The Dilemma

Last week at OCF Bible discussion we touched on the topic on God's dilemma.

Scenario

Recall  best friend you have, where you spent alot of time with, playing around, talking, sharing secrets, copy each other's homework and seeing each other alot. Imagining that you are now a top judge in a high court and being justice and fair, you cannot be corrupt and unfair. One day your friend is being presented in your court to be charged for stealing $10 because he was hungry and needed to eat. He lost all his investment to the recent economic recession. What would you do? 

As a judge, you must be fair because you uphold the law. Also, you yourself are incorrupt and justice. At the same time, you love your friend whom you spent most of your life with. He/she even saved your life once from drowning in the river when you were young. What are you going to do?

That was the case scenario we presented to our groups. Do you think God has this dilemma too? Think about it.

God is like you too, in the case scenario. He too has a dilemma. It is not easy for Him to just say, i forgive you, because like yourself as a judge, you cannot compromise your love and justice. Just like God who is holy and pure, He cannot compromise Himself by letting go of sin. Sin to God, is like crime to men, which must not go unpunish. He needs to judge no matter what.

Sin is an offense against God. Just like crime. No matter how small or big, a crime is a crime. Is stealing $10 and $10,000 make it less of a crime? 

Nonetheless, it is still a crime isn't it? The same as sin. Sin is not how much of a level that is acceptable in God's eyes. Often we rank sins like a scale from 1-10 and draw a line between what is acceptable and what is not. Often we make that threshold of good and bad and act in a way that we think is close to the line without stepping over to the other side. Think about it again, does stealing $10 and $10,000 make it less of a crime? Just like God sees it, He doesnt perceive sin as big or small. All sins are sins to Him don you agree? If you dot a small ink on a piece of white paper, no matter how much you believe the paper is still clean, it is NOT entirely white anymore. It is true that the dot is hardly seen, but it does not run away from the fact that the paper is not clean anymore. Just like God, who is pure and holy, He cannot tolerate sin, not even a drop or an ink. 

Good and bad, right and wrong is more resemblance to a direction. Even those two words show the extreme opposite of one another. It is a direction. God sees that as a direction. You either choose to go left, or to go right, where one side resembles good and bad. It is not a scale with a line in between. 

So do you think God has a dilemma now?

Whenever we commit sin, it separates us from God. Separation occurs instantaneously. It's difficult to imagine it but here's an example. If you accidentally scratch your dad's car, do you feel anything? If someone scratched your car, do you feel anything? That's separation. You immediately feel guilty or in trouble when you scratched your dad's car. That's the separation your dad will feel too cause his car was being offended against. If i spilled water over your laptop, don you feel an immediate reaction that separates us from our relationship? That's the separation God feels towards sin committed against Him too. But like your dad, he too has the dilemma to punish you, yet love you at the same time. 

So what now? We are all sinners, we commit wrongs against men and against God and GOd needs to punish. Just like you as the judge, you cannot say you won't hand down a sentence to your friend just because he is your friend. 

"For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" Romans 6:23

By being a sinner, we are condemned to die and go to hell. That is the law and that is it. No other way out. Just like the case scenario, your friend has to faced his or her consequences. 

But God is a God of love. He loves us. God does not have love, because He is love. You cannot take love out of God, just like how you cannot take heat out of fire. God loves us so much that he substituted Himself to be a sacrifice for our sins. For sin is punishable by death, so only by sacrificing someone who is sinless, can sin be taken away from all sinners. That form of substitute came in Jesus Christ. He was of no sin, who came to be sin for us, so that we might live. 

God paid the ultimate sacrifice Himself, humbling down to be a men among us, so that He can die for us. It was paid in full.

So back to the question as the judge, what would you do? 

If you possess God's justice and love, you would charge your friend with the most heaviest fine ever (i.e. 0$100,000) because you are a fair judge, and when you walk out of the court, take off your wig, you'll pay it all for him/her because you love him/her.

That's what God did and He showed His justice and love, all at the same time.