Why I Believe the Bible is the Word of God: It Alone Remedies Man's Greatest Need (2)
To pick up where I left off yesterday, I would argue that all the religions and religious books of the world (except One) have two fatal flaws as they address the biggest need of the human soul: sin, and the separation it causes between Man and God. These "paths to God" are dead ends because they both exaggerate the virtue of man's goodness and depreciate the high holiness and justice of God. They make Man out to be better than he is and God out to be more indulgent and morally wimpy (i.e.-less holy) than He is.
For a "path to God" to be a true path it has to deal with this problem of sin in such a way as to treat both sin and God's holiness with absolute unflinching seriousness. Other faiths simply do not do this, but the Bible does.
The dilemma that sin causes can be described like this: Man is a sinner whose sin must be punished with death. But God loves sinners and wants to rescue them from the death they deserve, the hell that justice requires. So God in His love wants to forgive sinners, but God in His justice must punish their sin. It follows then, that if God punishes the sinners He loves in the way their sins deserve, there won't be any more sinners to love. They will all be damned. Any religion or view of life that does not reckon with this divine moral dilemma is a fraud.
So how does God both gratify His love for sinners and satisfy the justice of His holy nature with reference to sin? How does He damn and save sinners simultaneously?
Or to look at it from Man upward: how does Man find forgiveness with God for sins that God's justice simply cannot ignore? No faith but that of the Bible has revealed a satisfactory answer.
The answer is this: God voluntarily decided to punish Man's sin by becoming a man and bearing the punishment in Man's place. The Cross is the place where love and justice meet and kiss. On the Cross, human sin was atoned for (to satisfy God's justice) so that human beings could be forgiven (to satisfy God's love).
God chose to punish Himself for human sin so that the wrath due to sinners could be satisfied while the love God had for sinners could be gratified. God devised a way to punish sin and save sinners. He chose to die in their place.
John Stott has said that "Sin is man substituting himself for God, and salvation is God substituting Himself for man." There is the gospel, and there is the only truth path that actually gets you to God. Every other path is a bridge to nowhere.
And there you have one more reason why I believe the Bible alone is the Word of God. It alone saves.
For a "path to God" to be a true path it has to deal with this problem of sin in such a way as to treat both sin and God's holiness with absolute unflinching seriousness. Other faiths simply do not do this, but the Bible does.
The dilemma that sin causes can be described like this: Man is a sinner whose sin must be punished with death. But God loves sinners and wants to rescue them from the death they deserve, the hell that justice requires. So God in His love wants to forgive sinners, but God in His justice must punish their sin. It follows then, that if God punishes the sinners He loves in the way their sins deserve, there won't be any more sinners to love. They will all be damned. Any religion or view of life that does not reckon with this divine moral dilemma is a fraud.
So how does God both gratify His love for sinners and satisfy the justice of His holy nature with reference to sin? How does He damn and save sinners simultaneously?
Or to look at it from Man upward: how does Man find forgiveness with God for sins that God's justice simply cannot ignore? No faith but that of the Bible has revealed a satisfactory answer.
The answer is this: God voluntarily decided to punish Man's sin by becoming a man and bearing the punishment in Man's place. The Cross is the place where love and justice meet and kiss. On the Cross, human sin was atoned for (to satisfy God's justice) so that human beings could be forgiven (to satisfy God's love).
God chose to punish Himself for human sin so that the wrath due to sinners could be satisfied while the love God had for sinners could be gratified. God devised a way to punish sin and save sinners. He chose to die in their place.
John Stott has said that "Sin is man substituting himself for God, and salvation is God substituting Himself for man." There is the gospel, and there is the only truth path that actually gets you to God. Every other path is a bridge to nowhere.
And there you have one more reason why I believe the Bible alone is the Word of God. It alone saves.
Labels: Apologetics, Bible, Gospel, The Word of God
6 Comments:
Thanks Pastor Tim for your hard work in providing much profitable material for our edification. When it comes to answering mas greatest need, there are a plethera of pretenders.
False religions have created false gods. Men have, under the constant pressure of what Calvin called the "semen religionis" or "sensis deitatis", (that is to say, the seed of religion or sense of divinity, that God placed in every human heart), sought to create a god after their own image. Whether it be the sketchy promise of "nirvana", or the hope of reincarnation to a higher being, or 70 virgins in paradise, or supreme consciousness promised at death, each false religion fails to take into account mankinds moral dilemna.
