The Attributes of God

Lately I've been practicing gospel sharing for my Philippines trip. And there's this question that I don't think I can answer definitely. That is: why did Jesus need to die on the cross for us. Because we often use the 'judge' analogy to explain things. 

Like: If you were in a huge debt that you cannot pay, and you were brought to court, and the judge says, you poor thing, I'll let you off this time. It may be a loving thing to do but is it a just thing to have been done? Is justice met along with mercy? No it's not. So maybe the judge says - I'll pay your hefty debt for you. In that way, there is both mercy and justice. 

Well, analogies are analogies, and they cannot be perfect. So in a way this does explain about how the gospel works. BUT there is something that I have yet to fully comprehend. I know God is a perfect God and I can never ever meet His standards of holiness because I have sinned, and because men have sinned, the wages of sin is death and death is what we justly deserve for our sins. I know that Jesus came as a sacrifice to atone for our sins to satisfy the wrath of God against our sins by bearing our sins on His shoulders when He came to die on that cross. I know He alone can atone for my sins because He Himself is holy and sinless.

But what I don't get is: How in the world does it work out that because the sinless Son of God died for my sins I get to go free? How does that satisfy justice as the innocent has to die for the guilty? How is it justice?

And when I brought this forward to Jon just now it was like a thunderbolt struck that struck in my heart. He said - you're looking at it from the wrong angle. It's not about how sin is atoned and how the process works out. It's about who God is. It is about God's attributes. It's about what I personally coined, the person of God.

And suddenly everything shifted in place and I understood. God could have invented a million other ways to atone us from our sins, if He loved us so much. Many other less painful ways than sending His Son, part of Himself whom He loved dearly to die on the cross bearing our sins on His shoulders, to endure the mocking and hatred of those He came to die for. To endure skepticism and ridicule and disbelief and a tonne of those other things people have towards Him up to this very day. Yes if He wanted it to be, there could be a million other ways out of this.

But this way, only this way, can show us who God is. How He is holy and perfect - He cannot endure sin. How He is just - sin must be punished. The bearer of sin must be condemned, even if those sins are borne on the body of God's own Son. And most of all, most of all: How He is loving. How much He loves the sinner, how God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that whomsoever believes in Him would not perish, but have eternal life. How the whole gospel, the whole salvation ministry of God holds together to show the only God He could have been: holy, just, merciful, loving. A God we stand in awe of. A God of mystery which we cannot fully comprehend, yet came to seek for us whom did not seek for Him first.

All this came to me, and the gospel instantly became more beautiful than it ever was, because in the gospel there is God. There is God in His full glory, there is God in whole. And tears swelled up my eyes as I realized, that is why the gospel is attractive, why it is beautiful, why it is wondrous is because God is the gospel. The gospel is not about men making their way to heaven, it is about God making Himself known to men so that they can be with Him forever. God who is love, who is holiness, who is merciful, who is justice, who is glorious, who conquers all things, who gives peace, who gives joy, who provides, who demands faith, and so much more. All these sides of Him shown through the gospel of salvation.

The fact that the gospel is about God doesn't make Him more distant from me. It makes me glad because now the gospel is more believable than ever. More real than ever. And more to be desired than ever. No wonder in the gospel there is the saving power of God. No wonder in the gospel there is the love of God, there is God.