In our age of pluralism and openness, the most sacrilegious thing you can do is not demand, “There is a God!”, but “There is only one [my] way to God!” We live in a day when all religions are coping to find mutual respect and common ground so that we don’t fall into the murderous bloodshed of belief vs. belief that has plagued this planet for thousands of years. In our quest to build bridges across the aisle to other faiths, however, are we leaving our own?
I’m operating under the assumption the the Bible is true. If we can’t start with that foundation (read here to learn more), then we don’t have a common starting ground. Jesus, much to the chagrin of our contemporary society (and his as well), was very exclusive. He summarizes His thoughts clearly in John 14:6, stating that no one can come to the Father but through Him. There is one and only one way to God – that is through Jesus. His perfect life, atoning death, and resurrection by the power of God opens up access (Ephesians 2:18) to the Creator of the Universe.
That’s all well and good, but what about Jews? Muslims? Mormons? Buddhists? The list goes on and on. All of these faiths plus more are very fervent in their beliefs, devout in their religious practices, and people of upstanding moral character. Unfortunately, sincerity does not change reality. I can sincerely and fervently believe that I’m a middle-aged Hispanic woman, but that doesn’t change the reality that I’m a young (?!?) white male. Jesus was exclusive – He tells us in the Bible that there is no backdoor to Heaven.
Some might say that we are all worshipping the same God, yet in different ways. Here’s an experiment – go up to your Jewish/Muslim/Mormon/Buddhist/etc friends and ask them if Jesus was divine (John 10:30), if He lived a sinless life as the Son of God (2 Corinthians 5:21), and if He is the only way to Heaven (John 6:44). Those kind of exclusive statements uttered by Jesus force us to be for or against Him. We can’t believe in Jesus and still believe in pluralism. It’s either one or the other. You must decide on either a) Jesus is the only way to God; or b) There are many ways to God (Jesus isn’t one of them). You can’t believe in the second option with Jesus included as one of the options because He Himself claims exclusivity. Time to get off the fence and offend someone.
Hebrews 11:6 states that those who come to God must believe that He exists. Seems like a no-brainer, right? How can someone come to God without believing in His existence? Doesn’t the fact that someone comes to God necessitate the fact that the person believes in Him? Not necessarily.
I believe that for most of my life (present-day included?!?) I haven’t believed in God. I think most of the people around me, especially self-proclaimed born-again, Bible believing, pulpit pounding, church attending Christians, don’t believe in God either. We believe in a caricature of God. We have a form of God that we have created that in actuality bears little resemblance to the one true God of the universe.
The God that is put forth in the Bible demands total allegiance to Him and Him only. “I am the Lord, that is My name. I will not give My glory to another, nor My praise to graven images” (Isaiah 42:8). God, revealed through His son Jesus, demands the same strict obedience. Jesus tells us that we can’t be His disciple if we don’t give up everything (Luke 14:33) and that we must deny ourselves in order to follow Him (Mark 8:34).
I know what you’re thinking…”I believe in God. I know what Jesus says and trust in the Bible.” Believing in God, however, is not simply a mental decision you must decide upon, such as the decision of whether or not you want cereal for breakfast. Let me give you an example. Let’s say you have a friend that jumps off a cliff and seriously injures himself. As you berate him about the stupidity of jumping off a cliff, your conversation moves to the topic of gravity. You ask your friend, “Didn’t you know that you would get hurt if you fell off a cliff?” If your friend answers in the positive, what are you to think? His “belief” in the law of gravity was there, but that didn’t influence his actions. He said he believed in gravity, but his actions proved that either he thought gravity didn’t apply to him, or that gravity was merely a suggestion rather than a law.
Let’s take this example into the current discussion about belief in God. We don’t believe in the real God of the universe when our actions dictate otherwise. The Bible is clear that God is all about His glory and that we, His creation, were made to worship Him. To do anything other than that would be as smart as jumping off a cliff and thinking that you just might possibly fall up.
