This is a deeply heartfelt response to a friend of mine who chooses to believe that being "good" and "doing the right thing" is enough to inherit eternal relationship with God, and that any faith, whether focused on Jesus or not, permits one to enter into that same relationship.
"Brother, these points are definitely interesting, but they leave much to be desired. My idea is that our existence, without God, is no existence at all. If God exists as a personal, loving and perfect God, which He must according to the concept of man being made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27), then He must desire a relationship with us. Does desire mean that God needs a relationship with us? Of course not. God is self-sustaining which means that God needs nothing to exist. This is best described in Exodus 3:14, 14God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM”; and He said, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” I AM has the direct implication that “nothing was before Me and nothing is after Me because I not only sustain myself, but I exist infinitely”. If God is perfect and can see nothing but perfection, how is it that a human, being sinful and full of evil (Genesis 3), could relate to the perfection that is God? Surely we could do nothing to please God. There are no amount of good deeds and/or good works that could bring us close to a perfect God that has no wrong and no evil. If God has a standard of perfection, how do we think that we as humans could attain that by trying to do good things on earth? For us to come into a relationship with God must mean that God had to bring us to Himself… reconciliation (John 12:32). A completely perfect being cannot make an imperfect decision. If God chose to redeem us, then that must be a perfect, and good, decision. And God, being perfect, must also be just and punish evil. For God cannot be perfect and accept evil.
I am also confused by when you say,”I cannot and will not allow myself the bounty of freedom and “grace” while I know people who are much better people and more deserving but will not accept this same ideal for whatever reason.”I am confused by this because you are still currently sitting in that position, Jesus or not. Your belief is that if people are following God in any way (religion), then they are going to be close to the Lord and inherit eternal life. But, what about those that do not believe in God? They are sitting in the exact same position, based on your presuppositions, as the person that does not receive Christ for whatever reason. I know some atheists that are much moral, better people than I am.
But Jesus isn’t about who is a better person. The dude was perfect; He was God. It isn’t about who on earth is better, it is about who knows that they aren’t as good as the God. Receiving Jesus is not about receiving a man, it is about receiving the God who decided to give himself up, coming down as a man, as a punishment for the dumb things that we do. We all do things that go against the perfection, as stated above, that is God. God’s character, as I know you believe, lacks sin. Sin (wrong doing that violates the objective moral standard of God) has no place in his presence, in his character, no where. How can we, being full of this, enter into his presence? God must have chosen to do that himself, and he did... through sending Christ, who is God Himself, to earth as a our intermediary. Jesus came so that he could relate to us better, so that we could see what it is truly like to be God, and so that he could call us His brothers, His children. http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=hebrews%202:5-18&version=NIV (this is Hebrews 2:5-18). Please read it and please focus on verses 14-18.
Jesus is only special because Jesus was God. If God exists and is all powerful, like we all believe, what on earth would stop him from taking a part of himself, making it man, and providing that man as a substitute for ourselves? That is what God did. That is how God is merciful. That is how we know God is faithful and how we know He loves us.
What we need to realize is that we have to take a step, just like with your belief. You believe that someone must believe in God to be in contact with God and therefore saved. I believe that someone must simply acknowledge that they are unworthy of being in the perfect presence of God, that they cannot work to get to God, and that they believe that God has provided a solution to that, a solution through himself, through Jesus the Christ who gave his life up and suffered the extreme punishment that we truly deserve."
