How to Believe in
God in the 2000s
1. Why It Is Hard to
Believe in God Today
1 Cor. 1:18-25
Many people are telling us that it's
just too hard for people today to believe in the God of Christianity. We
have to face it that the leading opinion makers of our culture--
the academics, the media people, the politicians, the
scientists-- for the most part find Christianity utterly incredible. Not
just slightly incredible, but utterly incredible. Not even
worth considering. Way out in left field.
Two hundred years ago, there was a
period in intellectual history known as the "Enlightenment."
During that period, scholars proudly proclaimed all the wonderful things
the human mind could accomplish, if only it could set itself free from bondage
to religion. The human mind, they said, should be autonomous (that means
"self-legislating"), subject only to its own authority.
Intellectual autonomy was the highest principle of the Enlightenment.
The Enlightenment, of course, was
not really anything new. The same attitude, the same emphasis on autonomy,
was present two thousand years earlier in Greek philosophy,
four hundred years earlier among the Renaissance humanists, and has
existed whenever and wherever people have tried to carry on the work of
the mind without God. From a biblical viewpoint, it is simply the attitude
of unbelief. It's the attitude that says "My mind is my own."
For people who claim autonomy, the
biblical message of salvation is irrelevant. Who needs salvation from sin?
For one thing, the would-be autonomous thinker says, we are not
sinners; for we decide what sin is, and we're not guilty of it. And if
we have any imperfections, we will either leave them alone or
else deal with them the way we deal with everything else: by autonomous
thought.
So, during and since the
Enlightenment, more and more philosophers, scientists, historians,
psychologists, economists, political theorists, even the main body of
theologians, denied the authority of the Bible. They scoffed at the idea
that God created the heavens and the earth, that man fell into sin
through Adam's disobedience, that God worked miracles on earth, that the Son of God came to earth as a man, that
he lived a perfect life, shed his blood for sin, and rose from the dead.
How, they asked, can modern people believe in such ancient, barbaric
ideas? Humanity has come of age! We cannot any longer believe in
angels, devils, miracles, resurrections from the dead, blood
atonement, an infallible book?
Fifty years ago, the theologian--
theologian, mind you,-- Rudolf Bultmann, said that one cannot believe in angels
and demons if he uses a telephone and travels in an airplane. I'm
not sure what using the telephone and traveling in airplanes has
to do with the existence of angels and demons. He never said exactly what
the connection was; these people never did. Evidently he thought it was
obvious. He kept saying, over and over, that Christianity would have to
come to terms with the Enlightenment. Today, Bultmann
is gone; he knows better now. But his attitudes are still very much with
us.
Now some people will tell you that
things have changed today from fifty years ago. Some will say that around
the 1960s the intellectual world shifted from "modern" to
"postmodern." While the moderns were very proud of their
intellectual powers, the postmoderns recognize
that intellect isn't everything; indeed, they're even inclined to be
skeptical or relativistic. They deny that the human intellect can discover
final or absolute truth. And, besides the intellect, postmoderns
say, intuition and feeling have their rights, too. While the moderns were
skeptical about the supernatural, we're told, the postmoderns
appreciate the supernatural. Along with science, they have come
to appreciate the religions of the
Does this mean that the postmoderns are more open to the Bible than the
moderns were? Are they more favorable to the idea that the Son of God came
to earth in human history, that he taught with absolute authority, worked
miracles, lived a sinless life and offered his body as a
blood atonement? Are they willing to bow the knee before the risen
and ascended Jesus Christ as the only Lord and Savior of men?
Certainly not.
For under the skin they too are Enlightenment people. They do not intend
to bow the knee to anyone; particularly, they do not want to bow the knees
of their mind. The difference between modern and postmodern is that
while the moderns followed the autonomous secular intellect, the postmoderns add that they have a right also to follow
their autonomous intuition and feeling. They will accept, now and
then, some strange beliefs; but only on their own inner criteria.
What they believe they believe on their own authority. Indeed,
that lust for autonomy is more powerful than ever. The
postmodernist rejects the idea of absolute truth, so that he can be even
more autonomous, so that he can be even freer in choosing his
beliefs for himself.
And some postmoderns,-- the New Age monists, to use Peter Jones's
terminology-- look within themselves to find God: not the God of the
Bible, but the God of their own inner selves, the God which is their own inner selves. This is the
ultimate autonomy, the self as God, the very worship of self.
So the postmoderns,
like the moderns, find Christianity quite incredible. The reason is that
the God of Christianity will not bow to the autonomous mind of man.
