This came from a commentary that i read. Your thoughts please.
God is love. We say that a lot like we Christians say many things by rote and not by heart! And then we turn around and say that if you're not good, God will send you to hell- forever! The average non-religious person on the street has a difficulty with that. Can you imagine? In fact, most people who call themselves Christians believe that as well. But, let me take you past the elementary aspects of the "God is love" concept and dig a bit deeper into something that just might give you a lot more love for God than you now have. And that would be a good thing, right!
I upset a lot of religious people, not because of how I see God. My God is your God. All I am doing is going deeper, giving God more credit that the church seems to want to. Let me give you three brief examples.
1-My God is big enough to include homosexuals and people who divide the church in His circle.
2-My God loves everyone so much that He'd never send anyone to hellforever.
3-My God created me to be with, and in me, always, not out there in the clouds somewhere, sometimes.
To someone who is trying to be good through works, the first two points just don't seem fair now do they? And to people who have been taught an over dependence on the church to mediate life between us and God, His being "out there" is all we've known.
I don't believe that the incarnation was as a result of the fall! Since I don't believe in the church sponsored original sin concept (yes there was a first sin but.), this is not too hard to get to. I simply believe that it was in the eternal (meaning before the foundation of the world kind of eternal- not aion) plan and purpose of God to send Jesus into the world to show us HOW LOVING God really is- and Jesus did just that!
How or why God choose 2,000 some years ago to do this and in the place that He did, I know not.
What I do know is that God so loves ALL of us that at some point in the history of the world, He had to send someone to BE the demonstration of LOVE that GOD IS, and Jesus was that MAN! Am I taking away the religious blankie of "Jesus died for my sins"?
No! Hold on tight to it.
I'm simply ADDING another brick in that wall of God's love that is so big, we miss it. Can you believe He loves us as much as He does? I know dumb question, but an honest one!
You have to wonder, or at least I do, why John felt that he had to write God is love (I John 4:16). It's probably because by the time the first epistle of John was written rumors were already going around at how mad God was about what we did to Jesus and He had created this place called HELL to send everyone that in on the crucifixion of Jesus. Didn't Jesus make the point clear about the love of the Father? I guess not.
Listen, an eternal hell poses a big moral problem for God!
Yep, even God would have a moral cloud on His heavenly character if an eternal hell was His doings. That my friend would be a major inconsistency in the character of God that Jesus presented. Talk about a bump in the theological-philosophical journey. Then there's this "who won" question. Seriously.
If more people wind up in an eternal hell than go to heaven (you do the math), how does God becomes a winner in this match called life? Clark Pinnock (Christian theologian, apologist and author: and Professor Emeritus of Systematic Theology at McMaster Divinity College) put it this way.
"Everlasting torture is intolerable from a moral point of view because it pictures God acting like a blood-thirsty monster who maintains and everlasting Auschwitz for His enemies whom He does not allow to die. How can one love a God like that"? Fair question, no?
You can have that Hollywood, fire breathing, angry, and hacked off God.
Me? I'm following the God Jesus described!
Amen.. God IS Good.. He is VERY Good. :thumbsup: