by Jacob Ninan
The USP or the unique selling point of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is that He provides salvation through grace. "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast" (Eph.2:8,9). Since this is given as a free gift from God, which no one can earn no matter what we do, there is nothing to boast from our side. Those who do not understand this try to qualify for it through good works, religious rituals, sacrifices, punishing self, repeating prayers, pilgrimages, baptism, etc., and fail to find salvation. 'Grace' is an unmerited favour God shows towards those who do not deserve it. We can understand it when we realise that what we all deserve, because of all the sins we have committed, is eternal punishment in hell, and then salvation as a free gift is uniquely good news!
Just look at the heart of God who wants to save even the worst of sinners. The two criminals hanging on crosses along with Jesus deserved their punishment. But one of them received a free salvation from Jesus because he acknowledged what he really deserved and also believed Jesus to be the Saviour. This was a demonstration of the undeserved nature of the salvation God has provided through Jesus. "One of the criminals who were hanged there was hurling abuse at Him, saying, 'Are You not the Christ? Save Yourself and us!' But the other answered, and rebuking him said, 'Do you not even fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed are suffering justly, for we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.' And he was saying, 'Jesus, remember me when You come in Your kingdom!' And He said to him, 'Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise'" (Lk.23:39-43).
As a result, when the good news of this salvation is preached widely, people come to picture God as a loving, gracious, merciful, kind, compassionate, forgiving God. But this picture makes some people to jump to the conclusion that such a God cannot punish anyone at all or send anyone to hell, and they conclude therefore that He will somehow save everyone. This wrong thinking is referred to as universalism.
God's heart is such that He wants everyone to be saved (1Tim.2:3,4). Some teach wrongly that God picks up some people for salvation, and by implication, leaves others to be sent to hell. What we need to keep in mind is that even while God has made it possible for everyone in the world to be saved (1Jn.2:2), as we saw in the beginning, only those who 'believe' will be saved. Salvation is by God's grace which man can receive by faith. God has made it very clear what will happen to those who will not believe. "He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil" (Jn.3:18,19). People who refuse to believe are really rejecting this salvation and as a result, exposing themselves to judgment. So, it is not God sending them to hell, but they are choosing that even while God offers them grace.
God is not just 'love' as some people imagine, but His character has many other facets too, such as righteousness, justice, impartiality, etc. We must learn that God is always loving while He also does the right thing at all times. When He shows us love, He cannot do anything wrong in order to be loving towards us, as people tend to do, and He cannot stop loving us even when He has to be firm towards us.
Take the example of salvation. Even though He loved us and did not want any of us to perish, He could not simply decide to forgive us, because that would have been unrighteous! If He had done that, He could not have been also acting in justice. So, His salvation had to satisfy both His love and justice. He did this by taking our punishment on Himself and providing us with free salvation. Jesus has already died and taken the punishment for the sins of the whole world. Now anyone who, by faith, admits his own sins and receives Jesus as His Saviour, can receive this free gift of salvation.
We must recognise love, mercy, patience, compassion, kindness, holiness, righteousness, justice, impartiality, etc., as different aspects of God's character that describe Him simultaneously. In other words, He does not stop being loving when He is exercising His justice. What we experience from Him at different times depends on what we need from Him at that time. Sometimes He encourages or comforts us, and at other times He may discipline us or correct us.
Discipline is for our good. "But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness" (Heb.12:8-11).
Discipline is not judgment, but a part of our training so that we may learn something. God will have to discipline us if we are straying away from His paths and not responding to His warnings. If we ignore it, it means that we are choosing to move away from God. If we do not repent, we can even end up leaving Him altogether. That is why God has given us many warnings, telling us to be careful (Heb.3:12).
Let us look at an example of falling away from God. Jesus tells us the parable of a servant of a king whom the king forgave of a huge debt which the servant could not pay back. But then this servant refused to forgive another servant who owed him just a small amount. "Then summoning him, his lord said to him, 'You wicked slave, I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not also have had mercy on your fellow slave, in the same way that I had mercy on you?' And his lord, moved with anger, handed him over to the torturers until he should repay all that was owed him. My heavenly Father will also do the same to you, if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart" (Matt.18:32-35). This servant was first forgiven and his punishment was taken away. Now, his forgiveness was taken back, and he was given a more severe punishment. What Jesus warns us through this is that even after God has forgiven us our sins, we can lose it if we refuse to forgive someone else from our side. It teaches us that we cannot receive grace and then take it for granted. It is not that we must qualify for receiving grace by forgiving others, but that if we refuse to forgive others after we have been forgiven, we will disqualify ourselves.
We can learn something very important from this verse from James. "For judgment will be merciless to one who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment" (Jas.2:13). God's love for us is such that He has made it possible through the sacrifice of Jesus to overcome the demands of His justice in order to show us mercy. But then, we can make things difficult for Him in such a way that He may get forced to withdraw His mercy and instead show His justice towards us, for example, by being unmerciful towards others.
We have another example. "For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins" (Heb.10:26). We may have been saved at one time. But, if we go on choosing to sin deliberately and knowingly without bothering about how it affects our relationship with God, we stand to lose our salvation. If there is repentance, God will offer us forgiveness, but if there is a deliberate rejection of God, that will be a way for us to give up our salvation knowingly.
To summarise, God offers salvation to all people. Anyone who trust in Jesus can receive it. But those who reject it will face judgment. Others who live in such a way as to reject this salvation will also face judgment. That is also a choice that they make. It is not God who wants to punish them, but they force a loving God who offered His only Son for their salvation to send them His judgment.