Believing in the biblical God and believing in one's own autonomy are
absolutely contradictory, totally at odds with one another. You cannot
do both. The God of the Bible is the sovereign Lord of heaven
and earth. He will not permit himself to be found by a
human intellect that shakes its fist in pride and says, "I will be
the final judge of truth and right." No two views can be
further apart than believing in the biblical God and believing in
human autonomy. To one who believes in his own autonomy,
Christianity will always seem totally ridiculous, utterly foolish, not
worth considering. The believer in human autonomy has already
denied the God of the Bible. He cannot even consider the evidence.
He cannot even believe in the possibility of the Bible being true.
It is not, you see, as though the
moderns and postmoderns have studied the
evidence objectively and come to a reasoned conclusion that God does not
exist. Rather, they reject the biblical God from the outset of their
investigation. The unbeliever starts with the idea that Christianity can't be true. He cannot take the evidence
seriously. He knows that if the evidence does prove the Bible, then he
will have to bow the knee, including the knee of his mind. And he will not
seriously consider that. Oh, he may be polite in a conversation
about religion. But in the final analysis, he is not an unbiased
party to the discussion. He has already made up his mind. For him,
the discussion is over. For he will not, he cannot, seriously question
the autonomy of the human mind.
The claim of autonomy; that's what
makes Christianity so hard for people to believe today. That is why
Christian views of the family, of sex, of education, of justice, of the
sanctity of human life are increasingly marginalized in modern society.
Our secularized society looks at us with increasing condescension
and pity. They do not listen to our arguments; they don't take
us seriously. Our positions are simply incredible. They violate
the main premise of secular thought, the premise of autonomy,
man's right to be the final judge of truth and falsity, right
and wrong.
You can argue any crazy idea and get
a hearing from Oprah or Phil. But try to get some serious attention for
the Lordship of Jesus, or the reality of the Resurrection, or even the
Ten Commandments. No, you'll be told; those are "religious"
views. We can't consider them as part of the public dialogue. You
may believe them privately, but don't promote them on TV; don't
teach them in school; don't mention them in a political campaign.
If you dare to proclaim the relevance of Scripture to society,
well, then, you are a fanatic. You are trying to force your
religion down people's throats. (Never mind that Christians can say
the same things about secularists with equal plausibility.)
Of course, some religious views are o.k.: transcendental
meditation is o.k.; native American spirituality
is o.k.; Islam and Buddhism should be given a place in any public forum.
Only biblical Christianity is excluded.
Talk to a secularized scholar and
try to get him to consider the hypothesis that God created the world.
You'll find that his resistance to the idea greatly exceeds the bounds
of normal rational discourse. Why? There are two
possibilities, aren't there? Either the world is basically personal or
basically impersonal. We know that the world contains impersonal
objects and forces: matter, motion, time, space, chance. We also
know that it contains persons-- beings with minds,
with self-consciousness. The two possibilities are: either the impersonal
reduces to the personal or the personal reduces to the impersonal. That
is, either the persons in the world are nothing more
than matter, motion, time, space and chance; or the matter, motion,
time, space and chance are the creations of a great person, who uses them
for his wise purposes.
If the world is basically
impersonal, it is a pretty dark, dreary, and hopeless place. Happiness,
justice, love, beauty might spring up for a while, but they are cosmic
accidents of no ultimate importance. Finally they will be consumed
in various cosmic explosions, and nothing will remain to
remember them. Ultimately they are meaningless. If the world is
basically personal, the situation is different: personal values
like happiness, justice, love, and beauty are wrapped up in the
very core of the universe. They are what nature and history is
all about. In time, it will be the matter of the world that will
be burned up, to be replaced by a new heaven and earth wherein dwells righteousness.
So: is the world basically personal,
or basically impersonal? One would think that either hypothesis is at
least worth considering at the outset of the discussion. But do
the secularists give equal attention to both? Do they
consider equally the evidence for both? My sense of it is that
they routinely assume that the universe is impersonal, and they do
not give any serious consideration to the other possibility.
Consider Darwinian evolution, Marxist economics, Freudian
psychology. Did Darwin, Marx, or Freud consider the evidence for the
existence of God and conclude objectively that God did not exist? Certainly not. They assumed that God did not exist, and they went on from there to develop impersonalist explanations of life, history, economics.
Why? Because impersonalism and autonomy go together. If God
exists, then autonomy is at an end; we must bow the knees of the mind. But
if God doesn't exist, then we are on our own, free. We can set our own
standards, believe what we want to believe. So to assume autonomy, the
secularist also assumes an impersonal universe.
Consider the debates in our time
about evolution and abortion. Both of these are real hot-button issues,
but there is very little real communication about them. People who believe
in evolution and abortion tend to cling to them with an
almost fanatical devotion. When the
Same for abortion.
