My first Bible, at least the first one that I read, was a New Testament paperback put out by The American Bible Society titled, Good News for Modern Man. It was so titled as it was translated into modern English, primarily for those who had difficulty with reading the old and unfamiliar English found in the King James Bible as well as some of the other older translations.
The “Good News” in the title is of course the Gospel, the “Gospel of Grace” (Acts 20:24) , the Biblical revelation of what God has done in and through the person and work of God the Son, Jesus Christ, to save – to redeem sinful men and women from the eternal consequences of their sin, namely Hell, supernaturally making them new creations and reconciling them to the glorious relationship with God for which man was created, which will have its consummation one day in a new heavens and new earth (2 Corinthians 5:17-18) (Revelation 21:1-5).
What makes this truly good news, in fact the ultimate in good news for sin cursed mankind, lies in the reality that our salvation is all of God, we contribute absolutely nothing to it except our desperate need for it (Deuteronomy 28:15) (Isaiah 43:11).
This is contrary to all of the false religions of the world that weigh men down with the burdens and uncertainties of what a person must do to be right with their “god” and be worthy of the favorable afterlife promised by that deity. The Bible presents the devil as the author of such doctrines, which keep men under his sway and thus under God’s just judgement (1 Timothy 4:1) (2 Corinthians 11:14) (1 John 5:19).
Unfortunately, all too many of us who call ourselves Christians have the same faulty understanding of salvation, that there is something we, in ourselves, must do other than to put our faith in what God has done for us in Jesus (John 3:16) (2 Corinthians 11:3-4). And even our faith is in itself, a gracious gift of God, which is meant to humble our hearts (Ephesians 2:8-9).
This doctrine of faith in Jesus plus our works of some kind raised its ugly Gospel belittling head in the early church, which the Apostle Paul spent much time refuting throughout his ministry (Galatians 1:6-9) (Galatians 2:16).
Such beliefs/doctrines stem from our pride driven, man centered, can do nature, which says we must obtain our salvation the old-fashioned way, we must earn it. But even more so, they stem from our failure to see and understand the heinousness, ugliness and offensiveness of our sin in the eyes of a holy, just and good God, His hatred of it, and its thoroughly corrupting impact on our souls (Psalm 11:5-6) (Genesis 6:5) (Galatians 5:19-20).
The term sin in the Bible represents our disdaining of God’s purpose for and rule over our lives (Isaiah 30:1) (Romans 3:23). It is displayed in our opposition to His laws and commandments which represent His righteous nature and his glorious design and order for human flourishing and our individual happiness in Him (1 John 3:4) (1 John 5:17). Sin slanders the holiness of God, denigrates the majesty of God, denies the goodness of God and has brought nothing but suffering, sorrow, death and corruption into His good and glorious creation (Genesis 1:31) (Romans 8:22).
And there is no aspect of creation that has become more corrupted than man himself, beginning at the core of our beings, our heart, and extending to our minds, emotions, affections and bodies (Jeremiah 17:9) (Romans 1:24-32) (Isaiah 5:20).
This relationship was initially disrupted and corrupted in the garden paradise, Eden, where mankind, represented by Adam, having been given rule over all of God’s creation to freely enjoy, rejected God’s rule and authority over his life, joining the devil in his rebellion against God (Genesis 3:1-4). In doing so, Adam brought himself and all of mankind whom he represented under the curse and corrupting power of sin and its penalty, death, being cut off from the glorious life with God for which man was created, subject to sin’s corrupting power and God’s wrath and judgement on it (Romans 5:12) (Romans 1:18).
Thus, despite our prideful, self-sufficient, can do nature, in our sin corrupted condition, there is nothing man can do of ourselves to atone for our capitol offenses, our cosmic crimes against an infinitely just and holy God, who requires we be holy as He is holy, perfectly conformed to His righteous nature and character, perfectly obedient to His just laws and commandments if we are to live in His presence (Leviticus 10:3) (Psalm 24:3-6) (Matthew 5:48). Nor can we restore ourselves to the glorious men and women God created us to be in the beginning with His righteous nature and character, able to glorify God with our lives as was His purpose in creating us (Ecclesiastes 7:29) (Isaiah 43:7) (1 Corinthians 10:31).
And if we study our Bible as we should, it will quickly become apparent that the barriers to our achieving salvation through any efforts of our own are insurmountable, unconquerable, overwhelming, impossible to overcome by human effort or will (Romans 3:10-11). Jesus made this clear in response to the question from His disciples in Matthew 19:25-26 regarding who can be saved, wherein he replies, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
The LORD speaking through the prophet Jeremiah relates it to the impossibility of an Ethiopian black man being able to change his skin color or a Leopard removing its own spots (Jeremiah 13:23).
Jesus chastised the Pharisees, the self-righteous religious leaders of His day, for their attempts to make themselves right with God through their law keeping, religious rituals and good works, implying that it is the height of human arrogance to do so (Matthew 23:1-36) (James 4:6). God, through the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 64:5-7, makes the point that all of our efforts to achieve a saving righteousness are nothing but “filthy rags” in His eyes and thus we need to be saved.
And that salvation will come to sinners by God’s sovereign grace alone, received by the gift of faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ alone, for the glory of God alone (Ephesians 1:7-14). Why this is the only possibility will be the focus of my next post.
Grace and Peace ×