No Free Pass in Christianity for Sin - Faith in Jesus Christ Required to Deal with Sin

Submitted by M. Tovey (United States), Apr 24, 2008 at 19:33

In this exchange let us set aside the perceived antipathies such as the use of the term ‘lame' for those whom you think are on some sort of sleeping journey in this life, and that for the sake of this discussion each of us has his own level of commitment to his theology/ideology. On that basis, I cannot interject my thoughts into your mind any better than you can in mine, so let us start from the premise of your question in a friendly way.

The question of whether one gets a ‘free pass' in this mortal realm to commit the things here mentioned, of "When people commit serious crimes, say terrorism, bloodshed, looting, atrocities, torture, rape, abduction, exploitation etc. and when people die without being captured, questioned or punished, then how would you consider the logic of sin washed exit from this world." In a very careful read of the Holy Bible, no one, absolutely no one born of a man and woman gets that free pass. Sin is under the judgment of death, from the very beginning of Biblical theology in Genesis to the very end in the Revelation. To think that misses the very central concept and truth of true Christianity and the very real reason for the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

So then the question is asked, how do disciples of Jesus Christ get it in their heads that if they believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, accept Him as their Savior and LORD by faith, and believe they are no longer under the same penalty of death as a person that chooses not to believe or decides to believe in another ideology to get into heaven? Right?

Let us understand the nature of a man (or a woman, or an older child who recognizes the difference of right and wrong), and correctly apply the Biblical assertion, that ‘all have sinned and fall short of the glory of Almighty God,' meaning that all have the devil's chance of getting into heaven…..not going to happen!

In His omnipotence, the LORD God Almighty knew from before creation that mankind was going to be fatally flawed spiritually, that sin and death would be the mortal mankind's fate. So how does a righteous and Holy God maintain His creditability as a true and just Heavenly Being and still desire to care for the creation He so loves. In His witness to Nicodemus, Jesus Christ reveals this love in the Gospel of John, Chapter 3.

Mankind is born into a natural state, which as we can see it is one of lusts, hatreds, envies, etc., etc., and so on. What Jesus tells Nicodemus, as He tells us all now, that we must be born again, spiritually, and that the spiritual person so born by the Holy Spirit is the person Jesus Christ is expecting to take to eternity with Him. So, within these mortal bodies, we who are recipients of that spiritual birth carry His Spirit within us, eventually losing these mortal bodies and being given new ones to be in heaven with Him in Eternity. Please note, the old nature dies, and the sin nature that it came with dies as well. The new nature is what saved Christians received from Jesus Christ by believing and the old nature is destroyed in death.

We have to understand that in the Quran, this is not a concept that the Prophet of Islam writes about or embraced, even though in his times, this was still the theology of pure Christianity. The Prophet of Islam remains then, someone that would not accept Jesus Christ as LORD. How does one who is young and growing up in Islam expected to deal with such things if the Gospel is not presented correctly to show the truth of Jesus Christ?

Now, Jesus Christ did not die for the sake of absolving sin itself, but for the payment of the death penalty each and every one of comes under without having believed in Jesus Christ. Out of the unsearchable love He has for each and every one of us, even you, He decided before any of us were born that the only way to extend that love was to make the ultimate sacrifice and lay down the life of His Only Begotten Son, that whosoever believed in Him would not perish, but have everlasting life.

Now, Islam is not the only place where one can read about and count on the inevitability of judgment and eternal punishment, for hell and Gehenna are well represented in the Holy Bible, even in Jesus Christ's witness of such a place. It is promised to any who believes not in the words Jesus spoke or believes not in the written words of the Hebrew Holy Scriptures. All of the things written the previous response are labeled in the Holy Bible as cause for condemnation to hell for eternity.

But we have to counter that once again, that by the unlimited power of Almighty God, we have salvation in the Name of Jesus Christ, that under the substitutionary provisions made by His death on the cross, we have the very precious opportunity to choose to believe in Jesus Christ by faith, and to have Him respond in love to help us deal with the persons we were, and to rejoice in Him that we can look forward to the persons He will make us into.

"The rejection of divine revelation "the Holy Quran" is the mistake which mankind would never be able to reverse." Try to fathom this: I agree with this statement, but not for the reason one might expect. Just as true and more so, is that one cannot encounter the Holy Spirit of the Holy Bible, reject Him, and hope that it will be OK when death overcomes all at the door to eternity. That too, is irreversible.

Lastly, I have no intellect that is greater than the Almighty God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who created me and this existence I was born to, so there are no theories that I have presented that are mine, but instead these are revelations gleaned from reading the Holy Bible and having His Spirit reveal to me through His words the truth found contained in those precious pages. You cannot attribute to me, of myself, those things that are Holy; those things can only be attributed to His omniscience. My only part in this is that I have believed in Jesus Christ as my LORD and Savior, and I am a witness to His saving grace in my life, and by the power of His love, that is what I share with all here today.

You have asked me to ‘just think,' and I have, and I hope you will consider these things I have written as well. You may very well take the approach that you are not interested in the life that you could have in Jesus Christ, but now at least I hope you might have a better view of His love you have chosen to reject.

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