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.