How is God a caricature? Our god (little “g”) is a pleasant old grandfather that has some suggestions for our life but no demands. Our god wants to bless us and love us but lets us do things our way. Read the Bible and see if that god shows up. God demands our life, our all, our everything. To say we believe in God but yet to live like His rules are suggestions is to deny our belief in that God. We’d rather believe in a god that looks a lot like the real God yet has a lot less restrictions.
Just as when you jump off a cliff, you will fall down, God has some demands on your life. You are to love Him more than anything (Mark 12:30) and do all things for His glory (Colossians 3:17). These are not suggestions from a god, but commands from THE God.
What does it mean to have access to God? Is that the same as having access to the funds in my (diminutive) bank account, or having access to the President of the United States? Paul says that through Christ we have access to the Father (Ephesians 2:18). So what? What does that mean?
More than we could possible imagine.
One way to imagine this is through analogy. Picture this – you are deep in debt, unable to secure credit or shake off your creditors, and using one credit card to pay another. You seriously consider skipping town and starting a new life in a new state with a new identity – it’s that bad. Suddenly, you run into Warren Buffett at Wal-mart (we are imagining) and he tells you that, if you should ever have need, you can access his financial accounts to repay outstanding debt, live comfortably month-to-month, and invest in whatever you see fit in the true spirit of entrepreneurship. I’m sure, after you are brought back to consciousness by the ever-present door greeter (or Salvation Army bell-ringer), you would accept. You would have to be colossally stupid to not grab onto the lifeline offered you.
Or how about this – you are down on your luck, just having been laid off in this (glacially) slow-recovering economy and have been evicted from your apartment. You had just moved to the city for the now expired job because you have no family to speak of, both of your parents dying while you were finishing school. As the holiday season approaches and you find yourself weighing the pros and cons of various homeless shelters, you receive grace at a local soup kitchen. A member of a church group volunteering that day hears of your story, invites you to live in his extra bedroom free of charge, and offers you a job in the hardware store he owns. You move in and find out that, not only have you been given a job, room, and board, but his wife mothers you like a long-lost son and the biological children living in the house quickly latch onto you as a benevolent uncle. No-brainer, right?
Both scenarios started with someone in the pit, without hope, lost in this world. That’s our story (Ephesians 2:1-3). We were dead, rebelling against our Creator, having nothing and able to do nothing worthy of mercy. Then, not because of anything we did, but because of God, His plan, and His glory, we were offered grace. We were given access. We now have, as the chosen elect of God, all the resources of the Almighty. Are we using them?
I’m not advocating a prosperity gospel. Our rewards and the fulfillment of all of God’s promises come not here, but in the hereafter. That doesn’t mean, however, that we are without recourse. We should draw near to God with confidence (Hebrews 10:19-22). To not do so would be like rejecting the resources offered in the previous two scenarios – colossally stupid.
In the book of Hebrews, the author is encouraging a harassed Jewish-Christian church to stand strong in their faith. He states in Hebrews 10:34 that they know that “[they] have for [themselves] a better possession and a lasting one.” The author then uses all of chapter 11 to extol the virtues of the men and women of faith who had come before. They held on to what was coming (Hebrews 11:39-40) because they had not received their promised reward and they were aware of something that this generation is highly ignorant of, namely, that our treasures are not of this world.
If our lives have to reach fulfillment here on Earth, then what happens during our life is of vital importance. Did we reach all of our goals? Did we love deeply? Did we change lives? Have we left a legacy? Did we leave our mark on the world? All of these questions and more will give meaning to our lives if this is all there is. We are not of this world, however. We are aliens and strangers (1 Peter 2:11) whose citizenship is in heaven (Philippians 3:20). We should expect the world to be ignorant of these truths, yet the saddest thing to see is the Christian that knows that there is more beyond this world, yet still expects to reach fulfillment here on Earth.
Jesus said, “If anyone would come after Me he must deny himself, take up His cross, and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it” (Mark 8:34-35). How does losing my life equal saving it? God’s promises are partially for our life on Earth but will be completely fulfilled in the new heaven and the new earth. This world is broken – it’s not the place for God’s blessings to be fully realized (Matthew 6:20-21).
