannot have imperfection sharing Heaven with him. The only way for us to share Heaven is to be made perfect, and the only way the Bible tells us that happens is through the legal declaration of perfection that is imputed to us through Jesus' blood. When the Bible says we are "in Christ", that we have "put on Christ", we can think of this as meaning that when God's eye falls on us, he doesn't see our sin and imperfection, he only sees Jesus' perfection. As Paul Washer has so eloquently said, if I encounter God's judgement without Jesus' blood covering me, I would be like a birthday candle in front of a blast furnace. There is no "good enough". There is no "working it out with God". You are either made perfect, or you aren't.

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