Does God Have a Video?
Jesus says the Holy Spirit reproves the world of sin because they do not believe in Him. That and that alone is the sin for which a person will be judged. No other charges need be brought.
I've often heard it said that God has a kind of video in heaven, and one day He will show on a giant screen all your ungodly thoughts and deeds.
But Jesus says the Spirit will convict the world "of sin, because they do not believe in Me."
In other words, it boils down to a single issue: What have you done with Jesus? Do you believe in Him for your salvation?
The very name "Jesus" speaks of His mission.
The angel said to Joseph, "You shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins" (Matthew 1:21).
Jesus is the English transliteration of the Greek word Iesous, which was taken from the Hebrew name Yeshua, which is a contraction of Yahwehshua, or "Yahweh is salvation."
Jesus Himself described His mission like this: "The Son of
Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost" (Luke 19:10).
That was His mission, and the Holy Spirit testifies to the world of this. He reproves the world of sin because it does not believe in Jesus.
In John 3, Jesus told Nicodemus that God did not send Him into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He also said that whoever believed in Him was not condemned, but whoever did not believe in Him was condemned already because he did not believe in the only begotten Son of God.
They are condemned because they refuse to believe in Jesus.
Thus the Holy Spirit convicts people of sin because they do not believe that Jesus is the Son of God sent by the Father to save the world.
The Scripture testifies, "He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him" (John 3:36).
At the end of John's life, the apostle wrote that if we do not
believe, we are making God a liar. By our refusal to believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God who bore the sins of the world, we are blaspheming the Holy Spirit.
If we refuse to believe, we call the Spirit a liar, for we reject the record that God gave of His Son (see I John 5:10-12).
This is no light matter.
As the writer of Hebrews Hebrews warned us: Anyone who has rejected Moses' law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace?
For we know Him who said, "Vengeance is Mine, I will repay," says the Lord. And again, "The Lord will judge His people." It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God (Hebrews 10:28-31).
There is only one way to avoid such a horrible sin. The apostle Paul spelled it out when he wrote, "If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved" (Romans 10:9).
Of course, such a confession must be genuine. A false confession never saved anyone. There are many who make false confessions about the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
In fact, Jesus tells us that one day many will come to Him and say, "Lord, Lord, open to us!" But He will reply, "I do not know you" (Matthew 25:11,12).
He insisted that "not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven" (Matthew 7:21).
How can you tell if a confession is true or false? Any true confession that Jesus Christ is Lord will be manifested by submission to Jesus Christ and to His Lordship.
Any confession not followed by such submission is false and is therefore powerless to save.
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