Last week at some point I told you that Healing Hereafter‘s chapter on sin and death was the second most important chapter of the book. Although of course I think the rest of the chapters are well-worth reading, Chapter 6 is undoubtedly the most important. Why? Well, I could cop out with everybody’s favorite (and often correct) Sunday School answer and just say Jesus, but instead I’ll…aw never mind. It’s all about Jesus. You see, not only is God’s solution of Jesus Christ the only one that understands humanity’s problem, actually fixes the problem, and works through a mechanism not seen in any other religion, it also happens to make a great deal of sense. Perhaps it does not yet for you? Perhaps you think it does, but when you really start asking questions, there are some pretty big ones you don’t have answers for? I invite you to enjoy this small taste of Chapter 6, and of course the full discussion in the book too, as God’s plan comes together in the Bible in unbelievably refreshing and rational ways!
Chapter 6
Our imperfection resulting from our pursuit of evil is the problem keeping us from our purpose of perfection with God in Heaven, so the only way to solve our problem is for our imperfection to be completely removed. We consider the various types of solutions have been offered, and we find that all but one of them demonstrate the ineffective and distinctly human goal of either diluting imperfection with good deeds or ignoring it completely. Ordinary humans cannot live perfectly or undo past imperfections. We then realize that only Jesus offers a divinely logical way to fully erase our imperfection. Because God is the offended party, he is the only one who can forgive the
offense, so God becomes a human himself as Jesus, God the Son. He is tempted in every way but lives a perfect, sinless life. Never once does he use his free will to do anything other than the perfect good that he desires for everyone to be immersed in. Therefore, he does not have to know and experience evil as a result of his choices or actions, which means he is also exempt from death. But because our willful sinful immersion in evil is what makes us deservedly imperfect, God willfully but sinlessly immerses himself in evil undeservedly to
remove that imperfection. And because we must endure physical death as our punishment, Jesus willingly dies on the cross as our substitute to enable us to be released from that punishment. With our sentence served by Jesus, we are able to be considered innocent of sin and imperfection by God, giving us an alternative to the byproduct of Hell when we die: Heaven. And to prove that he can one day free us from physical death and raise us in a perfect, imperishable body that can live forever in Heaven, as well as to exemplify the hope and victory that he offers, he returns from the grave in the resurrection. We find that it all makes sense. Our problem thwarts God’s purpose, our punishment fits our problem, and his solution solves both our problem and
our punishment. The biblical and logical way the solution is applied to fulfill his purpose for us is simply a human freely, genuinely, and persistently demonstrating sole reliance on God’s way—his salvation through Jesus—to choose an eternity with God and his perfection in Heaven, the exact opposite of the decision that caused the problem in the first place. Having found Jesus to be the only solution to effectively remove the problem, we then ask why other solutions can’t be just as effective as Jesus or why Jesus can’t be merged with other solutions. Both questions are answered by unveiling that any configuration of multiple solutions makes no sense, is impossible, and is completely unnecessary, as long as the solution of Jesus exists and is made available to everyone. And we will soon find that it is.