Those who favor abortion today are not trying to encourage free debate on
the subject. They don't want schoolchildren to hear the other side. Why is
this? because these are, today, test issues in
the battle for human autonomy. The battle over evolution is essentially a
battle over the autonomy of human science; and the battle over abortion
is-- well, of course-- a battle over "a woman's right to
choose," even "a woman's right to choose the life or death of an
innocent child."
What about the anti-evolution and
anti-abortion positions? Aren't anti-evolutionists and
anti-abortionists equally dogmatic? Sometimes they are, certainly. My gut
feeling is that among the anti's there is more rational thought,
more consideration of the other point of view. But that
isn't important. Both sides are fighting over fundamentals, over
basic assumptions. They are fighting over the question of
whether people should be, or should not be, autonomous. And that issue
is fundamental, basic.
So why is it hard to believe in God
today? It is hard, because belief in the biblical God goes radically
against the whole drift of our culture, against the whole cultural consensus, against
human autonomy. For those who uphold their own autonomy, belief in the
Christian God is not only difficult, it's impossible.
And if you believe in God, but are
somewhat swayed by our cultural consensus, you will find belief in God a
very difficult thing. You will be torn back and forth,
tempted to abandon what belief you can muster.
Well, how can we believe in
something which so many think is impossible? First, I want you to know
that God is very much aware of the situation. Indeed, everything I've told
you so far comes right out of the Bible. Listen to what God says, in
1 Cor. 1:18-25:
For the message of the cross
is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are
being saved, it is the power of God. For it is written: "I will
destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent
I will frustrate."
Where is the wise
man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not
God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in
the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was
pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who
believe. Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom,
but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness
to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks,
Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the
foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God
is stronger than man's strength.
You see, there's nothing new about
the modern or postmodern cultural consensus. The apostle Paul had to
preach into the same kind of intellectual environment 2000 years
ago. These people also believed in their own autonomy. And they
too believed they had no need of salvation from sin.
Even more important, God designed
the Gospel to address precisely such a culture. In that first century
environment, the Gospel proved to be the "power of God unto
salvation." Not only wisdom, but power. It
cut through the culture like a hot knife through butter. Christians went
through suffering and persecution, but the blood of the martyrs was the
seed of the church, and in three hundred years the
How does it do that? It does that by
setting forth Christ-- Jesus Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of
God. Jesus is the eternal word of God, who was eternally with God
and who is God. As such, he shows us a whole new way to think.
He offers us a new mind; a mind which Paul in 1 Cor.
2:16 calls "the mind of Christ."
You see, if you start from human
autonomy, you can't believe in God. If you look for some logical argument
that runs from the assumption of human autonomy to the conclusion,
"God exists," you won't find one. When you start from that
premise, you will conclude over and over again that God does not
exist. The only way to believe in God is by means of a whole new way
of thinking, a new mind, the mind of Christ.
The mind of Christ says, first of
all, we are not autonomous. We are creatures of God, under his control and
under the authority of his word. Our minds were made to think
his thoughts after him, to presuppose his authority, not our
own. Once we surrender our own autonomy, we are freed from
its terrible bondage, and our very concept of possibility changes. Things
which seemed impossible now seem possible. Now we are free to believe that
the world is not fundamentally impersonal, but personal-- a place of great
excitement and drama, a place in which the most important elements are not
electrons and quarks, but righteousness, love, beauty, and holiness. We
can look at the stars, or the human eye, or the human conscience, or the
66 books of the Bible, and be free to say what is so very obvious
after all: these didn't just happen; they were designed by a
great mind, a mind who loves beauty, truth, love,
goodness, righteousness.
And the mind of Christ also gives us
the freedom to see ourselves as we really are. Once we're set free from
the assumption of autonomy, something else becomes obvious: we
are sinners; we have done wrong. No more room for boasting, no
more time for minimizing our moral failure, no more assuming that
we can solve our own problems. If the world is in the hands of
an absolute person who loves righteousness, truth, beauty
and holiness, we know we look terrible in his eyes. But take
heart. For the mind of Christ also proclaims Christ crucified:
Christ who lived a perfect life and died as a blood sacrifice, as
a substitute for us, to take away our sin. A barbaric
idea? Not once you see your sin and understand how terrible it must
be to a holy God. Sin is so bad, so very bad, that only death will
deal with it.
So bad it is,
that you cannot save yourself. To imagine that you can is to go back to
the spirit of autonomy. Salvation, reconciliation with God, is a gift. Your
responsibility is simply to receive it in faith. Do you want that gift
this morning? Say to God, yes, I know I cannot rule myself. I know that I
don't have the final wisdom. I renounce my autonomy, my self-rule.
