GraceTrax

JOHN 3:19 SAYS, “And this is the judgment, that light has come into the world and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil.” In that passage of Scripture, Jesus is teaching us about the accountability of judgment. Let’s take a closer look.   

In verse 19 we see that man is thoroughly accountable before God for two reasons:  First, “light has come into the world.” God has sent His light in order that all may plainly see. To illustrate that truth, think about what happens when you are out exploring. You’re out in the woods, early in the morning, and you notice an old piece of rotting wood. And you know how we are--we want to kick things around--so we kick that piece of wood and little insects and bugs frantically scurry about. You know what they’re doing when you kick that wood? They’re seeking darkness! They prefer the secrecy and the darkness, kind of like people. So when you kick that wood away and the light shines on them, they start scattering. But where are they headed? They’re seeking more darkness. They want to find darkness again, and moisture.  That’s exactly the way it is with us. God has sufficiently shown us His light, which makes us accountable—yet we flee from it in fear and annoyance.   

You’ve heard this before, but it bears repeating. There’s a difference between atheists and agnostics.  An atheist says, “I don’t believe in God.”  An agnostic says “I don’t know whether I believe in God or not.” If I had my choice between the two, I’d choose to be an atheist because an agnostic blames God for his unbelief. He says, “I’d believe in God but He hasn’t given me enough light to believe in Him.”  So what is an agnostic doing then? He is impugning the character of God. He’s assigning blame to God for his sinful unbelief. 

But in spite of that light, we see in verse 19 that people loved darkness. Though they had light given to them in their own conscience, they loved the darkness because their deeds were evil. They prefer darkness to light because light exposes things. Are you aware of the primary environmental quality of taverns and nightclubs? Darkness. People prefer dark places to practice their sinful lifestyle. They love darkness because it hides their deeds. 

When God shines His light on us, the sin is no longer hidden—it’s exposed. That’s why people love darkness and hate the light. Paul wrote about that in Romans 1:19-25. “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them for His invisible attributes—namely His eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made.” God is saying that His invisible attributes are clearly manifested by the things that He has created, so that we see His very nature. “They are without excuse,” Paul says, “for although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him but they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.”  

Have you noticed on television all the commercials about poor helpless, endangered animals?  They feature nice little tearful songs? As I watch those, I’m thinking about how our nation is killing babies in the womb by the millions! But you’ll land yourself in more trouble for beating a dog than performing an abortion. They may throw you in prison for five years for animal mistreatment, but you can kill a baby in the womb!  It’s so convoluted that it’s unbelievable.  We are worshipping the creature more than the Creator—just like Paul wrote. That is happening right now, friends. We worship the lowest form of life. We exonerate the animals! But the highest form, human beings we despise. Some judges allow wild, serial murderers to rape and kill young women. Those rapists ought to die for their crime, according to the Word of God, but liberal judges release them from prison in two or three years because of overcrowding.  That is the mess we’re in, because we’ve so convoluted and suppressed the truth of God.  

People attempt to suppress God’s Word, push it down out of sight, but you can drink, you can do drugs, you can seek to suppress it, but it will pop right back up on you in the middle of the night, when your head is on the pillow and your conscience is alive and active. 

That lifestyle requires the Gospel to overcome. Nothing but the Gospel can overcome that kind of absurdity. “They exchange the glory of the immortal God for images, therefore God gave them up in the lust of their hearts to impurity to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and they worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator who is blessed forever. Amen.”  

In verse 20 we see man’s hatred of God, “For everyone who does wicked things hates the light, and does not come to the light lest his works should be exposed.” Man’s wickedness is repulsed at the light of God itself.  Stated plainly, man hates the light of God. In our lost condition, we’re repulsed by the things of God. Paul spoke of that repulsion and hatred on numerous occasions. In Colossians 1:21 he wrote, “and you who once were alienated and hostile in mind doing evil deeds.” That’s the hostility of unredeemed flesh. Even we who have been saved must resist the hostility in our remaining flesh. Do you ever sense hostility in your mind and heart toward God? Have you ever thought, “Now, wait a minute!  God can’t do that to me!” That’s hostility.  

Romans 8:7 says “for the mind is set on the flesh, and is hostile to God, it does not submit to God’s law, indeed it cannot.” The unredeemed mind doesn’t even have the ability, the moral ability, to submit to the law of God.  That’s why you will never be saved until you get a new heart. When that old stony heart is taken out of you and God puts in a heart of flesh, that’s when the saving takes place and it’s a work of God. 

Finally, note verse 21, “But whoever does what is true comes to the light so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.” Did you know that when we stand before God at the judgment seat, there’s going to be a fiery judgment on works of all kinds: wood, hay, stubble, gold, silver, and precious stone? The wood, hay and stubble are the works that will be burned up--though by the mercy of God, those who perform them will be saved. Those are burned up and they represent works wrought by impure motives--works done to please people, not God. So often we’re hypocrites, we want to be seen, we want to be known, just like the Scribes and Pharisees. Those works will be burned up, but the good works are the works that came from God. Paul says, “for it is God who works in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure.” 

Those precious stones—that gold and silver—those will remain, because they came from God in the first place. The only thing that does remain originates from God and His holiness.  Everything else will be wiped away and designated to the lake of fire and destroyed forever.  But that which is from God will live on forever in the hearts and minds of men and women. They are the saints of God in heaven, because they believed in the right object—Christ. Escape the judgment to come. Believe in Christ alone. Let the accountability of judgment motivate you right now to ponder the condition of your soul.  

“FOR GOD so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him...” If you don’t understand the verses that follow John 3:16, the invitation to believe upon Christ may appear ludicrous. But the apostle John—under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit—provides a context for God’s redemption plan—a context that is often left out when references are made to that verse. The context begins in verse 17 and concerns the intention of Christ’s coming. 

What was Christ’s intention? He states it negatively in verse 17. “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through Him.” That verse makes clear what Christ did not come to do—condemn the world. 

God did not send Christ into the world to condemn, but to save. Consider the last half of verse 17, “…in order that the world might be saved through Him.” He came to rescue and redeem, not to destroy. 

Jesus came to redeem us, and He’s returning to culminate that plan of redemption. Does that excite you, Christian? I’m getting more and more eager with every passing year. I think when we pass through the process of sanctification our longing for heaven intensifies. I’m ready to go! We’ve got it made, folks. We need to come to grips with what God has done for us and stop fearing affliction, sickness, persecution, and death. We have no cause for apprehension over those events. 

