It's Not Fair

7/10/18    Evan, Benosh (video)     30's, 20's

“It’s not fair!” has become for many their chief complaint against Christianity.

“How can one religion be right and the rest wrong?” a man named Evan told me.  “And what about the people who have never heard the Gospel?” he said.  “That’s what makes Christianity so hard to believe for me.”

Years ago this seemed like a theoretical argument people made when they were just looking for some kind of excuse not to repent and believe the Gospel, because the overwhelming Christian culture of America made it unlikely for most that they would ever meet such a person.

But now, I meet them all the time, people like Benosh, from India, who graciously allowed me to record our conversation.  Benosh grew up with no exposure to Christianity, had never read from the Bible, and only visited a friend’s church a couple times since coming to America.  He was unfamiliar with any of the basic Bible stories, so when I offered to tell him the basic message of the Gospel, he was happy to listen.

Where to start?

I started all the way back in Genesis, presenting God as Creator and ourselves as his creation, that we are made to be in an ongoing, right relationship with Him, but that we are cut off because of our disobedience, first with the forbidden fruit, and now every time we violate our God-given knowledge of good and evil.  I asked if we would be guilty or innocent on judgment day, and whether there should be punishment for the guilty.

Benosh recoiled against the idea of punishment, but said that those guilty of evil should at least be warned.

I see a connection between the basic assumptions Benosh was making, and the basic assumptions Evan, in another conversation, had made about people who never heard the Gospel.  That basic assumption is, despite making “mistakes” along the way, humans can erase those mistakes through self-improvement and that we are basically good and worthy of heaven.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Of course we should learn from our mistakes and strive for improvement.  That’s what repentance is all about.  But repentance can’t erase the fact of our guilt before a holy God, a God who has indeed warned all people whether or not they have heard the Gospel.  Although Christianity is exclusive in presenting Christ as the solution, the problem of sin is universal.

This is described in Romans 2, where Paul tells us that all are guilty, whether we have specific exposure to God’s moral law or not: “As many as have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and as many as have sinned under the law will be judged by the law, for the hearers of the law are not justified before God, but the doers of the law will be justified. For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, not having the law, are a law unto themselves, who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, while their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them, in the day when, according to my gospel, God will judge the secrets of men through Jesus Christ.”

Who are those who are “doers of the law” and therefore justified?  We may try to compare ourselves to other people, but there has been only one man in all of history who has perfectly kept the law – Jesus Christ – and he is therefore justified and is the standard by which all will be judged and found guilty, whether we have heard of him of not.

And because of His holy perfection, He is also the only one who could perfectly bear the punishment we deserve, as we read in 1 John 2: “He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.”

Jesus is the universal answer to our universal problem.

Is that “fair”?  Not from Jesus’ perspective, since He was completely innocent of any wrongdoing, yet suffered and died in our place.  And if we are truly concerned for those who haven’t yet heard of the solution to our universal problem, the best we can do is receive Him ourselves, and share Him with those who haven’t.

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