I seek your wisdom, and I acknowledge your rule, your Lordship
over my life and my thoughts. I know that I have sinned against you
in thought, word, and deed, and I deserve your awful judgment. But
I hear your promise in the word of God. And I throw myself upon your
mercy, for the sake of Jesus your Son, who loved me and died in my place.
If you can say that prayer from the heart, then you have the mind of
Christ.
How Great Thou Art
Amazing Grace 402
432, Jesus, What a
Friend
Vast the
Immensity
How to Believe in
God in the 2000s
Prov. 1:7, 1 Cor.
1:26-31, Rom. 1:18-25
Last week I tried to explain to you
why it is so hard to believe in God today. It is hard, because the whole
mood of our culture is focused on autonomy. Autonomy is self-law,
seeking to live and think according to our own standards, rather
than looking beyond ourselves to God. People who try to
live autonomously will never find God, because autonomy excludes
God. We can escape from autonomy only if God reaches down in his
mercy and gives us a new mind, by his grace.
But in another sense it isn't so
hard at all, and that is the perspective I'd like to bring you this
morning. Last week, we looked at the problem from the human side, thinking
of the development of human culture following our fall into sin.
This week, I'd like to look at it from God's side. If we want to
turn away from autonomy, it is important for us to learn to see
things from God's point of view. Of course, we are not God; so we
cannot entirely see things from his point of view. But he has
revealed himself to us in Scripture, so we do have a reliable account
of how he looks at things.
So let's look at belief in God from
God's side. It ought to be easy, shouldn't it? Let's assume that God
exists and that he wants to reveal himself to us. Do you think it would be
hard for him to do it? No; God can do it just like that. If he
can make the whole heavens and earth in six days, if he can rule
the whole course of nature and history, then certainly he can make himself
known to his creatures. He can adjust everything in the world and in us so
that revelation can get through.
Can God communicate clearly to us? Of course. Revelation without clarity is not revelation
at all. An unclear revelation is, to some extent, a revelation which has
failed. The more clarity, the better the communication.
Now if the majestic, sovereign, all-powerful God of the Bible wants to
communicate with us, do you have any doubt that he could communicate
clearly?
Sure he can. Sometimes people talk
as if you have to be very smart and very well educated to believe in God.
There are big, fat books filled with complicated arguments for
God's existence. Most of these arguments have been debated
for centuries. Some people think they're pretty good; others think they're
full of holes. Most people don't understand these arguments at all; it's
all very dense and opaque. I don't think these arguments are all bad. At
least they sometimes manage to gain the attention of people who like to
think they belong to the intellectual class.
But that's all rather beside the
point, isn't it? If God wanted to make himself
known to us, would he have revealed himself only to very smart and very
well-educated people? Is God, after all, an elitist? Does he want to deal
only with people who are very, very bright? I don't think so. Remember, we
are talking about the God of the Bible. And that God is not an elitist,
not a respecter of persons. He does not marvel at the intelligence
of intelligent people, or at the extent to which they
educate themselves. Imagine God looking down and saying, "Oh, look
at Joe; what a wonderful mind he has!" or, "Oh, look at Susie;
what a great education she has." The very thought is rather funny.
God made Joe's mind, and he provided Susie's education. But to
God, neither one of them is terribly impressive.
And consider our need. We are
fallen, sinful. What we need is salvation from sin, divine forgiveness. In
revelation, God wants to tell us how our sins can be forgiven. Do you
think he would tell that only to the smart people, to
the well-educated? If anything, it is very nearly the reverse. In 1 Cor. 1, Paul reminds the Corinthians, who thought they were
very smart, that not many of them were actually very wise by
worldly standards. This passage, verses 26-29, follows the one I
quoted last week:
Brothers, think of what you were when
you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards;
not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of
the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the
world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of the world
and the despised things-- to nullify the things that are, so that
no one may boast before him.
So if you believe in God this
morning, it's not because you are especially smart, or well-educated. More
likely it is because you are dumber than most. Of course, that is only
a generalization. I say that because I don't want my colleagues
at the seminary to get upset. And I hope you saw the point of that passage.
God doesn't want people boasting about how they discovered him by their own wisdom. Rather, he wants all
the all the credit, all the glory, for himself.
So: when God reveals himself, he
doesn't reveal himself obscurely, so that only very bright, or very
well-educated, or very sensitive, or very well-disciplined people can find
him. He hasn't revealed himself only to some great Guru and
his disciples. He reveals himself clearly. He reveals himself so
that it is easy to believe. Psm. 19 says that
The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the
works of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after
night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language
where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth,
their words to the end of the world.
The Apostle Paul says that God is clearly
revealed, even to the most wicked of human
beings:
What may be known about God is plain
to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since
the creation of the world God's invisible qualities-- his
eternal power and divine nature-- have been clearly seen,
being understood from what has been made, so
God not only can
reveal himself clearly; he has done so.
