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What if the story of all creation ends very differently than you've been led to believe? Imagine the story concluding with the words, "They all lived happily ever after." Could it be that Christ Jesus the Lamb of God will ultimately be seen as a far greater success than the world of religion gives Him credit for? Is it possible that ultimately Jesus will receive all whom He paid for with his precious blood on the cross of Calvary? Do you think Paul the Apostle was correct when he painted a word picture of a time coming when all of humanity will bow before the Lord as an expression of true love and adoration? What did he mean when he talked about every knee bowing and every tongue confessing that Christ is Lord? Imagine all things that seem so wrong in the universe eventually being made right. Imagine all who are at odds with one another and seemingly at odds with God being reconciled. When Paul the Apostle speaks of all things on earth and all things in heaven ultimately being reconciled to God, was he in the least bit on track? Think about Christ. Think about Adam. Whose work do you believe is greater? Whose work do you believe will have the farthest reaching affects? What do you believe is more powerful Adam eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil or Christ suffering, bleeding, and dying on Calvary for the sin of the world? When the Apostle Paul talked about all dying in Adam and all being made alive in Christ did he really mean it? Is it possible that all really means all? What percentage of humanity do you believe was affected by the "fall" of Adam? Is there any reason to believe that God would be satisfied with a smaller percentage ultimately affected by the blood of His Only Begotten Son? Was John the Baptist correct in calling Jesus "The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world?" What about the Samaritans calling Him "the Savior of the world?" What about the Apostle Paul calling him the "savior of the world." We're those statements about Christ inspired by the Spirit of God? Jesus said, "The Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost." Who do you believe He was talking about? What percentage of humanity do you believe was lost at the "fall" of man? Do you believe that Christ is ultimately a success or a failure in what He came to do? If Christ is the good shepherd and the good shepherd is not satisfied to have even one of his sheep lost, what might that say about how many of the lost will ultimately be brought into the fold? If the wages of sin is death and the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, through whom did the sin and death come and through whom does the gift and salvation from death come? Did the death sentence have anything to do with what you believe or what you have done? If death is connected with the act of the man Adam and has spread to everyone regardless of whether they currently even believe Adam existed, how is it that we would think that a free gift and ultimate salvation from that same death would rest on anything we do? In the Bible, who is called the Savior? Are you the Savior? Is Christ called the Savior? If you believe Christ is the Savior, what percentage of the saving work did He successfully complete? What percentage is left on you and me? If even a tiny portion of the saving is left on your shoulders, would that make you a co-savior? If a percentage of the saving is on your shoulders, would that make Christ less than the full Savior? Is it our redeeming works through our own effort that redeem us or is He the redeemer? This is just a sampling of the questions that pushed me to begin to dig into the message given to Paul by Jesus Christ and which eventually took me to the place of seeing the work of Jesus as something far beyond what I had ever been led to believe growing up in church. James Flanders is a blogger and musician (not a pastor) with a passion for proclaiming that the work of Christ is far greater than the work of Adam and that the evangel given to Paul by Jesus for the Gentiles is far more glorious than most of us have been led to believe.
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