Job 13:15 Though He slay me I will trust Him.

If Jesus came to take away the sin of the world, why is there still sin?

I must back up to go forward. Why the suffering? Because the consequence of sin is death. We can simply turn on the news or look around our families and communities to see that sin, selfishness, causes death and suffering. God was up-front with mankind from the very beginning about this. So why didn’t God set up His Creation differently? Because He is Holy. Even as an unholy parent, it brings me great sorrow to watch my children become consumed with themselves and treat each other poorly. In the beginning, Life poured from the Creator. There is no Life outside the Creator… none, not heaven or hell. Our Holy Creator who brings forth life cannot live with the wicked – He is Holy and He is Life – Praise the Lord that He isn’t ok with any amount of wickedness! But, we choose death, separation from Life. All that we do outside of Him, running from Him, busying ourselves with the world, focusing on selfish gain… it is not Life. The book of Ecclesiastes refers to it as, ‘chasing the wind’. We have a God of Life not death. 

Now here is the real phenomenon… God actually uses our disobedience and love of evil and darkness for Good. The suffering we experience in this world, the evils, the endless seeking of self never to be satisfied because there is no life there, an unquenchable thirst causing greed, envy, lust, gluttony, and hate. This sounds miserable, where is the God of Love in this… I believe it is because He Loves us that there is a hell. 

What kind of Good Father would leave us dead in our Sin? Praise the Lord He does not and will not! Praise the Lord that He can take our vilest actions, perversities, and anger and bring life from them! He breathes Life into dirt and brings Life from death.

“For in death they turn to Gold.” -Sarah Sparks  

Look around creation and it is obvious that God brings Life from death. Every time a golden kernel of wheat dies and falls to the ground, life multiplies. Christ, walking the earth, shows us that the way to Life is through death to self. God will not give up on us… not even the fires of hell will keep us from His love. Those fires of hell will instead purify us without consuming us… cleansing us from the evils, casting our sin from us, forgiving us our sin. 

This does not mean we HAVE to experience hell – we are free to choose Life, choose His ways at any point, but I believe with my whole heart that, “The Lamb of God takes away the sin of the world.”

Just like Adam and Eve had a choice, we have one too. When we follow Paul’s advice in 1 Corinthians 11:1, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ,” we rely on God’s understanding and ways instead of our own – bringing us back to Life, back to the One who is Life, the only source of Life since the beginning.