Pastor John R. Wiuff
Today we are starting a new series on what it means to have a Biblical Faith and to belong to a Biblical Church. Just because you own and maybe read a Bible does not mean you think or believe Biblically. Many new voices are being raised today and the next few years to come that will challenge the millennium old teachings of the Bible. These voices are expressing an intolerance for what the Bible tells us about God and a demand that we contemporaries our faith to something reasonable and logical. The Church and Christians are being evangelized to fit in with the rest of the world and stop believing what makes us unique and others excluded from the Christian faith.
We are going to use the Bible to test the foundations of our faith to make sure they are solid and not rotting out from beneath us. We are also going to quote popular objections in the world so you can hear the challenge that is being made. Through side by side comparison we hope to inspire a confidence and boldness of faith to stand for the ageless message of the gospel of Christ.
The first foundation we need to test is the teaching that Jesus Christ is the one and only Savior of man kind. This is a fundamental pillar of our faith and if it should fall there is no reason for the existence of a Christian church. Yet if it stands and persuades others, it could yet save millions from an eternity in hell.
You may think it odd that anyone would challenge the notion that Jesus is our one and only Savior. If you do you have probably been raised in the church and only relate to church people. Out side the church a rising objection has been made against this Biblical teaching and amazingly enough there are many leaders within the Church that are now advocating that Jesus did not die on the cross for our sins.
Jeffrey John, the Dean of St Alban's, popularized a sort of blood libel against God as an unintended consequence of a BBC radio talk before Easter of 2007, when he attacked views that made God seem like "a monster". Here is what he said:
"What sort of God was this," he asked, "getting so angry with the world and the people he created and then, to calm himself down, demanding the blood of his own son?
"And anyway, why should God forgive us through punishing someone else? It was worse than illogical, it was insane. It made God sound like a psychopath."
How did the death of Jesus save us?
By Christopher Howse
The Telegraph
14 Apr 2007
The controversy is not new. The Rev Steve Chalke, a well-known Evangelical, wrote in 2003 against the belief that the "God of love suddenly decides to vent his anger and wrath on his own Son" in a piece of "cosmic child abuse".
When the reporter Christopher Howse attempt to offer a Biblical teaching about Jesus as Savior this is one of the reactions he received:
So basically, God couldn't bear to forgive us, but due to the strange nature of God, he realized if he just slaughtered his son, then the blood would alter his own brain chemistry so he COULD forgive us. Jesus paid a blood sacrifice to God, so God would be able to change his mind about barring us from heaven, and then realize he could let us in after all. Please...give your newspaper some credibility - don't pretend religion is news.
Telling people that Jesus saves or to believe that yourself is not enough because the message is not getting through. We need to have a Biblical foundation for our faith in Christ.
Let’s see what the Bible says about Jesus and salvation. Look to Titus chapter two with me.
11. For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. 12. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, 13. while we wait for the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, 14. who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good. 15. These, then, are the things you should teach. Encourage and rebuke with all authority. Do not let anyone despise you.
Titus 2:11-14
Just knowing what the Bible says is not enough for a Biblical faith but we must start with knowing before we can go to understanding and then believing. In verse 11 God tells us that He offers us salvation to everyone and that this is an act of grace on His part. He doesn’t have to do this. With a great deal less effort on His part, He could pass judgment on all of us and end our existence. His Holy nature and justice would seem to demand such action. For God then to offer us salvation is a act of grace requiring a great effort on His part.
The next thing that God reveals is that His “Yes” means that we must adopt a “No” if we are going to accept His offer. A life principle to remember is that for every yes there is a corresponding no. God says “Yes” I will provide away for you to be forgiven, but we need to say “No” to sin to receive that forgiveness.
Now think about this. Does it make sense to say “Yes” I want to be forgiven and then make plans to do more sin that will need more forgiving? That is the logic of an addict. They want money to buy drugs. They will say whatever they need to say to get the money they want to buy the drug they think they need. I know a good mother who has learned to say “NO” to her addicted daughter so she can learn to say “no” to the drug and yes to salvation in Christ.
If we are going to be saved from sin, we are required to say “no” to sin and “yes” to God’s will in our lives.
God goes on to tell us that Jesus Christ is the one who saves us from sin. This is not matter of brain chemistry that Jesus needed to die upon the cross for our salvation or some strange nature of God…although; God’s nature does seem foreign to our fallen nature. You see God, if He is any God worthy of worship or our loyalty, is a Holy God. He is clean, pure and without fault. He always does the right thing for the right reason. He sets the standard for what is right and what is wrong. If he was any less than perfectly good, He would not be worthy of our worship.
So when God forgives he must do something other than hold His nose when He is around us. He must remove sin and the effect of sin from us if He is going to forgive us. He can’t simply over look sin; He must remove it from us.
Christ died to pay the price for our sin which is death. Adam and Even were warned that if they sinned, rebelled against God, they would die. They rebelled and they died even though they were originally intended to live forever. We all know that when people die to day it seems like a wrong has happened. We were not meant to come to an end. This is the affect of sin. That price we are paying had to be paid by another if we are going to live. Jesus Christ willing paid that price for us. He was the only one who could because He had no sin. He did this out of love willingly because God asked Him to. No one made Him do it. He was given all kinds of reasons and ways out of dying for us, but Jesus died for you and me because God asked Him to pay the price so we could be forgiven.