Man has even created false iterations of Christianity. We call this heresy. Heresy is defined as that which will damn the soul for eternity if fully believed and trusted. The Roman Catholic heresy is one of the more obvious ones. But Evangelicalism has also "sought out many inventions". The Pelagian heresy is alive and well in our day. As is the "name it and claim it", God wants everyone healthy and wealthy cult of our day. It even touches the life of many in our day who name the name of Christ, but willfully choose to either remain ignorant of who God is, or, after the fashion of the false religionists, reinvent a Christ after their own liking. A christ who is merciful and loving to everyone, who hasn't an ounce of wrath or anger about anything, who wants to get involved in your life but is subject to your free will. A christ who saves me to make me comfortable, full of good fortune and never any trouble crosses my path. We are as Tim keller said in his latest best seller, "Counterfit Gods", lookng for an aspect of God that suits my current lust, to the neglect of everything else revealed about him.
In the final analysis, the God who remedies mans greatest need, is the God revealed in scripture and no other. It is the God concerning whom the scriptures has much to say. He is nothing less than everything the scriptures have to say regarding him. May I ever keep this God, and all of who he is, before my eyes and in my heart. Any other God is a creation of my vain desires. His remedy, will eventually remove all misapprehensions of who He really is toward believing sinners. My greatest need is to know God, and His son jesus Christ, as they are revealed in His Word.
My thoughts....
JR
What so affects me as I think about the truth of the Christian gospel is its full-bodied robust handling of both the wrath of God and the love of God.
God in the gospel is neither unapproachably terrifying nor morally glib.
He is neither a cosmic bell-hop pandering to human wants irrespective of human sin nor is He a cosmic terror who shows no mercy to sinners.
His love is a holy love and his holiness is mixed with mercy. In wrath he remembers mercy.
Lewis' Lion Christ figure, Aslan, is aptly described: "He isn't safe, but He's good."
God is that to prfection.
All other gods are indeed, as you say, JR, pretenders.
"Little children, keep yourselves from idols" (1 John 5:21).
The human heart, as Calvin so well noted, is a perpetual factory of idols. We are ever so prone to conjure up false and idolatrous understandngs of and approaches to God. Thank you John in your comments for giving specificity to some of these false gods and how they have expressed themselves even under the name of Christianity. There is a crisis of doctrinal and moral discernment in the church in our day (certainly not unique to our day, but a crisis nontheless).
As redeemed people, sadly, we are not immune to these idolatrous wanderings of the heart and must ever be on guard to ensure that our hearts follow hard after the God of the Bible and His self-disclosure in Sacred Scripture. We have this strange propensity it seems to either ignore or twist sacred truth even as it looks us in the face. We can so easily believe and teach what we want the Bible to say is true (if we even want that), not what the Bible says is true. With that God is not pleased.
Thanks again Tim for this series and for this post today. I fear there are many bridges being built to nowhere. You are serving your flock well to nuture and to protect us.
Thanks Bruce for your ever generous words.
Tim, I like your choice of the word "robust", it implies the idea of thoroughness down to the minutia of detail. There is nothing lacking in Gods' remedy concerning mans'need. Nothing has been overlooked. If we have Christ, there is absolutely nothing lacking to fulfil mans true desires for life, love, relationship, calling, dignity, and purpose.
Hallalujah, what a Savior.
More thoughts...
JR
all of what we are speaking of fits into Paul's description of the preaching of the cross as the wisdom of God.
This plan to satisfy justice and mercy together in the cross is something only God could have conceived.
Man never could have thought of it, and man never would have loved enough to pull it off.
Tim, by the grace of God you are what you are - an unashamed preacher of the true gospel of Jesus Christ the Lord! Thank you brother!
John and Bruce, I count myself blessed to be able to call you brothers.
I thank all of you for your labors in the Word. I thank Him for your faithful jealousy of guarding that which was first entrusted to you. I am not ashamed to call you brothers.
You all have something in common with Paul. I was reminded of this passage in the first chaper of Galatians:
"I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel -- not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.
But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.
For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.
For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man's gospel. For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home