The most glorious event for you and me will be our dying and passing into eternity. Death is only a threshold for us. Understandably, that sounds odd to the world, doesn’t it? But we know rationally in our minds that death is the best thing that could ever happen to a Christian—dying and going to be with Christ. The truth that informs that glorious reality is found in this text: He came to save. 

Verse 18 continues that theme when it says, “Whoever believes in Him is not condemned but whoever does not believe is condemned already because He has not believed in the Name of the only Son of God.”  In other words, a sobering consequence accompanies unbelief. Whoever attaches his faith to Christ as the sole object—it can’t be faith in anything or anyone—will be saved from condemnation. 

No one who believes in Christ will suffer condemnation. All who believe in Christ—in heart, mind, and soul—will be saved. That’s the context for understanding John 3:16. In order to be saved from something, we must understand what we’re being saved from. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve had to remind people of this in my 39 years of ministry: We will never flee to Christ until we are persuaded that He is our sole means of escape. 

If you entertain the thought of an alternative route of escape, you will trust in your own flesh. Left to ourselves, we all do that outside of the Holy Spirit’s merciful work of conviction. So often God allows us to trust in those human, carnal, helpless means of escape, and then begins to move us into the realm of divine help. In a way, He funnels us away from trusting in our flesh until, finally, we look to Christ alone.  No one will look to Christ for deliverance until everything else has proven futile.  

Because of man’s carnal mind, he always chooses the carnal means of help over the spiritual, even though it will always prove futile. As an unregenerate audience to the gospel, we hear the message over and over, but cannot understand it. Then God’s divine light floods our minds and hearts and we see our true condition--along with His provision in Christ. Then all other carnal alternatives melt away and we see and believe in Christ. However, as long as those other alternatives appear useful, we will never believe in Christ; our flesh will resist and overpower us. 

It works like this: A person realizes his alienation from God, but believes he can simply attend church more regularly in order to get right with God. Perhaps he resolves to read his Bible more consistently, pray more fervently, give to charity, and read more Christian books. He’ll do anything to appease his conscience and convince himself of his right to enter heaven. That’s how the carnal mind thinks about and responds to salvation—and it’s damning! We may look to our church attendance, prayer life, Bible study habits, and even our so-called good deeds, but until we look to Christ alone we’re doomed. All other sources of hope are false. 

I believe one of the main reasons we’re failing in our evangelism efforts today is because we don’t understand the need for setting the context. If you approach someone and say, “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life,” how do you think he’ll respond?  He probably won’t, because you’ve not given him a context. What you’ve told him makes no sense at all. He doesn’t understand his own sin. He doesn’t even know Who God is, or what God is like. That’s why the Bible emphasizes the importance of pressing the law of God upon an unbeliever. Scripture refers to God’s Law as the “schoolmaster,” the “superintendent.” It serves as a tutor, a guide to bring lost men and women to Christ so they may be justified through faith in Him. 

That’s the context of condemnation. Until a lost person senses the conviction of sin that comes from the Law and recognizes the darkness in his own fallen heart, he will never flee to and believe upon Christ. That is the role of the Holy Spirit—to convict, convince, and draw the sinner to Christ. It’s His work. May He do a fresh work in our families, congregations, neighborhoods, and city. Let’s pray to that end!    

THE Apostle John, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit wrote what has become one of the most well known and celebrated verses in the entire Bible, John 3:16. Take a look at that section, beginning in verse 16 and continuing through verse 21. 

"For God so loved the world that He gave His onlySon that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life, for God did not send Him Son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through Him. Whoever believes in Him is not condemned but whoever does not believe is condemned already because He has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.  And this is the judgment; the light has come into the world and people love the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil.  For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light lest his deeds should be exposed.  But whoever does what is true comes to the light so that it may be clearly seen that his deeds have been carried out in God."  

In Scripture, we learn that the triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—covenanted together in eternity past to design the exquisite plan of salvation. You see the beauty of that covenant in that passage. It’s one of the most beautiful texts in the Word of God and speaks of God’s wonderful deliverance of sinners—offered solely through the mercy and grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.  

Three main points stand out in the first part of that text. 

First you see what we’ll call “The Father’s Plan” in verse 16. When you survey John 3:16, you cannot help but see the divine motive in the plan of redemption. The motive is this: the love of God. “For God so loved the world.” That is, by the way, the greatest motive of God.  The Bible says plainly that God is love. It also teaches that God at times manifests wrath against sin; but Scripture never says that God is wrath.  In his essential character, He is love personified.  That beautiful attribute—God’s love—motivates His redemptive plan. God loves sinners.   

God’s love does not mirror our own imperfect love. For example, we love our spouse, our children, and our parents.  But those loves are temporal. In contrast, the love of God is eternal. There was never a time in eternity past when God did not possess perfect love for His children, for He is a God of love.  

Intrinsically, love characterizes God, not only love within the Father, but the Son and Holy Spirit as well.  God’s love explains why we’re here today—why we’re assembled here in this place hearing the Word of God, singing the songs of the saints, and enjoying the privilege of being heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. Because of His love, we are kings and priests unto God. We enjoy that status because of His abundant love.

Secondly, you see in that passage not only God’s motive but also His action. Love moved God to give the greatest gift of all: His own Son. He didn’t withhold from us His greatest gift, but sent us His only Son. The greatness of God’s sacrifice is magnified by the fact that He is the only Son. God was motivated by love, pressed by love to send His only Son. His Son, Who did not have a place to lay His head; a son who was ridiculed, a Son who was murdered, a Son who suffered a cruel death on a cross—all because of His great love toward sinners. 

What rebels we are, and yet God did that for us—vile, wretched sinners, filled with wickedness and deceit. Because of that truth, when we adopt the attitude of Paul, who said “O wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death,” we are closer to God than at any other time. When we recognize the greatness of the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ, motivated by the Father’s love, and express that recognition with humble, heartfelt worship, God is glorified. 

Jesus spoke of that great, motivating love in John 17 when He said to His Father, “You have loved them, even as You have loved Me.” Isn’t it amazing that from all eternity, God set His love upon His own Son, and yet loves us in the same way? That’s a remarkable truth, Christian.  

