Who's Judging Who?

He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. (John 3:18)

I just noticed something in this verse relative to the previous verses that I had not seen before. It is the number of options or choices that mankind has verses the number of choices God makes. Let me explain.

The typical assumption that most people make about salvation is that God is so angry against sinners that He wants to destroy them or torture them indefinitely in revenge for their rebellion against His authority. Jesus came along and interposed Himself into the situation and took the wrath of the Father upon Himself thereby providing an escape loophole whereby sinners might be able to live for eternity in heaven with Jesus instead of burning in hell. This is sometimes called the three-party arrangement.

This view of religion paints God as the one with two choices or two options and Jesus is trying to change God's mind about which one He is going to take toward each sinner based on how they respond to the offer of Jesus to take their place. I believed this version of religion for most of my life until a few years ago when God led me through some intense investigation of Scripture and to challenge my own assumptions inherited from typical religious instruction. Then I began to see God in a radically different light, a whole new paradigm that has caused me to perceive every teaching of the Bible from a completely different perspective.

What I now see much more clearly is what is presented in these verses. It is not God who is the one with the problem that needs to be corrected. It is not God who's mind needs to be swayed to choose the better option in regards to our eternal destiny as most people suppose. It is us who have the option, the choice as to what we are going to believe about how God feels about us. And the consequences of that choice inherently – not imposed by God but simply the outworking of natural cause and effect – the consequences of choosing how I am going to perceive God's attitude toward me will determine whether I experience condemnation or whether I experience freedom, joy and abundant life.

The first scenario believed in by most so-called Christians today presents a three-party arrangement whereby Jesus is trying to cast the vote that will help us win the argument with God. The latter belief and the one taught by the Bible sees that Jesus and God are one in their opinion and attitude towards sinners and that they both are doing everything possible to change our minds about them, not to change God's mind about us. For they know that if we refuse to believe and embrace the real truth about God that what we will experience, as a natural result due to the nature of principles as real as the universe, that we are going to suffer the wages paid out by sin itself, not wages imposed on us by an angry God.

Yes, it is clear that God has often resorted to using our language, our concepts in this regards, our false assumptions about justice at times to talk to us in attempts to get us to listen. He uses language that portrays Him acting and feeling like earthly parents at times because that is the only thing people could relate to in their ignorance. But just because a parent sometimes imitates a child using childish mentality and logic in order to get a child to understand a little bit of what the parent is trying to convey to them does not mean that the parent is actually as simplistic or immature as the child. Likewise, it is a very dangerous assumption to declare that God has anger and wrath and exercises vengeance just like we do simply because He uses terms that sound so much like the feelings we experience in our own immaturity.

We should never project our immature, selfish-based feelings and motives onto God and believe that He acts and feels just like we do simply because the things He says resonate so much with those feelings and motives inside of us. Most of the lies about God and our twisted views of His personality and relationship with us come from believing that He feels toward us the way we would feel when slighted or insulted.

God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent; has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good? (Numbers 23:19)

What is coming through these verses from the book of John in the words of Jesus Himself is that the real problem centers in us, not in the Father. Jesus makes it crystal clear that the Father is the one who loved the world so much that He sent the Son to display His love in the world to change our minds about Him. Changing our minds about God is what is called believing and is one of the main focal points of the book of John. John, along with Jesus, is focused on trying to get us to see that it is our mind and heart that must change if we are to avoid the consequences of condemnation that comes from sin. And sin is the condition of believing the lies about God instigated by His enemy “the accuser”.

When this view begins to be seen more clearly, every other doctrine suddenly has to be revisited in the light of this paradigm. Especially is the doctrine of atonement transformed when applied to the real truth about who it is that needs to have their mind swayed. When it becomes clear that it is not God's opinion about us that needs swaying or changing but it is always our opinion about God that is the determining factor, then the assumptions and implications that have frightened us in words like atonement, payment, intercession, mediator and even Savior suddenly take on a radically different character.

Father, continue to clarify this wonderful truth about you more in my own thinking and feelings. Train me to realize that the condemnation that I feel does not come from you even though it always appears when Your presence exposes my resistance to Your holiness. Show me more of the real truth about You. Show me Your face. Show me Your heart of infinite love, compassion and goodness.

