ORWIGSBURG, Penn., Sept. 4, 2012 /Christian Newswire/ -- The following is submitted by Tom Ritter: 
 

God created man to be His friend.

God has other friends. The angels, but angels do not have our free will. The Trinity also make good company, but though They have different jobs, The Trinity think exactly alike. They are, after all, one Being.

 

This friendship, like any other, requires a conscious effort from both parties. God wants man to accept the hand of friendship freely, which means he can also refuse it. In short, He had to give man a free will, our tendency to think ourselves in charge, our human pride. If we accept it, this friendship lasts for eternity, a condition we call heaven. If we refuse this hand of friendship, however, because we are immortal, we exist forever in a state of isolation we call hell.

 

God also had to do something to show us how much He wanted that friendship and that this friendship was His doing, not ours. That something was the voluntary death on the cross of Jesus, One of the Trinity and part of Himself.

We commit a lot of sins and cannot atone for most of these. For example, suppose you kill someone. How can you ever atone to that man's family, let alone the victim? Our acceptance of Jesus' Atonement pays for this sin and worse in God's eyes.

 

The payment also puts us in God's debt, which is precisely where He wants us, because God has important jobs and satisfying relationships for everyone who accepts this hand of friendship.

 

P.S. A pair of Protestant theologians and a Catholic priest vetted this piece.