This is the mark of a truly mature faith, that one “accepts joyfully the seizure of his property” (Hebrews 10:34) because he knows that something better is waiting for him. A travesty of the prosperity gospel infiltrating churches across the globe is its emphasis on God’s blessings here on Earth. Our hope can never be fully actualized here on Earth. To place our treasures and hearts on material blessings will only lead us to disappointment and despair. Faith is knowing that God will keep His word…later.
To answer the question shortly, I’d say “Yes”… to a certain degree. God will let us resist Him, His will, and His grace up to certain point. When He decides enough is enough, however, it’s all over. Job put it succinctly (Job 42:2) when he said, “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted.” If we believe in a sovereign God, we must believe that He is irresistible.
In Stephen’s defense before the Sanhedrin (Acts 7:51), he accused the Jewish leaders of being stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart, “always resisting the Holy Spirit.” Paul said much the same thing to the Jews in Corinth (Acts 18:6), leaving them to minister to the Gentiles because they continued to resist the gospel. Obviously, these people resisted God. They were being presented with gospel truth, told that Jesus Christ is the only way to salvation, yet they chose to not believe. If we can assume they continued in this belief (a safe assumption), these people died in their unbelief. Yet, didthey truly resist God of their own volition, or did God allow them to resist Him?
You might say, “What about free will?” Search the bible and try and find that phrase. Free will vs. God’s Sovereignty is not a debate. A debate requires two equal/semi-equal sides and that does not exist here. God is sovereign – end of debate. The psalmist says, “Our God is in the heavens; He does whatever He pleases” (Psalm 115:3) and that “The Lord nullifies the council of the nations; He frustrates the plans of the peoples” (Psalm 33:10-11). It’s much more feasible to think that we are allowed to resist God, but that He can overcome our resistance.
The story of Jonah is a perfect example. The Lord told Jonah to go to Ninevah, but Jonah ran. God allowed him to run and allowed him to spend a few nights in the belly of a whale. Net result? Jonah went to Ninevah, as God commanded, but he just took the scenic route. To pit our will against God’s and say that we can resist Him, that we can thwart Him, without any qualifications at all, makes too much of our power. We cannot overcome God, but He can overcome us. Vote in the poll below and let me know what you think.
Is it sacrilegious even to ask this question? Did Jesus forgive everyone’s sins? Think about your answer for a moment. If you say, “Yes” with no qualifications, then you believe in Universalism. I doubt you mean that all people go to Heaven and that there is no Hell. To believe in that is to deny the Bible. How most people answer the question is, “Yes (as long as you accept/believe/trust Jesus)”. Is the work of Christ on the cross, however, spoken of in that way in the Bible?
In Colossians 1:19-20, Paul speaks of God reconciling “all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross” and Luke states in Acts 20:28 that the church of God was purchased with Christ’s blood. Couple these statements with Ephesians 1:3-5 and 1 Peter 1:1-3 (among others), a compelling case can be made that Christ’s work on the cross is complete, not partially fulfilled waiting for us to “accept” Him. God made peace through Christ’s blood and purchased the church – notice the past tense.
If Christ forgave everyone’s sins, then we all stand righteous before God and everyone will reign with Him in Heaven. This idea is, of course, ludicrous because it wipes away all accountability for the evil acts perpetrated on Earth and gives everyone a “free pass”, so now we must qualify Christ’s work on the cross as “potential.” He “potentially” forgave everyone of their sins (as long as they accept Him), but didn’t actually forgive everyone their sins. This gets crazier when you wonder what Jesus was actually doing on the cross. Did His forgiveness go into some kind of general “forgiveness” account that individuals could draw from throughout the ages, or did it complete the forgiveness of His church “chosen in Him before the foundation of the world” (Ephesians 1:3-5)?
