30th August, 2011

PAUL CLARK

The Pure Blonde adverts on television have not only given a new brew a foothold in the lucrative beverage market, but they may actually help people with their theology! Now that’s a wow reality!

You know the adverts: the pristine world of unicorns and white-clad, perfect, human specimens is spoilt by the Aussie truck driver, picking up the divine brew they quite innocently produce.

The picture of heaven might be a caricature, but the theology is pretty good (I can’t speak for the drink). As we are, we cannot enter heaven because the moment we enter it we would spoil it; it would cease to be heaven. Even if we were mostly good, all it takes is one germ to destroy purity.

Rather than God keeping us out of heaven because He is some kind of mean ogre, as some have suggested, we can’t go to heaven simply because sin can’t go near holiness, or it will be corrupted.

The good news of the Gospel is, God has done it the other way - Holiness came to sin; Jesus came to us. How do we know Jesus was holiness personified? Usually sin spreads and corrupts; we know about peer pressure and the spread of disease. But with Jesus it went the other way. He touched the leper and they were made whole, He made the evil good and the ignorant wise.

But ultimately it was on the cross that the transaction was made complete. For us to become holy, for our sin to be washed away - Jesus, the holy One of God, had to become sin.

Rather than God being heartless for keeping people out of heaven, and cruel for sacrificing His only Son – we comprehend the enormous love and compassion God must have for us to not abandon us to our logical fate. It all becomes clear from an advert about low carbohydrate beer.

One last thing, the Pure Blonde adverts are almost correct. They correctly show that sin and purity cannot live together - one will destroy the other. In the adverts sin destroys purity, but in heaven it’s the opposite; God’s purity is so pure it is we who will be destroyed. Even God keeping us out of heaven is for our protection.

If a passage from a book or a song or something else altogether has particularly inspired or amazed you, why not share it with others in Wow! Email your contributions to wow@sightmagazine.com.au.

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