The world is going through a pandemic which is driven by a deadly virus called COVID-19 because it started in 2019. It’s deadly because at this point and in the near future, we have no vaccine to stop it. It mostly attacks the lungs and respiration so that people die within a short time if they do not have immunity levels high enough to fight it.
On the other hand, God is so perfect that no virus can ever affect him. He has unlimited power, all knowledge of the universe, a presence everywhere, and existence forever from the past to the future. Truly, the present-day song is right, “Our God is an awesome God!”
As you can see, the Christian God revealed by the Bible has no real comparison to human life in contrast to the false gods thought up by humans throughout history. If we are ready to admit it, we have very limited power, knowledge, presence, and life.
In addition, viruses, cancer, heart disease, bacteria, and other physical and emotional invasions affect our lives adversely.
However, the Bible reveals another “virus” that is even more deadly than the coronavirus or the most deadly disease ever experienced. It calls that “disease” with which we were conceived and born various names: sin, trespass, iniquity, wickedness, evil, guilt, and others. Taken together, they describe the human passive and active rebellion against the will of our merciful Maker. That rebellion has brought all our human ills on us.
Would you like to be perfect, that is, free from human rebellion and its many disastrous “viruses”? Well, we can’t gain perfection because we are saddled with these weak bodies. That problem is the human dilemma.
In other words, God is perfect, but we’re not. God requires us to be perfect, but we can’t because our imperfection is built into us. You see, all the other belief systems besides biblical Christianity think that we can somehow reach up to God. On the other hand, we know, based on the Bible, that we can’t reach God on our own. What’s worse, we are born on our way to eternal separation from God and all we know in this life because we brought it all upon ourselves.
In spite of our human inability to become perfect and live with the perfection of God, he decided before he made anything to put his rescue plan into effect when the First Person of God sent the Second Person to join himself with humanity in Mary’s uterus, while the Third Person of God “fertilized” her egg without a human father.
God named the baby who was born Jesus, meaning “God rescues.” Jesus, the God-man, led a perfect life resisting all temptations to become imperfect. Though fully not-guilty of the charges of claiming to be God and being a king who opposed the Roman king, he decided to undergo Roman torture at the hands of sadistic Roman soldiers, who whipped him without mercy and nailed his wrists and feet to a wooden post or plank with a crosspiece. He would have to lift himself up all the time or suffocate.
A remarkable event while Jesus hung on the cross was his prayer that his heavenly Father would forgive the religious leaders and the soldiers. He wanted the First Person of God, who is the just, divine Judge, to postpone his guilty verdict so that they could have an opportunity to turn away from their unjust actions and turn to God for his forgiveness.
What does all this history have to do with our “virus”? Jesus voluntarily gave up his life on that torture instrument as our perfect Substitute. In that completely unselfish act, Jesus took all believers’ imperfection on himself, and the Father-Creator gave us Jesus’ perfection and not-guilty verdict. But Jesus took our guilty verdict and imperfection on himself in his death.
Thankfully, the end of the story is not yet here. Parts of three days later, Jesus came back to permanent life. He appeared to many witnesses over the next forty days until he returned to his Father in heaven, a spiritual, not physical, place where the three Persons of God rule the universe as the one Judge.
What this history means for believers is that through God’s free gift of trust in Jesus, God gives us his not-guilty verdict and the status of being right with him already now. However, imperfections, the “virus” of sin, still live within us. But Jesus’ resurrection gives his true followers, who are committed to live for him, a miraculous change called the “new birth” with power to fight and overcome sins inside and outside of us. We fail often but continue to pray, read the Bible, and be actively involved with other believers to gain God’s strength to grow in his perfection.
This whole true story will not be completed until believers’ souls go to be with God when we die. But Jesus will return as he promised to bring with him believers’ souls. When that amazing event happens, he will rejoin our perfected souls with our risen, perfected bodies to live in a perfected universe that he will make. Come soon, Jesus! The question is, Have you trusted him to be your Ticket to final, full perfection? It is that reason that makes me invite you to join us on the journey toward final perfection, a little like the fellow’s journey at the top of each webpage. He’s going toward the mountain peak in the distance; we, toward Jesus.
I invite your responses for a good discussion. Let us hear from you.