If Christ’s work on the cross was potential rather than realized, what happens to the surplus? What happens to Christ’s forgiveness that wasn’t realized because people never believed in Him? Is that just left over? Is that really how God planned it, that His Son would suffer and die for everyone, although only some would choose Him, and that some of His forgiveness would go unrealized? I believe in a much more distinct plan that says that I was “chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father…[who] caused [me] to be born again” (1 Peter 1:1-3).
This argument is known as “limited atonement” and follows from the ideas of election and predestination (Romans 8:29-30) that are found in the Bible. These ideas are not what we are used to hearing but flow logically from scripture and the foundation of man’s total depravity and the activity of God in electing the Church. Vote in the poll below and let me know what you think.
When Paul says in Ephesians 2:1 that we “were dead in [our] trespasses and sins,” what’s he really getting at? Are we simply “dead”, or are we “dead-dead”? The answer to this question seems moot, yet it starts us on the long road leading to our salvation and ends with the question, How are we saved? If you reply, “We are dead before Christ,” then I agree completely. I believe the Bible states it succinctly in Romans 3:9-18 that no one is righteous.
But is our depravity total? Are we completely dead, or is there enough life left within us to choose Christ? That is the fundamental question. Paul states in Galatians 3:22 that all are shut up under sin so that faith might be given to those who believe. In other words, we are all dead-dead. Really, really dead in our transgressions. In Adam, we all died (1 Corinthians 15:21-22).
When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead (John 11:1-46), Lazarus had no part in the process. He did not ask Jesus to raise him, nor did he agree to Jesus’ plan of action. Lazarus did nothing, because he was dead! Not just dead, but dead-dead (hence Jesus waiting four days before coming to Bethany). When Jesus commanded Lazarus to come out, he did not believe in Jesus’ resurrection power before being raised. Lazarus couldn’t believe because he was dead-dead. Jesus did all the work. Lazarus’ only work in the entire situation was actually walking out of the tomb. Jesus had raised him and told him to come out, but Lazarus had to use his leg muscles to obey Jesus’ command. I guess Lazarus could have stayed in the tomb and marveled at his change in fortune, but he obeyed.
In the same way, we are dead-dead in our transgressions. We can have no part in the salvation process, the mechanism from which we pass from death to life, because we have no power to do so. We are dead-dead. Our responsibility comes when we are made alive in Christ and are directed to follow His commands. Getting to that point is entirely Jesus’ responsibility because we can’t do anything to make ourselves alive, just as Lazarus couldn’t do anything to change his dead-dead status. Once we are made alive, then we can follow Him in faith.
That begs the question: can we choose Christ? Can we believe in Him for salvation, or is salvation something thrust upon us? That depends on whether you think the Bible teaches that we are dead (in sin, but able to choose Christ and help make ourselves alive) or dead-dead (totally depraved and unable to aid in our salvation). I tend toward the latter.
The idea of God’s total sovereignty scares some people. We don’t want to be marionettes. We’d like to believe that we have some say in our decisions, or else what’s the point of it all? Ideas on God’s sovereignty range from the ultra (God has dictated from the foundation of the world when you’ll blink next) to the minimalist (God got things started and then left the rest to us). If we look at the idea logically, with one simple scripture reference, we’ll see that the spectrum is not as wide as we’d like to believe.
Psalm 115:3 states that “our God is in the heavens; He does whatever He pleases” (NASB). If we can begin with the common foundation that there is a God (if not, please explain the origin of the universe) and that He has the traditionally described characteristics (i.e. omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence), then how can there be any reality but His sovereign control over existence? The fact that there is an omnipotent God leads us to the fact that nothing happens without His willing. Now, whether you want to say that He actively wills or passively allows every act taken, both arguments ultimately ends in the same place. Nothing can happen unless 1) God wills it or; 2) God allows it to happen. If you want to say that the Holocaust happened because God decreed it or He allowed, the bottom line is that it happened, therefore He willed it (actively or passively). The discussion of God’s sovereign will vs. God’s permissive will is not new and there are many explanations out there that dig deeper.
