Each person who believes is given the Spirit of God to live in them (John 7:39). By the gift of the Holy Spirit, all believers are thus empowered to live the Christian life and actively put away sin (Rom 8:13). Not only this, but because of this right standing with God, there is the hope of eternal life (Titus 3:7). Each Christian will one day be in God’s favorable presence for all of eternity (Rev 7:15-17). This will be a place of fullness of joy and eternal pleasure (Psa 16:11). There will be no more sin, no more sorrow, no more death and disease (Rev 21:4). Christians will be given new bodies and they will dwell forever with the Lord (1 Cor 15:42-44; 1 Thess 4:17).
How we relate to God in light of what we know about God and what we know about ourselves is of massive importance. As we see God and ourselves correctly, we are faced with a sober reality: God is good, and we are not. God is the just judge, and we are the guilty sinners. God is merciful, but we have a moral inability to come to Him for this mercy. Because of our sin, we deserve God’s just punishment as lawbreakers (James 2:10-11). God’s judgement is a place of eternal torment (2 Thess 1:9), day and night forever and ever (Rev 20:10). It is a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matt 13:50), a conscious burning that can never be quenched (Luke 16:23-24). This place, Hell, is the place reserved for the devil and his angels, but the place where the unrighteous dwell forever (Matt 25:41). How is it that sinners can be made right before a holy God?
The Love Of God
God is not ignorant to our problem. He knows that mankind has sinned against Him, and in and of themselves they cannot be reconciled to Him. And so He loved them (John 3:16). The high and holy One who inhabits eternity, entered into time as the man Christ Jesus (John 1:14). God the Son, Jesus Christ, was born in Bethlehem of the virgin Mary, in the line of David the king (Luke 2). He lived under the law of God (Gal 4:4), was tempted in every way as we are, yet He never sinned (Heb 4:15).
The Death of Christ
And while He had done nothing wrong, He was put on trial, beaten, mocked, and eventually killed on a Roman cross outside of Jerusalem (Mark 15). But why did He die? If the wages of sin are death (Rom 6:23), then what are the wages for the sinless? Jesus deserved to live as the sinless One.