JESUS IS GOD’S ANSWER TO LIFE’S SUPREME PROBLEM
A political candidate this past week took a verse from Genesis totally out of context to try to support his party’s stance on multiple deviations from traditional Christian doctrines such as marriage, sanctity of life and homosexuality.
He went so far as to predict that “his” Church would eventually change its views to conform to his party’s political positions. He is not the first candidate for public office to suggest that Christians change their views for the sake of political correctness.
Fortunately, more than a few Christian ministers and theologians did not let this particular politician get away with his misinterpretation of Genesis 1:31: “God saw all that He had made, and it was very good.”
Apparently the politician wanted his audience to believe that God condones redefined moral standards as does his political party, that God considers this new theology to be “very good”. Not so fast, sir! There’s a BIG problem with your inference.
God DID look upon all that He had made and God DID see it as “very good” - at that particular point in biblical history - BEFORE the occurrence of humanity’s very ugly turn for the worse when original SIN made its grand debut and sought to undo all the good God had done - by infecting the human heart with a propensity toward evil rather than good. Evil versus good is a War we are still fighting today! Many there be who obviously have succumbed to it, while others have not.
This supreme problem of life can be put into the form of a question in the same manner that we addressed the first two of life’s supreme questions . . . “How can we get back into a right relationship with God?”
The Apostle Paul dealt with this issue in his letter to Christians at Rome – a city which stood as the epitome of a Christless World, yet a city in which there were many followers of “The Way” - and to them and us Paul put it out there for our edification: “The Way” is the only way to be right with God.
Paul had to address the problem from the standpoint of the Law simply because observance of ritualistic law was the point at which Jewish converts to Christianity got stuck; not only did they stick to ritualistic laws as taught to them from childhood, they insisted that Gentiles must first become obedient to those same laws before becoming Christians. Therein lies a problem within a problem!
In answer to our first question, “How did we get here”, the Bible speaks of One Great Creator - the LORD God. In answer to our second question, “Why are we here”, the Bible says that we were created to glorify the LORD God and to enjoy Him forever. So far, so good. There was a time when God said, “very good.”
At that particular point in time – at the end of “the sixth day” - God saw all that He had made and He indeed assessed it to be “very good”.
One Great Creator had created one great mass of humanity to glorify the LORD God and enjoy Him forever. What a wonderful thing God did! He created human beings whom He knows individually by name. What a fellowship! What a joy divine!
However, fast forward to our day, and you might wonder: “If God created the world and all that is in it, and it was very good, why are things so messed up?” Legitimate question! Or, to put it another way: “What when wrong”? Which, in the minds of many, raises yet another question: “Who’s to blame?”
Frankly speaking, wouldn’t we have to say that our greatest problem is not all the extraneous, external woes that bombard us - as bad as they are.
Our greatest problem is internal - a sin problem. God created mankind for an incredible existence, but humanity blew it. God knew it and, in His love, made a Way for lost humanity to return to His favor.
Whereas many in Paul’s day thought it - and many since then have claimed it – as a fact that there are many ways for lost humanity to get back in favor with God - not the least of which would be perfect obedience to, and observance of, way too many man- made rules, regulations and rituals - Paul put the honest-to-goodness truth to his “ex- partners in crimes against Christianity” in the form of a searing question, the answer to which would set the record straight – Romans 3:9-12 and 19-23 . . .
In a nutshell, Paul stated Gospel Truth: We are all sinners. No matter who we are, or how good we think we are, truth is: Without Christ, all of us stand before God under the “power of sin”, condemned. For, there is within each and every one of us at least that “innate propensity” to go it alone without the LORD.
Sin, when given birth to, is intentional and deliberate rebellion against the way of the LORD. When activated, sin binds us and blinds us so we no longer seek God and we fall into Satan’s trap.
Because of our pattern of sin, we become useless to God and incapable of being and doing good of the kind God created us to be and to do. It’s as simple as that. “There is none (totally and perfectly) righteous, no, not one.”
As far as the Law is concerned, the Law (the Word of God) makes us aware of our failures. So, in that regard, no one is without excuse. To pay attention to the Word in its entirety and within its context, and not twist it like a pretzel to suit our personal preferences, would be “very good”.
Yet, without Christ as LORD, honest obedience to His Holy Word - without reinterpretation, redefinition, and misinterpretation of it - is not likely to happen.
Furthermore, no matter how many or how much we do in the way of good deeds – which in and of themselves may be “very good” – nevertheless we will be held accountable for gross disobedience to the Word of God.
On the other hand, no matter how great our efforts, or to what lengths we might go, to offset our misdeeds, these efforts on our part will not be sufficient to regain that sought-after right standing with God. Why is that?
We are part of the human race and therefore all of us have missed the mark of God’s expectations. As long as we go on sinning without repenting, individually we are rendered incapable of bringing glory to God.
Not until certain changes on our part occur in response to certain actions on God’s part – “in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” – is there a smidgen of hope for regaining favor with the LORD God who created us to glorify Him forever.
Whereas all our efforts combined are insufficient, God’s grace is sufficient. If it were not for the grace of God, we could believe all day long . . . repent until blue in the face . . . lie prostrate before God for weeks . . . be baptized over and over again, but all of that combined would not solve life’s greatest problem.
God’s grace is the solution and Jesus Christ is the answer to life’s greatest problem. Thus, we Christians firmly believe that there is One Great Savior! Amen.
