So
far in my musings about the meaning and purpose of life, I have tried
to show that there is a God who exists and that he is greater than
all that we can imagine and he created and owns everything and
doesn't need our advice and counsel to figure out how to run the
world. The second thing we looked at is the Bible's teaching that
God's purpose for all he does is for his glory. We were created by
him in his image in order to reflect his glory and majesty and when
we get side-tracked from that we lose our focus and then find
ourselves without meaning and purpose.
Within
ourselves we know that something is not right with the world, or even
with ourselves for that matter. We have a sense of the kind of love
that should pervade human society and yet that love is woefully
missing. There are some glimmers of it, but there are an awful lot of
dark places. This is true on a global scale and it is true within our
own circle of family and friends. Things often seem pleasant and
people seem happy, but there is a lot of friction, discontent, abuse,
and anger around. We know this is true and we know it should be
better than it is.
In
addition to interpersonal and international frictions it seems as
though nature is messed up. In many ways nature is beautiful, but
even there we see death, violence and a sort of unsettledness both in
the living world and in non-living aspects of the world such as
weather and geological instability. How are we to explain this.
Atheists and naturalists have their ways, but to me these are not
satisfactory.
The
Bible's explanation is that God gave one specific negative command.
Human beings in the person of the first man Adam disobeyed God's
command and rebelled against the creator and owner. As a result he
brought the curse of death upon the whole human race and upon
creation itself. The Bible says that the whole creation groans.
(Romans 8:22) We as people groan because we are plagued with
sickness and decaying bodies. We groan because making our living is
not easy. Nature resists our attempts to grow food and to build a
decent life for ourselves. We find rust and decay affecting virtually
everything we make and it takes work to keep things in good repair
and working order.
When
God cursed us he told us that disobedience would cause death. And
that is what we see all around us. As time went on God gave us more
and more commandments in order to show us his character and to allow
us to see just how far from his path we have wandered. Through the
ten commandments and other moral instructions given in the Bible, God
shows us where the line is and we can see clearly how far we've
fallen and how impossible it is to live the way God designed us to
live. Sometimes we look at commandments as overbearing and
authoritarian, but God is the one who designed us and the rest of the
world. He is the one who knows how these bodies, minds and spirits
work best. His commands are to provide a way of living that works
best. Ultimately we find that we can't live by those standards even
if we try. We don't have it within us to comply. That too is part of
the consequences of our fallen nature. We don't really want to live
like God wants us to. We don't want God to be telling us what to do.
We want our independence.
God
tells us in Romans 1:18 and following that the crux of the problem is
that even though we know God is there and that he is powerful, we
naturally do not give him the glory that he is due and we are not
thankful to him for all that he has provided. We just assume we have
a right to everything. We end up worshipping and serving created
things such as ourselves or the stuff we can own more than we worship
God. This leads to sins of every kind that Paul lists for us in this
passage. The chapter ends with these sobering words, “who, knowing
the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things
are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of
those who practice them.”
This
is where many people jump ship. They say, “I just can't believe
that being disobedient to my parents, or living in sexually immoral
ways, or being selfish is worthy of the death penalty.” The neat
thing about living in America is that we are free to believe anything
we want and no one else can dictate our conscience to us. We can live
in the ways described here and believe that we are just fine. We're
allowed to do that. The thing we need to ask ourselves is whether
all of this is OK with the God who is actually there. God is either
like he is described in the Bible or he is not. At some point each of
us has to come to grips with the possibility, and I would say
reality, that God actually does have standards and that he actually
does care how we live and that he actually does impose the death
penalty on those who fall short of his standards.
Having
said that, though, we need to resist the temptation to think that it
is those other people who have that death penalty on them while we
walk free. You see, the argument Paul is trying to make in the book
of Romans is that every single person is guilty. In fact in the next
verse after citing the death penalty, he makes this statement.
“Therefore
you are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are who judge, for in
whatever you judge another you condemn yourself; for you who judge
practice the same things.” Romans 2:1 I used to think this verse
was not true of me. I would look at people who were doing terrible
things and judge them and congratulate myself for not being like
that. But this verse tells me quite clearly that I do the same
things. Jesus for example tells us that to be angry is like murder in
God's eyes. Lusting after a woman is like committing adultery. The
standard is very high and I have fallen short. The death penalty
looms.
Thus we end today's musings with the conundrum that
God's standards are so high and so strict that we find everyone in
the world is guilty before their creator and are under the just
condemnation of God. Who then can be saved?
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