I recently had to respond to a friend with Hindu beliefs and also influenced by Sai Baba’s teaching. While the person’s name has been changed and no personal information included and some modifications have been made – I believe the substance of the response may be informative to someone, so here goes:
The Nature of God
You said God must be all loving, all knowing, all powerful and all just and as such life, existence and everything if created by God will naturally manifest his nature. To this I agreed wholeheartedly.
God’s right to govern the Universe
To this I shared that this right doesn’t come from the fact that He is all loving, all powerful or all just, but from the fact that He is Creator and by a natural tenure holds everything as His own. Therefore we can conclude that His every action is just. I used the example of “cutting my lawn”. It is my lawn, now someone may disagree and believe that I am hurting baby trees and call me unjust but it is my lawn, therefore I can cut it if I please. Even if God were to willfully destroy every being in the Universe for no other reason than His pleasure, He is still just. This is an action I believe we have all subscribed to by our daily living – every mosquito can attest to this.
The Existence of Evil
To this I shared that evil is a result of God’s love. There are different beings, creatures and species on the earth: worms, bacteria, dogs and humans etc. The privilege of being a human is to have the capacity to exhibit true love which must be a free choice to be truly called love. So God created us like Himself – it is the only way love can be exhibited – for God is love. Being like God means we have freewill and we can choose God or No God. God is goodness personified, therefore this choice allows for the existence of evil. Could not the Almighty God find another way to do this? The answer is yes but then we will all be robots.
God made us like Him because that is the only way love can be shown.
There is only one way to be like God.
What about suffering in the world?
God could instantly stop suffering on the earth. However it will mean forcing His will on humanity. God could rule the earth like Superman. He can use His omniscience and His omnipresence and instantly stop evil wherever it happens on the earth. Humanity would be subject to Him in every way and the earth would be a beautiful place. However, we will then stop being human. So God in His eternal wisdom has chosen to rule the earth through His love – it is only then that His nature would be manifest in us.
Jason, you even had a hard time playing out the logic when I asked if your son went astray into a crazy lifestyle. You said you would leave him to learn his lesson but you said not forever. What if it is his continuous choice forever? Then what you are saying is “I would only allow you freewill for a time, and then I will force my will on you. I will imprison you because I love you.” Then your very love and Heaven would become Hell to him and he will lose the expression of freewill and hence the ability to love.
Love that is forced ceases to be love and becomes hate.
What about reincarnation?
I asked if there was a first incarnation? Were we perfect in our first incarnation? Essentially, this doctrine may be summed up by doing good and serving humanity. This allows us to achieve our ultimate goal of Moksha through repeated incarnations. I believe this is a great under estimation of who God is and how holy He is – God is infinitely holy, as far as infinite would exceed finite God is holy. If reincarnation is our means to Moksha and our own good works the method for perfection; I fear we will be reincarnating forever.
In the area of love and attainability, when logic is played out, this doctrine begins to be challenged.
What does Jesus teach?
Clearly Jesus is a real historical figure whose impact on the world was significant to the point of dividing time to B.C and A.D. His impact is unquestionable.
How do his teachings play out as we look for meaning in life? Jesus message is simple – Love God and love one another as He loves us.
Jesus’ teachings are clearly in direct conflict with the teaching of Sai Baba. As you quoted, “If you are a Christian, be a better Christian and live your life accordingly.” Jesus teaches that no one is good, no not one. He says we have all sinned and fallen short of God’s standard for perfection. He says we are all lost, hence the name Jesus means “Saviour”. Jesus teaches that there is no such thing as a better Christian or a better anything. Jesus came for a people who could not save themselves.
What are the claims of Jesus?
- We have all sinned
We were born with a sin nature which makes sinning natural to us. As a result, teachings etc. can do little to help us. It is like a dog – it is in his nature to bark and chase cars. If we are trying to get a dog to stop doing that – we will need to bring out the old chain and tie the dog up or lock it in a kennel. I guess it will bark even more. Religion is generally an attempt to tie up a dog. “Thou shall not commit adultery, thou shall not steal” are essentially chains to keep us from sinning. Religion tends to fail because humanity’s problem is in our nature and sinful heart. All “thou shall nots” do is prove that we are sinners. - Jesus’ answer – A New Nature
Jesus’ answer is a new nature – being born again in the spirit. Jesus was not born of the seed of a man therefore He didn’t carry the sin nature but He was conceived of the Holy Spirit. His promise is if someone receives Him He will give them a New Nature. Just like how we sin naturally with the “old nature”; with the “new nature” we naturally do good. So Jesus calls us righteous, holy and perfected forever – it is His gift to us. We do not lose it by sinning and because we have this new nature we don’t want to sin. It is an incorruptible nature.
