If God doesn’t exist, it’s OK, right?

You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor. – Exodus 20:17

Who is to say that sleeping with your neighbor’s wife is moral or immoral? Who is to say that it is not good business to find out what your competitor is doing, even though you violate corporate laws in doing so, provided it gives your company a decided edge in gaining a large contract? Who is to say that buying the answers to the final exam from a student who swiped a copy of last year’s final is not OK, provided you don’t get caught?

For centuries, human behavior has been clearly categorized as right or wrong. The earliest recorded writings go back to the city-states in the Tigris-Euphrates River Valley – laws that determined commerce, the relationship of two people and boundaries providing property rights for individuals and city states or nations.

There was a period in ancient Israel when laws were set aside and everyone did that which was right in his own eyes – a kind of ancient moral relativism – when it was unsafe for a woman to be alone without protection and a child could become the victim of someone’s lust. There is an oft-quoted line from Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel – that goes, “If God does not exist, everything is permissible.”

So does God exist? If He does, then humankind becomes accountable, and it is upon the knowledge of right and wrong that you have that you will be judged. And the scales of justice show that all have fallen short of God’s expectations. As Paul put it, “All have sinned and come short of His glory.” That’s why the One who came from heaven, lived among us for 33 years, then died at the hands of Roman soldiers and came forth from the tomb three days later, had to pay the price of human failure. Because we’re wrong, He died to make us right.

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Used with permission from Guidelines International Ministries. To learn more about Guidelines and the ministry, send an e-mail to [email protected]. You may also visit www.guidelines.org.