Romans 3:5-8. You can’t checkmate God.

In our sin, we continually seek to paint God into a corner. This just seems like our habit—instead of admitting we’re wrong, we attempt to justify ourselves. Then, we try to make a fancy argument for why we are right in not being wrong.

But reality remains.

We are sinners, depraved, doomed as slaves to sin and, ultimately, to death. That truth is so important. Our own utterly hopeless condition is what makes Jesus' sacrifice so unspeakably incredible. Sin tries to checkmate God—it says, “Alright, you either destroy people because they broke your law OR break your law to not destroy them.”

"But God does the seemingly impossible—He keeps His law (condemns sin) and does not destroy us (Jesus dies in our place)."

But, sin tries to do it again. “Well, because you can bring good out of bad, you CAN’T destroy people. It would be unfair.” Take a second to think about the truth in that lie.

The astounding thing is that God CAN make amazing things out of the worst things. He turns things around and checkmates sin.

Sin attempted to utterly destroy the relationship between God and man…

but in Jesus, the relationship is restored, and becomes deeper and stronger.

God’s loving character is revealed in an extraordinary way at the cross. But that doesn’t mean it’s unfair of God to condemn sin. Jesus died precisely because sin was so bad! Those that make this argument have a “just condemnation.” They are getting the events out of order. Sin attempted to destroy God’s perfect creation; Jesus paid the penalty for sin, and now He restores the destruction it has caused. It would be wrong to say that God can’t condemn sin because He brings good from bad. The correct statement would be that God can bring good out of bad BECAUSE sin has been so resoundingly condemned, and not only condemned, but overwhelmingly defeated!

- Elizabeth Rogers