This is why a Christian doesn’t believe in reincarnation, he believes he is already made perfect by Jesus Christ. We are tri-une beings like God – we are spirits that possess a soul and live in a body.
When someone receives Jesus, they receive a new spiritual nature that is perfect, holy and righteous forever by being connected to Jesus.
Hence when they die, they shed the flesh which is corruptible and gets old and decays, as a result there is no need for future incarnations.
It is the reason that when Jesus was on the earth, He said a new commandment I give you but it is really the same commandments before addressed to a new nature. His commandment is “thou shall love”. Jesus has untied all the “nots” in “thou shall not.”
So if a true Christian believes this – does he reincarnate still? If so, his belief is a lie and there is no such thing as being a better Christian. If his belief is acceptable and true, then he has bypassed reincarnation and achieved perfection in one incarnation. Unless we are saying that Sai Baba’s teachings are greater than Jesus’ life or then we are saying Jesus is a liar. Jesus told the thief on the Cross, “This day you will be with me in Paradise.” Now that guy would have needed more incarnations for sure! Did this thief find a way to bypass reincarnation? Clearly these are strong conflicts.
What about the demands of public justice?
We have all done wrong. Who is going to pay for the wrong that we have done? It is like going to a restaurant and ordering from the menu – someone is going to have to pay. If I stole a chicken from you, justice may require a chicken from me. If I stole a car, justice may require the car and imprisonment. On the Cross, Jesus took the worst that humanity could do and responded “Father forgive them!”
How can one man’s death pay for all of humanity’s sins: past, present and future? That one man is God – the death of Jesus is an over-payment for the sin of the world. One drop
of Jesus’ blood has paid for the sins of every human that has ever existed on the earth.
Remember, the problem of humanity is really our nature and sinful heart. Well on the cross, God shows us our true heart. We may have all killed a mosquito before, maybe because it wanted to feed on us or we didn’t like the sound it was making. Essentially, it offended us and with one slap we ended its life. Similarly, if God offended us and He was weak (without His glory) and it was in our capacity to kill God – we may kill him with little or no consideration for the truth. If God said – sex out of marriage was wrong and we wanted to have sex and God was weak like an ordinary man – we would fight him. The Cross says we are God’s enemies at heart.
On the Cross, as Jesus endured all of humanity’s wrath, He remained silent. As His hands were pierced, He remained silent, and as His beard was ripped off, He remained silent. And as His feet were pierced, He remained silent, and as a crown of thorns was pressed into His head, He remained silent. And as we exhausted all our evil ways on Him, He remained silent. As the entire universe, heavenly beings and humanity looked for God’s response to this evil, Jesus shouted – “Father, forgive them” – it is the day that sin, evil and demonic things were defeated.
Jesus through His death on the Cross, wins the human heart.
We cry “In spite of all my wickedness God, how can you still love me?” His love breaks our hard hearts. It is unbelievable majesty in its description.
How does Jesus change us?
We fall in love with Jesus and are changed by His love. We can now love because He has shown us what true love is. He calls us to a love relationship with Him without religion as its framework.
What about Hell and people who reject Jesus?
Firstly, Hell was not created for humans but for demonic beings, additionally God did not create Satan – he created Lucifer an angel. It is a fact that there are vagrants, starving babies and great evil on the earth. Is this the action of God?
God is a sovereign being but by an act of His sovereignty, He created the earth and made beings like Him to rule the earth with free choice to experience love. So by His love and free will, God is not in control of everything.
Consider:
- Hell was not created for humans
- God does not send people to Hell
- God does not want anyone to go to Hell
- God has paid the price for every human being on the earth not to go to Hell regardless of their sin
- People do go to hell
- If God is love, the thought of a being that He loves going to Hell must bring Him infinite and eternal pain
It is like going to a restaurant and ordering the entire menu. The bill comes and you definitely cannot pay it and someone generously offers to pay it for you but you insist that you are not accepting charity and reject his offer. You are left with the bill. The wages of sin is death. Jesus has paid the bill by his death, if we reject the offer, we must pay. When we stand before God on judgment day, God is not so much concerned about what we did right or wrong but rather what we did with His love, what we did with Jesus.
