Romans 11:32
³² For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all. (NIV)

It sure seems that life is not fair.

This unfairness begins in the Garden of Eden when all mankind is punished for the sin of Adam. God bound us all to sin. That certainly doesn’t seem fair.

To truly adjudicate God’s action, we must consider the alternative. What if everyone was born innocent today and only inherited the sinful nature after sinning? To make a judgment of fairness, we must consider this alternative. But also, we must understand why God did what He did. Perhaps, it is more fair than it may first appear.

By allowing sin to enter the human race by one man, the Scripture teaches this allows God to also undo man’s sinful nature by one man, Jesus Christ. To know if this was fair, we need to consider the alternative.

If each person had been born innocent as Adam and Eve were, they would only inherit the sinful nature after sinning. But then, each soul would need its own personal Jesus as a sacrifice. God would not say that God sacrificed His only begotten Son, but a new personal Jesus would be manifest for every repentant soul. These would simultaneously appear in millions of places to offer themselves as a sacrifice for one person’s sin.

They would also have to live a perfect life to qualify as worthy to die for another’s sin. And they would have to live a supernatural life to ensure God got all the glory and not some superhuman race. But to live without sin while displaying supernatural miracles would cause people to follow them like roadies on tour with Bon Jovi. They could care less about the Holy Spirit; without it, there would be no transformational work. The sheer number of personal Jesus’ walking around doing miracles, born of virgins, would make them so common that most of us wouldn’t even care. Even after one’s personal Jesus offered Himself as a sacrifice, we would likely follow someone else’s personal Jesus, like the crowds in Scripture following Christ to get a miracle.

Because we all sin, we deserve nothing more than physical and spiritual death. None of us have received from God what is fair. What we have received has been more than fair, whether plenty or little. Life is not fair. It’s better.

Prayer: Lord, help me not to covet what others have and be thankful that You have given me more than what is fair. Amen.

“Do everything in love” -1 Cor 16:14

Pastor Lee

READ ‘THE WISDOM OF MERCY‘