The Real God

        This comparison shows God’s character: If God had a human body and a person was going to stab you with a sharp knife, God would be willing to jump in front of you and allow Himself to be stabbed in order to save your life. If we can’t picture this as being true, we don’t really know God’s character.

         Here is another example which shows God’s character: If God had a human body and He had a child being attacked by a shark, He would jump into the water to decoy the shark from the child by allowing the shark to attack Him.

         This example reveals the nature of God’s character also: Imagine God had a human body and He was a judge at the court case of a man who had brutally raped and then killed His dearly loved daughter. First, as judge, God would impose life imprisonment or the death penalty on the killer. Then He would come down from His seat in the courtroom and would then tell everyone to listen intently. He would then say something that would shock the murderer’s relatives, the police who had caught the murderer, the prosecuting lawyer and the murderer himself. God would say that He would be willing to suffer the punishment that the man rightly deserved if the man would let Him. God would be willing to spend the rest of His life in the most filthy, dark, disease-ridden jail, and be willing to be hung or shot in order to win freedom for the murderer. God would be willing to do this for anyone. He would do this no matter how many wrong things that the person had thought or done. It is hard for humans who are so used to observing selfishness in others to picture such unselfishness.

        We may say, “Fancy God being willing to do this for a murdered and rapist!” Well, the Lord Jesus regards just getting angry with someone as being almost as bad as murder (see Matthew 5:21-22). If we resent or are angry with someone, God views us almost the same as a murderer. This is because self-centered anger and resentment are often the seeds of the act of murder. So we should not be self-righteous in our attitude to murderers.

       God has virtually done a similar thing to the above example of the judge. This is because as Judge of the universe, He has declared that every one of us on earth deserve after we die to go to hell to be with the demons. We also deserve to be punished with a cruel death. This is because of the selfish things that we have done to our parents, children, husbands, wives, friends and other people, and because of our lack of a personal, intimate love-trust relationship to Him and because we have not allowed His Holy Spirit to fill and control our minds and bodies.

         But God Himself loves people so unselfishly that He was willing to come to Earth, taking upon Himself the limitations of a human mind, emotions and body. Jesus is God. He was also willing to have His physical body’s back ripped with bits of sharp metal (see John 19:1). He allowed Himself to be stabbed with a spear (see John 19:34). He allowed nails to be driven through His feet and hands (see John 20:25). He allowed people to hate Him without hurting them in return (see Matthew 27:39-42, 1 Peter 2:23). He allowed Himself to suffer terribly in other ways almost beyond human imagination to take the punishment we deserved. He did all these, even though He has never done one selfish thing in all of the infinite number of years that He has existed.

Image via Wikipedia

       We should not talk about what Jesus Christ suffered as though it were some nice little fairy story. We should avoid talking about in religious clichés, while not understanding the harsh reality of what really happened.