God reveals himself in everything he
makes, including us. Just as there is a label on most of our household
items telling where it comes from, "Made in Taiwan, Made in
Japan," so there is a seal on the whole world, including us, that
says, "made by God." The greatness of creation reveals something
of God's power. Its design reveals something of God's intelligence. We
ourselves are God's image, God's reflection. A reflection in the mirror
is different from the real thing. But the reflection
images everything in its own dimension. If you are rational,
reasonable, God is far more. If you are a loving person, God is far
more. What of sin? Sin defaces the image, mars the image. But in an
odd way, even sin reflects God. For in sin, man is trying to
play God. That is what sin is: trying to be your own God, trying to
be autonomous.
We are surrounded by his revelation
on every side. It is outside us, inside us, pervasive. "Underneath
me, all around me, is the current of thy
love." It is inescapable. It is not something we have to search for
with great efforts. The Bible commands of us no pilgrimages, no hard
mental exercises, no scrunching of the nose or squinting of the eyes.
God's revelation is everywhere, just
as God himself is everywhere. In Psm. 139, the
Psalmist asks
Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your
presence? If I go to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the
depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle
on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.
And, of course: we
cannot escape from God, for we can never escape from ourselves.
Further: God has made the world so
that you can't really make sense of it without taking him into account.
Proverbs 1:7 says that "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of
knowledge." Without God, human knowledge falls apart; it collapses.
It turns into foolishness. Psm. 14:1: "The fool has said in his heart, there
is no God." Last week we saw in 1 Corinthians: "Where is the
wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has
not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?" Try to understand the
world without God, and you will end up saying very foolish things.
Let me give some examples. As we saw
last week, many postmodern intellectuals say that there is no absolute
truth, but at the same time, they deny that Christianity can be true. But
if all truth is relative, if nobody knows anything for sure, how
can they be so sure that Christianity is not true? That is contradictory.
As Van Til said, that is being rationalistic
and irrationalistic at the same time. As the
Bible says, that is being foolish.
Listen to the debates on the TV
news. You'll hear a lot of talk about ethics: abortion, poverty, use of
military force, the death penalty, sex, the family, censorship and
tolerance, "rights" to various things, equality of gender,
sexual orientation, and so on. Many people are very insistent
about their values, whether those values be
liberal or conservative. But what basis do they have for believing that
this is right and that is wrong? What basis do they have for saying that I
have a right to this or that, and you have an obligation to provide
me that right? Often no basis at all. For these
people who are so sure of their moral values are also mired in a
relativism that says nothing is absolutely right or wrong. Again, they are
caught up in contradiction: dogmatic and relativistic at the same time.
Try to make sense of the universe
without God. Without God, the universe is ultimately irrational, the
result of chance. When you try to develop a scientific or philosophical
account of the world without God, you are trying to come up with a
rational account of an irrational world. This can be gussied up with a
lot of sophistication, so that it looks impressive. But in the
end the attempt is foolishness. I'm not saying that
non-Christian scientists don't discover truth. They cannot help
discovering truth, because they are surrounded by God's revelation. But
when they use their scientific knowledge to deny God, they lapse
into foolishness.
So you see that the Christian
worldview is not just slightly better than all the others; it is the only
one which does not collapse into foolishness. If we don't believe, it's
not for lack of evidence. The evidence is clear; God's revelation
is clear enough that believing in him should be easy.
Ah, but you say, it isn't easy!
Sure, I understand. But that takes us back to last week, doesn't it? If
God's revelation of himself is clear, and yet believing in him isn't easy,
then there must be some problem with us. The problem is not in
God's revelation; it's in our hearts.
A while ago, we looked at the first
chapter of Romans, where Paul tells us that God is clearly revealed in the
world, even to the wicked. Let us listen to a few more verses,
talking about how sinful people respond to that revelation:
For although they knew God (N.B.), they
neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their
thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise,
they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images
made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore
God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual
impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They
exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served created
things rather than the Creator-- who is forever praised. Amen. (verses 21-25)
The problem is in our hearts. Sin
darkens the heart. When you reject some of God's revelation, it becomes
harder to see. When we claim autonomy (this is hard to say)-- God gives us up. We become hardened, habituated to
a sinful way of thinking and living, so that it isn't easy to believe any
more. We choose this path; we exchange the truth of God for a lie; and we
must take the responsibility for it.