Thirdly, you see in that passage a sublime, yet simple means of deliverance: faith. Note the simplicity of that truth: “Whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” The one element we must possess in order to attain heaven is faith. Without faith, it is impossible to please God. Faith, trust, confidence; believing the Gospel; believing specifically in the object of the Gospel, which is Jesus Christ. That’s the means of deliverance. Faith—and faith in Christ alone.  

When we experience seasons of fear, doubt, trials, and tribulations, that truth will elevate our hearts.  When we give thought to the proper object, which is Christ, we’re lifted up and encouraged, because we’re looking toward the proper object. You see, you must not stop at just the concept of faith. You must go further. Faith must have the perfect object and that perfect object is Christ. 

That is the grace and the mercy of God. Again, sublime and yet so very simple. Think about the people in hell, suffering the intolerable wrath of God for this reason. They would not believe. Their judgment and condemnation is irreversibly fixed because they would not believe in the only acceptable object of faith, the Lord Jesus Christ.  

Many churches are moving away from the Gospel of Jesus Christ in our day. Therefore we must endeavor more than ever to lift high the Lord Christ Jesus Christ, Who said, “If I be lifted up I will draw all men to myself.” That’s our mission, to lift high the risen Savior.   

Many doctrines emerge from the pages of Scripture, but when we disconnect them from Jesus Christ in the pulpit, they are worthless; dead doctrines that serve only to build up egos instead of fueling love and devotion to Christ. God intended for doctrine and theology to bring us to a person: Christ. Christianity without a personal relationship with Jesus Christ is satanic.  It makes no difference how theologically minded a person perceives himself to be. Until he possesses a relationship with the person of Christ, he is simply a lost theologian. Many theologians who knew about Christ populate hell. You can read about them in Matthew 7. The knew about Christ, but they didn’t know Christ personally. Knowing Christ is eternal life (John 17:3).     

That’s the sublime, simplistic plan: believing in a person, the person of Christ, the One Who became the God-Man and bridged the great gulf of iniquity between God and man. That vital truth introduces the remainder of the passage—the intention of Christ’s Coming. We’ll take a look at that next time. Don’t miss it!   

Part II

What can this mean: Christ was made to be sin?

It cannot mean Christ literally became guilty; and it does not mean merely that He became a sin offering.

What, then, does it mean?

It can mean only one thing: He was made sin by imputation. He was made sin "for our sake"—on our behalf; on account of our sin. He became, in a figurative sense and in a judicial sense, the embodiment and the symbol of our wickedness.

The expression is explained by the prophecy of Isaiah 53:6: "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all."

Our sin, with all its guilt and shame, was imputed to Him; put to His account; reckoned as if it were His—even though it was not.

Again, this time in the words of Isaiah 53:4: "he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows." What griefs and what sorrows? The punishment for our guilt. Verse 5 makes it explicit: "he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed."

That's as clear as it can be. He took the burden and the guilt of our sin on Himself without actually becoming sinful. Our sin was imputed to Him, or reckoned to His account, and He paid for it.

"Made . . . to be sin"

Try to conceive of a world of sin gathered up and concentrated in one ugly mass—fornication, murder, vile thoughts, every expression of human cruelty, and every evil manifestation of human wickedness in one hideous heap. You and I, fallen and sinful creatures though we are, could not bear to look at it. How much less could a pure and holy God stand to see it?

But God the Father treated His own Son as if He represented that mass of sin—as if He were the pure, distilled essence of everything a holy God cannot endure-as if He were the very personification of everything God must judge with an outpouring of divine wrath and banish from His presence.

And Christ drank that cup of wrath "for our sake." That's what the text is saying. Paul is actually describing a double imputation in this verse. In other words, the imputation goes both ways: the believer's guilt imputed to Christ, and Christ's righteousness reckoned to the believer. The parallel is precise, purposeful, and clear. That’s why 2 Corinthians 5:21 is impossible to explain adequately without understanding the concept of imputation that lies at the heart of Paul's teaching on justification.

Part 1

What can this mean: Christ was made to be sin?

I wouldn't use such language if Scripture didn't use it. As a matter of fact, the phrase is part of an even more perplexing statement: "He [the Father] made him [Christ] to be sin" (2 Corinthians 5:21). That is a deliberately shocking expression. It should jar our minds and offend our sensibilities.

God the Father made Christ the Son to be sin. That's not an easy statement to process, but it is pregnant with meaning. You'll never truly understand the doctrine of justification until you get a grasp on what that verse is saying.

But first...

Let's talk about what it doesn't mean. It doesn't mean that God made Christ to be a sinner. And that's clear by the phrase that follows immediately: "he made him to be sin who knew no sin." Of course Christ knew no sin by His own experience. He had no personal guilt. He was without any blame or sinful corruption whatsoever. But even as He "bore our sins in his body on the tree" (1 Peter 2:24), Christ remained "holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens" (Hebrews 7:26).

Paul is not suggesting that the character of Christ was changed at the cross. He was not made into a wicked person, nor was He in any way tainted by sin. He died as "a lamb without blemish or spot" (1 Peter 1:19). And 2 Corinthians 5:21 is not saying anything that would change that truth. Those who teach that Christ literally became sinful on the cross have misunderstood how our sins were imputed to Him.

Some commentators want to go the opposite direction and tone down the expression Paul is using. They point out that in the Hebrew language, the same word is used for "sin" and "sin offering." So, they say, maybe Paul was employing a Hebraism. Perhaps the verse ought to be translated, "He made him to be a sin offering."

That might seem to make sense, and it would certainly do away with the stark offensiveness of the expression. Moreover, the statement itself would be true enough: Christ did become a sin offering.

But that's not what Paul means here, and that interpretation cannot be sustained linguistically, grammatically, or contextually.

"Made Him to be a sin offering"? Why Not?

In the first place, the Greek word translated "sin" in this text is hamartia, and it means "sin." It is never used in the New Testament to speak of a sin offering.

In the second place, the same word (hamartia) is used twice in the Greek text of 2 Corinthians 5:21. The sense of the term must mean the same thing both places. It would make utter nonsense of the verse to render it this way: "He made him to be a sin offering for us, who knew no sin offering."

In the third place, the word sin obviously stands in deliberate contrast with the word righteousness, and if the word is made to mean "sin offering," it destroys the parallelism.

