Collision
I had the honor of watching the movie Collision which is a documentary with Christopher Hitchens and Doug Wilson. Hitchens is a leading Atheist that is against religion; especially the theistic religions (i.e. Judaism, Islam and Christianity). Doug Wilson is a Presbyterian Pastor in Moscow, Idaho and a few years ago they began writing back and forth and these letters were published in Christianity Today. Well one thing led to another, the letters were published into a book called “Is Christianity Good for the World?” and after this they decided to tour the States and debate in different places. Some of the places were Seminaries, College Campuses and Pubs and the premise was to talk about whether or not religion, specifically Christianity, was good for the world.
After watching this I have decided that it is not and I am now an Atheist. No I’m just kidding, but it did cause me to think about what I believe in. It also caused me to think about what the Bible says about what I believe in and what I am doing so that if I ever have a conversation with a person like Christopher Hitchens what would I know and be able to say that would be able to show him that I am not some crazy person that believes in a God because I grew up that way, but that I would be able to prove why I believe in God in way that is not just pointing to verses in the Bible. Now don’t hear me saying that I would not use the Bible because the Bible is our sources of salvation, but there are some people, when asked questions outside the Bible, that can’t answer because their knowledge consists only of Biblical knowledge and not application of the Bible. I hope that makes sense. I wish I were better with words so that could have made better sense than it did.
One thing that Hitchens kept harping on was the idea of vicarious atonement aka substitutionary atonement aka penal atonement. Which is the term used for what Christ did for us. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Jesus Christ did not know sin like we know sin. The word “knew” here is the same word used of Joseph and Mary in Matthew 1:25 which means to know intimately. We not only know of sin, we know it intimately. Jesus didn’t know sin intimately. He knew of sin, but wasn’t intimately involved with it. So Jesus did not know sin, but God made him sin. Not God made him to commit sin, but he made him sin. Jesus never committed sin while on this earth. God, while Jesus was on the cross, poured out his wrathfulness against Jesus for our sins because God placed our sins on Jesus. So The idea of the three previously mentioned phrases is this. Jesus became our substitute for our sin by paying the penalty for our sins. Does this make sense? I hope so. If not feel free to ask me.
So getting back to Collision, Hitchens had a problem with this because it seems like a free ticket to sin. If all a person has to do is cast his sin onto a person then it should be that big of a deal for a person to continually sin and continually throw their sins on Christ. There is no Altruism in that. All that is is cosmic child abuse. Not only from the side of the Father to the Son, but us to the Son as well. How could we toss our sins onto a man that is perfect. That just doesn’t make sense and it is unjust. (This is Hitchens speaking. Not my personal belief).
This has really caused me to think about this subject. I think the difference between Hitchens and I is that he believes Jesus was sent and had no choice in the matter (All of this if there was a God By the Way). Instead I believe Jesus willingly took my sins because of his love for me. How it works I am still unsure of, but I know it works. Anywho, this is yet another part of my week that I am still trying to think through.
