Doubt Busters

I’ve been reading a book for the second time since I rediscovered it in the bargain bin: Your God Is Too Small, by J.B. Phillips. What he wrote about Christians and their small love applies to what I’ve been reading in the political news for months.

First, some background. John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

Who did God love so much? The world. But that’s not what I’ve been reading in the news. The verse has been twisted by Christians to say that God only loves the conservatives, not the liberals. The Republican party, not the Democratic party. And vice versa, for Christians are scattered across the spectrum of political ideology.

Before we can address the theme of the Son of God becoming flesh, we should remind ourselves of why he came to be born here in the first place.

In the Garden of Eden, Adam chose the way of disobedience and passed that sin on to all of us (Romans 5:12-14). All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We were slaves of sin and could neither restrain nor free ourselves.

When God chose to dwell among the children of Abraham in Israel, the Holy One set up a system of animal sacrifices to deal with sinners. When any sinned, breaking the commandments, he or she could bring a prescribed, blemish-free animal to put away the sin (Leviticus 1-7). Man was not blemish-free, so he could not die for another’s sin, not even his own.

We needed a blemish-free man to undo Adam’s sin nature. He needed to be sinless so he could die for the sins of others.