So the translation is correct as it stands: "He made him to be sin." It cannot mean Christ literally became guilty; and it does not mean merely that He became a sin offering.

What, then, does it mean? I'll tackle that question in Part 2.

Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”…Nicodemus said to Him, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered and said to him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and do not understand these things? John 3:5, 9-10

People have always stumbled over the simplicity of salvation. That is why there are so many cults. Each one has a unique slant on the doctrine of salvation—and each one corrupts the simplicity of the gospel revealed in God’s Word (2 Cor. 11:3) by espousing salvation by human works. Each one of the major cults claims to have a key that unlocks the secret of salvation, yet they are all alike in propagating self-righteous achievement as the way to God.

From start to finish, God’s Word disproves them all, and in a wonderfully consistent way. Its message, woven through sixty-six books, written over a span of fifteen hundred years by more than forty different authors, is marvelously unified and congruous. The message is simply that God graciously saves repentant sinners who come to him in faith. There is no secret there, no mystery, no obscurity, and no complexity. If Nicodemus had truly understood God’s Word, he would have known that much. And if he had sincerely embraced and believed the written Word, he would not have resisted or rejected the incarnate Word, who was standing before him, the embodiment of God’s eternal way of truth (cf. John 5:39).

Despite his great ability as a teacher and his obsession with the details of the law, Nicodemus had fallen short. Jesus did not mask the truth or try to make it palatable. Nicodemus was nurturing a great sin he was not even aware of—the sin of unbelief. When Nicodemus said, “I don’t understand,” what he really meant was, “I don’t believe.” Unbelief always begets ignorance.

Verses 11–12 confirm that unbelief was the real issue. There Jesus says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak that which we know, and bear witness of that which we have seen; and you do not receive our witness. If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how shall you believe if I tell you heavenly things?” “You do not receive” and “you do not believe” mean the same thing. Nicodemus claimed that he did not understand. Jesus wanted him to know that faith comes before full understanding. As Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 2:14, “A natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.” Spiritual truth does not register in the mind of one who does not believe; unbelief understands nothing.

What a blow this was to Nicodemus’s self-righteousness! He had come to Jesus with a smug profession of faith: “We know that you have come from God as a teacher” (v. 2). In essence, Jesus responded, “No you don’t. You don’t understand Scripture. You don’t know the basics about salvation. You don’t even understand earthly things. What good would it do for Me to expound heavenly truth to you?‘

Like most religious unbelievers, Nicodemus did not want to confess that he was a helpless sinner. Jesus knew the truth. Nicodemus thought of himself as a great spiritual leader. Jesus had reduced him to nothing.

“No one has ascended into heaven, but he who descended from heaven, even the Son of Man” (v. 13). With that statement of his divine origin, Jesus rebuked Nicodemus’s shallow faith and destroyed his system of religion by works. No one can ascend to heaven; that is, no one can earn his or her way there. God has come down from heaven and spoken to us by his Son (Heb. 1:1–2). We could never climb to heaven and find the answers for ourselves. The only Person who has that kind of access to God is the One who descended from heaven. He is not just a teacher sent by God; he is in fact God in human flesh. We either accept what he says, or we are left with our sin.

This, then, is his message: “You must be born again” (v. 7). Regeneration is no option, but rather an absolute necessity. No one—not even the most religious Pharisee—is exempt from the divine call to a new birth. And thus we have the starting point of Jesus’ gospel: that salvation is impossible apart from divinely wrought regeneration.

The first demand of Jesus’ public ministry was, “Repent.” He spoke this command indiscriminately to all who would listen. It was a call for radical inward change toward God and man.

Two things show us that repentance is an internal change of mind and heart rather than mere sorrow for sin or mere improvement of behavior. First, the meaning of the Greek word behind the English “repent” (metanoeo) points in this direction. It has two parts: meta and noeo. The second part (noeo) refers to the mind and its thoughts and perceptions and dispositions and purposes. The first part (meta) is a prefix that regularly means movement or change. So the basic meaning of repent is to experience a change of the mind’s perceptions and dispositions and purposes.

The other factor that points to this meaning of repent is the way Luke 3:8describes the relationship between repentance and new behavior. It says, “Bear fruits in keeping with repentance.” Then it gives examples of the fruits: “Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise” (Luke 3:11). This means that repenting is what happens inside of us that leads to the fruits of new behavior. Repentance is not the new deeds, but the inward change that bears the fruit of new deeds. Jesus is demanding that we experience this inward change.

Why? His answer is that we are sinners. “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance” (Luke 5:32). What was Jesus’ view of sin? In the parable of the prodigal son, Jesus describes the son’s sin like this: “He squandered his property in reckless living . . . [and] devoured [it] with prostitutes” (Luke 15:13, 30). But when the prodigal repents he says, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” Therefore, throwing your life away on reckless living and prostitutes is not just humanly hurtful; it is an offense against heaven—that is, against God. That’s the essential nature of sin. It’s an assault on God.

We see this again in the way Jesus taught his disciples to pray. He said that they should pray, “Forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us” (Luke 11:4). In other words, sins that God forgives are compared to the ones people commit against us, and those are called debts. Therefore, Jesus’ view of sin was that it dishonored God and put us in debt to restore the divine honor we had defamed by our God-belittling behavior or attitudes. That debt is paid by Jesus himself. “The Son of man came . . . to give his life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). But for us to enjoy that gift he says we must repent.

Repenting means experiencing a change of mind that now sees God as true and beautiful and worthy of all our praise and all our obedience. This change of mind also embraces Jesus in the same way. We know this because Jesus said, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God.” Seeing God with a new mind includes seeing Jesus with a new mind.

The crucifixion of Jesus lasted six hours with the first three hours occurring in the light, and the last three hours transpired in darkness (for more details see The Darkness and the Glory). Before the advent of the darkness, “those passing by were hurling abuse at Him,” part of which included the mocking dare to “save Yourself and come down from the cross” (Mark 15:29-30). The chief priests and the scribes added their ridicule proclaiming to those within earshot that “He saved others; He cannot save Himself,” and “Let this Christ, the King of Israel, now come down from the cross so that we may see and believe” (Mark 15:31-32a). Within this last statement was the core issue, namely, belief, or stated better, lack of saving belief.

