A Chilling Thought

Written by Christopher Mentzer

In our last article we proved that God loved the world and that He loved it enough to send his only begotten son. In this article we will ask the question: "What if God didn’t give us his son?”

There is approximately 400 years between the testaments in which God did not speak to His people. Just suppose that during that time He changed his mind and decided not to send his son. What would be the results?

First off, there would be about 300 prophecies in the Old Testament that would go unfulfilled. For an example Isaiah 9: 6, "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace." People would be reading that passage and continue to expect the arrival of …someone. Who? No one would know.

And without Jesus there would be: No forgiveness of sins, no miracles, no healing, no disciples, no second coming, and the Jews would still be under the Law of Moses and still considered God’s favorite people. Which would leave the rest of us outside of his grace.

In Luke 4: 18-21, Jesus read this passage: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor: he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering the sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised. To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears." This fulfillment is of Isa. 61: 1-2. Without Jesus, who would make this statement? Perhaps Satan would raise up one of his own to read this passage and declare himself messiah. That is a chilling thought.

Some of you may recall an individual named David Koresh who, for a short time, declared himself messiah in Waco, Texas. He had a handful of followers; some who are still faithful to the cause today! His main goal was to interpret the seven seals in the book of Revelation. There are those that might say we won’t be so easily duped and furthermore he only persuaded a handful. The problem though is without Jesus and the New Testament, anyone convincing enough and deceiving enough could read the Old Testament and declare himself to be the messiah. Besides that, Jesus only persuaded a handful (12 disciples) to follow Him and from there it spread throughout the known world.

If God loved the world he had to give something to show it. He showed His love by giving the world His son. Jesus showed us His love by giving up his life for all (John 10: 17-18). He took away our sins so we don’t have to bear them (Heb. 9:28). God does love the world and sending His son was the greatest gift anyone could ever want.