During the second week of the ultimate frisbee tournament, I had a few interesting conversations that are worth mentioning.

One of the conversations was with a non-practicing Jewish guy.  The student had a lot of rabbits that he threw at me to chase. He basically argued that he was a good person and generally people are good.  Sometimes people don't do good things, but they attempt to do good and therefore they are good in essence.  He argued that as long as everything turns out okay, then even if your methods were less than ethical or moral then the methods were justified by the outcome. This is nothing more than an attempt to camouflage the argument, "Do evil so that good may result." This was an argument that Paul was confronted with throughout the New Testament. ("But if our unrighteousness brings out God's righteousness more clearly, what shall we say? That God is unjust in bringing his wrath on us? (I am using a human argument.) Certainly not! If that were so, how could God judge the world? Someone might argue, 'If my falsehood enhances God's truthfulness and in so increases his glory, why am I still condemned as a sinner?' Why not say-as we are being slanderously reported as saying and as some claim that we say-'Let us do evil that good may result'? Their condemnation is deserved." Romans 3:5-8)

I explained to the student that God's end was not goodness but righteousness (i.e. having a rightly justified relationship with God).  Our acts, no matter how decent, moral or ethical they were would not attain righteousness before God. While the world's end is being good, God's demand is to be righteous. While man might possibly attain a standard of goodness by being good, no one, however, could attain righteousness except through Jesus Christ. In other words, the world's end is goodness (to an indeterminate degree, whoever decides what goodness is) and acquired through moral or immoral, ethical or unethical, decent or indecent practices.  No matter how moral or immoral, ethical or unethical, decent or indecent the methods are, everything is considered "good" as long as the outcome is "good."  God, however, requires righteousness as the ultimate result and all methods, save Jesus Christ, are futile in acquiring this result. Jesus Christ is the only method in achieving God's end. In other words, Jesus Christ is the only means to God's end and its His end that counts on the day of judgment.