What I Should Have Said —This Is the Testimony

This is the testimony, God sent his Son, to be the propitiation for our sin, so that we who believe might have eternal life. 

Why does God even care? Why doesn’t he just hand us over to our eternal punishment? Why not destroy everything by fire and start over again? Why send his Son at all? We are a rebellious people. We constantly violate God’s holiness. Striving against one another with gossip, backbiting, hate, and murder until we are consumed with self interest, impurity and corruption. We put on a good show, by giving money to charities, smiling and shaking one another”s hands, and loving our own, but deep down sin is eating away at the foundation of our souls.

So, why does God care? “(ESV) 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?... (ESV) 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:35-39.

God’s love is so deep, so wide, so encompassing that he is compelled by his character to love his children. I can’t imagine anything that my boys (or grandchildren) could do that would cause me to love them less, I might get angry, impatient, disappointed, but I would always love them and want to do good toward them. To do less would be to deny  my fatherhood, and to deny myself. If this is true of me, how much more is it true of God?

(ESV) 13 “if we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself.” 2 Timothy 2:13. God can not deny himself, and he is love. He is justice. He is holiness. He is mercy. Since he “is”, then he “must.” God’s justice demand propitiation, and His love demands the giving of His Son. For those of us who believe, it means eternal life. For those who reject His gift, eternal death. That’s God’s testimony, a testimony I will attest to as long as I have breath. I’m just saying