God is our Biggest Problem and our Biggest Solution
THE BAD NEWS: The greatest dilemma that every single person born into this world faces is the fact that a wrathful God stands in judgment over him or her. The Bible says, “God is a righteous judge, and a God who feels indignation every day” (Ps. 7:11). In other words, God is not merely indignant at sin, but He is angry with sinners and has declared, “The soul [the person] who sins shall die” (Ezek. 18:20) “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). Again, the Bible says, “Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins” (Eccles. 7:20).
The following is the continuation.
THE BAD NEWS (continued):
I imagine that upon reading my initial post people may think
to themselves, “I don’t agree with that” or “That’s not the God I know.” This
is unfortunate. There is a difference between the God people think exists and
the God who truly exists, the God who they think is the God of the Bible
and the actual God of the Bible. In my limited pastoral experience I have found
the hard truth of God’s wrathful displeasure towards sinners to be a stumbling
block to many. It is simply too hard to accept because people are unable if not
unwilling to see how God can be both wrathful and loving at the same time (“but God shows his love for us in
that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” [Rom. 5:8]). I
have found it satisfactory to know that since the Biblical authors do not seem
to have a problem with these truths standing together then neither should I.
The following are some spiritually fatal and tragic mistakes I have seen people
make concerning themselves and the truth of God’s word.
The first tragic mistake people make is to believe that God
has yet to render a verdict about humanity as a whole and verdicts concerning
each of us individually. People are tragically waiting until they die to know where they will spend eternity, but the Bible clearly teaches that God has
already judged the entire human race in Adam (Rom. 5:12-21) and that where and
how we will spend eternity is determined now not later (Matt. 25:31-46). We all
presently stand condemned! We are all guilty and unless God overturns this
already delivered guilty verdict concerning each of us we can be sure that his
verdict and sentence will stick forever. But even if one manages to accept
this first hard truth it doesn’t automatically follow that all will be well
because many fatally stumble upon the second hard truth even after having accepted
the first.
The second tragic mistake people make is to assume we can do
something to “appease” God’s wrathful displeasure toward us. The Bible says, “If someone sins against a man,
God will mediate for him, but if someone sins against the Lord, who can intercede for him?” (1
Sam. 2:25). The question is rhetorical. There is nothing we can do to undo
our condemnation. God’s holy law, as summed up in the Ten Commandments, are
impossible to keep and therefore the Bible says, “For by works of the law no
human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes
knowledge of sin” (Rom. 3:20). God’s commandments weren’t “made to be broken,”
but to show that we’re broken. Church attendance, Bible reading, fasting nor
any other kind of good works will ever be enough to please and satisfy God. God’s holy justice
demands retribution for sins committed. Sin deserves to punishment. We all instinctively know this in the same way we know that crime deserves punishment in the civil sphere.
THE GOOD NEWS
The Bible from beginning to end consistently testifies that
no mere man is able to undo or fix the hostility that exists between God
and humanity. Therefore, God took initiative; “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he
loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10). God
initiated peace. He approached us first. He came down to us first. The Bible
says, “But when the
fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under
the law” (Gal. 4:4). Jesus was a man yet he was no mere man. Jesus said of
himself, “For I have come down from
heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me” (John 6:38).
God's eternal, preexistent only Son became a man (John
1:1-3; 14) in order to represent and mediate for sinners; he became
“a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make
propitiation for the sins of the people” (Heb. 2:17). To make “propitiation”
means to offer God a blood sacrifice that appeases him by removing his wrathful disposition
toward us. A propitiatory sacrifice is a sacrifice that removes the reason for
God’s wrath. Sin is forgiven through a propitiatory sacrifice because through it God’s justice is satisfied. Sinless and perfectly righteous Jesus offered up
himself to God as this kind of sacrifice; “He is the propitiation for our sins,
and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:2).
Jesus stood in our place and went to the cross to receive the punishment ours sins deserve. We are
all born separated from God because of sin. Jesus, however, brings sinners back to
God. The Bible says, “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for
the unrighteous, that he might bring us
to God” (1 Peter 3:18). Jesus brings us to God. Now lest we think that redemption
is the work of Jesus alone i.e. that Jesus is “nice” over against God who is falsely seen as only angry, the Bible
teaches that this plan of redemption was conceived and initiated in love (Eph. 1:4-5) by God
the Father; “God sent forth his Son”
(Gal. 4:4). The Bible says, “in Christ God
was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against
them” (2 Cor. 5:19) “For in him [Christ] all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to
reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by
the blood of his cross” (Col. 1:19-20). “God
made [us] alive together with him
[Jesus], having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of [sin]
debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing
it to the cross” (Col. 2:13-14). Jesus’ death and resurrection from death
together secured for us forgiveness of sins, acceptance and adoption into God’s
family.
The Good News means that we need not attempt to earn God’s acceptance and forgiveness because God has already earned and secured it for all who would believe. God invites us to freely receive God’s gift through faith in him and in what he has done for us. Salvation would never have been possible had it been left up to us. The Bible says, “For if a law had been given that could give [eternal] life, then righteousness [and consequently salvation] would indeed be [earned] by [obeying] the law (as summarized in The 10 Commandments). But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe” (Gal. 3:21-22). This is why Jesus said, “With man this [salvation] is impossible” (Matt.19:26).
Forgiveness
of sins and acceptance by God is free to those who agree with God about the
true sinfulness of their sins, forsaking them and turning to God fully trusting
him and his word, the Bible. Salvation is a gift that can only be received
solely on the basis of faith in God’s grace; “For by grace you have been saved
through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a
result of works, so that no one may boast” (Eph. 2:8-9).
WHAT DOES REPENTANCE LOOK LIKE? A quick answer:
Jesus commanded water baptism to all those who call upon him for salvation (Matt. 28:19-20; Acts 2:38). Baptism ought to be the next step upon a new profession of faith. Both confessing Jesus as Lord and Savior (repentance) and submission to Jesus’ ordinance of water baptism are works of the Spirit of God wherein he causes us to become obedient through the power of the new birth. They go hand-in-hand. Therefore, I believe there is cause for concern about the sincerity and genuineness of a person’s profession of faith when they demonstrate an unwillingness to obey Jesus in this most simple and basic ordinance. Persistent and willful disobedience belongs to and is characteristic of slavery to the power of sin. Slavery to sin is the chief characteristic of “the lost" (See Rom. 6). There is cause for alarm when disobedience to Jesus’ commands characterizes a professing believer because being saved also means possessing power (the Holy Spirit) from God to overcome one’s previous habitual disobedience. Therefore, genuine repentance is proven by, but not limited to water baptism, confession to God for sins committed, joining a Bible believing church (Acts 2:41-47) for continued nourishment and spiritual oversight from God’s shepherds (Acts 20:28; Heb. 13:17; Eph. 4:7-16).
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