When we try to rule ourselves, even
to rule our own thinking, we become fools. The trouble is that it's hard
for fools to abandon their foolishness. To abandon our
foolishness, we must abandon our autonomy, that so-called freedom of
thought that only enslaves the mind. The fool prizes his freedom
of thought above everything else. He insists on the right to be God's
judge, no matter how foolish that idea is. He would rather be rational and
irrational at the same time than to submit to God's standards for reason
and morality. He would rather try to find a rational structure in an
irrational universe than to acknowledge the creation as a work of God. The
hardest thing in the world is admitting that you have been a fool. To
admit that brings shame; it means admitting that we are not so smart
after all, that we are among the foolish, weak, and lowly things
that God seeks to save. The smartest people find it hardest to
admit that they've been foolish. Humanly speaking, that's why
there aren't that many smart people in the church-- except
of course on the faculty of
But there are people for whom belief
in God is easy. The most
fortunate among us were raised in Christian homes, where Christ was head
of the home. They heard Bible stories from their youth, memorized Bible
passages, learned the catechism. They received discipline-- sometimes
spankings-- when they did wrong. They either went to Christian schools or
home schools, or else they went to public schools, but came home to
parents who could and would take the trouble to unteach
all the false values they were hearing in the public schools. Those
parents prayed with and for their kids. They protected their children
from music, movies, friendships, that would lead them away from
God, training them gradually to become salt and light in the world,
to lead others to Jesus. For children like that, God is in everything.
They could not go anywhere or do anything without thinking of God. God was
not only in church, but at breakfast, lunch and dinner, in their daily
chores, in their studies, in their growing participation in the affairs of
the world.
There are other people who did not
grow up this way, but who, by God's grace, came to see the foolishness of
unbelief, and repented of their intellectual and moral willfulness. Many
of them will tell you that the difficulty of believing in God is
not intellectual, but moral. The problem is not finding the
evidence, but bending the knee.
And that is why Jesus Christ, who is
our savior from sin, is also our savior from foolishness. Foolishness and
sin are opposite sides of the same coin. Foolishness is sin, and
sin is foolishness. Who, after all, in his right mind, would
rebel against the all-powerful Lord of heaven and earth? Who in
his right mind would despise infinite love?
Following the passage I quoted
earlier in 1 Corinthians, the Apostle Paul says,
It is because of God that you are in Christ Jesus, who has
become for us wisdom from God-- that is, our righteousness, holiness, and
redemption. Therefore, as it is written, let him who boasts boast in the
Lord.
See that connection? Christ is divine wisdom, and his wisdom
is righteousness, holiness, redemption. Wisdom is an ethical
matter. Foolishness is sin; wisdom is righteousness. When Jesus died
for sinners, he died for fools.
So, if there are fools here this
morning, and if by God's grace you are willing to admit that you are
fools, I invite you to come to Jesus for wisdom. When you see the world
from God's point of view, it really opens up. It's not a chaos, not
an irrational world of chance; it really is the most wonderful order.
When you bow the knee before Jesus, he will show you a world brimming with
righteousness and holiness and redemption, with truth, goodness and
beauty. There's only one disadvantage: when you study the world with
Jesus, you will not be able to boast, except in him.
Confess now that you have sinned--
in thought, as well as word and deed-- and trust in the wisdom of Jesus,
his sacrifice of his life on the cross, as your only hope for eternal
life, and as the beginning of wisdom. With Jesus as the foundation of
your life, no area of your life will be without God. You won't be
able to think of anything without relating it to him. There may
be temptations and failures; but in essence, believing in God will be
the easiest thing in the world, for it will be the foundation for everything
else.
453 O, the Deep,
Deep Love
Psm. 19
Vast the Immensity
Psm. 139
How to Believe in
God in the 2000s
3. Believing in God Through the Bible
Two weeks ago, I spoke about why it
was so difficult to believe in God today, because of the persistent
unbelief of our culture. It seems as if, to participate in the
intellectual, social, moral and political life of our time, you almost
have to believe in human autonomy, the idea that we are responsible
only to ourselves. Last week, I argued that, nevertheless, God
has revealed himself, and revealed himself clearly. The problem
with believing in God is not a lack of evidence, but our
autonomous rejection of the evidence, our persistent desire to be our
own bosses in intellectual matters and in all of life.
The two previous sermons focused
mostly on what theologians call "natural revelation--"
revelation in the creation, and particularly in ourselves
as God's image. This morning I am going to focus on "special
revelation," God's revelation to us through prophets and apostles,
and especially through Scripture.
As we saw in the first chapter of
Romans, natural revelation tells us that God exists, and it tells us of
his "eternal power and divine nature." That is, it tells us what
kind of God he is. It also tells us God's standards of right
and wrong, imprinting them on the human conscience.
But there is something else we need
to know from God. We have sinned and fallen far short of his glory. Do we
have any hope of God's forgiveness? Or can we look forward only to
his terrible wrath? Nature does not show us the way to
forgiveness. We cannot find that out from exploring the fields and oceans,
or by looking inside ourselves. So where shall we look?
