Thread by @CalebFiggers

I am a Christian. I believe that God is real. I believe that the Christian scriptures (aka, "the Bible") contain God's actual writings. I believe God wants humans to know about and believe the message that is in his book.

The Bible teaches that all humans are born with a terminal disease. All except three, that is—but two of those three were Patients 0 and 1, respectively. Their names were Adam and Eve.

The disease is not genetic. But it is hereditary, and there is no natural cure.

This illness has a 100% mortality rate, and YOU have it, because your parents had it. The presenting symptom: *not wanting to get better.*

This disease is called Sin.

The Bible teaches that Sin is hating the God who made you and wanting to replace him—usually with yourself somehow. But any replacement will do.

This is like a leaf that hates its own tree. Or a flower with seething hatred of the sun. We need God to exist at all—but we HATE him.

God is really, really good. He didn't have to make anything. But he did, and he made it wonderful. You're an incredible work of art. God made you.

He doesn't deserve hate. He deserves love. We are in the wrong.

The Bible teaches that God would do Justice if he infinitely punished Sinners (i.e. us) forever. He is infinitely good, making offense against him infinitely bad.

But God *delights* in being merciful. He knows that Sin is a sickness, and he loves to heal people who are sick.

This presents a quandary. Justice is clear: those who hate and replace God deserve to get what they want—which is to be cut off from the source of all good and spend eternity growing more and more dead, like a flower that hates the sun.

Can God heal sinners AND uphold Justice?

The shocking resolution to this quandary is "Yes!"—but not in a way anyone expected.

Jesus Christ was a human man who lived 2,000 years ago in Israel. He was (and is) God's own Son, who is himself God. God sent him from heaven to make a way for Sinners (that's us) to be saved.

The Bible teaches that Jesus took full punishment for Sin on himself to satisfy God's Justice. And he lived a perfect, Sinless life to fulfill the righteousness that we failed to live up to. He died on a Roman cross, betrayed by his own people, naked, ashamed, and alone.

On the third day after his death, God raised Jesus back to life. This proved his innocence, confirmed his identity as God, and declared him with power to be who he claimed to be. Jesus ascended into heaven and took the ruling seat over the entire universe. He's still there today.

The Bible teaches that Jesus then sent the Holy Spirit, who is also himself God, to grant faith to sinners, to live in their hearts, and through faith to make them Identify with Jesus. That means his punishment for Sin covers their debt, and his righteous life becomes theirs too.

This is a spiritual resurrection exactly as miraculous as Jesus' own rising from the dead.

"Faith" is a technical term meaning "belief that changes what you think and do."

"Miraculous" is a technical term meaning "only God himself can do it."

The Bible teaches that Sinners—that means anyone who has this terminal disease which makes them hate God and not want to get better—have exactly one hope to not die eternally for good:

The Bible teaches that YOU need to believe that Jesus was telling the truth. You need to admit your Sin, reject it, and throw it away. You need to ask God to give you faith and make your life united to Jesus' life. You need to submit to Jesus as your King. This is the one hope.

Life is very short. And it only ends one of two ways: either you die, or Jesus comes back first. Either way, the window of opportunity to take this hope is closing awfully soon. After that point, it will be too late. Death forever will be all that's left.

God will serve Justice ultimately—we don't just let murderers go free. Neither will God forget the wrong we do to him and each other.

Either Jesus' life and death is covering your Sin, or Sin is still on you and you are in real danger. Time will tell. I hope you won't wait.

If you're not sure about anything I said here, definitely don't take my word for it. You can read the Bible for yourself! It's very old and that makes it very different from most things you'll read these days. But translators work hard and they do great work making it accessible.

Remember that the Bible is God's own writings. You should read this book because God wants you to believe what it says and be saved from Sin.

Here's the Gospel of John in the New International Version (or NIV). I know just enough Greek (which is what this part of the Bible was written in) to co-sign that the NIV is a great, faithful, readable translation.
biblegateway.com/passage/?searc…

If you have questions about anything, I would love to talk to you about them. 🙂