By accepting Jesus, we are empowered to do right by His nature in us.
Did we receive His love or reject His love? God’s mindset is not, “If you reject my love, I am sending you to Hell.” Then that will not be love. It is in fact, “My child, I love you, I have paid for your sins, why have you rejected this payment? Oh, how I wish I can force my love on you but then my love would become hate.” If that were the case, then we could now add to God’s nature all hating hence the destruction of the universe. When someone goes to Hell – God is crying and weeping and saying, “this why I sent my Son and you have rejected Him.”
What about people who have never heard of Jesus?
God speaks in a universal language through creation, the stars, the air, water, etc. Naturally built into man is a seeking of who has done all these things. Is there a God, where are you, what is the truth?
Firstly, God makes Himself known through creation.
Jesus says whosoever seeks, finds. A sincere heart will find God; certainly if it never heard of Jesus, it will still refuse to dwell in error. A sincere heart will cry out to God, “you must be great – I know I have done wrong and nothing will make me right with such a great being”. A sincere heart will know that if they are to be saved, only God can save them.
Certainly, they will not build a statue and worship it – because it would be clear whose is the maker in that situation.
Secondly, all human beings deep in their hearts are aware that they have done wrong and are sinners.
So these two simple revelations are provided to all of humanity: (1) that God exists and (2) that we humans are sinners. For those who don’t hear about Jesus, these two revelations will make them humble themselves and cry out to God.
Religion is an attempt to make ourselves right in God‘s eyes through religious acts.
However, God says that we cannot trust in ourselves for salvation or earn His favor by performing religious rituals or good works because we are sinners. This would make God a trader in love, essentially do good and I will love you. Self righteousness is an attempt to make ourselves good without God. That’s why in the Bible Adam and Eve made fig leaves to cover their nakedness – it was the first self righteous act on the earth. It is a rejection one of the basics of God’s revelation to us: that we are sinners in need of forgiveness from God.
God doesn’t expect people to respond to Jesus if they’ve never heard of Him. This is how people got saved prior to Jesus’ arrival on the earth, they believed that only God could justify them. Men like Enoch, Elijah and Abraham believed that God could make them righteous. In fact, Abraham heard the Gospel before Jesus came – And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed.
Additionally, the Bible says Jesus went and preached to the souls in prison after his death. So people who existed before Jesus came were given a choice to accept Him or reject Him.
We can conclude that even one person in Hell is precious to Jesus or a loving God. It is clear and to me logically clear that Jesus is the only way to perfection in the eyes of an infinitely perfect God. From this we can conclude that every human will be given a chance to receive or reject the grace of God found through Jesus Christ. But no matter who is saved, they will recei
ve salvation on the basis of God’s grace, not by their works. God’s grace was given through Jesus’ death and resurrection. The finished work of Jesus on the Cross is the only way into heaven, even for those who have never heard of Him but who nonetheless are shown mercy from God.
God’s mercy is His business as the Judge of all the earth.
Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through Me.”
Are there people in Hell?
Yes – they have rejected Jesus and have chosen to pay for their sins for themselves. Through their pride, self-righteousness, lust, etc – when the Gospel of God’s love and grace was presented to them, they rejected it and held on to their own ways and self righteousness.
So what about people who have rejected Jesus?
God will judge them according to their heart and works. God will judge them based on what they did right or wrong. For those who reject Jesus, there are varying degrees of judgment as there are varying degrees of rewards in Heaven. It is a misconception to think that everyone suffers the same degree of punishment in Hell.
Finally, He is the judge and will determine everyone’s final destination. God’s judgment belongs to Him and we trust Him to do what is fair. We are commanded to go to the whole world and preach the Gospel and leave judgment to God.
What I shared is how Jesus presents the world will be judged. Jason, I have tried to sum up what Jesus teaches to give you correct perspective from the Bible on life, its meaning and God. Let’s chat some more and keep on sharing if you desire.
Image 1 Credit: Shutterstock/ Jayalumar
Image 2 Credit: Shutterstock/szefel
Image 3 Credit: Shutterstock/Balaraman