There is another revelation, a
"special revelation." How very special it is, because it
presents us the good news of Jesus. It tells us that we may indeed find
God's forgiveness, and more we can positively become righteous through
Christ. So we can live through all eternity in the joy of knowing that God
loves us.
That revelation came to us in three
stages. In the first stage, God spoke to some people directly. We read
that God spoke directly to Adam and Eve, to Cain, to Noah, to Abraham, to
Moses, to Isaiah, to many others. When the Lord Jesus lived on
the earth, many people heard God speaking to them through his lips.
After God brought his people out of
the
The people didn't want this to go
on. You know, there are people today who will say, "I don't want to
read the Bible to learn about God. I want God to speak to me
directly." When people say that, they don't know what they are asking.
When God spoke to
And so we come to the second stage
of God's special revelation. In the second stage, God spoke to certain
people, like Moses, and told them to pass his word on to the rest of
us. Those people are called prophets and apostles. A prophet
is somebody who speaks for God, who has God's words in his mouth.
In the eighteenth chapter of Deuteronomy, God said to Moses,
I will raise up for them (the people of
Now that passage, and there are a
number of similar ones, is important. You might think that God's own
words, spoken directly, would carry more authority than those of a
mere prophet. You might think that the prophet's words are only a
pale reflection of God's words. You might think that although
you can't argue with God, you can argue with a human prophet.
You might think that the word of God loses some of its authority
when it passes from God's lips to the lips of a mere man.
But from the passage I read, you can
see that that isn't so. The prophet has God's own words in his mouth.
"I will put my words in his
mouth," says the Lord. When somebody disobeys those words, he is
disobeying God's words.
Listen, "If anyone does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name, I myself will call him to account." If you were
an Israelite in those days, and Moses came up to you and said "Thus
says the Lord," you had better listen. Those words aren't just
Moses's words; they are God's own. They have the same authority as God's
own direct speech. Same for Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah,
any true prophet of God.
Jesus said the same thing to his
apostles: He said he would send the Spirit to "guide you into all
truth," John 16:13. The Apostle Paul, too, who was a latecomer to the
group of apostles, said of the gospel he preached that it "is
not something that man made up. I did not receive it from any
man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation of
Jesus Christ," Gal. 1:12. Paul's words, too, were nothing less
than God's.
But there is still a third stage in
God's special revelation. God said to Moses, "Come up to me on the
mountain and stay here, and I will give you the tablets of stone, with the
law and commands I have written for their instruction," Ex. 24:12.
In Ex. 31:18, we read that "When the Lord finished speaking to
Moses on
That's the third stage: special
revelation committed to writing.
The writing was the writing of God, written by God's own finger. What's
going on here? I guess the best way to describe this for people in the
1990s is to say that God gave
In the ancient world, a great king
would often make a "covenant," a "treaty," with a
people. The king would author the treaty; he would have it written down.
The treaty or covenant would be written down, so that everybody knew their
obligations. It would be put in their religious sanctuaries, and there
would be a public reading of it every so often. To obey the
treaty document is to obey the king; to disobey it is to disobey
the king. That is what the Ten Commandments are: God's treaty, his covenant
with
But read on through the Old
Testament, and you'll see that
Do not think that I have come
to abolish the Law and the Prophets; I have not come to abolish
them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and
earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until
everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of
these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be
called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and
teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of
heaven. (Matt. 5:17-19)
The Apostle Paul said of
the Old Testament, "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for
teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so that the
man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work," 2 Tim. 3:16-17.
The Old Testament, then, is the
written constitution of the Christian church. What of the New Testament?
Well, the New Testament is written by the apostles and by others who knew
the apostles' doctrine. We have seen already that the
apostles' message came from God. Surely that is also true of
their writings. Peter says that ignorant people distort
Paul's writings, "as they do the other Scriptures, to their
own destruction," 2 Pet. 3:16. You see that Peter regards
Paul's writings as Scripture, like the Scriptures of the Old Testament.
In the apostles' writings we hear
the same note of authority that runs through the Old Testament. In 1 Cor. 14:37-8, Paul says "If anybody thinks he is
a prophet or spiritually gifted, let him acknowledge that what I am
writing to you is the Lord's command. If he ignores this, he himself will
be ignored." Get that? Everybody's ideas are to be tested by Paul's
letters, by his written words. If anybody dares to disagree with
Paul's words, the church is to ignore him. Paul's letters, together with the
Old Testament, are the written constitution of the people of God.
