In the window period between birth and death our life's experience tells us that generally we get what we strive after. Life teaches us that there is no gain without pain, that respect has to be earned and wages must be worked for. Life also teaches us however that some goals will always be out with our reach. Ladders will take you so high but don't try and build one to the moon. Saving hard and working hard may fund the cost of a car or even a home but for almost all us Buckingham Palace will be well beyond our reach! Strangely a common religious philosophy pins it's hope on attaining the eternal and infinite by self effort! If some of earths material wealth is out with our reach how hard would we have to strive to gain eternal life and access to heaven? The religious logic here just doesn't add up! Jesus turns these philosophical ideas of religion upside down. It was Jesus who:
- Raised the standard we aim for, "God only is good" the Lord Jesus told the young man striving to impress God! Goodness and perfection are scarce commodities when assessed by the eye of God.
- Jesus forgive sins! Earning a right to heaven is hardly compatible with a need for forgiveness!
- Jesus did not get what he deserved, He died the just and perfect for us the sinner. The assumption that we get what we deserve from God is unwarranted, His Son broke the rule here.
The apostle Paul, brings these ideas together here in Romans chapter 6 verse 23. Sin has wages, earned and gained. Sin brings us to death. It is infinitely easier to bring a man from life to death than it is to bring a man from death to life! Such a movement in the opposite and unnatural direction depends on the grace of God. It is the "gift of God" that is "eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."
A video recorded on the banks of Loch Ken by Dr J Stewart Gillespie