Is God Obligated to Save Us?
Lorraine Day, M.D.
“Heresy! Blasphemy!” you say. “How can you even suggest such a thing? God offers salvation to everyone, but everyone must make his or her own choice. God is not obligated to do anything. He is God. He can do whatever He wants!”
That response would be appropriate and acceptable if the God you worship is a tyrant! But if God is kind, fair, just, righteous, truthful, and our loving Father, as He claims to be, then He cannot behave contrary to His own nature.
If you and your spouse unknowingly and unwittingly had a child who was born with a genetic disease that would cause that child to die a terribly painful death by the age of 5 – a disease that you and your spouse inadvertently “gave” to that child through your combined genes – would you have an obligation to do everything possible within your power to save that child?
Of course you would!
But are you more loving than God?
The Bible tells us,
“ALL is of God, and through God, and to (for) God. . .” Romans 11:36
So God is responsible for everything! Whatever happens, God takes responsibility for it, according to Romans 11:36
Did you have a choice NOT to be born a sinner?
Adam and Eve were created perfect. But then they sinned and through that act, passed Death to the whole human race.
“Wherefore, as by one man (Adam) sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so DEATH passed upon all men, in whom ALL have sinned.” Romans 5:12
We human beings were all born with a terminal disease: the terminal disease of - - - Sin! When “death” passed upon all men, we all became subject to death, just as Adam and Eve began “dying” the moment they sinned. They lost their covering of light, they had to begin wearing clothes, and they became “separated” from God. They no longer walked and conversed with Him in the Garden of Eden, “in the cool of the day.” In fact, they were banished from the Garden of Eden and never allowed to return.
Did you, like Adam and Eve, have the opportunity to be created perfect? Obviously not!
Did you even have the choice to be born perfect, unable to sin? Obviously not.
Every human being, after Adam and Eve, was born with a terminal disease; the disease of “Sin” – a disease that will destroy us physically and spiritually.
How would you treat your child who has a terminal disease – that YOU gave him?
What if that disease – that YOU gave your son – caused him to vomit on your brand new suit? Would you punish him for that? Would you kill him – burn him to death – for that?
What if that disease – that YOU gave your son– caused him to wet the bed every single night until he died? Would you punish him for that? Would you kill him – burn him to death – for that?
What if that disease – that YOU gave your son – caused him to stumble and fall and break an irreplaceable, very expensive heirloom? Would you punish him for that? Would you kill him – burn him to death – for that?
You would do none of those things to your son. And yet, you didn’t even purposely give him his terminal disease.
But God purposely put Satan in the tree in the “midst of the garden.” And because,
“ALL is of God, and through God, and to God,” (Rom 11:36)
then God did it all deliberately. Doesn’t God have even more obligation to fix this mess than a parent who unknowingly gave his son a terminal disease? - A parent who would never have done such a thing on purpose?
God admits to us in His Word that He takes responsibility for sin in the world.
“For the creation was made subject to vanity (futility – sin), NOT willingly, but by reason of Him who hath subjected the same in expectation.” Romans 8:20
God is responsible for everything in the world. Even the evil spirit that came to King Saul, came from the Lord:
“But the spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him. And Saul’s servants said unto him, behold now, an evil spirit from God troubleth thee.” 1 Samuel 16:14
God admits it; He subjected the world to sin.
In the civic laws given to the Israelites by God in the Old Testament, He again takes responsibility for sin in the world.
“And if a man shall dig a pit, and not cover it, and an ox or an ass fall therein; The owner of the pit shall make it good, and give money unto the owner of them; and the dead beast shall be his.” Exodus 21:33-34
It was God who “dug the pit and did not cover it” in the Garden of Eden, by placing Satan in the tree in the “midst of the Garden” even though Adam and Eve were completely ignorant of the results of sin, or even the meaning of “death” – something they had never seen or experienced in any way.
Adam and Eve – by sinning - became the “ox and ass” that fell into the pit.
It is the “owner of the pit that shall make it good.”
That’s why Jesus Christ (the One who “dug the pit”) died on the cross – to save the whole world – to “make it good.” Romans 8:21 explains that even more:
“Because the creation itself shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption (the bondage of sin) into the glorious liberty of the children of God.” Romans 8:21
Before God created the world and humanity – did He “count the cost”? Or was He just stumbling around in darkness, not knowing what would happen? Jesus said,
“For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? Lest, by chance, after he has laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him, saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish.” Luke 14:28-30
Will Jesus Christ NOT be able to finish what He came to do? Will Satan and the evil angels MOCK Jesus because He could not do what He came to do, namely Save the Whole World?
“Behold the lamb of God who TAKES AWAY the sin of the (whole) world.” John 1:29
“He is the Savior of ALL mankind, especially (not only) of those who believe.” 1 Tim 4:10
“And having made peace through the blood of His cross, by Him to reconcile ALL unto Himself; by Him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.” Col 1:20
“Death will be abolished. . . and God will be ALL in ALL.” 1 Cor 15:26,28
“God is operating ALL according to the counsel of HIS OWN Will.” Eph 1:11
“And His will is that NONE should perish, but ALL should come to repentance.” 2 Peter 3:9
Isn’t God ALL powerful? Isn’t God able to do anything and everything?
“Is anything too hard for the Lord?” Genesis 18:14
Isn’t God able to do even more than we can ask or even think?
“Now unto Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think. . .” Eph 3:20
Obviously God had a reason to introduce sin into the world because
“All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to His purpose.” Romans 8:28
And ALL eventually will love God, because:
“At the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, in heaven, and in earth, and under the earth; and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Phil 2:10,11
This will not be a “forced” bowing, because that would not bring “glory to God the Father.” Only when everyone is convinced in his own heart that Jesus Christ is the ONLY way, will this bring “glory to God the Father.”
Because everyone was born into the world already “infected with the terminal disease” of sin, and because no one had the choice to be born without the “disease” of sin, and because God admits that He is responsible for introducing sin into the world, by His own Old Testament laws given to the Israelites, God admits that it is His obligation to save us.
“And if a man shall dig a pit, and not cover it, and an ox or an ass fall therein; The owner of the pit shall make it good, and give money unto the owner of them; and the dead beast shall be his.” Exodus 21:33-34
It is God who “dug the pit.”
We, as sinners like Adam and Eve, “fell into the pit.”
The “owner of the pit” – God – “shall make it good” – by Jesus Christ’s death on the cross by which He “bought us back” from sin and the Adversary,
“and the dead beast (humanity) shall be His.”
Though we ALL have been “dead” in sin, we ALL, eventually, shall belong to Jesus Christ!
That is the Glorious Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ!