It's back

I quite suddenly and unexpectedly find a new chapter of my life and my family’s life opening up before me. 

I am posting this on my blog partly because it seemed worthy of a little bit more than a facebook status update. However, I pondered a long while trying to decide whether to post anything. The biggest reason for that is because my kids see what I put on facebook, and they will be affected by whatever I write to update everyone else. 

The fact is, to put it bluntly, I am having a relapse of the non-hodgkins lymphoma that laid me low in 2010. This will require retreatment, more intensive this time. It's disappointing, to say the least, as the majority of people with variety of non-Hodgkins lymphoma that I had ("Diffuse Large B Cell") are cured first time around. I have some more tests to go through first, but chemotherapy treatment is currently planned to start on Monday 10th September.

On the more positive side, they seem to have picked it up earlier this time. I am functioning normally at the moment, whereas at the start of 2010 I spent almost 6 weeks in hospital and lost 20kg (3 stone) of weight before they diagnosed what was wrong. 

There will be time to reflect more deeply and to share more at later points, God willing, but for now this is news that needs some time to sink in. Life for my family will change again, that’s for sure. For one thing, I may have time for more blogging!

What I will say is this: whilst this is not good news, it is another challenge in a life full of challenges, and an opportunity to grow. I believe that life for a Christian believer is a training ground, and hardships are the exercises that make us stronger. A sports coach will design training sessions incorporating 'progressions', so that athletes can master certain skills before adding complexities and further levels of difficulty. This is my family’s next progression. We must face this challenge with the knowledge the Master Coach is guiding us, encouraging us, promising His help, and He intends it for good. 

“Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)

The risk of offending people

Whose Rules Rule? - Part Twelve

Should we try to avoid offending people?

This is the last part of this series and I would be surprised if I haven't offended anyone by what I've been saying over the past few months. As I've said throughout the series, talking about morality can be unpopular in a culture that is based on the ultimate final authority of self. A detached discussion is almost impossible, since we are moral beings, when most people see themselves as ultimately in control of what defines right and wrong in their own lives.

And yet this is something that Christians are rightly very sensitive about. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10:32, "Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God," meaning give no offense to anyone. Jesus said, "Judge not, that you be not judged." (Matthew 7:1) We know we have good news to share with people, we want to share it, and offending people causes them to shut their ears and refuse to listen to it. We don't want to judge people, because we know that we too are sinners and are only saved through God's grace in Christ. To try to remain at peace with those around us, so that we may have opportunity to share the good news of the grace of God in Christ with them, is a very laudable aim.

So I want to make two points. First, I want both Christians and modern non-religious people to understand that simply talking about morality, saying that something is wrong, immoral, unrighteous, or sinful, is not in itself being judgmental. A judgmental attitude involves portraying ourselves as better than someone else, looking down on them. Romans 14:10 makes this clear: "Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God." Paul equates passing judgment on someone with despising them, and his reason for saying that it's wrong is that we are all equally deserving of judgment. That ties in with something I talked about in parts 7 and 8.

That's why I have spent such a long time trying to get across that the difference between Christian morality and non-religious morality needs to be understood. Non-religious people understand discussions about morality within their own frame of reference, and that is that all morality is relative and guided by our personal preferences. Christian morality, however, does not fit into that. We have an objective basis for our moral code.

So simply saying something is wrong is not being judgmental. Saying something is wrong in a way that despises other sinners and puts ourselves in a superior position is being judgmental, and is not speaking in the way Jesus would want us to. So we need to learn a compassionate way of speaking about morality, one that makes it clear that we are equally under the law and equally sinners, and that the reason for our talking about morality is in order to lead them into the way of salvation. We want to see them saved, we want them to have eternal joy and life, we want them to find true fulfilment. But they will not get that without recognising and repenting of their sin.

And neither can we say we are better because we have repented and turned to Jesus in faith. Faith is itself a gift from God (Ephesians 2:8,9). We are, without the work of God within our hearts, dead in trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1-7). Jesus himself said that we must be "born again" (John 3:3) in order to see the kingdom of God - in other words something must happen to us that we cannot initiate ourselves. Our salvation, as Christians, is dependent entirely on God's grace.

If the people we speak to will listen carefully and graciously, then they may at least understand this point, even if they don't come to accept God's authority in all things including morality. On the other hand, it may lead them to take even greater offense.

You see - and this is my second point - even when people see clearly that we don't judge people automatically by making moral statements about right and wrong, the Christian message may still be offensive to them. Paul talks elsewhere about, "the offense of the cross" (Galatians 5:11).

Why would the wooden cross that was used to kill the Lord Jesus Christ be offensive? Because it demonstrates the justice of God, the kind of wrath He pours out on disobedience. It demonstrates that no one can see themselves as automatically "in" with Him, but they must go through His Son, Jesus Christ. The cross demands repentance, it demands we put our faith in someone who is genuinely better than us, genuinely greater than us. He is perfect, and yet He suffered death for our sake. But we don't want to be told what to do, who to have faith in. We don't want to submit to anyone. We love our sins, our sinful personal preferences. Repentance is an utterly repugnant idea to us.

We hope that people will accept our message, but we should not expect everyone to do so. Paul said of his own ministry, "For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life." (2 Corinthians 2:15-16) In other words, if God is working light and life within a person, He will use our words to save them. But if not, our words will be to them an offensive, deathly stench that will only push them further away.

Therefore, we should not tone down our message simply because people are offended. When people are offended we need to understand that they are feeling threatened by the very core truth of the gospel - that we are responsible to God and we have failed Him and deserve His wrath. That is actually a good thing. Without seeing that, no one would be able to understand the need for faith and repentance.

To put it another way, following the parable I gave last time, if I were to offend people by warning them that they are going the wrong way on a countryside walk, and are heading towards a cliff edge and towards certain doom, what should concern me most? The fact that those people are annoyed with me? Or the fact that they are continuing towards the edge of the cliff? What would I do? Stop talking about the fact they're going the wrong way, because they want me to shut up? Or keep talking, finding any way possible to get them to realise that they are in danger?

So I hope we are all, by now, challenged to keep talking about morality, to base our moral statements/arguments firmly on what is in God's Word, to use the opportunity to expose the bankruptcy of non-religious foundations of thinking, to recognise where the offense we cause is because of the truth, and to love the gospel and love our Saviour all the more.

To Jesus Christ be all the glory. Amen.

Loving by talking about sin

Whose Rules Rule? - Part Eleven

 

Last time I was trying, poorly in my own judgment, to contrast the outcomes of non-religious morality (selfishness and oppression) with Christian morality (love, charity and care for everyone not matter how sinful). I really wanted to show that for a Christian to say that something is wrong, even while they attempt to ensure that it is made illegal, does not mean that they will be unkind to the people who do those wrong things. We too are sinners, under the same moral judgment of God. But having repented and accepted the Lord Jesus, we take seriously the command to love fellow sinners, fellow humans. We don't take it personally, as the non-religious person does, when people do things we believe are wrong.

The greatest demonstration of love was the love of God for sinners, in giving His only Son to die in our place, so that through faith and repentance we might be set right with Him and have eternal life. "God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8)

If God loved sinners that much, we should also love sinners (i.e. everybody). We saw that last time.

But what is the greatest demonstration of love that Christians can show?

As a kind of parable, consider a man who knows an organisation that will give anyone immense riches if they simply come and ask. This organisation is wealthy enough to do that for everyone. What would be the most loving thing that man could do? Surely it would be to tell everyone?

Consider another parable. A man can see a bunch of people who have inadvertently passed a "danger!" sign and are wandering towards a hidden cliff edge. What is the most loving thing that he can do? Surely it would be to tell them!

Hence, as Christians, when we see people being sinful and immoral and bringing God's wrath upon themselves (which starts in this life and is finalised at the Last Judgment), while we know God, through Christ, will give anyone eternal life who comes to Him in repentance and faith, what is the most loving thing we can do? Surely it is to tell people.

That's one of the main reasons why moral debates about homosexuality, adultery and marriage, for instance, are so important within the modern church. It is not because we want to judge others by our own standards. It is because God judges by His own standards (which are clear), and we rob people of the opportunity to repent before God, and obtain eternal life in a perfected creation, if we do not call wrong things wrong. For Christians to avoid moral statements or water them down for the sake of peace in a secular society is unloving. For Christians to make strong statements about sin and morality is not unloving if it is done with the good news in mind, that all sinners may have eternal life if they repent and trust in Jesus Christ, who was punished in our place. It is the highest love we can show.

Love is....

Whose Rules Rule? - Part Ten

I've been talking for what seems like a long time about morality, sin and the consequences of it. To be honest it was riots in the summer of 2011 that partly sparked the thoughts. Or rather it was the reaction of the respectable middle class that made me think. We have to bear in mind that some of the commentators who were most horrified and condemnatory in seeing purposeless looting and violence were the same people who poke fun at religion and try to force Richard Dawkins' atheism on us at every opportunity. They are the same people who tell Christians that we can't say that homosexuality is wrong. They tell us we can't protest against abortion. They say that we shouldn't even talk to other people about our religion. And it's not just that they laugh at us or ignore us. For Christians to say that certain things are wrong is now practically illegal - witness for instance Christian guesthouse owners, Mike and Susanne Wilkinson, who were sued in 2010 because they refused to allow a gay couple to share a double room. The same people on the one hand condemn Christians for calling certain behaviour wrong, and on the other hand condemn the behaviour of others as wrong. Why should it be offensive for Christians to talk about right and wrong, but perfectly correct for non-religious people to talk about their own version of right and wrong?

It's the kind of situation that confuses Christians. Should we continue to be upfront and call wrong things wrong? What really is our basis for deciding right and wrong? Should we echo the condemnation of our non-religious neighbours when they speak out against certain types of sin, whilst keeping quiet about other sins?

What I've tried to outline is that Christians and non-religious people see moral statements in completely different ways. Non-religious people see themselves as the final authority in matters of right and wrong for themselves, and therefore when people do things they think are wrong it makes them angry. They are personally offended. They are also personally offended when people, like Christians, say that things are wrong that they don't believe are wrong. It challenges their authority. They worry that if enough people agree with the Christians, their actions will not be tolerated. They feel their freedom personally threatened.

On the other hand Christians see themselves as part of humanity, equally responsible to God, equally failing, equally sinners, equally hell-deserving, equally called to repentance and offered forgiveness through Jesus Christ. We are not personally offended or threatened when people transgress God's standards. We are concerned both for them and for the influence that immorality has on society and culture. We want to make our nation one that pleases God, and has His blessing because we uphold His rules. And we want to see people repent and receive salvation and eternal life. And therefore we shouldn't stop talking clearly about moral standards.

We've seen the emptiness and flimsiness of non-religious morality. But I want to look from a different angle this time.

What does non-religious morality give rise to? And what does Christian morality give rise to? It is common amongst the non-religious to speak of Christian morality as giving rise to oppression, whilst their own moral systems give rise to freedom. My argument will be the opposite.

Non-religious people see themselves as their own final authority. And their personal pleasure and freedom to enjoy whatever gives them pleasure is ultimately important to them. If they can just get on with it, they will. But if they feel barriers and taboos restricting them, they will work on tearing those down. And once they have torn them down they will ensure they stay down by the oppression of those who believe their behaviour is sinful and/or harmful.

That's what we've seen, in the UK at least, over the past 60 years or so. In the 1960s there were movements geared to tearing down all sorts of taboos, traditions and rules mostly to do with sexual freedom. Enough people got together to challenge the current norms of society, and it became permissible to kill unborn children. At first, of course, it was restricted to certain circumstances, but as time has gone on, because the restrictions were arbitrary in the first place, those restrictions have been relaxed. It became socially permissible (although not immediately normal) to have sex before marriage, not just within it. And as that became more and more common, during the 70s and 80s, we have been forced to set complex laws around civil partnerships, next of kin arrangements, and so forth. During the 80s and 90s, because sexual freedoms from the 60s were based on pleasure and personal freedom, those who had embraced homosexual lifestyles started to feel less compulsion to hide that. And so we had a long string of people 'coming out'.

As we reached the end of the twentieth century, and over the past ten years or so, the rejection of previous Christian norms has turned into the push for anti-Christian laws. There has clearly been democratic pressure consistently over the past 50-60 years to detach laws regarding sexual freedom from their Christian principles. However, since this has not happened fast enough for some, I believe that the media and political system has been hijacked. Spurious research is constantly wheeled out. Any science or psychology that questions the benefits or points out the dangers of permissive sexual lifestyles, homosexuality or abortion, is rubbished, shouted down, ignored or misreported. People who mention such scientific, or empirical, evidence are sidelined or sacked if they work in the media, medicine, education or social services.

And as if that were not enough, it has now become illegal to question the morality of certain behaviour. Sexual freedom is now, by law, more important than religious freedom. If our politicians have their way, very soon it will be illegal for churches to refuse same sex civil partnerships to be performed on their premises - even if they disagree with them morally. This amounts to oppression. But it is the only avenue open to those using arbitrary, subjective, arguments to support their position. They will have their freedom to enjoy their pleasure, no matter what the cost to other people - Christians, unborn children, etc.

Some of the non-religious, liberal, intelligentsia (i.e. not necessarily the man on the street, but those plotting and scheming the downfall of Christian moral standards) may argue that oppression is exactly what the old Christian standards would have done to dissenters back in the nineteenth century. However, there is a difference between outlawing an activity because we believe that doing it is wrong, and making it illegal even to think or say something is wrong. Pornography, for instance, was outlawed because it was believed to be wrong. Those who broke the law were punished by the law. Nowadays it is getting to the stage where Christians are punished, not for living in a certain way, but for saying certain things are wrong or unhelpful. And we are not punished only by the law, but by social exclusion.

Of course, it's much more complex than I can talk about here. And I don't know much, I admit that. But that's the way it feels to me. The freedoms of the non-religious have led to the oppression of Christians.

And Melanie Phillips was right in the Daily Mail article I referred to when commenting on the 2011 summer riots (www.dailymail.co.uk). Those riots showed that our liberal, non-religious friends and neighbours have so broken down moral boundaries that they are stripped bare. Everyone can see that our moral code is arbitrary. The only consistent reason for the rioting and looting seemed to be 'because I can'. Young people really do believe that they are their own final authority, and that if they want something they should go and get it. The law, the police, the judicial system, may be a deterrent for most people, but given half a chance there are a good number of people who would do some horrific things to get ahead in life.

People have also often complained about the lack of volunteers to help in education, child care, caring for the elderly and mentally ill. Why? Because contemporary society is selfish - our final authority is ourselves, we live for our personal pleasure and why should we care about anyone else?

Rejection of Christian morality has got us this far, and it will continue to push us into barbarism and societal breakdown until we are woken from our stupor.

In contrast, Christians believe that God requires that we treat each other well - to put it in Biblical terms - love your neighbour as yourself. Christian morality is primarily unselfish.

Jesus told the famous parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) to illustrate that when we are told to love our neighbour, this means everyone, and that love is practical and sacrificial.

The Samaritan man in the parable went above and beyond anything anyone would expect for an injured man that he did not even know. He picked the man up off the side of the road, put him on his own donkey, carried him to a nearby inn and took care of him. When he had to leave he left money and told the innkeeper that he would reimburse any excess costs.

In contrast the religious people (a priest and a Levite) walked past the man on the other side of the road, lest they be contaminated and made unclean by either a dead body or the blood of an unknown person. They were more concerned for their own religious position than for a man in need.

The punch line for the Jews was that even a Samaritan, whom the Jews would have considered scum, could show the kind of love towards others that God expects.

And therefore Christians should be people who, taking this on board, do everything they can to help other people in need.

That is why Christians have been involved in some of the most culture-transforming charitable work in history - think of Wilberforce's campaigning for the abolition of the slave trade, Shaftsebury's campaigning for better working conditions for the poor, Barnardo's work for vulnerable children, and many others. Christians do these things because we are all equal and because God's second highest requirement (after honouring Him above everything, and indeed flowing from that) is to love and care for others.

Since Christians know that everyone is a sinner, everyone has done wrong in God's sight, everyone deserves hell, the fact that we identify certain actions as morally wrong should not take away our own moral obligation and desire to show love and care towards the people who do such things. That's why Christians should continue to care for AIDS victims or teenage parents, even though many get into their predicament through promiscuous and immoral sexual activity. That's why we should continue to care for homeless people, whatever they are like as individuals. That's why we should continue to visit people in prison, whether they have raped, murdered, defrauded or abused children. Wherever we find people in need (and we have seen that every person is in need - in need of Christ's saving grace), especially those neglected by society, Christians should be in the forefront of caring for them. Within our worldview that care does not compromise our standards of morality.

