God has many attributes that we can learn from creation and His Word. The Law reminds us of God’s Justice. God is always Just. The goodness of God’s provision (air, water, food, etc.) reminds us of God’s Love. God is always Love. These two attributes of God are in perfect harmony, with no tension, until we rebel against God in sin. Then, we all have a problem. When we sin, God’s justice turns to wrath:
He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. For God shows no partiality. For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. (Romans 2:6-12 [ESV])
God’s law provides an understanding of walking with God in this life and joining God in the next. There is a door to heaven, if you can imagine, that allows us to join God in heaven as long as we are good – never rebelling against God or hurting people. We need to be patient in “well-doing” to get in this door. If we are not perfect in this good life, though, this door, when opened, will pour out God’s wrath. This is bad news for us all, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23 [ESV]).
The Good News of the Gospel, though, is that God provides another door. God’s Love provides another pathway into heaven. This path and door are provided through Jesus. Jesus, you see, never sinned and could enter into heave without receiving God’s wrath. Rather than taking this way, though, Jesus decided to take God’s wrath anyway, by dying on the cross. His death took the payment of death for us, if we are willing to swap places with Jesus. We, then, go in through his door and he takes the wrath through ours. This way God stays fair (just) but punishing sin with death, but God stays love as well – providing a second chance for us who have fallen short.
But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it--the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. (Romans 3:21-26 ESV)
How about you? Do you see the two doors? Which one will you take?
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