It isn’t complicated.
We know what the standards are. Love God; love others. The Creed outlines our belief.
The Bible delivers some of Jesus’ messages rather bluntly: “Go and make
disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of
the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Mt 28:19); “Whoever denies me before others, I
will deny before my heavenly Father” (Mt 10:33); “You therefore must
be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5:48).
It’s in the follow-through
where everything falls apart, where it does indeed get complicated. Trinitarian
formula at baptism? Ok, easy enough. Not denying the faith under persecution? A
gut-wrenching situation where I don’t know if I’d do the right thing. Be
perfect? Impossible. Why would Jesus set up standards we can’t possibly meet?
Humans are imperfect, and this is an imperfect world. Isn’t it unjust to demand
perfection from us?
Good news! God knows
we’ll fail, and he offers us salvation anyway. It’s the Gospel that we all
know: Jesus came for us men and our salvation. God loves us unconditionally.
Our sins are washed away. We receive salvation by grace not merits.
And that’s all true,
and it is good news indeed. But it’s not the whole story. Christianity is not a
Doctor Who Christmas special; not
everyone gets saved. The Bible says otherwise: “Many are called but few are
chosen” (Mt 22:14); “Narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which
leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Mt 7:14); “Not everyone who says
to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 7:21).
The road to hell is
paved with good intentions. We fall into traps of imperfect philosophies or
reasonable justifications. We convince ourselves that the ends justify the
means. We lean on the notion that God will forgive any and all imperfections
and therefore indulge in our messy, imperfect world.
But counting on
God’s forgiveness is presumption. God gave us standards. We are held to
perfection because God is perfect. Assuming “God will understand” or “He’d
never condemn a good person” is shaping God to be who we want, not what we have
seen him revealed to be. We want God’s mercy to fit into our created
understandings of “good” and “bad.” And, being in the imperfect world, we can
get those wrong. God does love us. He does forgive us. But he also calls us to
be perfect, to suffer, to let the chaff separate from the wheat. His love is
unconditional; our salvation is not.
Perfection is
unattainable. Sometimes it even seems unknowable, but that doesn’t change the
fact that we are called to it. We do not get to dictate the rules of the
universe. There are rules and standards and expectations. They are there to
guide us and form us and help us grow toward holiness. They are how we come to
know God and how we align our wills to his. In growing closer to him, we grow
to understand the rules and the need for the rules more clearly. Order in a
chaotic world is a lifeline. It can keep us from drowning in our own desires
and idols and confusion. My Western individualism rankles at submission, but in
the end, I have no purpose other than bow to my creator. To follow his
standards. To love God; to love others. To go and make disciples. To proclaim
the Gospel. To be perfect.
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