Jesus has previously taught in reference to unbelieving hearts in Luke 16:31: “If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone rises from the dead.” Only days earlier Jesus had condemned the very ones currently mocking him stating, “For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him; but the tax-gatherers and harlots did believe him; and you, seeing this, did not even feel remorse afterward so as to believe him” (Matt. 21:32). Mark 15:32b concludes this section on the disbelieving mockery during this first part of the crucifixion by adding, “And those who were crucified with Him were casting the same insult.”

And then—most unexpectedly—in the very midst of the unspeakable torment of those crucified, a divine appointment took place. Luke 23:39 states, “And one of the criminals who was hanged there was hurling abuse at Him, saying, ‘Are You not the Christ?

Save Yourself and us!’” However, Luke 23:40-43 reveals: “But the other answered, and rebuking him said, ‘Do you not even fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.’ And he was saying, ‘Jesus, remember me when You come in Your kingdom!’ And He said to him, ‘Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise.’” This is not a contradiction in Scripture; this is a true salvation conversation.

One who had previously mocked Jesus later repented and believed. We do not know the process, but we clearly see the results: (1) the thief feared God (the beginning of wisdom); (2) he repented (turned from his previously held conviction); (3) acknowledged his own sin and Jesus’ utter innocence; (4) he believed that the One crucified beside Him actually would reign in His kingdom after His death, which means Jesus must be resurrected; and (5) he received eternal life. Jesus did not say, “Today we will both die,” but rather that they both would be alive in the spirit—together—that very day and every day following.

True saving faith always brings instant results with everlasting benefits.

Today marks the launch of an exciting new Spring series at GraceTrax—the study of Salvation.

When you hear someone say, salvation, what do you think of? Maybe you think about salvation grammatically, in terms of subject-verb-object. You understand salvation like this: Jesus saves sinners. Period.

Or perhaps you’re one of those people who thrive on getting the terms right. For you, salvation is captured lexically with key words like Jesus, Sin, Gospel, Sinner, Faith, and Heaven.

But there’s another way to think and talk about salvation that honors Christ, humbles the sinner, and challenges even the most profound theologian. Have you ever studied salvation chronologically? That’s the method we’ve adopted for the purpose of this series. Let me explain.

Why did you one day find yourself standing side-by-side with multitudes of other Christians on the Lord’s Day singing praises to the risen King? What, or Who caused that profound transformation? Something was radically altered in your thinking, and there must have been a beginning—a first cause or point of origin. When did it start? Who set it all in motion, and how did it progress? That’s the idea behind a chronological survey of salvation.

Now that you know our plan, perhaps you’re wondering what aspect of salvation we’ll feature first. The Bible speaks in no uncertain terms about the beginning of our salvation. It wasn’t at our birth, and it wasn’t at our new birth either. Our salvation was planned before the foundation of the world. How’s that for a chronology? That’s the exact language Scripture employs when discussing God’s plan of redemption and the subjects of that redemption, His elect (See Eph. 1:4; Rev. 13:8; Matt. 25:34).

Although you wouldn’t be wrong to say, “I am a Christian today because I repented of my sins and trusted in the finished work of Christ,” you would nevertheless be woefully unbalanced. And it’s important that you understand why. Let me enlist the Apostle Paul’s help. Here’s how he explained the salvation of the Thessalonians:

But we should always give thanks to God for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth (2 Thess. 2:13).

Note how Paul acknowledged God’s sovereign election in that passage. He named the cause (God has chosen you), the means (faith in the truth), and the time (from the beginning). Your salvation began with God. He chose you out of the fallen race of humanity. He singled you out, set His affections upon you and called you His own. Your heavenly fate was sealed before the mountains were formed and the stars hung in space. Before God created the world, He created your destiny. He predestined you unto eternal life (Rom. 8:29-30; Eph. 1:4-5; 1 Pet. 1:1-2).

Much more could be said about the doctrine of election, but I’d like to keep this first article short and clear. God chose you from the beginning, Christian. That’s the essence of election—choosing or selecting something out of a group. God is the one Who chooses. Salvation is His plan, His wisdom, and His glory. We’re merely the beneficiaries of His sovereign, electing grace. That’s where salvation begins.

It Is Finished!

John 19:30 says, “When Jesus therefore had received the sour wine, He said, ‘It is finished!’ ” The Greek expression is only one word—tetelestai. It was not the groan or curse of a victim; it was the proclamation of a victor. It was a shout of triumph: “IT IS FINISHED!”

The wealth of meaning in that phrase is surely impossible for the human mind to fathom. What was finished? Jesus’ earthly life? Yes, but far more. Every detail of redemptive prophecy? Certainly, but not that alone.

The work of redemption was done. All that the law of God required, full atonement for sins, everything the symbolism of ceremonial law foreshadowed—the work that the Father had given Jesus to do—everything was done. Nothing was left. The ransom was paid. The wages of sin were settled. Divine justice was satisfied. The work of Christ was thus accomplished in toto. The Lamb of God had taken away the sins of the world (John 1:29). There was nothing more on earth for him to do except die so that he might rise again.

Here it is appropriate to add a crucial footnote: When Jesus said, “It is finished,” he meant it. Nothing can be added to what he did. Many people believe they must supplement his work with good deeds of their own. They believe they must facilitate their own redemption through baptism, other sacraments and religious rituals, benevolent deeds, or whatever else they can accomplish through their own efforts. But no works of human righteousness can expand on what Jesus accomplished for us. “He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy” (Titus 3:5). The beginning and the end of our salvation was consummated by Jesus Christ, and we can contribute nothing.

What would you think if I took a felt-tipped pen and tried to add more features to the Mona Lisa? What if I got a hammer and chisel and offered to refine Michelangelo’s Moses? That would be a travesty. They are masterpieces! No one needs to add to them.

In an infinitely greater way, that is true of Jesus’ atoning work. He has paid the full price of our sins. He has purchased our redemption. He offers a salvation from sin that is complete in every sense. “It is finished!” Nothing we can do would in any way add to what he accomplished on our behalf. Nor does “lordship salvation” suggest otherwise.

Having finished his work, our Lord “bowed His head, and gave up His spirit” (John 19:30). There was no jerk, no sudden slump. He bowed his head. The Greek word evokes the picture of gently placing one’s head on a pillow. In the truest sense, no man took Jesus’ life from him. He laid it down of his own accord (cf. John 10:17–18). He simply and quietly yielded up his spirit, commending himself into the Father’s hands (Luke 23:46).