Of course, those examples are at the extreme. On a day to day level the love of our neighbour could be as mundane as lending someone a lawnmower, giving away unwanted clothes, giving a lift to the hospital, giving directions, putting the bins out while the neighbours are on holiday. There is no-one we should be unwilling to help out - even if you know they deal drugs, use prostitutes or defraud the state benefits system. (Of course, it goes without saying that our help should not enable people to go further in their wrongdoing, but I've given these examples to get us thinking about how far we would go and whether there are people we avoid.)

Christian morality, then, has given rise to much charity and help for the oppressed. Non-religious morality leads to selfishness and oppression of those who disagree.

All may come! All may be saved!

Whose Rules Rule? - Part Nine

We learnt last time that the equality of human beings within a Christian worldview involves not only being created as special by God, in His image, but certain other things that are universally true of human beings. As human beings we are universally tainted by sin - we have a sinful nature. Our natural inclination is to sin and to be self-centred, rather than God-centred. And as universally sinful we are all headed towards a Judgment Day that will not go well for us, and we would all be sent to Hell without some intervention. The fact that we all die is one sign of that truth. Physical death in human beings would not have happened except as a consequence of sin. But we face the prospect of something much worse than death.

The good news is that Jesus Christ, God's own Son visible 2,000 years ago as a human being, died to take away sin and take away wrath. His death was the punishment for the sins of all those who believe in Him. He took our place. He suffered not just the physical agony of the crucifixion, preceded by the beatings, lashings, ridicule and betrayal. He suffered the separation from God that we deserve - on the cross He cried out, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46) That was a reference to a psalm of the old scriptures, but it reflected what He was going through on the cross. He was put out of God's presence, away from everything good. In a very real way, He suffered hell for us.

But He didn't suffer hell forever, as we would. He rose from the dead, with a perfected body, to show that He has conquered sin and death and Hell. Instead of those bad things, we can look forward to also rising from the dead and having a perfected body. And on that day we will also see a perfected creation, what the Bible calls "the New Heaven and New Earth" (Revelation 21; see also 2 Peter 3:13).

And Jesus did that all for us, for whoever will put their trust in Him.

The offer is universal, to every single human being on the planet. We are all equally graciously offered eternal life, forgiveness of our sins, renewed access to God (the source of all good) forever.

Going back to Romans chapter 5, verses 6-11, "You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

"Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation."

And later in verses 18-19, "just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men. For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous."

We are all sinners, we all deserve God's wrath, and we are all offered forgiveness and eternal life through Jesus Christ. "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16)

The way that we get access to this free gift of eternal life is simply through repentance and faith (see Acts 3:19 and 16:31, for example).

Faith is believing not just the facts about Jesus, not just believing that the Bible is true. Faith is trusting in the person, Jesus Christ, that He has done the necessary work so that you can look forward to receiving the promised forgiveness and eternal life.

Repentance means you stop doing sinful things. It means you stop acting like you are the final authority, and you acknowledge that God is the final authority and you submit to His authority. You stop doing things because of your self-centred desires, and start doing things because you want to do what God wants.

Sometimes I feel like we ought to be specific occasionally. So, for instance, repentance means that if you are an abortionist, you give up your job killing babies. If you are a prostitute, you stop selling sex. If you engage in homosexual sex, you do so no longer. If you are sleeping with a person you are not married to, you stop. If you are violently aggressive, you become peaceful. If you are involved in fraud, you stop and be honest. If you are greedy and selfish, you start to be selfless and open. And I could go on…

Repentance means acknowledging the sins of the past as sins, and resolving never to return to them.

But it's also much more than specific lists of dos and don'ts. Repentance is about recognising that God is above all, and we should obey Him, and trust Him, and if that means giving up something that He says is sinful then we do it happily. Repentance means we no longer usurp God's authority in our own lives. We no longer act as if we are the final authority when it comes to right and wrong in our thoughts, words and deeds. We acknowledge God's final authority. And that is a fundamental shift in worldview. I hope that has become clear over the nine parts of this series so far.

Hence when Christians speak about morality, calling for purity and repentance, we do so from a standpoint of equality, not supposed superiority. We are not only equally created, but equally sinners, equally wrath-deserving and equally called to repentance and faith, equally offered forgiveness and eternal life.

Our view of ourselves should give us a humble attitude when we stand for God's morality, and maintain that abortion is wrong, pornography is wrong, etc, because we know that we are not superior in God's sight.

