Apologetics

  I can't help but think of this bit of history when I think of any of us attempting to justify ourselves before God on any other basis than Christ's sacrifice on our behalf,  his bearing of our punishment and judgment.  We devise these elaborate schemes of how we can be right in all or most of our disputes with others, and how we can be justified in all or most of our major decisions, and how we can be innocent of all or most of what we have ever been accused of or criticized for in life,  and of how our lives or most of the events of them can be made to stand on their own merits before the judgment seat of God.  Of course we are not doing this consciously because deep down we must know we haven't a leg on which to stand, but we never seem to totally give up on and abandon the notion of our presumed innocence or rightness. But just as Ptolemy's elaborate model collapsed hopelessly in the end under its own weight, so must our elaborate cases for our own self justification and self vindication come tumbling down like a house of flimsy cards.   If it were not so what would be the need, our own deep need, for a Savior?  

  Aren't we declaring in all this that it is best after all to live our lives with ourselves and our own efforts and our own supposed good at the center.  And we do this oftentimes with the church's approval, just as Ptolemy's earth-centered planetary system had the church's assent and approval for a period.  But if someone may suggest or maintain that there is a better truer way and begin to demonstrate Christ at the center, that one must be ready and braced to be attacked, just as the scientist Galileo had to brace himself in defense, for the church of his day attacked him with a vengeance.  So whether it be the sun or the Son at the center, consequences must be expected.....but not insurmountable ones.