Only the omnipotent God who is Lord of all could do that. Death could not claim Jesus apart from his own will. He died in complete control of all that was happening to him. Even in his death he was Lord.

To the human eye Jesus looked like a pathetic casualty, powerless in the hands of mighty men. But the opposite was true. He was in charge. He proved it a few days later by forever bursting the bonds of death when he rose from the grave (1 Cor. 15:20–57).

And Jesus is still in charge. “For to this end Christ died and lived again, that He might be Lord both of the dead and of the living” (Rom. 14:9).

This, then, is the gospel our Lord sends us forth to proclaim: That Jesus Christ, who is God incarnate, humbled himself to die on our behalf. Thus he became the sinless sacrifice to pay the penalty of our guilt. He rose from the dead to declare with power that he is Lord over all, and he offers eternal life freely to sinners who will surrender to him in humble, repentant faith. This gospel promises nothing to the haughty rebel, but for broken, penitent sinners, it graciously offers everything that pertains to life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3). [Taken from The Gospel According To Jesus, Chapter 23. Tetelestai!: The Triumph Is Complete]

Wouldn’t it be advantageous to the weary multitudes that languish in sin, sorrow and guilt to rest in the hope of finding their refuge in their own contrivances? I can almost hear the refrain now, “create your own narrative of escape and be done with it.” This would certainly relieve all the fuss over doctrinal technicalities of so-called truths and sufficient verifications of actual propositions.

Could it objectively be stated that all things are true? According to today’s faddish religiosity, it seems to meet the criteria of reality for millions of unwary souls. Just do your best and let the chips fall where they may. Or, more strangely than that, let us find the way that is the most comfortable without all the potholes, pitfalls and pontifications. It seems strange that such worldly philosophy has actually been pilfered away from the world by the church, which is saying the same thing as the world, or worse, in propagating a cheap gospel.

Of course, in our enlightened days, everyone knows that happiness is the new religion. The problem is that whatever makes you happy contains highly fraudulent content, and it usually fades faster than what makes men unhappy. Sin’s seasonal pleasures have their moments, but take note how short they are often observed to be.

Isn’t it ironic that anything in this present, passing world must be more precise than religion? If 2+2=4 to a mathematician, then why not maintain such certainty when it pertains to the soul?

This has always been the rub. Christ, proven by history and providence, is almost always trumped by ignorance at every turn. Not to imply that Christ victory is uncertain, but that present realities appear in such fashion as often as the sun rises in the morning.

To gather a hope of salvation is to gather Christ, not a mere concept. If all ways to heaven are options, then what of Christ Himself who unequivocally stated that He was the only way. Should we not erase the memory of such a man from the public forum, seeing that He alone has propagated a single truth with His narrowness that condemns all other avenues of promised escape.

For those who take the road most traveled, which is not, of course, the Christ road, there must be utter, yeah, universal rejection of the one way to God through Christ.

How odd when I hear the unbelievers praise the character of Jesus Christ while failing to observe His lying ways, if, in fact, all roads lead to the same place.

Christianity is not mass transportation; it is a dusty road less traveled by those who have come to know that Christ did not lie, while all others did nothing but lie.

I have been convinced for 38 years in the ministry that while any person flirts with other means of escape from God’s wrath, they will never turn to the one true way, which is in Christ alone by grace alone through faith alone! All others are facsimiles. They are deceitful replicas that appear to be what they can never truly be — the way of true eternal salvation.

What If ... ?

 *  What if Jesus had never come to earth?

 *  What if the virgin birth had never happened?

 *  What if the life Jesus lived on this earth had not been perfect?

 *  What if Jesus had decided not to go to the cross?

 *  What if our Lord had remained in the tomb?

 *  What if the Bible had never been written?

Interesting questions, huh? In reality, if any one of these six things had not happened, life would not be anything like we know it. The world would be in utter chaos all the time.

The events mentioned in the questions above are some of the most important occurrences in eternal history. Obviously, it would be quite shocking—probably beyond belief—to get even a slight glimpse of what the world would have been like without these happenings.

What would we see (in the fashion of George Bailey in the classic movie It’s a Wonderful Life) if we could get a glimpse of the world without these events? In short, what would the world be like without the gospel?

Back in the 1500s, Reformer John Calvin answered that question well:

Without the gospel, everything is useless and vain; without the gospel, we are not Christians; without the gospel, all riches is poverty; without the gospel, all wisdom is folly before God; without the gospel, strength is weakness; without the gospel, all the justice of man is under the condemnation of God.

Also, because the gospel has permeated every aspect of society over the years, we can describe life without the gospel as utter misery. There would be no knowledge of God, no salvation, no influence by the Holy Spirit, no churches, no Christianity, no understanding of right from wrong, no freedom from the shackles of sin, no law and order, no heaven to look forward to, no moral absolutes, no sermons, no standards of justice, no transformed lives, no forgiveness, no sanctification, no Christian nations, no great old hymns, no equality for women, no missions, no hope for the future.

Since many major institutions had their origins through the church or through principles issued by God, they might not exist: hospitals, universities, representative civil government, charities, free enterprise, capitalism, punishment for criminals, etc.

Praise God that believers don’t have to face those miserable negatives. Instead, we have a package of grace that contains all that God has deemed sufficient (2 Corinthians 12:9) for a full, enjoyable Christian life and a secure heavenly future.

Praise God, since the gospel is real and relevant, that we don’t ever have to say, “What if ...?”

What is the gospel? To put it succinctly, ...Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, (1 Corinthians 15:3b-4).

Some have taken this verse and the concise nature in which Paul states the gospel and postulated that this is all we need to say to people. If they nod their heads vertically, they're ready for glory.

However, let's think about this. Is this really all the apostle Paul would say? Is this the first time Paul has ever spoken to the Corinthian church about the gospel? No, as a matter of fact, before writing this letter Paul had spent extensive time with the Corinthians in person. Paul had preached the gospel thoroughly, with great detail to the church in Corinth.

Contrastingly, look at the letter that Paul did write to a congregation he had never spent time with in person—the church in Rome. Paul unleashes the greatest systematic letter of theology the Bible has to offer. The gospel was expounded upon in great detail by Paul.

As a matter of fact, Paul knew they had heard the gospel. But in not knowing to what extent or the depth of their being taught Paul covers his bases and more by teaching them in depth.