My point in the discussion is that we should shy away from the falsehood that the universe is randomly spinning out of control and life is what you make of it. Although we are morally responsible for our actions here on earth (2 Corinthians 5:10), let’s not take it to the extreme of thinking we are in control or that no one is in control. God exists, and His nature dictates that we should strive to discover His revealed will and follow it (a good place to start is the gospel of John). He is a reality we simply cannot ignore.
I’m a planner, a doer. I must have reworked my plan for graduation (undergrad) 6 or 7 times. This is my tenth year as a school teacher and I’ve tried to leave education for the ministry at least half a dozen times. I am so ansty to do things for God that I continually try to help Him. Unfortunately, my “help” always tends to be like Abram “helping” God fulfill His promise of a child by having relations with Hagar, his wife’s maidservant. (Genesis 16; 21:8-20).
After much (self-inflicted) suffering, I’ve embarked upon a new strategy in deciphering God’s will for my life. I’ve simply decided that God’s will for my life is………whatever I happen to be doing at the moment. Deep, huh? Don’t worry, I’m already in negotiations with a publisher. Honestly, though, I’m sick and tired of trying to “do” for God and having it blow up in my face. I’m tired of feeling like I’m never settled, like I can’t plan for three years in the future because I’m not sure if I’ll even be in the same profession that far down the road.
The future is God’s business. My business is the present. I can’t change it, I can only deal with it. This sounds harsh, but I have had to accept that I don’t have control of my life – God does. At times I may think I’m in charge, but that’s simply delusional. God in His sovereignty (more on that to come in a later blog) has ordained that what I am to do right now is to do whatever I’m doing right now. So for now, God wants me to be a public school teacher. How do I know that? Because that’s what I’m currently doing. I’ll now when God wants me to leave education and enter the ministry whenever that happens. It sounds flippant and crass, but it’s the truth. You are where you are because God put you there. You’ll never be happy trying to do something else for God when He’s already given you something to do. Glorify Him in your present circumstances, not your hopes and dreams.
An interesting dynamic in the gospels is Jesus’ call for those around Him to leave everything and follow Him. When a scribe came to Him and said that he would follow Jesus wherever He went, Jesus’ reply was (loosely), “Are you sure you can handle the commitment? It’s not all glam and glitz.” (Matthew 8:19-20). Jesus told His disciples that they had to give up everything, even themselves, to follow Him (Matthew 16:24, Luke 14:33).
These statements are radical. They should shock us – destroy us. Instead, we yawn and wait for the preacher to make his next point. WAKE UP! Jesus is calling us to leave everything and follow Him, not placidly make our next mortgage payment and give to missions.
If you can truthfully say that what you’re currently doing in your walk with God is working, then keep it up. If you are closer to Him than you were 3 years ago, if your life reflects the glory of His Son, then let us in on the secret. I, on the other hand, feel stifled and bored in American Christianity. I plateaued years ago and am simply holding on for the sweet by and by. Only idiots keep doing the same things over and over and expect a different result. Something has to change.
Anarchy is not God’s plan. I don’t think it’s wise if everyone sells their house and quits their job for Jesus. What I am advocating is moving away from a life of independence and seeking God in a life of dependence. If you are currently providing for all of your needs and desires, than you are not living in faith, and that is sin (Romans 14:23). Can you do everything required of you in a day under your own power, including going to church and worshipping God? If so, where’s the faith? How does that require you to depend on God?
Jesus’ call to His disciples sounded crazy to contemporaries and to us today. Leave everything? Job? Family? Just get up and follow some guy around the Middle East? The disciples aren’t remembered for being rational, but for walking in faith – for being out of their minds, but trusting God’s. I don’t know what God is calling you to do in faith – that’s between you and Him. I guarantee you, though, that if it makes sense, it isn’t from Him. God is interested in His glory, and He doesn’t receive that praise and adoration when you do things that you are capable of. He is glorified when He accomplishes through you something that is impossible for you to do.
Feel free to comment and post responses to my rants. What is God calling you to do that makes absolutely no sense?
