If I Could Score One Point

"But to think that you've somehow trumped your atheist 'enemies' by denouncing them for not acknowledging a Supreme Being who, by your admission, is not the loving God you proclaim he is, is a reverse double bluff." Rene

I don’t consider you as enemies. I would like to see every atheist as my friend. Neither do I consider myself as being better than you, although I do see myself as being infinitely better off in the light of eternity.

If I could score one point with those who profess atheism, it’s to convince them that the god they don’t believe in, doesn’t exist. Each of us, until we are "regenerated" by the Holy Spirit, has our "understanding darkened." We are as Einstein said, like a little child in a massive library. I would add "an illiterate" little child. We are incapable of understanding, and so like Job (see Job 38:2), our words are without knowledge.

When an atheist talks of God as being a God of love, I can understand the impossibility of reconciling His harsh judgments with His professed love. How could He kill humanity through the Noahic flood or mercilessly kill all the Canaanites, and still be called “loving”? It makes no sense.

The answer in simple. It is because He is also "just" and "holy." To help us understand this, we must take a moment to do something that is unpleasant. Think objectively about your sins. Be blatantly honest. Don’t try to justify yourself. Go through the Commandments one by one and ask if you are you guilty of lying, stealing, blasphemy, lust, fornication, unthankfulness, ingratitude, failure to love others as much as you love yourself, and of course the big one--failing to God with all of your heart, mind, soul and strength? Then ask how you would do if God lost patience and judged you right now by that perfect Law, and you have to come to the conclusion that He hasn’t dealt with you according to your sins. He hasn’t treated you as He treated the Noahic generation or the Canaanites.

If we remove God’s moral Law (the Ten Commandments) from the equation, this “God of love” and the harsh judgments we read in the Bible are diametrically opposed. But when the Law enters and we understand that He is both just and holy and loving and merciful, then we begin to get a right image of the God we must face.

This has never been so clearly illustrated as at the cross. There we see an evident display of God’s wrath against sin as the Lamb of God suffered for the sin of the world. But we also see an evident and amazing display of His love and mercy of God, when we understand that He suffered in Christ so that our case could be dismissed (see Romans 5:8).

Still, what I am saying is just words, and all the talk in the world cannot help you in this case. You need to "taste" what I am saying, because you are dying for want of the Bread of Life (see John 6:35). Every minute of every day is drawing you closer to breathing your last. The minute that you "taste and see that the Lord is good," the life of God will enter your dying body, and the argument about His existence and the Savior He proved will be over. You will know the truth and the truth will make you free (John 8:31-32).