One Road To Heaven
Many folks form a wrong conclusion based on the scriptures that say, “God is love” (1 John 4:8,16). A man can at the same time be many things. He can be a son, a husband, a father, a grandfather, an employee, a boss, a driver, a passenger, a golfer, a runner, a couch potato: the possibilities of the many things that a man may be are extensive. There’s more also to God than simply being “Love.” God is Creator. He’s our Heavenly Father. He’s our Provider. He’s our Judge. And so much more.
God doesn’t owe anybody anything. Many get the false idea that because “God is love” that he is bound to some kind of mandatory requirement to let us get away with anything we want to do, unconditionally. The Bible does not support that false idea about Yehohwah (Jehovah) Father God. One of the most familiar verses in the Bible begins like this: “For God so loved the world” (John 3:16). That verse does not continue by saying that because God so loved the world that he ignored everyone’s complete disregard for him and his laws which he placed into our consciences. Nor does that verse stand alone in explaining the situation of sinful man’s broken relationship with God.
That broken relationship began with Adam’s failure to obey his God in the garden. Sin continued when Cain murdered his own twin brother out of jealousy. Sin raised its ugly head throughout both the Old and New Testaments. And man’s repeated rebellion against God’s commandments runs rampant all around us today.
Few if any things are absolutely free: without any cost of labor or wages being paid by anyone. Sin, too, has a price tag on it which must be paid. “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). Not just the death which is physical separation of the soul and spirit departing from the body. The wages for sin includes “everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power” (2 Thessalonians 1:9), and being “cast into a lake of fire” for eternal torment (Revelation 20:11-15). “God is love” means that he grieved over mankind’s lack of ability to pay the price which is due for his sin. The death penalty was inevitable, with eternal separation from God.
So what did God do about it? Did he change his mind, and revoke that death penalty for sin? No, he’s not a wishy-washy God who says one thing one day, and quite the opposite later. “The Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world” (1 John 4:14). “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).
We greatly appreciate God’s great love, and the fact that Jesus Christ left his home in Heaven to come to earth for a time. But those things did not pay the atoning price for our sins. The wages, or required payment, for sin is death (Romans 6:23). The central truth of the New Testament is that forgiveness from our sins came at an extremely high price. The atoning price for our sin was paid by the agony, bloodshed, and death of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, on Calvary’s cross. “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:23).
“Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1). All that is required of us is to believe and receive. “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved” (Romans 10:9). Thank you, Lord.