Synchronization and Judgment

For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. (John 3:17)

I just got done reading a lesson that asserts commonly taught views about God, salvation, wrath and beliefs about what happened when Jesus died on the cross. It stirred up feelings inside of me that I had to stop and face squarely and deal with before I could have peace. I am learning how to better relate to people who believe and teach things that I have come to believe are false and misrepresentative of the real truth about God.

One thing I realized is that I need to have the same atmosphere of instant forgiveness that surrounded the person of Jesus. I am starting to realize that when the things people say ruffle me it is partly because I am being induced into being synchronized with their beliefs or opinions. Humans do that, you know. It is our nature to want to synchronize with each other emotionally, psychologically, spiritually and even physically at times. Synchronization is part of how God designed us to live and so our desire for it is unavoidable. Conflict and tension occurs when we find ourselves out of synchronization with those around us.

I am learning that I can choose to be different than others, to believe differently and choose a different path without allowing the tension inevitably produced to threaten my own sense of identity or value. But this can only take place to the extent that I have secured my sense of value and identity on my relationship with my Creator instead of on what others think about me. Much easier said than done many times but still vitally true.

So I simply stopped in my reading of this lesson I was studying and asked God to deal with this trigger that still threatens my peace inside. I also asked Him to explain to me some of the things that were disturbing me and creating conflict inside my own thinking. There are things from God's word that appear to be in direct contradiction with each other at times until they are viewed from a different perspective and I need to remember that I usually can't resolve that dilemma without wisdom from God. But when given insights through the Holy Spirit many of these things suddenly find beautiful synchronization of their own as the background picture comes into better focus.

When I opened my Bible to meditate on John 3 again I felt a wave of refreshment as I read these verses about God's way of relating to the world and the sin problem. It was part of the answer that I had just been praying for and encouraged me to see things better from God's perspective instead of through the lenses of various theologians attempting to hammer out doctrines in religion. It also gives me yet more insight into how various issues in the big picture fit together perfectly, though I still have a long way to go to understand them all clearly.

I suppose many people assume that though this verse says that Jesus did not come to judge or condemn the world when He came the first time, that God will be different the second time He comes back. Most Christians believe that there is coming a future day of judgment when God is going to change the way He relates to us, that He is going to take on a different posture and attitude towards sinners than what was displayed by Jesus while here on earth.

It is believed by most that on that day of judgment (with all sorts of dark connotations associated with that word), then God is not going to be nearly so merciful as Jesus was, but is going to be very nit-picky about combing through our records and history looking for reasons why we should be saved or lost. Most of these pictures are based on the concept of God arbitrarily reviewing the records of our behavior, our words, our thoughts and the way we treated others to determine if we are worthy of heaven or not. Then some person's version of grace and justice is applied to these scenarios depending on the opinions of those teaching it, and then the arguments commence once again.

But in my studies of the Bible over the past few years, I have been led to challenge every word and doctrine that I have ever been taught and to critically examine them in great detail. I have discovered that they have been hijacked and morphed into meaning something different than originally intended. As I have continued to explore their true meanings and applications I have begun to perceive an ever-increasing glory that I could never see before in the system of truth as revealed in the life and teachings of Jesus. The truth about God's attitude towards us and the truth about the judgment were some of the most liberating transformations for me that have ever occurred thus far.

What is becoming more and more clear to me the longer I look into discovering the real truth about these concepts is the element of fear. When fear is assumed to be the foundation of theology and God's dealings with us, then false ideas about God, about spiritual truths and about religion are guaranteed to be included. And this approach is nearly universal as far as I can see. Very few people are pursuing an understanding of truth based on the beginning premise that God is actually the embodiment of love as He claims to be. Either our definition of love is seriously altered from God's view of it to excuse or cover up our persistent use of fear as our foundation for belief, or we simply live in constant confusion about the inherent conflict between real love and the fear-based ideas about God that permeate most of our beliefs.

I would like to spend more time exploring the implications that present themselves in these next few verses about the doctrine of judgment, grace and how God relates to us. I know that what I am starting to see puts me at serious odds with nearly everyone else in religion, but my desire is not to primarily synchronize with religious leaders but to experience the real truth about God as revealed in His word and by His Spirit. As I do so I find myself longing to connect with others whom God is leading to discover the truth about Him so that I can synchronize as He designed for me to do with His body here on earth.