This post is probably not what you might think based on the title.

I recently had a conversation with some friends about sin and God and forgiveness and it led me to think about morality, and specifically the morality of Jesus Christ.

I could quote a lot scripture at this point about his sinlessness, or about the concept of confession, and sin, and justice and grace, and capital punishment but that is not the angle I am taking.

I think it is really important to understand that there is a morality of Jesus Christ that is not what most think it is.

The popular morality of today that most people hold to is essentially “as long as I don’t hurt someone else I am not sinning, I can worship whatever I want. I can say or do whatever I like in my private life. But the most important thing is that I not hurt other people.” Or “if my good deeds outweigh my bad then I will go to heaven.”

I think there are useful aspects to thinking like this Jesus said “Love your neighbor as your self”. Which goes a long way along these lines.

But I think there are some things missing in that modern morality. One thing that is missing is our ability to fulfill that morality. Furthermore, if that encompasses all or most of our morality there is something else even more massive missing. And that missing component makes all the difference.

What is missing is actually a who. Jesus Christ himself is absent from that sense of right and wrong.

And because Jesus Christ is missing it is utterly bankrupt and is a useless morality.

It becomes bankrupt because we cannot do it without him. No matter how good one tries or wants to be, not hurting others, we fail at some point. Be it through incompetence, through gossip, through confrontations, though neglect, or even through lying. Not telling the truth hurts people even if we do it ignorantly. For example, if something we are teaching our children or other children is untrue, even if we believe it to be true, we are injuring them, Creating strongholds in their little minds that they have to some how, slowly figure out later in life. And maybe, hopefully, undo in their thinking.

Jesus Christ must be central to morality because only Jesus Christ has taken care of sin.

Jesus Christ has already dealt with all of our sin whether we realize it or not.

Spiritually speaking, which is the reality that matters. Jesus Christ has crucified all the sin of every human being, for all time. Even unbelieving athiest’s sin, even mass murder sins, and even child rapists. He has crucified all of their sin. It is over, that sin is gone, buried, forever forgotten from Gods mind. All buried on the trash heap of history. Gods pardon waits for us. Our war is over, if we will accept it.

And now ….in the new creation that Jesus and the Father began at his resurrection. Now… only one sin matters. And that sin is disbelief in Jesus Christ. Rejecting him is all that matters, not because God is narsissitic but because out side of him humanity is already dead, completely gone. Considered already in hell. And Jesus Christ is the (one and only) resurrection, he is the start over plan, he is the reset button. There is no plan B. He is all there is, and he is all that matters, now …how we react to him defines us.

There is no such thing as some sort of morality or cosmic justice that is still measuring us. Measuring us, judging good from bad and deciding what should happen about us getting go to heaven or getting to be forgiven. All that happens inside of us when we believe in or reject Jesus Christ. And then the Christian is not only considered forgiven and sinless like Jesus… he is also enabled to not sin if he will cooperate, to be able to resist sin through the eternal life of Jesus Christ within.

End of story, it is that simple.

When a person believes and accepts Jesus Christ he resurrects from his dark and hopeless state of death and darkness into the kingdom of Jesus Christ. A kingdom which will one day take over the earth and also give us new resurrected bodies to dwell in.

The governments exist with the Lords permission and mandate to maintain peace, to punish killers, and to try to hold back wickedness from killing us all. But human government will not last, has no future, is easily corrupted, and will be displaced when Christ returns.

So then what about the believer in Jesus who turns back and who does horrific sins?

First off, just because a person says or thinks he is Christian doesn’t mean he is. Even if he is clergy. Often church activity deceives us and others about our own real, spiritual state.

A Christian who murders or rapes is rejecting Jesus Christ in order to do those things. He already has abandoned him, can he be forgiven? Yes, but will he? is the real question.

If he wont repent and turn to Christ then its a very simple no. Repentance and coming to Jesus Christ are synonymous, they happen almost simultaneous. They can’t be faked or turned into a law that we can use to judge people or even ourselves.

What matters is the spiritual reality between us and Jesus Christ and He is not difficult or burdensome to connect with or to follow.

John the Baptist prepared people for Jesus Christ by leading them to repent of sins. That humbling and humiliating act of confessing sin and turning away from it and looking to God for salvation, enabled them to believe in Jesus Christ when he came just a few weeks later. That repentance was symbolized by water baptism.

Those who cannot or will not repent, cannot or will not believe in Jesus Christ. It is much simpler than we want to make it.

There is no conflict, Christians abandon and turn away from Christ all the time. Judas who betrayed Jesus abandoned him, betrayed him for money. Set him up for torture and murder, the one he supposedly loved and followed. He was a believer, at least at one point. Jesus then said, when he knew it was happening that it “would have been better had he never been born.”

Jesus decides who is with him, whom he knows, who is following him and who is pretending as a Sunday morning show.

Jesus Christ is the law now, and he is a real and living person like us.

Just because some group who calls itself a church says a person is forgiven and made it into heaven despite murdering 30 people doesn’t make it so. But then again there may be examples when that has happened, but Jesus decides, who are we to question him? And who are we to impose a morality on him about how other people have sinned?

Jesus decides, he judges a person by whether or not he ever knew them, not by what they said or did for a living. Not by what they may have accomplished in some church denomination. If he wanted us to know the eternal state of every bad person he’d let us know.

The important thing to know and cooperate with is the morality of Jesus Christ. And that is one of complete erasure of sin and missteps for whomever will come to him in reality.

The morality of Jesus Christ is a morality of belief or disbelief, of acceptance and embrace or rejection and disregard, for Jesus Christ himself.

God is now taking from the dead of humanity and is using them to create his kingdom with us. Those who are able to hear and to see Jesus Christ for who he is, to join in his resurrection, join his new creation, become a part of the new humanity. The new humanity that will eventually displace everything we see on earth, and take over, expel Satan and his spiritual minions once and for all, and God will have back his humanity. The prized-possession that is so priceless to him which he lost in the Garden of Eden.

When Peter told Jesus that he was “the Christ, the son of the living God” and Jesus responded “blessed are you Simon because flesh and blood did not reveal that to you but my heavenly father” He was talking about the nature of faith itself, of real faith, of spiritual faith that comes from above into the heart of a man. And creates new creatures, the new humanity, it resurrects dead and darkened people into the real and intended kingdom, that has already started in Christ.

But until then believe in Jesus Christ, I do, and there is more to him that I could ever express in a lifetime.

Similar Content Jesus Christ | In Pursuit of Christ (adamcollier.com)

If you want to read more on this topic read the book of Ephesians, the first 4 chapters slowly and repeatedly

I also I suggest this book. INSURGENCE by Frank Viola | Reclaiming the Gospel of the Kingdom