The Flog – The Fabry Log

On Friday's radio program I said something shocking and it wasn't just for dramatic effect. Christianity is utterly unfair. It is totally unfair for one person to be FORCED to pay the penalty for every wrong thing you and I have done.

In the grand scheme of the universe, and in the Council of the Holy, it was determined that there would be no bail out for you and me. There would be no mortgaging the future on the backs of those who would come after. No, there would be payment for humanity’s wrongdoing. For the whispered lies, for the broken promises, the stolen land. For the violence done by men against women. For the stealing of innocence from a child. For the sins of the fathers and sons and mothers and daughters. Words spoken in anger. Curses hurled. Every evil thought and deed from the moment breath first entered the lungs of the first man, until today, every random act of unkindness. Every thoughtless injustice from one to another. Slavery. Incest. Genocide. Suicide. Everything you can think of right now that could be done, these acts would need to be paid for.

That concept was fair. An eye for an eye. You spill blood and your blood shall be spilled. You murder and your life shall be taken. The underlying rule is that each person is responsible for the evil act committed, the sins planned and unplanned.

Because this Council was Holy, any act of goodness and kindness was not able to expunge the evil deed. It would be like trying to find a clean spot on a filthy rag you’ve used to change your oil. In the presence of holiness, you would not even dare present something so offensive. So each would pay for his or her own deeds. This was the law. This was fair.

Except, in the Council there was acknowledgement that in a fallen state, you and I could never, ever, achieve perfection. From the start, from the very first man and woman, we were broken. We were NOT whole. Cracked and bruised and every thought tainted with that oily rag of sin.
God could not simply look the other way at our sin. It had to be dealt with.

And that is when the most unfair, unjust, inequitable, and discriminatory plan was unleashed on the world, and I would contend, it was the most terrible, unreasonable decision ever made. For it was decided that one man should bear the brunt of punishment for every sin. And furthermore, that the very wrath of the Holy One would be poured out in all of its white-hot horror. The terrible, righteous anger of God would be hurled at one person who would bear that burden while hanging on a tree, separated from the very person who loved him most.

Who would this man be? A criminal? Perhaps the star that had fallen and turned his back on the Holy One? No, and here is the most unjust aspect of this plan, and why Christianity is not fair. The one who would bear the brunt of the wrath of God for you and every human willing to accept the truth that they are hopeless without this payment—that person would need to be Whole. True. Right. Just. Without sin. The only person in the history of the world who did not need to make amends, to make atonement, to find forgiveness, this would be the person God would choose to make Sin. God would crush this sinless one. God would mete out his punishment on One who had done no wrong.

Other religions have a system of fairness. Requirements that say you can get in if you do certain things or are born to certain people, have a special bloodline. If you will martyr yourself in some holy act, then there awaits a special spot in heaven. Or, perhaps you have to work yourself up from a bug to a bird to a higher life form, and if you continually work yourself up and out of all of that sin, then you can reach a point of heavenly acceptance. THAT is fair. In that belief system, that religious rubric, you have men striving after some goal and if it is reached, then you can enter into that spiritual state of acceptance. In that system, everything begins with you and me and we do, we strive, we work, we pull ourselves up and we reach and grasp at the divine. And we hope we will make it but we can’t be sure because we are not divine and we know it.

That seems fair. And if we don’t make it then, at least we tried.

But Christianity is anything but fair. It is unjust. It is not right that one man who was holy should be FORCED to bear this awful burden, and hanging there under the weight of this unbearable cross, this immense burden of the refuse of the world, the sin and degradation, the plotting, the murder, the slander, the malice and greed—everything he was not, everything he had never done, was credited to his life.

God saw my sin there, and your sin, and he turned his back on that man and he sent a nuclear warhead of wrath at his heart, and it was so devastating, so awful, the angels could not even bear to watch. And the other angels who believed they were winning a victory that day looked on with glee at this injustice—God, punishing the wrong man. The holy doing what was unholy.
And it would have been unholy, it would have been the most unholy act in the history of the world, if that man had been forced to bear the weight of the sin of the world.

But he was not forced. He climbed Golgotha, he embraced the nails, and he clothed himself in unrighteousness willingly. He emptied himself of everything but love for you and me, so that we might be forgiven. And the unholy act of this wrath being poured out on an innocent man, became a holy sacrifice by God himself.

If anyone says to you they believe in Christianity because it is a fair religion, tell them it is not true. Christianity is not fair. You and I deserved hell. You and I deserved to be cast into utter darkness. We deserve eternal separation from a holy God. There is no fairness in one so pure and gentle and humble being broken for you and me.

But because of his great love, his choice to not just show us the way to live, but to give his very life for us, to die in our place, that was not fair, it was mercy, it was grace, it was love. Unmerited. Unending. Unbelievable. And yet, to those who believe, they can be called sons. They can be adopted into this holy family.

You and I are guilty. Now we are forgiven.

We were sick, but now we are healed.

He was crushed and bruised and broken so you and I wouldn’t have to be. That is not fair. Don’t ever say that’s fair. It’s the unfair plan of a righteous and holy God to bring you and me into an eternal relationship with Him. And it was that selfless act of compassion and love that God stamped his Amen to as the stone was rolled away. The resurrection was the proof that even death cannot thwart this love of God to the undeserving.

So we celebrate the unfairness of God’s plan. We embrace the cross of Christ, that terrible emblem of suffering and shame. And we glory in the cross, because without it, you and I would have no hope.