It is Jesus Christ alone who makes the difference.

The road to hell is wide

Whose Rules Rule? - Part Eight

To recap, I've been talking for a few months about morality and it's place in Christian thought. I've compared Christian rational foundations with non-religious foundations. Non-religious philosophies, I've argued, have no rational basis for morality. They want to say some things are right and some things are wrong. They even sometimes treat Christians as if we are evil because we transgress their rule that no-one is allowed to question their authority! But because they have only themselves to turn to for authority, because their fundamental belief is that humans are no more special than rocks, apes, dolphins or roses, because they can't define anything objectively, their rules reduce to arbitrary preferences that they try to enforce on everyone else.

In the last couple of articles I've tried to show the foundations that Christians have for morality in more detail. Our responsibility is to God, because He created human beings to have a special relationship with Him. We are created equal. But because of the sin of Adam and Eve, the first human beings, every descendent has been tainted with self-centred, God-rejecting, sinfulness. And out of that sinful, self-centred heart comes immorality and sin. Human beings are equally sinners.

The consequences for sin are the same for every human being too.

Since all sin is an expression of a rejection of God's authority, He is perfectly justified to be filled with wrath and anger and indignation. The Bible warns us that we will all one day face God's judgment, and our sinful rejection of God's authority will be punished forever. Frankly, we deserve Hell.

People baulk at the idea of Hell, but if we only understood the nature and perfection of God we would see that it is the only punishment possible. God is perfect, and the source of everything good - love, joy, peace, perfection. To be cut off from God is to be cut off from the source of everything good, and therefore to suffer everything bad for the rest of eternity. Those who reject God's authority, because they would rather go their own way, want to enjoy the good things that come from God - beauty, love, joy, peace, power - but they refuse to submit to Him. God only allows that situation temporarily in "this life" - up to 80 years or so nowadays. When the Judgment Day comes, those who reject God's authority, evidenced by their sin (using the good things God has made and given to them for their own selfish ends, rather than for the purpose He gave them), will be given what their actions deserve - to be cut off from God forever, and therefore sent to an eternity without access to anything good, sent to Hell.

"It is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment…" (Hebrews 9:27)

"For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience." (Ephesians 5:5-6)

"… following the course of this world… among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind..." (Ephesians 2:2-4)

We may not all be equally sinful, but we are equally sinners and therefore equally deserve God's wrath and the eternal punishment in Hell that comes with that.

I'm going to publish the next chapter soon, but I do want to give you chance to dwell on this for a little while. In fact, if you are reading this retrospectively (in other words, you are picking up the series after the series has been completely published) then I'd encourage you to pause here and reflect.

This is not popular stuff, but it is reality. It's not just idle talk, it's not simply for lecture theatres, pulpits and blogs. It's not simply "very interesting stuff". It's about our eternal destiny. It's what will really happen in history because of what our real actions have been based on. And that's why it's important, as Christians, that we don't shirk from talking about it, unpleasant though it is.

I once talked to one of my housemates at university about the gospel, and tried to do so as sensitively as possible. At one stage, though, he asked me outright, "so you believe I'm heading to hell?" I said quietly, "Yes, I do." And he walked out of the room, and didn't speak to me again… ever. He avoided me until the end of the summer term, and that was his final year. I have not seen him or heard from him since that day in 1991.

In the film The Day After Tomorrow, one scene always strikes me. The film is a disaster movie, about how a particular combination of weather events conspire to bring about extreme weather across the whole world, leaving half the USA under snow and ice. Dennis Quaid plays the heroic scientist (Jack Hall) who predicts the events, and then has to go and find his son, Sam, who is trapped in the ice in New York. Having managed a brief conversation on the phone with his father, Sam knows that the best chance for the group of survivors he is huddled with in the New York Public Library is to stay indoors. If they go outside they may get caught in the huge freezing cyclones that are moving over the world, and they will freeze to death in seconds. At one stage the survivors in the library get impatient and talk of moving on to find better shelter. Sam pleads with them not to, telling them what his father has told him. He knows that by going outside they will die, and he tries to warn them. Some of the group simply ignore Sam, some argue with him and tell him to be quiet. Even when he explains that his dad is a climatologist and knows what is happening, and that he has just spoken to him, they still refuse to listen. All except a couple of the group go outside. Jack discovers their frozen bodies as he treks north through the snow to try to rescue Sam and his friends.