Paul knew that a person that did not understand the necessity of the gospel could not rightly understand the gospel. In other words, understanding the gospel is not just knowing the three points cited above. Knowing and understanding the gospel is as Jesus said in the gospels. Jesus came to seek and save sinners. The healthy and righteous do not need a physician, only the sick.

What did Jesus mean? He meant that people must understand their spiritual condition. They must understand that they are spiritually dead. They must understand that they are under the condemnation of God and justly so. They must understand that they have been created for the sole purpose of glorifying God. They must understand they were created to love the Lord their God with all their heart, mind, soul and strength.

But no one has kept these commands and purposes, save Jesus Christ; so we all stand condemned. We must understand that to stand before God blameless and un-condemned, we become other people. We must become people that are perfectly righteous and holy. We must become people that have obeyed the law of God perfectly. We must become people who every second of every day live for the purpose of honoring and glorifying God. We must become people who treasure God above all things.

How can this happen? How can one become another man? Who can we look to? In comes the gospel of Jesus Christ. What good news the gospel is when you rightly understand your condition and God's requirement.

The good news of the gospel is that For our [the elect] sake He made Him who knew no sin to become sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God [in Christ Jesus] (1 Corinthians 5:21). This is the gospel the Bible teaches. This is the gospel that we must preach. This is how we must evangelize. We must do all that we can to make sure people understand this malady. We must do all we can to make sure we clearly give the only remedy—Jesus Christ.

The gospel is God’s. He planned it and provided it. To speak of the gospel’s purpose is, then, to speak about God’s purpose in the gospel.

It would seem to be an open and shut matter. What other purpose could God have in providing the gospel than to save sinners?

While there can be no debate about God designing the gospel to save sinners, we must say God had an even larger purpose in the gospel, namely, bringing glory to Himself in the process of saving sinners.

Some have trouble with this. It seems to them to be wrong for God to seek His own glory. If it is wrong for us to seek our glory, why is it okay for God? The answer is that God is perfect while we are imperfect. If God, the perfect being, failed to seek His own glory, He would no longer be perfect!

In what ways does the gospel bring glory to God? First, it brings glory to His justice.

God’s justice demands that He punish sin. If He were to fail to do so, He would compromise His holy character. Those who think the gospel is God setting aside His justice in order to show His love are dead wrong. In the gospel, God honored His justice. God poured out His wrath on Jesus so all who take refuge in Jesus will never have to experience that wrath themselves.

The gospel also glorifies God’s grace. We will never adequately appreciate the gospel until we understand that God did not have to do anything to save us. There was nothing in us to commend us to God. It was God’s grace that compelled Him to save us.

The gospel also glorifies God’s wisdom. It’s helpful to think of God’s justice and grace as persons standing before His throne to plead their respective interests. Regarding the sinner, Justice cries out to God: “O God, you are holy, and you have pronounced the penalty of death upon sinners. Now I demand that the penalty be carried out.”

Then Grace also speaks up: “What Justice has said is true, O God. You are holy and must judge sinners. But You are also gracious and take no delight in sinners bearing the penalty of their sins. I plead with You to find a way to release sinners from the guilt and penalty of their sins.”

Here, then, was the great dilemma: how could God at one and the same time punish sinners and let those sinners go free? God’s wisdom found the answer, and that answer was Jesus. He went to the cross and bore God’s wrath. So Justice was satisfied because the penalty had been carried out. But because Jesus bore the penalty and because Justice only demands that the penalty be paid once, no penalty remains for those who trust in Jesus. So Grace was also satisfied.

The gospel, then, honors the justice, the grace and the wisdom of God, and all who are chosen by God, redeemed by Christ and regenerated by the Spirit. The gospel will honor those same attributes throughout eternity.

Although the most familiar Great Commission passage is Matthew 28:18-20, four other parallel accounts merit equal attention and highlight a vital feature of the gospel mandate—it’s scope. Take a look:

Acts 1:8, “You shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

Luke 24:46-48, “Thus it is written and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations ,beginning at Jerusalem. And you are witnesses of these things.”

Mark 16:15, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.”

John 20:21, “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.”

Those gospel commission passages have three things in common. (1) They came directly from the lips of Jesus. (2) They were personally addressed to His disciples. (3) They each assume the gospel is for all people in all places at all times—to the ends of the earth.

On the heels of Christmas, maybe some of the familiar carols are still fresh in your mind. One of my favorites is Joy to the World by Isaac Watts. My heart leaps with excitement when I hear the words, “He comes to make His blessings flow, far as the curse is found.”

“You are worthy to take the scroll, and to open its seals; for You were slain, and have redeemed us to God by Your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and have made us kings and priests to our God; and we shall reign on the earth.”

Every tribe, tongue, people and nation. That song is a testimony to the power of the gospel—one gospel to reach every person in every place under heaven.

God doesn’t call us to update, adapt or contextualize His message to capture the interests of more people. He calls us to believe it, live it and carry it to every last human being dwelling on the face of the planet.

Until Christ returns, it’s the mission of the church to set her gospel cross-hairs on every people group not yet accosted with the gospel. That requires faith and wisdom, both gifts from God. And to be practical, it also requires an equipping church with a strategic plan. Do you belong to one of those?

Now, if we were honest, all this talk about taking the gospel to the ends of the earth is convicting and unsettling. We often struggle just to take the gospel to the end of our street. Yet God works with frightened, inadequate, unworthy sinners, because that’s the only people He has at His disposal. The question is, are you a willing vessel? Do you say through trembling lips through the prophet Isaiah, “Here I am! Send me.” (Isaiah 6:8)?   

Perhaps you lack the physical capacity to make an arduous journey to the ends of the earth. In other words, you might not be able to join the next team headed to Cameroon. Fair enough, but consider this: you can pray for them, partner with them financially and even help equip them for their journey.

There are no exemptions to God’s call on our lives. He commands us all to get the message to the ends of the earth. Are you part of the effort?

Utopia! Shangri-La! Just the sound of those words stir up emotions of happiness, harmony and unending tranquility. Yet while most people, I assume, long for peace that leads to lasting happiness, the kind of peace that is often sought after is not to be found in the world in its present corrupted state.  Multiplied attempts to produce such a serene society have not only failed miserably but have more often than not produced greater unrest and chaos.  Consider our immediate past alone with such “forward thinkers” as Stalin, Hitler, Mao Tse-tung and Pol Pot whose promises of a cleansed utopian future produced some of the greatest atrocities ever known to man.

