For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ
died for the ungodly. Romans 5:6
It is vital to any understanding of
ourselves and our fellowmen that we believe what is written in the Scriptures
about human society - that it is fallen, alienated from God and in rebellion
against His laws!
There is plenty of good news in the Bible,
but there is never any flattery or back scratching, and what God has spoken is
never complimentary to men.
Seen one way, the Bible is a book of doom.
It condemns all men as sinners and declares that the soul that sinneth shall
die.
Always it pronounces sentence against society before it offers mercy; and if we will not own the validity of the sentence we cannot admit the need for mercy!
Always it pronounces sentence against society before it offers mercy; and if we will not own the validity of the sentence we cannot admit the need for mercy!
The coming of Jesus Christ to the world has
been so sentimentalized that it means now something utterly alien to the Bible
teaching concerning it. Soft human pity has been substituted for God's mercy in
the minds of millions, a pity that has long ago degenerated into self-pity. The
blame for man's condition has somehow been shifted to God, and Christ dying for
the world has been twisted into an act of penance on God's part. In the drama
of redemption, man is viewed as Miss Cinderella who had long been oppressed and
mistreated, but now through the heroic deeds of earth's noblest Son is about to
don her radiant apparel and step forth a queen. This is humanism - romantically
tinted with Christianity!
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