The scientist, Albert Einstein, was once asked to explain his famous theory of relativity to a scientific novice.  He is said to have replied: “Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour.  Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute.  THAT'S relativity.”

Relativity is an issue that works itself out in all kinds of areas of daily life.

One of my memories of living out west, in Narrabri, during some drought years, was the dust storms.  They presented an eerie scenario – with visibility down to a couple of hundred metres at noon.  The sun?  Just an observable red ball in the sky.  I heard later of some folk on social media who reacted in near panic at photos of the dust-storms.  Some spoke of it in apocalyptic terms, as if the end of the world was upon us.  On the other hand, my daughter told me of the response of a friend of hers living in Qatar at the time.  She couldn’t understand what the fuss was all about back here in Oz.  Where she lived dust storms were daily events and they are often much more severe than what we experienced here during a Narrabri drought.

That’s relativity, isn’t it?  What we considered a bad dust-storm was mild, relative to those who live in some parts of the Middle East.

We could also apply relativity to the matter of health and pain.  The pain of a migraine is severe and debilitating.  But a friend of mine had an arm ripped off in an industrial accident.  Thinking of that makes the pain of my migraine relatively mild.

One area where relativity often works itself out is in human behaviour and morality.  I read one story that makes that very clear.

Everyone knew Louis was a rogue and a swindler.  When Louis died his brother Paul asked the parish priest to take the funeral.  The clergyman declined... even when Paul made threats against the man.  But Paul then tried a different approach.  He offered the church a thousand dollars if the priest would take the funeral.  As an after-thought he added: “And I’ll double the money if you’ll call my brother an angel.”  The priest agreed and the payment was made.  At the funeral the priest related a list of evils that Louis had been guilty of – everything from blackmail and bribery to robbery and extortion.  He then concluded, “Yes, Louis was a wicked man, but compared to his brother Paul, he was angel!”

So what happens when we apply relativity to our behaviour?  Well, we actually do that all the time.  Telling a straight out lie is not something most of us would do – but a little white lie is accepted as part of normal daily life – as long as no one gets hurt.

I would suggest that we’re experts at adapting relativity in the area of goodness – and then particularly in relation to God.  For example, we have this idea that God will let us go to heaven when we die, if we have been good.  But according to our thinking ‘good’ is relative.  We’re good, relative to the man who has just been sentenced to jail as a paedophile.  But we’re not so good, relative to the late Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

Relativity in goodness gets us by when it comes to society at large.  No one approves of us behaving like a paedophile.  But no one expects us to behave like Mother Teresa either.  Relative goodness is enough for human society.

But that’s not the case with God.  God doesn’t grade us on a kind of ‘class average’.  He’s not looking for relatively good behaviour in order for us to make it with Him.  A theory of relativity in behaviour will let us down when it comes to God and heaven because God demands absolute perfection.

We ought to be very clear about that.  God will not let us into heaven because we’re relatively good or because we’ve done our best.  The only standard that meets God’s approval is perfection. 

Sad?  Yes!  But the good news is that Jesus has achieved that perfection on behalf of those who trust in Him.  The gospel is that God credits me with the perfection of Jesus when I place my faith in Him.  It’s time we abandoned our theory of relativity when it comes to goodness.  Only the goodness of Jesus is good enough for God.

John Westendorp