Monday, June 4, 2018
Who are
you, a mere human being, to argue with God? Should the thing that was created say to the
one who created it, “Why have you made me like this?” When a potter makes jars out of clay, doesn’t
he have a right to use the same lump of clay to make one jar for decoration and
another to throw garbage into? In the
same way, even though God has the right to show his anger and his power, he is
very patient with those on whom his anger falls, who are destined for
destruction. He does this to make the
riches of his glory shine even brighter on those to whom he shows mercy, who
were prepared in advance for glory. Romans
9:20b-23(NLT)
To say that we are
perfect
(in the sense that when we are born there are no flaws), is to completely
ignore the reality that we are born into (and of) a fallen human family; this
is a sin-touched world. To say the flaws
are nothing more than parts of the sum of who God made me, and therefore
perfectly alright, flies in the face of the necessity of the cross for
salvation. Literally, that kind of
thinking says, I’m OK and you are also OK…we have nothing in our character or being for
which we should be ashamed…or from which we need to be redeemed. Scripture takes a 180o opposite
take on that:
For everyone has sinned; we all fall
short of God’s glorious standard. Romans
6:23(NLT)
It’s true we are
made with flaws. God has allowed, in His
patient love and because He gave us free will, this world’s flaws to exist in
us; that is our right and it is what we all choose with that free will. But that also presupposes that, even in the
patience of God there is accountability and judgment for what we do with what
we’ve been given.
I have written
before about the “universalist” thinking (here)
which claims the cross was God’s unilateral acceptance of all humans,
regardless of their actions or beliefs.
I cannot think of anything that so blatantly denies Scripture and
flaunts sin as this heresy.
The LORD God,
Jehovah of the Old Testament declares through the prophet Malachi (3:6)
that He does not change, and He ends the New Testament with judgment for those
who have not received His Son, Jesus, and a shopping list of sins those who
live the lie of universalism. If all are
forgiven, why are there sheep and goats? If all are forgiven, why is there Hell? Why would Jesus teach about Dives,
a wealthy man who winds up in Hell because he lived outside of God’s ways,
treating a poor man as if he didn’t exist? If all are forgiven, what would be the point
of a Great
White Throne Judgment?
All these
teachings and more, added to common sense, and an innate knowledge of eternity,
evil, and accountability imprinted in our very being by God[2]
make it abundantly clear that denying the coming judgment amounts to nothing
more than ignorant whistling in the dark.
Living outside the express will of God, by purposefully rejecting what
God has said, is the very definition of the flaw of sin. We are born with it, but Christ has made the
way possible to have our flaws addressed.
But it isn’t all
passive (as universalism suggests) – salvation is received when sins are
forgiven. There is not a sin too big to
be forgiven. There is never a sin too
small to be confessed. And therein lays
the trap; we humans think we get to judge what is a small sin. The truth is, even the smallest, hairline
crack in your car’s windshield will eventually make the thing come apart. It isn’t IF a crack will bring ruin –
it’s WHEN;
it’s always just a matter of time!
It also isn’t a
matter for we humans to judge what sin is…it is not for the jar to tell the potter
how to define a crack in its’ being. In
the same way, humans must acknowledge sin for what God has declared in His
Word. If you look at the condition of
our world today, sin is rampant, and that means we are ripe for judgment; Greed…Lust…Fornication…Homosexuality…Infidelity…Anger…the
list is massive!
Only the cross of
Jesus has healing for our sin…and that only when we repent of our sins and
trust in His grace. Blaming God for our
flaws, saying this is the way He created me, makes Him an implicit co-conspirator
in our evil. We are Adam all over again,
offering our excuse, instead of our confession, blaming the Creator instead of
admitting to having chosen evil over righteousness.
For You Today
Arguing with God over sin didn’t
work for Adam and Eve; does it work for anyone?
Go to VIDEO
[1] Title Image: Courtesy of Pixabay.com
[2] Yet God has
made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the
human heart. Ecclesiastes 3:11(NLT)
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