God Is Just Like Any Other Dad! (Except, well...He's God.) - Chapter Thirteen

13. Would You Die For Your Child?

          What would you sacrifice for a stranger? If there was someone in the city you lived in who was, let us say, dying from a disease which required massive blood donations... Would you donate blood? You might. How about money? Maybe, if the cause was presented to the public well enough. But if it got into the territory of bone marrow? A kidney? Probably not.

          All right then...but what if it was a friend? Well, then, sure. You'd be much more likely to donate a kidney to a good friend. Bone marrow becomes a much more feasible call now, too. But would you give up something permanent - an arm, or a leg, or an eye? Hmmmm. Doesn't seem like the stuff we'd do for just any old friend.

          But...you'd do that for your child. I just read about a young Chinese married couple whose baby boy was born blind, two dysfunctional eyeballs preventing sight. So in order that their son could grow up sighted, they chose to each give up one of their OWN eyeballs, he the left and she the right, so the boy could have two working eyes as he grew up. Amazing, and merely anecdotal evidence, of course. But most people would at least consider the possibility if presented to them in a similar situation. We would do just about anything for our child. Just about…anything.

          But…would you die for your child?

          God would.

God did.

You’ve probably read about it. It was in all the papers, or, at least, in all the Gospels. “Jesus died for our sins.” We all remember that from Sunday School when we were kids.

But what does that phrase really mean? First of all, there are a couple of qualifications we might want to examine more closely before we start checking off that particular box – did God really “die for his child” in the sense that we mean when we say we would die for ours?

We first have to accept that Jesus is God, which some sects who call themselves “Christian” don’t necessarily take as a given. (Yes, yes, we had this conversation earlier in the book. It bears repeating: it’s that important!) So let’s get this out of the way first: the very definition of the word “Christian” implies a worship of Christ; and if you’re worshiping Christ, as the name says, that implies that you must believe that Christ is God – not “godlike”, not anything short of the genuine article. As we discussed briefly in the chapter called “Faith, Not Works”, Jesus Christ was fully man AND fully God in his incarnation on earth two thousand years ago; without being fully human, he could not have paid the price for human sin debt, and without being fully God, he could not have led a perfectly sinless life and therefore been able to pay that debt.

There’s a very Fatherly analogy here too, of course: how many of you parents have had your child get into some very serious situations – for example, in need of a complicated surgery? Hasn’t every single one of you said something to the effect of, “If I could take their place, so they didn’t have to go through this terrible thing, I would”? It’s a classic parental feeling, one which non-parents may never understand.

Isn’t that what God essentially did on the cross?

Didn’t He, as God the Son, take the place of all of His human children who owed an impossible debt that they (WE) couldn’t pay…but which HE could, and did?

Explaining the Trinity as both One God and Three Entities is difficult to the point of impossibility (we’ll take a stab at it in a few pages), but accepting it is critical to your understanding of your faith as a Christian. God the Father and God the Son are one – AND separate. But however you wrap your mind around that part of the issue, never doubt that our Lord Jesus Christ is indeed God. That’s probably THE fundamental detail that makes a Christian a Christian, and not Jewish or LDS or any other sect.

In fact, regardless of the current discussion, the very terminology we use demands that anyone who doesn’t believe that Jesus and God are part and parcel of the same Entity cannot call themselves a Christian. So, those of you who fall into this category, you’re excused. Please pick up your things on your way out the door. Thank you.

†

OK, next: did He really “die” in the same sense that we mean that word? When He “died”, He came right back three days later! We won’t do that! How much of a sacrifice did Jesus – who is God – really make here? He spent forty more days ministering in and around Jerusalem before He ascended to Heaven.

What will we do?

Well, when we die, we’ll… um… go to Heaven, too. (Most of us, anyway. If you’re reading this, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt as far as that conversation goes.)

Hmm.

So, except that He made a pit stop to do some work on the way, we both went to the same place. So much for that argument.

Yeah, but when I die, it’s really going to be miserable! I mean – death, y’know? Painful!

Oh, you mean you’ll suffer like Jesus suffered? The beatings of the Roman guards, the berating of the Pharisees and the masses they incited, the thirty-nine lashes with the scourging whip (which had all of those barbed tips laced throughout it, so that it took literal chunks and strips out of His hide), and then being nailed to a cross and left out in the sun to die? You’re right – your death will be much more painful than that. [Sarcasm alert.]

Er…um, can I take that part back?

Now, let’s add to that: Not only is Jesus suffering as no man had probably ever suffered – remember, there was a purpose to that suffering. Do you remember what it was?

Um…yeah. To pay the price for our sins.

Right. So we could be made holy enough to be allowed into Heaven when we died, since otherwise we would be condemned to Hell for all eternity.

So…God really DID die for us, didn’t He? He saved us – not for this life, so much, but for the much-more-important eternal life we get once we die.

Right.

Now: flip the scene. Picture God the Father, in heaven, having deposited the entirety of humanity’s sins on the shoulders of His Only True Son. (BTW, what do those sins look like? Did He carry a flash drive with a hundred GB of downloaded sins on it? Just curious…) Christ prays to You at Gethsemane, in Matthew 26:39-44, and You cannot answer Him, at least not as He wants You to. The plan’s in motion; You can’t change it now. (Strike that – read, “won’t” change it. God can do anything, but this particular plan’s been in the works since at least Genesis 3:15. And Jesus knew it.)

You watch as Your Son is (wrongly) convicted of blasphemy by a kangaroo court…as He is hauled off to Pilate, and then to Herod…as He is scourged within an inch of His life (and who’s to say You didn’t keep Him superhumanly alive under that savage beating? The cross is a much cleaner, easier symbol for Christianity than a cat-o-nine-tails scourging whip!)…as He is virtually dragged through the streets of Jerusalem towards Golgotha…as He is literally nailed to the crossbeam of a Roman torture device.

And You – All-Powerful God, the Lord Almighty – for the only time in Your Infinite Existence, You are powerless to do anything about it. You are powerless to stop His Pain.

Because if You are forever separated from us because of our sin nature – and for this brief moment in time (twenty-four hours, tops), Your Son bears ALL of their sin – You cannot even touch Him. As much as it must pain You to see Your Son suffer such literally excruciating pain (literal because “excruciating” comes from “ex-crucis” – “on-crucifix”). You cannot bear to even look at Him.

You can’t even answer His pleas to You… Even when He cries out on the cross, nails through His flesh, “Father, Father, why have You forsaken Me?” …You cannot answer. The barrier of sin is too great, even if it were Your desire to somehow stop the millennias-long plan moments from its completion – even if Your desire to rescue Your Son overwhelmed Your desire to rescue humanity itself.

Sacrifice? Oh, yes.

God sacrificed for His children.

God sacrificed – died – for us.

And His sacrifice was greater than we can possibly imagine – both as Father and Son.