Why would God ask His only Son to go through such a terrible ordeal? Because of a principal of forgiveness we have forgotten. A sin can only be forgiven by the person wronged if that person is willing to pay the price for the wrong done to them. God bore the price of our sin through His son so He could be in a position to forgive. This is the only way His Holiness and justice could be preserved while providing for away of deliverance for us as sinners.
This is what we need to understand if we are going to have a believing faith in Jesus Christ. But there is one major block that will keep us from understanding and believing the clear teachings of the Bible.
We think we aren’t so bad.
3. At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. 4. But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, 5. he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, 6. whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7. so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. 8. This is a trustworthy saying. And I want you to stress these things, so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good. These things are excellent and profitable for everyone.
Titus 3:1-8
If there were one problem, one block to our understanding, one objection to the logic of God’s offer of salvation…it would be the belief that we are not really all that bad, deserving death for our sins. We must face this fact that we are rebellious sinners, defiant in the way we live towards God’s holiness. Of all creation we have the strange dilemma of knowing that we are doing the wrong thing while we continue to justify our behavior. We know we should feel something while avoiding any responsibility or guilt for our actions.
When a person had a medical condition in which they can no longer feel pain when they cause harm to their bodies we suspect that they are suffering from a deadly disease called Leprosy. This condition is caused by the organism that is difficult to transmit and has a long time before symptoms appear which makes it difficult to determine where or when the disease was contracted. The disease eventually cause nerve damage in the arms and legs, which causes sensory loss in the skin and muscle weakness. People with long-term leprosy may lose the use of their hands or feet due to repeated injury resulting from lack of sensation.
When we believe that we have no sin, or that we are not has bad as deserving death, we can only do so by ignoring the facts of our lives. We must turn off the sensitive nerves of our soul that painfully warns us when we are going wrong. We kill these moral nerves by saying it’s not that bad; once isn’t going to hurt; or any number of other excuses.
Listen to what God is telling us in this passage. He tells us that we are foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. This has always been true about every person since the fall of Adam of Eve. I am sure that if Cain and Able could text each other they might have avoided the first murder in human kind, but it would have taken the murderous intent from Cain’s heart. We have adopted technologies and philosophies that have sheltered us from the full weight of sins awful affect on our lives but these have been nothing more than taking more drugs to kill the pain that tells us something is terribly wrong.
If we are going to know, understand, and believe God’s word today about Jesus Christ we must say “NO” to the drugs that keep us from feeling the pain of our sin.
We must say “no” to calling sin mistakes or psychological trauma.
We must say “no” to the god of naturalism that claims if it exists it’s good or loose all sense of danger in a dangerous world.
We must say “no” rationalizations and comparisons with other sick and dying people. We must stop assuming that sin is natural and that we have no other choice but to make peace with our sinful souls.
If we can say “no” to these morally numbing drugs then we can say feel the pain of sin in our soul. We can grieve our loss and want something better. One last principle of life comes into sharp focus: You can’t be free of something you don’t hate. We must learn to hate sin and desire righteousness as God defines it in our lives.
This is what God calls coming into our right minds, thinking straight about reality of our moral condition. If you can drop the pretending and face who you really are then God can give you want you really need, salvation from sin in Jesus Christ. Jesus didn’t come to save us from poverty, sickness, war, prison or even death. He came to save us from sin that causes all these things in our lives. Each one of these terrible things in our lives and many more are the moral nerve endings of our conscience. They tell us something is horribly wrong in this world and we need to find a lasting solution in Jesus Christ.
If we could allow ourselves to feel the pain of our sin then maybe we could be open to know why we need a Savior in the first place.
We have been quick to blame God for our pain, rather admit it is us who are harming our selves and inflicting pain on our conscience. Can we find the courage to accept responsibility for our own actions rather than blame a God who gave us the gift of a conscience knowing right from wrong?
That is the choice. This is what keeps us from God, from knowing, from understanding and from believing in Jesus Christ as Savior.
68. "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel! He has taken care of his people and has set them free. 69. He has raised up a mighty Savior for us from the family of his servant David, 70. just as he promised long ago through the mouth of his holy prophets
Luke 1:68-70
30. The God of our ancestors raised Jesus to life after you hung him on a tree and killed him. 31. God has exalted to his right hand this very man as our Leader and Savior in order to give repentance and forgiveness of sins to Israel.
Acts 5:30-31
3. This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, 4. who wants all people to be saved and to come to a full knowledge of the truth. 5. There is one God. There is also one mediator between God and human beings-a human, Christ Jesus.6. He gave himself as a ransom for all, a fact that was acknowledged at the right time.
1 Timothy 2:3-6
9. He saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our own works but according to his own purpose and the grace that was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began. 10. Now, however, it has been revealed through the coming of our Savior Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and through the gospel has brought life and release from death into full view.
2 Timothy 1:9-10
14. We have seen for ourselves and can testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.
1 John 4:14
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