{"id":43,"date":"2006-12-27T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2006-12-27T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2009-08-29T02:22:04","modified_gmt":"2009-08-29T06:22:04","slug":"what-makes-jesus-the-solution-to-the-human-dilemma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/brian-pruett\/2006\/12\/27\/what-makes-jesus-the-solution-to-the-human-dilemma\/","title":{"rendered":"What Makes Jesus the Solution to the Human Dilemma?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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Christmas brought about a lot of controversy this year. I have never heard so many people so upset about CHRISTmas before. One\u00a0 question everyone was asking but no one was articulating was, “what is the big deal about Jesus’ birth? What makes Jesus <\/strong>the<\/strong><\/em> solution to the human dilemma and not just <\/strong>a<\/strong><\/em> solution?”<\/strong>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

–This is a Fictitious Story–<\/em>
\n<\/span><\/div>\n

Last winter I had an experience that I won\u2019t soon forget. I was flying from Georgia to my home in California and was really hoping to have a \u201csleeper\u201d sit next to me so I could have some peace and quiet to process the weekend and all that had happened. As soon as I sat down, Dave, a student at Georgia State introduced himself. I knew it was going to be a long flight as we small talked about football and life. I was tired and ready for it to end, when he got my attention. He told me he had started attending church, and wondered if I understood why Jesus would have to die on the cross for our sins. He asked, \u201cWhat makes Jesus the solution to the human dilemma?\u201d<\/p>\n

He had my attention now, and I knew the task I was up against wasn\u2019t going to be easy. I wasn\u2019t sure where he was coming from, so I decided to start at ground zero and establish what his context was for understanding the Gospel. I knew no better way than to simply illustrate it. As irreverent as it may have been, I selected a barf bag as the media of choice for the presentation of the Gospel. I drew a straight line and put God on one end and asked Dave to put the most evil person he could think of on the other end of the line.<\/p>\n

Now with George Bush on the left extreme and God on the right hand side we established a righteousness meter. He decided that God should be 100% righteous and George Bush 0% righteous. I then drew the half-way mark on the scale and asked where he fit into the picture. He debated for a little while, no doubt trying to decide how close to God he could be without looking arrogant, and how close to Bush he could be without looking like a republican. His conflict ended as he marked the sick-sack just past the halfway point. He had a safe place to rest, at least for now.<\/p>\n

Dave felt good about his standing, and felt confident that it illustrated that he was mostly good. That was about to change. It was time for me to re-shape his context into a biblical one. I opened my digital Bible and went to Romans 3:23<\/a>, and explained that all have fallen short of God\u2019s glory. He agreed as he saw himself at a mere 58% of God\u2019s holiness. I then shared with him that Romans 1:21-23<\/a> says falling short of God\u2019s glory is to exchange living for God\u2019s glory for something of lesser value. Again he had no problem with understanding that, because he was still thinking in terms of the sin as things you do to pollute yourself in God\u2019s sight.<\/p>\n

Then I asked, \u201cSince God is holy and just, what basis does he have for overlooking your sin and letting you live with Him: as if you hadn\u2019t sinned?\u201d Dave said, \u201cI have done a lot of good stuff, and I am sorry for the bad. Surely God understands \u2018sorry\u2019.\u201d I then decided it was time to break the news to him. I read Romans 3:10-12<\/a> and James 2:10-11<\/a> I asked Dave, \u201cSo what does God think about your good deeds? What about your bad deeds?\u201d<\/p>\n

I continued to progress with the rewriting of Dave\u2019s context by reading Ephesians 2:1-3<\/a>. I asked, \u201cWhose kingdom does the Bible say you are in, God\u2019s or Satan\u2019s?\u201d Dave thought about it for a long time, not wanting to say what he now realized to be true. \u201cWell, I\u2019m not in God\u2019s, but I don\u2019t think I am in Satan\u2019s either.\u201d I said, \u201caccording to God\u2019s word, would you like to adjust your position on the righteousness scale? Remember this is going by what God considers righteousness.\u201d \u201cWell if you are going by that, then I would be at 0%…but I\u2019m not a satanist!\u201d<\/p>\n

I decided it was time for a recap. \u201cSo, we have established that God is Holy, and demands perfection. We have established that God is just and demands a penalty for sin. We also see that we stand before God guilty, with 0% righteousness. Not only that, but we deserve every bit of condemnation God owes to us, and we are helpless to do anything about it. Even if we tried to, it would be like offering garbage to God in exchange for our debt and that isn\u2019t legal! As a just judge, God cannot accept it as payment. We are legally screwed!\u201d<\/p>\n

Dave was deep in thought, and I could tell he had never seen himself in this way before. The plane began its final decent and I wasn\u2019t sure that Dave was ready for the good news yet. So I asked, \u201cWhat are you going to do about this?\u201d He said, \u201cWhat can I do? If I try to be good, I\u2019m still guilty. If I stop trying, I\u2019m giving up, and still guilty. I don\u2019t know, I guess I just have to hope God is loving enough to accept me when that time comes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is exactly it,\u201d I said, \u201cwell not exactly, but you\u2019re on the right track. God is also loving, just as you said. Because He is loving, he demands a pardon for your guilty status. However, He can\u2019t just acquit you, or He isn\u2019t just, and He can\u2019t just overlook it or He isn\u2019t holy. So what can He do? The penalty has to be paid somehow, and you can\u2019t do it yourself. But God loved you so much that He sent His one and only son, Jesus, to take your place. Jesus had never sinned, and therefore stood at the 100% mark. He took on human form, so that the payment would be adequate: one life for another life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, Jesus was put to death on a cross, in your place. The Bible says, \u2018but God demonstrates his own love for us in this, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.\u2019 So it is possible for God to be Holy, not overlooking sin; just, demanding blood to be shed as payment, and loving, not counting men\u2019s sins against them because Jesus served your death sentence for you.\u201d Dave sat there deep in thought. We were just about to land and I didn\u2019t want to leave Dave without answering his question. \u201cDave, after seeing what Jesus has done on your behalf, where do you think you are on the righteousness scale?\u201d \u201c100%.\u201d He said after a long pause.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Christmas brought about a lot of controversy this year. I have never heard so many people so upset about CHRISTmas before…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":372,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,126],"tags":[457,721,321,303,722],"class_list":["post-43","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-ministry","category-shop-talk","tag-brian","tag-christmas","tag-gospel","tag-sin","tag-solution","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/brian-pruett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/brian-pruett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/brian-pruett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/brian-pruett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/372"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/brian-pruett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/brian-pruett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/brian-pruett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/brian-pruett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/brian-pruett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}