My take on the world.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Stealing His Glory


The gospel doesn’t start with “God loves you SO much…” The gospel starts with, “You, a petty, insignificant, limited human being, have spit in the face of the glorious King.  You have rebelled against His perfect justice and declared yourself above His good commands.  You are vile and putrid, and you should die in torment.”  God did not send His perfect Son to suffer because you were worthy of His love.  He didn’t send Him to die because you deserved forgiveness.  He allowed His glorious Son to be mutilated, tortured, and killed because He is glorious, merciful, gracious, and GOOD.  The gospel isn’t about humanity.  It’s about the Redeemer.  If the gospel starts with “God loves you”, then it is an incomplete and shallow gospel.  As such, it will result in ill-informed, shallow followers who are more interested in getting what they want out of church than in glorifying God.  We cannot de-emphasize sin in our presentation of the gospel.  To do so is to lessen (steal from) God’s glory, holiness, justice, mercy, grace, and His redeeming work on the cross.  It alters the very character of God.
            Yes, the gospel ends with love.  It ends with the highest, purest, most magnificent love there is. But the purity and magnificence of this love is highlighted by our utterly wretched state of rebellion against God’s holiness.  If you lessen the sin, you also lessen the great love it took to conquer that sin.
            The gospel is not about us.  It’s not about humanity.  It’s about God’s magnificence, His righteousness, His justice, His love, His perfection, His majesty, His redemption, His goodness, His grace, His mercy, His sovereignty.  To God be the glory, great things HE has done.
But you have lifted up yourself against the Lord of heaven… And you have praised the Gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood, and stone, but the God in whose hand is your breath, and whose are all your ways, you have not honored.”  Daniel 5:23, ESV, emphasis added.
And there you shall remember your ways and all your deeds with which you have defiled yourselves, and you shall loathe yourselves for all the evils that you have committed.  And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I deal with you for my name’s sake, not according to your evil ways, nor according to your corrupt deeds, O house of Israel, declares the Lord God.”  Ezekiel 20:40, ESV, emphasis added.
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.  This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance He had passed over former sins.  It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” Romans 3:23-26, ESV, emphasis added.