God Loves First

March 14, 2021

Ephesians 2:1-10
John 3:14-21

For a time, I was enamored with various theologians—particularly ones who seemed to have all the answers. These ‘apologists’ (people who make a defense for their faith) were my heroes. They knew how to navigate just about any faith question, and for a while, I wanted to be just like that. I wanted to study until I knew why and how and who and when and could answer any question that came my way. I wanted certainty. One of those apologists was Ravi Zacharias. He had been involved in Christian apologetics for more than 40 years and wrote over 30 books. He founded the Ravi Zacharias International Ministry and appeared on a number of Christian ministry television and radio shows.

After his death last May, it was revealed that he had exaggerated his academic credentials and had multiple sexual assault allegations against him. He had assaulted numerous massage therapists and extorted some of them for sex after paying for their education. He hid pictures of women in his home. The image he had carefully cultivated for many years dissolved in an instant. And that reality hit many of his fans hard.

One of those fans is a friend of mine. She wondered aloud about his spiritual well-being now that he is dead. He was such a force for faith. She was sure he was going to heaven. But the ugliness of his truth cause her to question that. Was it bad enough for God to send him to hell? Being a preacher and teacher, shouldn’t he be held to a higher standard? And the higher the standard, the harder the fall.

In essence, my friend was wondering if God will judge us by our works or by our faith. And as we read the passage from John, it seems that is a legitimate concern. It says, “Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already.” Which leads to two big questions. What does ‘believe’ actually mean? And what does ‘condemn’ mean?

First, to the word ‘believe.’ What does it mean to believe in something? We ‘believe in’ all sorts of things—we believe in climate change, Santa Claus, freedom, and religious leaders. In each of these cases, that ‘belief in’ is different. Sometimes, it means that we support—like leaders; sometimes it means that we believe it’s true—like climate change; sometimes, it means that it is a value to be protected—like freedom; sometimes, it means that we hope in miracles and myths—like Santa. But I think that our ‘belief in’ Christ is something different.

It is trust. It is reliance. More than an intellectual admission—like listing the things we believe are true in a creed—belief in the One sent by God goes deeper. John takes us back to the story in Numbers, when the people of Israel were wandering in the desert. And time after time, they start mumbling and complaining against God. “We want to go back. There’s not enough food. There’s no water. We’re going to die here.” And time after time, God provides for them.

But in Numbers 21, God has gotten tired of the complaints. God sends serpents into the encampment, and they bite the people, and some die. The people recognize the problem and go to Moses, confessing their sins of distrusting God’s plan for them. So God has Moses make a bronze serpent set upon a pole. And the people who had been bitten could look at the bronze serpent and be healed. They had to look upon their sin in order to trust in God’s provision.

In this same way, John says, the Son of Man will be like the bronze serpent—lifted up onto a pole for the world to see. In looking upon him, we must face our own Sin and trust in God’s provision. Without that, we cannot see Jesus for who he truly is. We must look up. John suggests that what keeps us from looking up is our preference to live in the shadows. We hide behind the things we trust instead of God—greed, authority, security, comfort. We hide in shame, just as Adam and Eve hid in their shame of nakedness. Because nakedness means vulnerability. Leaving the shadows means being seen for all that we are—both the good and the bad. And we don’t trust that God could possibly love us once God sees all of that. We don’t trust that God’s grace is big enough to cover our sin.

So, to ‘believe in’ isn’t about what we know but how we respond to God’s call to leave the shadow places and be exposed.

The other question is about the word ‘condemnation.’ In Greek, the word is krisos, or ‘judgement.’ To me, these are two different things—condemnation and judgment. Judgment is what happens when we hear the truth of our guilt. Judgment is God saying, “Yes, you did this—or didn’t do that. Yes, I know. And no, that wasn’t who I created you to be.” Judgment is necessary for forgiveness. Forgiveness assumes judgment.

Condemnation, on the other hand, is the sentencing. Because you’ve done this or that, you receive this punishment. Condemnation is the bottom line. Condemnation is the cross. And because of the cross, condemnation is removed from all who ‘believe’—who trust that the cross has the power that it claims. Paul says, “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ.” (Romans 8:1)

And that leads to the next question. Without the cross, what would our condemnation be? And how does the cross remove it? The Church has, for centuries, taught that the condemnation of our sin is hell. But Scripture tells us that the condemnation—the sentence—for sin is death. Just as it was for Adam and Eve. Death—not just the cessation of breath in our earthly bodies but the lies we tell ourselves and others that life is without purpose; that we are worthless; that we are unloved and unlovable; that there is no hope. There is no death I can imagine worse than that of despair and hopelessness. And that is the very real death we experience without the truth of the gospel.

That truth is this: God loves first. God loves always. God loves without condition, without limit, even without repentance. The condemnation of death is one we heap on ourselves and others. It does not come from God. When we treat people as commodities to be consumed; when we treat our world as an unlimited resource for our own pleasure and comfort—we create the death to which we are bound.

So, yes—God judges us by our works. And God loves us anyway. That is the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. That even though we condemn ourselves to a life without that love, God’s love does not cease. It does not cease when we beat it up. It does not cease when we hang it from a cross and taunt it as an expression of our own fear. It does not cease when it exposes us for the lies we tell ourselves or the lies we convince others to believe. And it does not cease even as it defeats death, exposes the truth, and rolls back the stone to welcome us into open arms.

For by grace you have been saved. And you know what? It has nothing to do with what you’ve done or left undone. It is God’s gift to you. You have been saved through faith—not your faith, because even that is a gift. You have been saved through the faithfulness of Christ, the one who willingly took our fear and death into himself for the sake of the world. And because God’s salvation is not dependent upon our works, God makes us free to be bold—to risk the hatred of others in order to speak God’s grace into this broken and hurting world. That is why God created us: to love—because God first loved us.

Pastor Tobi White
Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church
Lincoln, NE