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From: russ
Date: Wed Dec 12 22:23:13 EST 2012 Subject: Maximal Sacrifice

Why did God make us the way that we are? Why are we able to sin? Why are we able to reject Him? Why is it that Jesus had to die to save us from our sins? Why is the penalty for sin death? Why cannot God forgive us without demanding that someone die first?

The heart of the Christian message is that we are not alone. We were dead in our sins; our souls were dead, and our bodies were destined for destruction, because of our own choices. Yet God Himself - not a representative, or a metaphor, or a token - God Himself came down, joined with us, became one of us, suffered with us, and died for us. God condemned Himself to Hell for three days. And why did He do so? Because He loved us so much.

I was pondering this today, as I read Hebrews, and I asked myself again why the punishment for sin had to be so severe. Why is it that "without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness" (Heb 9:22)? It occurred to me that God does not sacrifice Himself simply because He must do so; rather, He loves to love. He loves to spend Himself for us. He loves to sacrifice. Might it be that God established such a profound price for sin, simply because He wanted to be able to pay it? No, that doesn't sound quite right. (Love is not the same as masochism!) But there was something here worth delving into...

Let's imagine creation in its many forms. Let's imagine that God created only the physical universe, but gave it no form. There were no stars, comets, or planets; just vast nebula of swirling gases. That creation would certainly reflect the majesty of God. Physicists know the beauty of our world - the wondrousness of even the simplest particles. There is something marvelous about gravity; the electron itself is a miracle of eternal proportions.

But that universe costs God nothing. It is wonderful; it is praiseworthy; it gives Glory to God; but there is nothing at risk.

My proposal is that God considered such a universe and saw that more delight was possible. And so He did not stop there. He brought into being something better.

Now imagine a universe where God has drawn the pieces of the universe together, and formed them. This universe is full of stars and planets; there are great glowing fires which reflect his awesome power, towering mountains that display his vastness, and quiet spaces which reflect His peace. It is a universe which speak of God more clearly. But again, there is little to risk. The stars dance their eternal dance with clockwork regularity. They are wonderful but not alive.

And so we imagine a universe filled with plants. God creates something new, something which had not been before: something which has an internal order, and a plan; it has a life of its own; it grows, drinks in God's rain, and thrives. This is something new! This reflects God in a way that the lifeless universe never did: here is something alive! Here is something which has a purpose, and which changes the universe around it! It is a miracle of a whole new class.

Yet there is also a cost. In this universe, as never before, death has come into being. Every plant that lives will eventually die. Every plant that thrives will eventually starve, or will fall under its own weight. This new world has something precious, which can be lost: things that go so marvelously right may also go wrong.

So God has a choice before Him. If He chooses to bring plants into being, He will create something new and wonderful, something incredible and unspeakably valuable. But He will also bring in sorrow.

We would not have been willing to do it. If we had been God, we would have contented ourselves with our perfect little lifeless universe. We would not have put ourselves, our hearts, and our glorious self-revelation at risk.

God, on the other hand, not only brings plants to life; He doubles down. He also creates animals, which are even more extreme. An animal reflects God's life in a way that no plant is able: an animal has a mind; it has the power of self-locomotion; it has senses. An animal has eyes, and a mouth, and feet. The God revealed in the nebula might have been the mindless God of Deism. The God revealed in an animal is something entirely different.

Yet animals bring even more sorrow than plants. When an animal dies, it is something more than the death of any plant. When an animal starves, it suffers in a way more piteous than any plant. God has created something better - but also something more tragic.

But God does not stop there. He creates the angels, which are far beyond even the animals. An animal has a simple mind; an angel has a personality. God has revealed something new! God is not just alive - He is a person! He has self-awareness. He makes choices. He makes plans. He can have relationship!

But in creating a being which can make a choice, God again introduces a new terrible reality. If God had stopped at creating the animals, He would have experienced sorrow through His creation. But because of choice, God can now experience rejection.

When an animal dies, God feels sorrow; yet this is not a personal rejection. It is a loss, but it is not betrayal. But when Lucifer, His most beautiful creation, turned against Him - and drew a third of the angels with him - God was, for the first time in all of eternity, personally rejected. For the first time, relationship was broken.

One might argue that, even this far, God could hold Himself isolated from all of the sorrow. If God wanted, He could draw Himself up into the security of His throne, shut out the sorrows of all that He had made, and simply revel in the perfect relationship of the Trinity. Or He could simply destroy it all, and discard it, to be forgotten forever.

But God does not do that. Instead, God goes one step further. He creates a new race of persons. These persons will not simply be thinking beings, with choice. They will bear His own image. They will be His representatives on Earth, and in all creation. He will walk with them in the cool of the evening, and have relationship with them face-to-face.

And even more: when these people fall (as they certainly will), God will not punish them forever, as was the destiny of Lucifer and his minions. God will not cast them out of relationship forever. Instead, He will throw Himself into their midst; first through revelations and prophets, and eventually by becoming one of them, dying for them, and spending three days in Hell on their behalf.

Moreover, when He has saved His people from their sins, He will not take them instantly out of their sinful bodies, and translate them to Heaven. Instead, He will live literally within them - filling their souls with life - even as they walk the sorrowful, sinful life of their Earthly existence.

God did not invent death, as a punishment for sin, because he wanted to show off how much He was willing to sacrifice. Instead, death was the price He was willing to pay, in His own self, in order to allow others to have life. God had the power, quite easily, to limit what He risked. He could have made a lesser universe, with less cost. But that universe would not have been as wonderful as this one. That universe would not be populated with beings who knew Him as deeply as we now know Him.

He made us because He loved us. He spent Himself because He loved us. Creation is full of death not because God wanted it to be so, but because that was the price He was willing to pay - within His own being - so that we might experience life.

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