Lakeside Visitor March 2011

 

Last month we talked about how the perversion of the good things of God is sin. Perversion takes what is perfect and corrupts it. This is an immutable law that is proven in daily life and yet we sometimes ignore it when it comes to God. Would you eat a cookie with a little poop in it–after all, there’s only a little bit, right? Does it matter what “a little” means, or if it came from a dog or a cat? Or if you were on Fear Factor? Think about diamond purchases: no one is getting out of a jewelry purchase without a little cost. Two things affect the price of a diamond: it’s size and clarity. The larger, and clearer, the diamond is, the lighter your wallet will feel when you leave the store. The seller will tell you one diamond is cheaper than another because of its imperfections. It could be some tint of color in the diamond, the cut, or the clarity. Another element that is a part of the diamond, be it nitrogen or some other mineral, increases its relative imperfection. And that imperfection lowers the value.

What can be difficult to grasp at first is how much sin lowers our “value” in the sight of God. I don’t mean that God stops loving us or would just as soon kill us–that’s not biblically accurate (Ez. 33:11). What I mean is we assign value to sins that make us look better or worse in comparison to others. But God doesn’t do that–perfect is perfect. Where we’d look at a flawed diamond and say, “Man, that’s good enough–it’s gorgeous!” God would say, “but it’s not perfect.” We might say, “that’s hideous” and God would say, “no, it’s not perfect, but neither are you.” What God must do is deal with the imperfections, those impurities that have been worked into our makeup, so that we will be perfect, no matter our condition before we came to Him. A pinch of imperfection is all it takes to separate us from the absolute holiness of God.

When we go against God’s law in any way (1 John 3:4) we sin–God’s law is the standard, not our value judgments. And that introduction of an imperfection makes us guilty and requires a sacrifice to make us right with God again (Lev. 4:22-23). The same mean ol’ God who says no one can see His face and live (Ex. 33:20)–a great picture of the chasm between perfection and imperfection–describes the Messiah as the bearer of our sins, the final intercessor (Is. 53:12b). In effect, what God did is picked up His dirty followers, saw that all those imperfections were hopelessly intermingled with our finer qualities, and decided to be our perfection for us. “Well, these diamonds just won’t do. I can’t say sin doesn’t matter anymore, or my holiness is pointless, because both would make me a liar–and I don’t lie (Num. 23:19). But if I replace these imperfect diamonds with my one perfect diamond–myself–then my standard stays intact.” So He did. And those who choose Christ are not standing on their own merit but are wearing Christ Himself like a garment when God’s judgment comes to call. Though sin separates us from God, there is a final chapter–our imperfection is replaced by the perfection of Jesus. Now that’s a flawless diamond!