When Christianity Becomes Anti-God: Part 2

Watch: When Christianity Becomes Anti-God: Part 1

[Gary Petty] Is it possible for a Christian group to have a doctrine that is actually anti-God?

John Shelby Spong was an Episcopalian bishop who had a profound effect on a Christian movement that has gained popularity over the last decades. Here's a clip of a sermon he gave some years ago.

[John Shelby Spong] "Jesus did not die for your sins. What a strange and terrible idea that is. It makes God an ogre who would demand the death of the Son that makes God the ultimate child abuser. It turns Jesus into being a masochistic sufferer. It turns you and me into being guilt-laden people because we become responsible for the death of Jesus."

[Gary Petty] We're going to look at what Spong said and compare it to a number of Bible passages. He said, "Jesus did not die for your sins. What a strange and terrible idea."

Well, let's begin our response by looking at what Jesus said about His death. So we'll go right to the life and words of Jesus.

In the evening before His torture and crucifixion, Jesus ate a traditional Passover meal with His disciples. And then He did something that would have been very confusing to them. According to Matthew, this is what happened. "And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, Take eat, this is my body. (You can imagine how strange it seemed to them.) Then He took the cup and gave thanks and gave it to them, saying, Drink from it all of you, for this is my blood of the new covenant which is shed for many for the remission of sins." Remission. This means a dismissal or a release, a release from sin.

Jesus is telling His disciples that these symbols of bread as His body and wine as His blood represent a reality that His blood was going to be spilled for the forgiveness of sins. Now, this can only have meaning if you first believe that Jesus isn't just another human being, but the very Son of God who came from God's throne to become human and was actually sacrificed for human sins, and that He was resurrected to return to heaven. And this is the core issue that is missed in what we just saw in that video that we watched.

At another place, Jesus predicted that He would be murdered. And two of His disciples came to Him requesting special positions of high honor and authority in His Kingdom that they thought He was going to set up. Their audacity caused dissension among the other disciples. And after some instructions on servant leadership, Jesus said to them, "For even the Son of Man (And that's a term He used for Himself all the time, it's a Messianic term.) for even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and listen, and to give His life as a ransom for many."

Jesus' sacrificial death was a ransom—a price paid to lose the bonds of death caused by sin.

Now this doesn't mean that His sacrifice was an eradication of all guilt without a response. The guilty—which is all of us—have to take responsibility for our crimes. The forgiveness of God through Jesus as a legal substitute is given to those who fully recognize their guilt, repent, accept His sacrifice in their stead, and enter into a personal relationship with God. When we explore Jesus' words about His death, we find an expression of ultimate love.

John Spong and others who follow His teachings believe that the New Testament writers totally misinterpreted the teachings of Jesus. In fact, He made the reality of Jesus teaching His life and death really to be nothing more than a myth. And this is why He said that Jesus' death for sins makes Jesus a narcissistic sufferer. And this leads to the conclusion that if Jesus actually believed His blood was shed for the sacrifice for sins, He was truly mentally ill.

In His letter to the Romans, the apostle Paul gives a summary of what the New Testament teaches about the death of Jesus.

So we're going to read some from Romans 5. He wrote, "For when we were still without strength, in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die."

You know, Paul points out that on rare occasions, a person will die to save another person. I mean, there are cases of mothers dying for their children or soldiers sacrificing themselves for a comrade.

But then Paul continues, "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

Let's look at Paul's statements in the greater context of the nature of God.

When we look at God, the Bible says He's righteous. In both Hebrew and Greek, the word translated righteous basically means to be right, as opposed to being as opposed to being unrighteous or being wrong. God is by nature righteous. He knows the difference between good and evil, between wisdom and foolishness, and the difference between love and selfishness.

Now, it is impossible for us to have a complete knowledge of God because we can't fully understand His unique righteousness. But we get a glimpse of His nature and what the Bible reveals about Him both in the Bible and in creation. We can have some understanding of His righteous and the fact that He is always right. And when we wrestle with the reality, that His nature is a wondrous balance of three things—goodness, justice and love.

You know, it's interesting, Paul lists characteristics that God wants to develop in His followers because it would make them like Him. And the list is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. These qualities are the attributes of God Himself. He never desires evil or experiences malice, and His motivations are always pure. He is the ultimate goodness.

But you know, God also defends goodness against evil, and this is where He is the ultimate judge. This is why He gives laws for humanity to obey.

You know, the Ten Commandments are the most basic steps defining the goodness of God for humanity. Sin, the word nobody wants to hear, is the breaking of His laws. And sin is repulsive to God, as expressed in the Hebrew word translated abomination. It is against His nature of justice to simply look at sin and say, oh, it's okay. I'll pretend that's not really bad. Paul said we all have sinned, and none of us have the ability to forgive ourselves because we've offended God's goodness. And His justice requires punishment of evil.

And then we have the third aspect, is love. The Bible even says that God is defined as love. He's compassionate, empathetic, generous, kind, patient. And He desires a relationship with those who are made in His image, even though we all have become a very distorted image of God.

It was God's decision to have His Son come into this world, live a sinless life, and be sacrificed for what His justice requires. This sacrifice of love allows sinners to be reconciled to Him and to be spiritually transformed. You see, God cannot compromise with His goodness. He wouldn't be God.

And His goodness, He rejects all form of evil. Because all human beings have evil in our nature, His justice requires the death of all of us. And God cannot compromise His justice, or He wouldn't have true goodness. But God is also love, and He can't compromise with His love. It's who He is. It's His nature.

The way that His goodness and justice and love are all satisfied is in the love shown by Christ and becoming our substitute sacrifice so that we can be freed from the condemnation of our crimes against God.

I'm going to go back to something Paul says. He said, "Much more than having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him." Through Jesus Christ.

Justification is the right to receive the privilege of having a relationship with God. We don't come by that naturally. It is given to us. The acceptance of Christ's sacrifice and resurrection opens the door for you to come before the majesty of Almighty God.

And no number of good deeds can undo our guilt or change our corrupt human nature. The only solution is found in God. And His perfect balance of who He is, He is perfectly good, perfectly just, and perfect love. And this is revealed in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Justification, this ability to have a relationship with God, can only happen through Christ's shed blood. It is only through Him that we can be released from the judicial death sentence we deserve and has been pronounced by God. It is through the presence of the resurrected Jesus Christ that we receive the power to live a new life.

Pick up another verse here that Paul wrote in Romans 5. "For if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life."

It is difficult for many people to accept this because our corrupted human nature, our rejection of God's righteousness, we are actually the natural entities of God.

Jesus came into our world to reconcile us to God. And any message that rejects Jesus as the sacrifice for what we deserve as pronounced in God's divine court is rejecting God's absolute righteousness, goodness, justice and love. Accepting the sacrifice of Christ and repenting of your sins frees you from guilt. It opens the door for you to have a new relationship with God as your Father and Jesus Christ as your brother.

God wants you in His family and it is His righteousness in this perfect balance of goodness and justice and love that makes it possible for you and me to become His child.

And this is why the message of John Spong and others who preach that "Jesus didn't die for our sins" and say that :believing in Christ's sacrifice makes God an ogre" as anti-Christ and anti-God. And plainly stated, it is a fake Christianity that denies the very words of Jesus Christ.

Now if you really want to understand what God has done through Jesus and discover the love of God in your life, go to ucg.org/bt505 and download the study guide Jesus Christ: The Real Story. You can also watch a video, Forgive Us Our Debts, which will help you understand how the love of God can be fulfilled in your life through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, your repentance, your acceptance of that sacrifice, and you can come into a relationship with God as your Father and Jesus Christ as your brother.