The “Why” to Everything

Fredrick Nietzsche held the view (so I’m told) that God did not have the arbitrary right to control his life. Such was not fair, he said (or some such thing). And he was right, so far as human thinking went. For God to be arbitrary is not right, fair, or just.

Here is the thing to know: though God could be so and demand we like it, He is not that way. He is not arbitrary. Love does not seek its own [is not self-willed] (I Cor. 13:5). And God is love.

So what is the demand that enables God to hold our lives in service to Him? It is very simple: all creation is made a gift to Christ (Heb. 1:1, 2). So all God does for us is out of love for Christ.

God in His love of the Word has made all things for Him (Col. 1:16). Jesus then is the reason we are alive, the reason we exist. We are to be extensions, demonstrations of the love that has prompted the gift (I John 4:7). Add to that the inescapable fact that, since we have sold ourselves to sin, and since Jesus has bought us back to Himself, His claim on us is all the more absolute (Heb. 1:3, 4).

So, by revelation we learn that Nietzsche was in fact wrong. He was arguing out of ignorance. God has an absolute right of claim on Fredrick Nietzsche’s life—and the lives of us all, and the claim is totally fair.

Since our lives are made a gift to Jesus, He is the only one who gets to complain about how things are. And He did not complain. He fully accepts this gift of God’s love (John 14:31).

We have no grounds to complain about how God made us, or how things are, or what judgment we face. God’s love is eternal, so the gift is in essence eternal. Which means, as part of the gift, we face an eternal destiny (Matt. 25:34, 41, 46).

Hell is for those who have rejected the Divine Love. But it is still going to be part of Christ’s gift, for it is Christ’s vindication (II Thess. 1:6-12; Rev. 14:10, 11). This is absolute justice and absolutely fair. And we have absolutely no claim to demand a hearing about the fairness of this. It is not our gift, either to give or to receive. All we can do properly is admit the Truth.
How beyond wonderful is it, then, for God to have us share in the gift as joint heirs with Christ (Rom. 8:16, 17), if we will but conform to His love (Rom. 8:28-30)! So the adage is true, “Jesus is the answer,” to everything.

Terry