It strikes me that this is like the way Christians are treated when we try to warn about hell, eternal punishment. What we are doing is warning, because we have been told by our Father, that a big storm is coming - a Day of Judgment. Yet we are ignored, marginalised, mocked and sometimes shouted down for doing so.

The worst outcome can be avoided by listening to the Son. Jesus.

If you are not a Christian, don't, whatever you do, exit this series at this point. There is good news to come.

Nobody's perfect

Whose Rules Rule? - Part Seven

 

When we say, "nobody's perfect!" we are normally trying to find an excuse for something we have done wrong. But at the same time we all know that it's true. We know that we have faults as individuals, and we know that everyone has different faults. We disappoint ourselves with the mess we make sometimes, and others disappoint us too.

The Bible gives the reason that this is universally true and not just an exasperated exaggeration. We sin because we are sinful, not the other way around. We are not made sinful by the sins we commit. We commit sins because we are already sinful. Human nature is corrupt and therefore we all tend to do things that are wrong. Of course, it is also true that our sins tend to further corrupt us and that we can wreck our lives by getting into sinful habits. But my point is that none of us can escape sin. Our nature is corrupt.

It all stems from Adam and Eve, the original human beings. They disobeyed God, and were punished, and their condemnation comes down on the whole of the human race (read more in Genesis chapter 3). This is taught most clearly in Romans 5:12-21. Paul says, "Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man [i.e. Adam], and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned - for sin was indeed in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam…" In other words, since death was the consequence of sin, sin must have been universal in the world from Adam onwards, even though the Ten Commandments and written law of God were not given until thousands of years later. Sin is still sin even if it does not arise from transgressing an explicit command (like the transgression of Adam).

Paul continues, "… many died through one man's trespass… the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation… because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man… as one trespass led to condemnation for all men… by one man's disobedience the many were made sinners."

Because of this, as Paul says earlier in the letter to the Romans, "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:23)

So when Christians talk about equality of human beings, we are not just talking about being equally created - created equal and being equally responsible. We also mean that we are equally sinners.

This can seem harsh, because we have to say in all honesty that no-one in the whole world, except for Jesus Christ, is or has been perfect. And God's standards are perfect, because they arise out of His own perfections. God's purpose in creating the universe was to show His power, wisdom, beauty, perfection and love. But rather than following His purpose we have gone our own way. Adam and Eve's sin was not fundamentally about a piece of fruit. It was about seeking their own pleasure and trying to set their own direction, rather than following that of their Creator.

There are obviously specific rules which people trip over - whether that be lying, gossiping, cheating, having an affair with a married man, getting unnecessarily angry, killing an unborn baby, assisting an old or disabled person to commit suicide or offending people with the language you use. But these outward actions occur because they spring from a sinful heart - a heart that is basically selfish and self-centred and does not love God above everything. And everyone has a sinful, selfish, self-centred heart. If we were honest we would acknowledge that. The foundation of all that we do is actually our own pleasure, and not the pleasure of God. But that's the reason why we say that we are all equally sinners, even if some don't exhibit obvious outward sins. Nice people are sinners too!

That's something that some non-religious people also need to take note of when they accuse Christians of victimising them for their sins. And it is something that Christians need to be better at articulating. Nice people are sinners too! It is not just murderers, not just fraudsters, drug dealers and rapists. Respectable people are sinners too, because at their core they are self-centred and refuse to acknowledge God or follow His purposes and His rules.

In fact, let's be explicit. Christians are sinners too. A lot of people who are not Christians think they are giving a great rebuttal when they point to our flaws, failings and sins. But far from disproving our gospel it actually emphasises the point! We know we are sinful. We know we are internally corrupt. We are human and therefore that's what we are. We are ashamed of it, we don't like it, we pray for the strength to be less so. But we are equally sinners along with the rest of humanity.

Note that I didn't say we are all equally sinful - some sins are worse than others, as defined by God's law; and some people, therefore, sin more than others (more frequently, more seriously, more brazenly). Some people are more sinful than others. But we are all equally sinners - we are all sinful.

If you are not a Christian this may leave you wondering why morality matters so much if every person who has ever lived (apart from Jesus) has been brought down by it. But this is the road that you must travel in order to understand Christianity. It will take another two or three chapters to fully explain this.