Gospel

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(The following article is a speech I gave to a church group back around 1996.)

Who shall ascend into the hill of the LORD?

Who shall stand in his holy place?

Who shall ascend into heaven?

Who shall descend into the deep?

Is this not the heart's mournful cry?

In a world so crowded does not that cry from solitude resonate hauntingly?

Where is God?

Where can I find Him?

How can I attain and gain entrance into His courts?

Grossly, and unattractive the cry is, making man somewhat of something less than the upright creature he was created to be. It breaks him. His ego is mutilated and his being is left as a hollow empty container of unrequited wishes and broken dreams.

Because the truth is...

He can't find God.

What is religion?

Is it more than a stain-glassed gothic abode with a steeple reaching and yearning for the Heavens?

Is not that finger a metaphor for what religion really is? Is not that imagery a valid testament to the essence of religion?

Religion is man's feeble attempt, of stone, wood, and rubble, to touch and know God.

Calvary, the cross, and the Christ is then more than the death of just one man.

It is the death of that attempt.

It is the death of religion.

What a place to commence man's sometimes trivial pursuit of communion with his creator.

Eden.

Paradise.

God spoke.

God created.

God breathed.

And He saw that it was good.

Hence, a bond unbroken.

Relationship.

Friendship.

God and the man named Adam forged a kinship unencumbered by steeple, pews, or altars.

A free-flowing river of insight and intimacy. One on one, without mediation.

But in the foreknowledge and predeterminate destiny set in motion by God Himself, the communion was broken.

The forbidden was trespassed.

The fruit was eaten, and man's eyes were turned inward and heart ensnared. Because when he looked inside what he found was frightening.

He saw his nakedness.

So distressed by guilt and shame the man who was created in God's image: for as the Psalmist says "...who was crowned with glory and honour, who was made to have dominion over the works of God's hands, who had all things put under his feet..."

Well his sin made him a seamstress.

In Genesis 3:7 the drama unfolds as God comes looking for communion and finds Adam practicing religion.

Working, and sewing to cover his nakedness, his shame, his guilt, his utter barrenness before God. Trying to undo what had been done.

While Adam worked, sweating, and fretting, Grace offers a sacrifice.

Adam's attempts of covering, of righteousness, were not enough. So God clothed him.

Religion then makes man an appeaser instead of a pleaser.

We have this stark and dark picture of a holy God, a wrathful God and man; his sniveling, whining, blaming, doubting subject working to achieve Eden status again. Trying to appease an angry God.

Is this what God wanted?

Is this what God intended?

It is in man's own psychological makeup to worship. Logic and reason compel a man to acknowledge a higher, supreme power. But it is also in man's psyche to build that wanton bridge between him and that power or powers. You find this in every religion.

There is this "bridge building" in Greek and Roman mythology, the occult of the Egyptians, Hinduism, Budhism and yes as oxy-moronic, and contradictory, as it is, in Christianity.

From Nimrod and his tribute to humanistic endeavors at Babel to today. It is man's joining of his guilt, shame, and ego to put just one more plank in the bridge from him to God. It is a weary restlessness from the wellspring of his soul that causes man to "appease the gods". It is idolatry. It is religion.

What a quandary.

In Romans 7 Paul describes the inner yearnings of man that amounts to confusion...

"For that which I do I allow not: For what I would, that do I not: but what I hate, that do I."

And again he says,

"For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do."

Now if I do that which I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me."

Whew!

Even in working we just can't seem to get it right. The structure is weakened. The planks are broken, and inevitably the bridge falls, because our righteousness is as "filthy rags" to God.

First came Adam, through Adam came sin, then came Law.

Scripture says that law entered "...that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the DEEDS of the Law there shall no flesh be justified in His sight: for by Law is the knowledge of sin." (Romans 3:19-20)

Court is in session. We are weighed in the balance. Gavel comes down. The verdict is given.

Guilty.

"Despite my own good works?"

Guilty.

"Despite my own righteousness?"

Guilty.

But before the sentence is rendered and handed down, into the adjudication circle, enters Jesus Christ. And a different verdict is read.

"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved. He that BELIEVETH on Him is not condemned."

In the 16th century the strains of a different symphony were being heard as a man by the name of Martin Luther sung the first chords by nailing his thesis against the heretical indulgences of the Roman Catholic Church.

Thus the Reformation began.

It's battle cry was sola scriptura, sola gratia, sola fide, sola Christus. Only scripture. Only grace. Only faith. Only Christ.

But it's message was freedom.

Freedom from works, standards, codes, decrees, indulgences.

The fabric of the Reformation was interwoven by the material of grace alone through faith alone. And it's foundation was Justification by Faith Alone.

What is faith?

Hebrews 11:1 states it clearly; it is the "...the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things no seen."

Faith is object oriented. Not a metaphysical spaying of new thought name and claim it, blab and grab it hyperbole. It is not the wishful wonderings of an "Alice in Wonderland" who is lost in a "Star Wars" mentality, and has forgotten the fervent cry of the Lord's prayer.

"Father let your will be done in Earth as it is in Heaven."

Faith is not a force. That's not to say it does not have force. But the force, or the regenerative power, comes from the object believed on. And the object, His character, attributes, and the power is the most important aspect.

The Reformers, Martin Luther, John Calvin etc... categorized faith into three categories.

Notitia.

Assensus.

Fiducia.

The notitia is a notice that has been given. Knowledge. It is the message preached.

Assensus is giving mental assent to the message that it is a historical fact or it is the truth.

Now according to RC Sproul if you have but two elements of faith that just qualifies you to be a devil, for in James 2:19 the devils believe in one God.

The fiducia is that cognitive inner regeneration. The change within the heart. The faith that is God-given that brings about repentance.

What is justification?

Justification is the imputation of the righteousness of Christ to man.

How does it come?

By faith. (Romans 3:22, 26, 28).

Now what, or whom, to believe in.

Jesus Christ.

Christ is the covering. Christ is the work. Everything He is and everything He has done is imputed, by faith in Him.

This is the heart of the gospel.

Paul went so far as to say if anybody preaches any other gospel let him be anathema. For "...we are saved by grace through faith, and that not of yourself it is the gift of God." (Ephesians 2:8)

From the mouth of the eunuch in Acts to the answer given to the Philippian jailer. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved..." (Acts 16:31)

And now the bell has tolled on religion. It's time is up. Man's endeavors and labors are over. Religion is dead.

This is what is on it's tombstone.

"But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For He is our peace, Who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; Having abolished in His flesh the enmity, even the Law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in Himself of twain one new man, so making peace; And that He might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby." (Ephesians 2:13-16)

"Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His cross." (Colossians 2:14)

So, how shall we ascend unto the hill of the Lord? How shall we approach God? How shall we know Him?

By emptying our hands and minds of presumptuous works and fall before the cross of Christ.

By faith in Jesus Christ.

For He still says...

"Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

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