Do I Get a Free Pass, or Is God Unfair?

In the current political season in the U.S., we are entertained if not enticed by offers of free medical care, free higher education, free this and free that. People love free stuff! What we often fail to realize is that there's always a string attached: if you take the free education, food and housing, you'll vote for XYZ, and you will belong to XYZ. If you take the free apps and services from ABC Internet Company, your identity will belong to that company, and they can market you to all their advertisers. The free medical care, free higher education, free apps and services and so on are not the products: YOU are the product... on the auction block for sale to unknown money-changers, political power-brokers and advertisers.

Does that mean that nothing is free? Shouldn't I get a Free Pass? I'm entitled to free food and housing because I'm a poor and oppressed [name the income level or ethnicity or gender or sexual orientation]! What about free grace, God's free gift of salvation? "I'm one of God's chosen people - the 'elect' - so I have a Free Ticket to Heaven. I can get away with murder (figuratively or even literally), sexual immorality, stealing and/or lying because I have the True Faith!" This notion of "free grace" is a misunderstanding of the Greek word "kharis" or grace: it is not merely a free gift, but also the miraculous power of God to transform us into the image of Christ. The inherent danger, the reductio ad absurdum of such faulty thinking is what C.S. Lewis wrote in the quote to the left: God selected Abraham to become the father of God's chosen nation, then He further selected out of that nation those who chose to follow His commandments, and the selection process continued all the way down to just one young woman, who replied to the Angel Gabriel - "Behold, I am the Lord's handmaid, may it be as you have said!" But God didn't merely elect them as inanimate objects, they had to respond:

This selection is a two-way process that requires man's response: when God said to Abraham - "Get up and go!" - Abraham got up and went! When the people of Israel called out to the Lord - "Save us from the Philistines!" - He sent Barak, Sampson, Samuel and others to deliver them. Still, they chose to fall back into sin, and suffered the consequences: virtually the entire nation of Israel was deported to Babylon because of their idolatry and immorality. Only a remnant returned to Israel, the majority chose to stay in Babylon. So you see, it's not only God who chose Abraham, then He chose the remnant, and finally He chose the Virgin Mary, but each of them chose to obey God: it works both ways, it is a two-way choosing!

Here's the deal: You can choose to whom you will belong. The Apostle Paul wrote - "For sin shall not have dominion over you. For you are not under law, but under grace. What then? Shall we sin, because we are not under law, but under grace? May it never be! Don't you know that to whom you present yourselves as servants to obedience, his servants you are whom you obey; whether of sin to death, or of obedience to righteousness?" (Romans 6:14-16). You always belong to someone or something. It may be a bunch of drinking buddies, a group of sports fans, a political party, a bunch of pot smokers, a fanboy of a technology giant... or you can belong to Christ and His Body, the Church. As St. Paul wrote here, you can present yourself - commit yourself - to serving sin and thus belong to the sinful, distorted world system; or you can let God's grace transform your life and be free from sin. Becoming a servant of Christ, belonging to Him. is real freedom!

Is God Unfair? St. Paul recounts the story of Isaac and Rebekkah: "it was said to her, 'The elder will serve the younger.' Even as it is written, 'Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.' What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? May it never be! For he said to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion" (Romans 9:12-15). Jacob wasn't exactly a nice guy, but Esau chose to sell him his birthright for a bowl of stew. God is not unrighteous, He's not unfair. In my recent article Does God give us A Second Chance? you read about Christ's descent into hell after His crucifixion, where He preached salvation to those in bondage to the devil. He destroyed the power of Satan and Death... but even in hell people must choose whether to accept Christ's victory, or stay under Satan.

It might seem that if people get a second chance after they die, there's no need for us to evangelize and try to rescue people from Satan's power. But in Ezekiel 3:18-19, we read that we have a great responsibility to speak out for our faith: "When I tell the wicked, 'You shall surely die'; and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at your hand. Yet if you warn the wicked, and he doesn't turn from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered your soul." Perhaps the wicked person will repent in the afterlife, but it's you who will pay the price, you may end up in his place in hell! Further on in Ezekiel's prophecy we read:

"Yet you say, The way of the Lord is not fair. Hear now, house of Israel: Is my way not fair? Aren't your ways unfair? When the righteous man turns away from his righteousness, and commits iniquity, and dies therein; in his iniquity that he has done shall he die. Again, when the wicked man turns away from his wickedness that he has committed, and does that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive. Because he considers, and turns away from all his transgressions that he has committed, he shall surely live, he shall not die. Yet says the house of Israel, The way of the Lord is not fair. House of Israel, are not my ways fair? Are not your ways unfair? Therefore I will judge you, house of Israel, everyone according to his ways, says the Lord God. Return and turn yourselves from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin" (Ezek. 18:25-30).

Is God Unfair? No! It is we who are unfair! We are trying to deceive and cheat God by "demanding our rights," thinking that because God is loving and merciful we should get a Free Pass, we are "entitled" to a Free Ticket to Heaven, as well as lots of other free stuff on earth. God is the very definition of fairness and righteousness. We are the ones who are messed up in our thinking and stuck in our iniquity that will bring us to ruin. Again, we read in Ezekiel's prophecy:

"The word of the Lord came to me, saying, Son of man, speak to the children of your people, and tell them, When I bring the sword on a land, and the people of the land take a man from among them, and set him for their watchman; if, when he sees the sword come on the land, he blows the trumpet, and warns the people; then whoever hears the sound of the trumpet, and doesn't take warning, if the sword comes, and takes him away, his blood shall be on his own head. He heard the sound of the trumpet, and didn't take warning; his blood shall be on him; whereas if he had taken warning, he would have delivered his soul. But if the watchman sees the sword coming, and doesn't blow the trumpet, and the people aren't warned, and the sword comes, and takes any person from among them; he is taken away in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at the watchman's hand" (Ezek. 33:1-6).

But so many people who call themselves Christians will take these words as merely a theological mind-puzzle, a nice little word game, or churchy entertainment that helps them feel good and righteous for an hour or so, until Sunday afternoon football comes on and they forget it all: "They come to you as the people come, and they sit before you as my people, and they hear your words, but they don't do them; for with their mouth they show much love, but their heart goes after their gain. Behold, you are to them as a very lovely song of one who has a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument; for they hear your words, but they don't do them. When this comes to pass (and behold, it is coming!), then shall they know that a prophet has been among them" (Ezek. 33:31-33). It's coming, folks! You choose! Church is not just entertainment, lovely singing by leaders and choirs with pleasant voices, it is the Kingdom of God coming into the here-and-now.

God is not unfair! St. Paul wrote - "For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior; Who desires all people to be saved and come to full knowledge of the truth" (1 Timothy 2:3-4). God's will is for "all people to be saved" - He isn't an angry judge sitting up there on the clouds, throwing thunderbolts on the hapless people below and casting them willy-nilly into hell. That is a false notion taken from the ancient Greek gods. Christ's descent into hell gives every single person a fair opportunity to believe in Him and be saved. And St. Peter wrote - "The Lord is not slow concerning His promise, as some count slowness; but is patient with us, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9). God doesn't wish "that any should perish" ...but He also wills "that all should come to repentance." Repentance means choosing to change our ways! He will eventually judge the world in all fairness and righteousness: there's no Free Pass, it's up to each one and all of us to choose to commit our lives to Christ, take up our cross and follow Him.

(Linked to www.Hosken-News.info of 03 Apr. 2016.)