Some people have said that a written
word always has less authority than the living voice of a prophet. But
that's not the way God thinks about it. The statutes, commandments, ordinances, testimonies,
words of God, written on tablets of stone or on papyrus, or on modern
paper, have the very same authority as God's direct speech. Scripture is
"God-breathed," words spoken by God. When we hear the words of
Scripture, we are hearing the words of God. It's just like hearing God
directly, although not nearly as scary. But maybe we should be a little
scared; for hearing God's words puts a solemn responsibility upon us. Do
we want to be called least in the kingdom of heaven? That is
the consequence for disobeying God's words in Scripture.
The direct word of God, the word of
the prophet, the written word of God: all are the same in power and
authority. No hierarchy, no decreasing scale. They are all the same. So
God speaks to his people through this holy book.
Is it possible for people living in
the 1990s to believe that God speaks through a holy book? Depends, again,
on where you start. If you start with your own autonomy, that is,
believing that you have the final say about truth and falsity, right
and wrong; if you start with the assumption that you have the
right to accept or reject every book you read according to your
own likes and dislikes, then you've rejected Scripture already.
No; for such people it is not possible to believe that God speaks
in a holy book. Many people assume that today; it is the
normal assumption in most cultural circles. But that assumption at
least begs the question; and is it even plausible, once you
start thinking about it? How can we be the ultimate judges of truth
and falsity, right and wrong?
The idea of the holy book is also
impossible if you think that the God of the Bible does not exist. If you
think that the impersonal forces of this universe are more fundamental
than the personal ones. If you think that chance is more fundamental
than personality, molecules more fundamental than goodness or
beauty, then our doctrine of the Bible will seem pretty incredible.
But if you're willing to set
intellectual fashion aside, and to consider the possibility that the God
of the Bible might really exist, then it's different. For this God is a person, and persons tend to want to communicate with
other persons. And this God is sovereign Lord of the universe. If he
desires to communicate with his creatures through a holy book, who on
earth is going to stop him?
Why this holy book and not some
other? Well, the only other slightly plausible candidate is the Koran; but
the author of the Koran thought that in writing the Koran he was
teaching biblical doctrine. In my opinion, he didn't teach it very
well, but that's the direction the argument would have to take.
Even Mohammed, however, recognized the Bible as God's holy book,
as did Mary Baker Eddy, Joseph Smith and other authors of rival
holy books. The very idea of the holy book is a biblical idea.
No other tradition has it-- not the Confucian, nor the
Buddhist, nor the Hindu. Only religions based on the Bible even
talk about holy books. Which pretty well narrows the
candidates down to the Bible itself.
But the best proof of the Bible is
what happens when you read it. For when you read Scripture, with trust and
faith, something wonderful happens. God himself draws near. Imagine!
He condescends to speak to us within the covers of a book. Quite amazing, really. And it's not as if he gives us
the book and then goes away. No: when you read this book in faith, you
enter into a very personal relationship with God. In 1 Thess.
1:5, Paul says that the gospel came to the Thessalonians "not simply
with words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and with
deep conviction." The Gospel is words, but it is never just words. When you hear this
message in faith, something very wonderful, very supernatural is taking
place. When the words go into your mind, the Holy Spirit speaks them to
the heart. When the risen Christ opened the Scriptures to the disciples
after his Resurrection, they marvelled how their
hearts burned within them as
Jesus taught them the Scriptures. The Bible is not only the place where
God has spoken; it is the place where he still speaks-- with power and
assurance, causing our hearts to burn with in us because of how wonderful
it is.
So much here to be thankful for! And
the greatest thing to be thankful for is the Gospel itself-- the message
of the book. As with the divine voice at
And if you know Him that way, as
your own Lord and Savior from sin, you will want to know more of his words
in Scripture. These are the words that nurture you, that enable you better
to worship Jesus and obey him. As you grow in the knowledge of your sins,
the greatness of Jesus, and the greatness of salvation in him, you'll find
these words more and more precious. Moses said in the wilderness, and
Jesus repeated it in his wilderness temptation, that "man shall not
live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of
God," (Deut. 8:3, Matt. 4:4). As you grow, you'll want to know more
and more of God's words. Don't remain a child in your study of Scripture,
as so many Christians do today. Press on to a really mature and
thorough knowledge of Scripture, and apply it to your life. You'll
never regret it.
We began our series asking how
modern and postmodern people could believe in the existence of God. We've
now moved far beyond that question. Believing in the biblical God involves
far more than believing in the bare existence of a
supernatural figure. The Biblical God is Lord over all, and he wants to
rule every aspect of our lives. The Bible shows us what he expects
of his servants, and what he promises to those who trust his
Son. Belief in the biblical God, then, is incomparably rich. It is
a whole new way of life. If you want to experience this new
life, then pray with me:
Thy Word Is a Lamp