It is impossible to suppose that such futile attempts at peace will come to an end until Christ returns in clouds of glory, but these efforts will most certainly and ultimately fail, and will do so without remedy. Such an end, of course, will most likely leave the same wake of destruction that other feeble attempts at peace have left in the past.                 

The Bible is not silent about this matter of peace on earth. For instance, Jeremiah who wept his way through his salient prophesies, warned Judah before its fall in 586 B.C. of their forthcoming judgment, disaster, defeat and impending death for the nation. Granted, Jeremiah’s message during his first five years of ministry may have been the primary instrument in the great revival of 622 B.C., but, such spiritual awakening was short-lived. Wicked rulers followed such godly men as King Josiah and others who were friendly with Jeremiah’s message such as Ahikam, Shaphan, Gedaliah, and Achbor. And it must be noted that the prophets Nahum and Zephaniah certainly influenced the reformed movement that brought about a revival that created openness to Jeremiah’s early messages. However, as we move into the latter part of Jeremiah’s prophecy of warnings concerning the impending doom of Judah, persecution plagued his ministry.

One of Jeremiah’s most stern warnings came in chapter eight, where he informed Judah specifically about the scattering of the bones of the kings of Judah and its officials, priests, prophets and inhabitants. Perhaps, his most terrifying prophecy declares God’s pronouncement that “death would be preferred to life by all the remains of this evil family in all the places where I have driven them” (vs. 3).  He goes on to speak of their “perpetual backsliding,” failure to “relent,” turning to their “own course,” instead of God’s way. The fruit of which will be the lack of knowledge in the things of God (vs.7), shamed, dismayed and taken (vs. 9), wives given to others and their fields to others (vs. 10).

 This all culminates in chapter eight, vss. 10b-11. Because their prophets and priests are “greedy for unjust gain, they have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, ‘peace, peace,’ when there is no peace.”  The key here is that the message was not true. “Peace, peace, when there is NO peace.” This is a prime example of the present and most prevalent approach to the preaching of the Word of God, that is, if you can call it the Word of God. These prophets of Judah were apparently giving a message that “healed the wound” of the troubled sinful people of Judah, but only because it met their perceived needs. The remedy these false professors prescribed was only skin-deep and failed to get to the spiritual cancer eating away at their souls. Of course, as it is in our day, the carnal lot of them readily received this damnable falsehood. These are the precursors of the “itching ears” of the Apostle Paul’s warning in 2 Timothy 4:3, when he states a forthcoming apostasy, “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions.”

Therefore, the same people that accepted the false prophets’ lies rejected the true prophecy of Jeremiah. While the message of the naysayers was to ignore divine retribution and the prescribed remedy against it, Jeremiah warned them of impending ruination and eternal judgment if they failed to relent from their wayward rebellion against God. It is in that context that we have before us such contrasting proclamations, with such devastating consequences, for not only did they discard the truth of God outright, they received the falsehoods of the godless purveyors without a hint of reservation.

To understand their plight we must understand both their depravity as well as their residual cravings for peace. It is a vestige of the image of God that causes a sinful being to long for something they cannot fully understand. In this case it is peace, but such cravings are corrupted by the presence and power of the sinful nature. The sinner thinks he knows what he longs for, but he really has no idea. So, when a man seeks after what he longs for he willingly follows his nose to the flesh’s route of least resistance. In other words, until the flesh is dismantled and rendered powerless (though believers fight against the remnants of flesh) by a spiritual new birth, it contrives and deceives its way to its easiest perceived avenue of happiness. Furthermore, since this happiness, due to the wickedness of the depraved heart (Jer. 17:9), cannot abide its own dethroning or its own subservience to another’s allegiance, it rejects the notion of self-denial and death to self by way of the cross. Therefore the puny pontifications of self-appointed preachers which gives the flesh what the flesh desires is readily accepted by the sinful heart and justifies itself by way of religious deception.

The pursuit of peace is thusly explained when we see what the heart desires more than what God demands. Apart from the effectual calling of God in overcoming the stubbornness and deadness of the heart there is no sure remedy. But when God, who created man in His own image, restores our first Adam image (fallen Adam) with the last Adam image (Christ) our desires are sanctified in that we will not ultimately stand for the false shadowy promises of a fallen world. No, we will not abide such things, for now we truly desire the real substance of Truth, which alone can meet the deepest needs of a man’s heart. The temporal peace of man’s frail dreams of utopia no longer appeals to the regenerated heart. We are not into counterfeit visions that are in fact, nightmares. Our world is now another world, a world that by faith we now see though it is not yet fully in sight. The peace and only peace we are now ready to embrace is the peace that only the Prince of Peace can bring to us. It is not yet manifest on earth for all to see, though in the hearts of the redeemed it presently reigns. Of course, believers have not fully experienced it in all of its glory, yet there is coming a new heaven and a new earth where all that is good and godly shall rule and reign. Our joy and peace will be unalterable and everlasting where no man or nation can ruin its reality. Bombs and hatred, lies and godlessness have no place in that eternal realm. Only eternal bliss without end shall be the lot of the redeemed.

To conclude, I implore you to consider carefully your future and the road you take into eternity. Though promises of earthly peace abound in the world of politics, religions and philosophies, their pledge is not a reality. Consider the history of fallen humanity, traverse its course and look carefully at her boundaries and you will not be able to make out even a shadow of peace that lasted for more than a very short time. The heart longs for it, but the world and all that it offers has no storehouse that holds even a hint of lasting peace for the inhabitants of the earth. But dear friend, if you will but look upwards to Christ, you will find a universe of abounding grace and consequent peace, which comforts the heart, clears the conscience and makes a way through this troubled world. And finally, that inward peace within the context of the flourishing chaos of the present age will one day issue into a full society made up of a universe of joy beyond measure attended by the holy angels, redeemed humanity and the blessed Triune God. Furthermore, no evil thing, nor fear, nor death shall haunt you, for Christ will gather you under His wings and comfort you forevermore. This, and this alone is the only PEACE that last forever, all other attempts at peace are mere facsimiles that are fading away before our very eyes. Christ alone is the Prince of Peace and true peace abides only in His Kingdom.